Funding

The entire research and statistics budget of OERI for fiscal year 2002 is less than 0.5 of 1 percent of the Department's discretionary budget. The core research and dissemination budget for 2002, leaving out statistics, is only $122 million. The education research agency needs adequate resources in order to support a sustained and cumulative research effort in its areas of responsibility. I am very pleased that the President understands and is committed to investments in education research. Accordingly, he has proposed a 44 percent increase for fiscal year 2003 in our core research budget. This is an unprecedented increase. We need the support of Congress in making an appropriation consistent with the President's request so that we can move forward on the important work that needs to be done.

In an effort as large, complex, and important as this, informed, well-intentioned individuals and groups will differ on details. Let us talk about those details and compromise on those that seem to represent different routes to the same goal. However, we cannot and should not compromise on the end points. We need an invigorated agency that is capable of carrying out a coordinated, focused agenda of high quality research, statistics, and evaluation that is relevant to the educational challenges of the nation, and that has sufficient flexibility to adjust to new opportunities and problems when they arise. This is a unique and unparalleled opportunity to begin a process that will make American education an evidence-based field. If we succeed in this task, historians may look back at our actions in the next weeks and months as building the foundation for a new era in learning and teaching, an era that propelled the United States into another century of preeminence.

Thank you again for this opportunity to testify.