Organizational Structure
OERI is currently divided into four principal operational arms: 1) the National Center for Education Statistics, which conducts surveys and assessments to determine the condition of education; 2) the Office of Reform Assistance and Dissemination, which monitors ten regional educational laboratories and administers a large number of programs funded under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act; 3) the National Library of Education, which manages a physical library in the Department of Education as well as an electronic repository of documents in education called the Educational Resources Information Clearinghouse; and 4) the National Research Institutes, which are five administrative units that manage research centers at universities and grants to individual researchers.
This administrative structure is problematic. For instance, the five national research institutes have overlapping responsibilities and generate impediments to research initiatives that do not neatly fall within the purview of one of the institutes. We have, for example, a new research initiative underway in reading comprehension. Should this be the responsibility of the At-Risk Institute or the Achievement and Assessment Institute? And isn't it also an initiative of relevance to the Early Childhood Institute and the Postsecondary and Adult Learning Institute? It is difficult to assemble staff outside the Institute structure to focus on cross-cutting issues. It would be much better if we had the ability to organize and reorganize ourselves as needed to pursue the tasks at hand. This is an issue of organizational flexibility that I will address again subsequently.
We believe that new legislation should provide for organizational division into three centers responsible for research, statistics, and evaluation, each with its own Commissioner. The Director would head the agency of which the centers are a part and would provide leadership and management for the centers. In addition, the Director would take direct responsibility for a knowledge utilization branch that would work with the research, statistics, and evaluation centers to promote and make accessible the results of their work. The knowledge utilization branch would differ from current efforts in using clear standards for data quality and scientific rigor in determining what to disseminate, and promoting broad public awareness of the importance of scientific evidence in making education decisions.