![[Table of Contents]](/icons/up.gif){kind=icon}
To supplement its recommendations for research in education, the Board has some concluding observations about its own work, and particularly about how it can best be effective. The legislation that created the Board contains numerous references to "collaboration." In addition, the Board is required by law to "review regularly, evaluate and publicly comment upon" actions of the administration and Congress. Among provisions of the law is one that says the Board must be offered an opportunity to provide written comments on any proposed "grants, contract, or cooperative agreements" over $1 million, and those comments may cover both consistency of the proposed use of funds with the research priorities and the "methodology and approach of the proposed actions."
Taken together, these are potentially powerful authorities, although they must be exercised in balance with the resources the Board has available or can attain. On one occasion when appropriations exceeded the administration's budget request, the Board was invited to provide an overall analysis and make recommendations prior to Department decisions about use of these appropriations. The Board believes that was an especially effective interchange between the administration and the Board and one that permitted the Board to be both constructive in its comments and effective in its influence over the subsequent actions. However, there have been other occasions, such as preparation of the President's budget and the administration's proposals for a national voluntary test, on which the Board's involvement came not only after the decisions were made but after public debate had begun. These latter examples do not seem to demonstrate the collaborative relationship that the law seeks to establish. Even worse, perhaps, they fail to take advantage of the counsel the Board was created to provide. It is just that structure and those processes that the Board has used to prepare this policy statement. This is one concern.
Of greater importance, however, is the view of Board members that much has been accomplished during the past 4 years to serve as a platform for the future. The members have learned to work through the diversity of views that Congress wisely insisted be represented among the appointees. All have come to appreciate the potential of sound research in education as a means through which all American students can become better prepared for their lives in a new millennium.
Members of the National Educational Research Policy and Priorities Board appreciate the opportunity that Secretary Riley provided them through appointment to the Board to serve American education. They are committed to perform, and eager to continue, their special functions in policy and priority setting for education research.
[References]