IES Awards Low-cost, Short-duration Grants to Study Local Programs and Interventions
July 28, 2016

IES Awards Low-cost, Short-duration Grants to Study Local Programs and Interventions

The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) has awarded the first four grants in a new research program designed to help states and school districts evaluate the effectiveness of programs, practices or policies being used in their schools. The low-cost, short-duration evaluations of education interventions and special education interventions are funded by IES' National Center for Education Research (NCER) and National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER).

This grant program was launched in 2015 to support relatively quick (2 years or less) and inexpensive ($250,000 or less) evaluations to test the effects of interventions and programs that are being used to improve student outcomes. These evaluations will help states and school districts take advantage of opportunities to evaluate new policies and programs as they are rolled out and make decisions about whether to continue or expand the initiatives.

The evaluations must be carried out in a partnership between a research institution and a state or local education agency, and must meet specific and rigorous research design standards. In order to keep the costs down, the grants generally rely on existing datasets and data sources, rather than on new data collection. (Learn more about low-cost, short-duration grants in this recent blog post.)

The Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 low-cost, short-duration grants are:

• Promoting Positive Transition Outcomes for Students with Intellectual Disability: A Research Institution-SEA Partnership in Rhode Island: Principal Investigator — Karrie Shogren, University of Kansas; Partner Institutions — University of Kansas, Rhode Island Department of Education, and Rhode Island College. This project will compare the effect a specific intervention focused on self-determination, functional, academic, and transition outcomes when it is used by itself and when it is used with another transition-focused intervention. These types of interventions aim to improve post-school outcomes for students with intellectual disabilities;
• The Effects of Leveled Literacy Intervention on Secondary Students in the Oakland Unified School District: Principal Investigator — Devin Dillon, Oakland Unified School District; Partnership Institutions — Oakland Unified School District and Mathematica Policy Research. This project will test whether a literacy intervention now being used with primary school students will be effective in improving the reading skills of middle school students;
• A Clustered Randomized Trial of Function-based Check-In/Check Out: Principal Investigator — David Klingbeil, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee; Partner Institutions — University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee and Milwaukee Public Schools. This project will evaluate the effect of a modified version of Check In/Check Out, an intervention being used to reduce disruptive behaviors among primary and middle school students; and
• Understanding the Effect of the North Carolina Read to Achieve Program on Student Outcomes: Principal Investigator, Trip Stallings, North Carolina State University; Partner Institutions; North Carolina State University's Friday Institute for Educational Innovation and College of Education and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. This project will study the impacts of North Carolina's Read to Achieve Program on student reading and grade retention outcomes in grades 4 and 5.

The low-cost, short-duration grants are just one many ways that IES supports opportunities for those in the field to participate in and conduct research. For instance, earlier this year, IES announced nearly $2 million in Research-Practitioner Partnerships in Education research grants to study educational challenges identified by local states or school districts and launched RCT-YES, a tool that makes it easier and more cost-effective to conduct evaluations. To learn more about how IES is supporting a culture of research use in education, read this recent blog by IES delegated director Ruth Neild.

Media Contact: Dana Tofig, Communications Director, Institute of Education Sciences, 202-245-8235, dana.tofig@ed.gov