A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Foreword

If you are an educator facing the difficult challenges of school improvement, or if you are a teacher, parent, or community member interested in knowing what research says about successful educational reform, we hope you take advantage of the services and information available through your Regional Educational Laboratory.

The network of 10 Regional Educational Laboratories, serving geographic regions that span the nation, works to ensure that those involved in educational improvement at the local, state, and regional levels have access to the best available information from research and practice. The Regional Laboratories are the U.S. Department of Education's largest research and development investment designed to help educators, policymakers, and communities improve schools and help all students attain their full potential. Administered by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), the Laboratories work to ensure that lessons about school reform developed or learned in one site can be appropriately applied elsewhere and that everyone involved in educational improvement will have access to the best available research, knowledge from practice, and exemplary and promising programs.

This handbook describes each Laboratory's mission; key initiatives and ongoing work; individual "signature programs" that each Lab has developed over a period of time that have made a difference in the field; a few examples of recent, high-quality materials selected from the many publications and products available from each Lab; and a preview of each Lab's Web site. We also have provided information on how to contact the Laboratory nearest you or the OERI program officer for that Laboratory.

Background on the Regional Educational Laboratory Program

Congress initiated the Lab Program in 1965 as part of the landmark Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which addressed the educational system's failure to provide all students with high-quality instruction and achieve high levels of performance. The Act provided financial support for school districts and states for additional staff, educational materials and resources, and capacity building. It also created a system of Regional Laboratories to develop and disseminate — in cooperation with schools, state education agencies, and research universities — ideas and programs for improving educational practices throughout the country. In 1994, the Regional Laboratory Program was reauthorized (Public Law 103-227) with the mission "to promote knowledge-based school improvement to help all students meet high standards and to help the nation meet the National Education Goals."

Laboratories Serve Their Regions

While each Laboratory has distinctive features tailored to meet the special needs of the geographic region it serves, the Laboratories also have common characteristics. Guided by a governing board representing stakeholders in its region — educators, business leaders, state officials, and community members — each Laboratory's work is shaped by the concerns, issues, opportunities, and special attributes of its regions. As experts in educational research and development and experienced agents of change, the Laboratories:

• Create powerful new tools and knowledge — better strategies, innovative programs for improving school practice — that are developed and tested in real-world settings.

• Provide direct assistance — in vision-building and planning, training and staff development, coaching, and ongoing technical support — to help school leadership teams and policymakers risk setbacks and advance school change.

• Get research-based knowledge to those who need it, in forms they can use — from highly readable print publications to seminars and forums to electronic "dialogue" — to solve real problems.

• Link schools with each other and the larger community, fostering alliances, helping educators become networked in ways that overcome isolation, pool talents and resources, and foster continuous learning.

Laboratories Serve the Nation

• The Regional Laboratories also work both individually and as a network, using their knowledge, experience, and expertise to develop and deliver products and services that benefit educators nationally. Over the last several years, the Regional Laboratories succeeded at:

• Producing tools for use across the nation, such as the Catalog of School Reform Models, which provides information about models for schools to consider, and Making Good Choices, which helps schools conduct needs assessment and make informed decisions about which reform model is best suited to their needs.

• Developing a database that is an authoritative source of information on Comprehensive School Reform and that is being used by the Department and researchers to carry out evaluations of this important new federal initiative.

• Engineering and implementing — in collaboration with the U.S. Secretary of Education — a nationwide initiative, the National Awards Program for Model Professional Development, which identifies and recognizes exemplary local professional development programs.

• Supporting the Department of Education's America Reads Challenge by conducting 16 regional tutor training conferences around the country and subcontracting with 61 tutoring partnerships, providing technical assistance and research for these activities. The partnerships included colleges or universities collaborating with local educational agencies, America Reads/Read*Write*Now sites, community literacy organizations, and AmeriCorp/VISTA programs and other Corporation for National Service programs engaged in improving students' reading. This work culminated in a review of effective and promising practices in volunteer reading tutoring programs entitled So That Every Child Can Read.

• Improving educational opportunities and outcomes for homeless children and youth in our nation's school communities through the establishment of the National Center for Homeless Education, which provides linkages to resources to help local communities across the nation respond more effectively to the educational needs of homeless children.

• Working to ensure that those involved in educational improvement at the local, state, and regional levels have access to the best available information from research and practice through a Laboratory Network Website (http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/).

In addition, each Laboratory brings particular expertise in specialty areas, making that expertise widely and readily available to all schools and communities throughout the nation. This enables Laboratories to provide leadership and act as an expert resource both within their respective regions and to the Laboratory network.

For more information about the Regional Educational Laboratory Program, contact either:

Robert Stonehill
Director, State and Local Services Division
Phone: (202) 219-2088
Fax: (202) 219-2198
E-mail: robert.stonehill@ed.gov

or

Carol Chelemer
Team Leader, Regional Educational Laboratory Program
Phone: (202) 219-2235
Fax: (202) 219-2198
E-mail: carol.chelemer@ed.gov

-###-

[ Title Page ]

[ Northeast and Islands Laboratory at Brown University (LAB) ]