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Introduction

Statement of Grover J. (Russ) Whitehurst, Assistant Secretary for Research and Improvement, before the Subcommittee on Education Reform, U.S. House of Representatives

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:

Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today.

Last year's bipartisan bill, which was considered by this subcommittee, was an important step toward improving the rigor and relevance of education research. The Administration supports the fundamental principles underlying that bill, and we look forward to working with you to refine it. We applaud you, Mr. Chairman, and the members of the Committee for your efforts.

I have been impressed and gratified by the Committee's attention and commitment to an issue that does not generate the wide popular notice of some other areas of education. In making that commitment, you share with this Administration the view that scientifically based research and evidence on what works are the cornerstones of educational reform.

The shared understanding of the Congress and the Administration about the role of research in educational reform was evidenced vividly in the recent reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). In that bill, passed by overwhelming majorities in both chambers and signed into law by the President on January 8, the phrase scientifically based research appears 110 times.

Scientifically based research will be a component of reform in the upcoming reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Elementary and Secondary Education, along with Special Education, account for approximately $30 billion in annual federal expenditures within the Department of Education.

Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, $30 billion is a lot of money. We all recognize that, historically, this huge annual investment in the education of disadvantaged students and students with disabilities has not achieved everything that was expected of it. For instance, in the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress in reading, 40 percent of white 4th graders read at a proficient level, compared with only 12 percent of African-American students. In some urban school districts that serve predominantly disadvantaged children, 70 percent of 4th graders cannot read at the basic level. Nothing has changed in the last decade in these statistics, and the overall gap between the highest and lowest performing students has actually increased in some subjects.

If scientifically based research is going to be the key to reform of our most important federal education programs, then we had better make sure that the federal office with the principal responsibility for generating that research has the tools it needs to get the job done. That is what we are here today to address.

In facing that task, I want this Committee to understand that we are dealing not only with gaps in student achievement, but also gaps in scientific knowledge. Consider some of the major program areas in the ESEA in which Congress instructed that funding decisions and practice should adhere to scientifically based research. These include the core academic subjects of reading, math, and science, school wide reform models, early literacy programs in preschools, professional development of teachers, supplementary educational services, education of gifted and talented students, educational technology, and programs for safe and drug-free schools, among others.

We have a substantial and persuasive research base in only one of these topics, learning how to read. That research base is the result of 30 years of continuous and cumulative work, funded primarily by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. That body of work was synthesized in the National Reading Panel report that formed the basis of the Reading First program in No Child Left Behind. However, even within reading, the research becomes substantially thinner when we move from learning to read at the beginning of elementary school to reading to learn, otherwise known as reading comprehension, at later points in schooling. In the other core academic subjects of math and science, research has not progressed to a level at which it is possible to make strong statements about which approaches produce the strongest effects on academic achievement for which children in which circumstances. In the professional development of teachers we don't have research to answer dozens of fundamental policy issues about how to best train and sustain teachers in order to enhance student learning. ESEA authorizes supplementary educational services, such as after school tutoring, for children in failing schools. Which of the available tutoring programs work best for which types of academic skill deficits? Sorry, we don't know. How about comprehensive school reform? ESEA instructs local education agencies to consider successful external models and to develop an approach to reform of their school that is derived from scientifically based research. By one count there are well over 100 comprehensive school reform models from which a local educational agency might choose. Which of these are successful? That is hard to say, because only a few have been subjected to research, and much of that research isn't sufficiently rigorous to permit strong conclusion about the effects of the models compared to business as usual, much less compared to each other.

My point, and I apologize for making it repetitiously, is that there is a lot we don't know about how learners learn and how to deliver instruction effectively.

The extent of our ignorance is masked by a "folk wisdom" of education based on the experience of human beings over the millennia in passing information and skills from one generation to the next. This folk wisdom employs unsystematic techniques. It doesn't demand scientific knowledge of mechanisms of learning. It is inefficient, and it is hit or miss. It lets us muddle through when the tasks to be learned are simple, or in a highly elitist system in which we only expect those with the most talent and most cultural support to learn advanced skills. But it fails when the tasks to be learned are complex or when we expect that no child will be left behind. The tasks to be learned in a 21st century economy are without a doubt complex, and we have decided that our education system must serve all learners well. We have to do better than we have done in the past.

Consider the analogy of medicine. For thousands of years folk remedies have been used to cure disease or relieve symptoms. But the successes of modern medicine have emerged in the last 75 years and derive from advances in the sciences of physiology and biochemistry that allowed us to understand the mechanisms of disease, and from the wide use of randomized clinical trials to determine which prevention and treatment approaches drawn from these sciences work as intended.

Or consider the analogy of agriculture. For thousands of years humans barely managed to avoid starvation by using agricultural methods that were passed from generation to generation. The abundance of inexpensive and nutritious foods that can be found at any neighborhood grocery store today result from agricultural practice that has moved from reliance on folk wisdom to reliance on science.

When we come to education, the picture is different. The National Research Council has concluded that "the world of education, unlike defense, health care, or industrial production, does not rest on a strong research base. In no other field are personal experience and ideology so frequently relied on to make policy choices, and in no other field is the research base so inadequate and little used." At the same time, the National Research Council has concluded that scientific inquiry in education is at its core the same as in all other fields. In other words, the core principles of scientific inquiry are as relevant for education as they are for medicine. There is every reason to believe that, if we invest in the education sciences and develop mechanisms to encourage evidence-based practice, we will see progress and transformation in education of the same order of magnitude as we have seen in medicine and agriculture. I believe we are at the dawn of exactly that process, and it is very exciting.

How quickly will the transformation of education into an evidence-based field occur? The actions of this Committee and the Congress as it considers the reauthorization of the research functions in the Department of Education will have a lot to do with the answer to that question.

A number of significant changes are necessary in the way we do business, so that we operate consistently with the standards of a science-based research agency. This Committee recognized this and addressed many of the important issues last year. I look forward to working with the Committee on refinements to the bill this year.

Before assuming my current position, I spent 31 years conducting research on children's learning. I am proud to say that some of that research has proven useful to educators and parents. For the last ten months, I have been focusing exclusively on OERI, first as a consultant to the Department, and since July of last year as Assistant Secretary for Research and Improvement. My testimony today is informed both by my background as a practicing scientist and by my experiences to date in trying to lead OERI.

Let me give you my reflections on how new legislation could help us move forward towards our overriding goal of making education an evidence-based field. To achieve that goal, Secretary Paige has asked me to focus on the quality, relevance, and utilization of the Department's research products. In other words, my marching orders are to fund research that is scientifically strong, that is relevant to pressing problems in education, and that will be utilized by educators and education decision makers.

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