IES Blog

For students with disabilities, post-high school goals are often similar to their non-disabled peers, but preparing them for success requires planning, support, and targeted interventions.

Over the past several years, the National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER) in the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) has funded research to innovate and develop as well as rigorously assess interventions that help students make successful transitions after high school.

A briefing on Capitol Hill was held this month to share recent research on transition for these students conducted by experts in the field. These experts have all received funding support from NCSER to help us better understand the transition challenges facing students with disabilities and to develop research-based programs and supports to increase the chances of success for students with disabilities.

"Young people with disabilities want the very same things as anyone else. A satisfying job, close relationships, a comfortable and safe place to live, a college degree, involvement in their community, friends they can count on, a chance to give something back, and an opportunity to be part of caring communities."

– Dr. Erik Carter, Vanderbilt University

Mary Wagner, of SRI International, began the briefing by talking about the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (known as the NLTS2), the more recent longitudinal study of the experiences of youth with disabilities as they transitioned from secondary school into postsecondary life over a 10-year period. Dr. Wagner presented findings that show that there has been progress in preparing students for, and engaging them in, postsecondary education. Additional academic courses, a paid job, and participation in transition planning and goal setting in high school were associated with increases in postsecondary education enrollment for these students after high school. However, the improvements have been uneven for some groups of students with disabilities and many challenges remain. For example, the rates of employment over time have not increased. 

David W. Test, of University of North Carolina-Charlotte, presented information about the innovative program “Communicating Interagency Relationships and Collaborative Linkages for Exceptional Students” or CIRCLES. This program involves three levels of interagency collaboration to promote positive outcomes for students with disabilities in secondary schools. The program connects students to more information and resources as well as provides mentoring support and partnerships. Ongoing research indicates the CIRCLES program is having a positive impact on student outcomes as compared to students receiving school services typically provided to support transition. In addition, participating students overwhelmingly agreed with the statement that they were “prepared for life after school” and their parents strongly agreed that they had “a better understanding of their child’s needs” and reported playing an active role in transition preparation.

The final two speakers discussed programs aimed at helping with transitions for students who face some of the greatest challenges.

Laurie E. Powers, of Portland State University, presented a research-based intervention program, “My Life,” for youth in foster care who also have disabilities. This program combines youth-directed coaching, workshops, and partnerships and mentoring to assist students in identifying goals and provide information and guidance they need to help them to experience success and to understand that they can achieve their goals. Many youth in foster care face extreme challenges in general: higher levels of unemployment, poverty, homelessness, abuse, and other mental health issues, and face incarceration rates of 10 times more than the general population. In addition, about 6 in 10 receive special education services and many also have developmental disabilities.

Research results have been positive. Students in the My Life program were found to be better prepared for postsecondary education and careers, and more were graduating from high school and fewer were homeless. After one year, postsecondary employment rates were up and rates of incarceration were down compared to the students who received services as usual.

One of the most important roles IES serves is as the engine for rigorous education research across a wide array of important areas. In the spring, IES will put out its Requests for Applications (RFA) for research grants and will begin accepting proposals from researchers and research organizations.

But an entry on the Federal Register, which went live this week, is sort of a preview for the competition. For instance, it includes the competition areas for each IES research center:

• National Center for Education Research (NCER): Education research, education research training, statistical and research methodology in education, partnerships and collaboration focused on problems of practice or policy, low-cost, short-duration evaluations, and research networks.
• National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER): Special education research, special education research training, and low-cost, short-duration evaluations.

The Federal Register entry also includes specific topic areas where NCER and NCSER will be accepting applications in each competition area. It’s a long list and some of it will look familiar to the research world. But there are some new areas of focus. For instance, NCER has introduced three special topics in the education research competition – arts in education, career and technical education, and systemic approaches to educating highly mobile students. And NCER will be accepting applications for a new network to that will study science teaching in elementary school classrooms in an effort to improve practices and student outcomes. This is similar in structure to the Early Learning Network that was announced earlier this year.  

NCSER applicants should note that in FY 2017, only applications that focus on teachers and other instructional personnel will be considered in the special education research competition.

Other information available on Federal Register includes the approximate range of funding in each competition area, information about the process, and the expected timeline for submitting applications. In the coming weeks, IES will be updating its funding opportunities website with the full RFA information and the research centers will be hosting webinars on a variety of topics related to RFAs. You can view previous webinars on the IES website.

To be notified of important dates in the RFA process and new webinars, sign up to receive IES newsflashes or follow IES on Twitter.

This grant competition may not be as funny as the Ghostbusters reboot, as exciting as the next Captain America movie, or as thrilling as latest chapter in the Jason Bourne series. But in the research world, it’s going to be a blockbuster! 

By Dana Tofig, Communications Director, IES

The Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE) kicks things off this week (March 2 – 5), with the theme “Lost in Translation: Building Pathways from Knowledge to Action.” Of the 60-plus presentations, courses, and forums at the SREE conference, more than 40 involve research funded by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), feature IES staff, or demonstrate products that have been developed with IES support. These sessions show the many ways that work supported by IES is being used to improve education across the country.

(The second conference, the American Education Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting, will also include IES-supported work, but more on that later).

Research Studies, Large and Small

The core business of IES includes funding research studies on important topics of policy and practice. Funded work ranges from small pilot studies that test innovative approaches, to studies that are appropriately large – for example, evaluations that examine the impact of major Federal initiatives.  At one Thursday afternoon session, “Improving Mathematics Instructional Practice,” two of the studies being presented were funded through IES research centers—the National Center for Education Research (NCER) and the National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER). Later on Thursday, you can attend the “Reading for Understanding: New Findings from the Catalyzing Comprehension for Discussion and Debate Project,” in which all three studies being discussed were IES-funded.

And on Saturday, the “Evaluating the Scaling of Curriculum and Policy” session will feature three IES-funded studies, including a national, large-scale evaluation of the Teacher Incentive Fund pay-for-performance program, which is being conducted by our National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance (NCEE).

Partnership and Collaboration

Many of the sessions at SREE feature IES-supported work done through alliances and partnerships that bring researchers and practitioners together. Much of this work is being done through our Regional Educational Laboratories (RELs), which are a key way that we help connect research to policy and practice every day.

For example, on Thursday morning, a session on “Pathways to Algebra Success” will feature studies that grew out of a REL research alliance. For all three studies, the questions that were asked came from practitioners and policymakers in the field.

Friday morning, the “Making Meaning of Research Study Findings” session will focus on how you “translate research into action.” The session will cover four studies from REL research alliances across the country, from New England to Indiana to the state of Washington. The studies cover a broad array of important topics in education—the academic performance and reclassification of English learner students; the effectiveness of teacher evaluation systems; and college enrollment patterns of high school graduates.

(If you’re not familiar with the RELs, read this blog post by Joy Lesnick, acting commissioner of NCEE, which oversees the REL program).

Making Science Better, Making Results More Accessible

Another big bucket of IES work that will be featured at SREE is resources and tools that are improving the research field and making it easier for people to access and use research.

For instance, a workshop on Wednesday featured the IES-funded CostOut tool, which can be used to determine return on investment. Another workshop featured the “Generalizer,” a privately funded, web-based tool that improves generalizations from experiments and uses data from IES’s National Center for Education Statistics.

On Thursday afternoon, attendees can preview software intended to make it easier for states and districts to conduct randomized controlled trials and quasi-experiments.  At another session, there will be a demonstration of the new “Find What Works” tool to help practitioners and policymakers find effective programs in the What Works Clearinghouse.

On Friday morning, NCER Associate Commissioner Allen Ruby will be a part of a panel discussing plans for a new “Registry of Effectiveness Studies in Education,” which will be developed with IES grant support. Study registries can contribute to increased transparency in studies of what works.

There is terrific work going on to connect research to practice.  Don’t miss out -- follow us on Twitter at @IESResearch to learn more about IES-supported work at the SREE conference.  

Christopher Lemons, of Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, and Cynthia Puranik, of Georgia State University, will be honored at a White House ceremony in the spring, along with 103 other recipients of the award. They were nominated for the award by the leadership of IES and the recipients were announced Thursday.

The awards, established by President Clinton in 1996, are coordinated by the Office of Science and Technology Policy within the Executive Office of the President. According to a White House statement, “the awardees are selected for their pursuit of innovative research at the frontiers of science and technology and their commitment to community service as demonstrated through scientific leadership, public education, or community outreach.”

Lemons and Puranik have both served as principal investigators for IES’ National Center for Education Research and National Center for Special Education Research.  Among the IES-funded research they have conducted together are “Enhancing Reading Instruction for Children with Down Syndrome: A Behavioral Phenotypic Approach” and “Peer Assisted Writing Strategies.”

Dr. Puranik, who was at the University of Pittsburgh when she was nominated, is currently an associate professor of Communications Sciences and Disorders in the College of Education and Human Development at Georgia State University in Atlanta. She is also an affiliate faculty for the Research on the Challenges of Acquiring Language and Literacy Initiative at Georgia State. In addition to the IES-funded research above, Dr. Puranik, was also the Principal Investigator for grant that sought to develop a test of emergent writing skills.

Dr. Lemons is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Special Education at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University and a member of the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center in Nashville. He is also co-director of the National Center for Leadership on Intensive Intervention, a senior advisor for the National Center on Intensive Intervention, and serves on the board of a number of scholarly journals, including his work as associate editor for the American Journal on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.