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Major IES Updates


Recognitions

In 2007, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) awarded the research, development, and dissemination programs at IES an effective rating, the highest score on its Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART). Two other IES programs, statistics and the National Assessment of Educational Progress, had received effective scores in previous rounds of PART review. OMB found that "IES has transformed the quality and rigor of education research within the Department of Education and increased the demand for scientifically based evidence of effectiveness in the education field as a whole."

OMB's PART was developed to assess and improve the performance and results of federally funded programs. The PART looks at all factors having a bearing on program performance, including program purpose and design; performance measurement, evaluations, and strategic planning; program management; and program results. The entire U.S. Department of Education has five programs rated effective, three of which are within IES (research, development, and dissemination; statistics; and the National Assessment of Educational Progress). Overall, OMB has assessed more than 1,000 programs across the federal government, only 18 percent of which have been scored effective.

On October 15, 2007, Dr. Grover Whitehurst, the first and current Director of the Institute, received the Peter H. Rossi Award from the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management for contributions to the development of evaluation science.

Communications and Outreach

Web-Based Dissemination

The What Works Clearinghouse continues to attract an increasing number of visits to the website in fiscal year 2008. The total number of monthly visits between October 2007 and June 2008 grew from 52,060 to 372,389, with practice guides continuing to be the most popular download. Visitors downloaded nearly 12,000 copies of the Turning Around Chronically Low-Performing Schools Practice Guide in the first month of posting in May 2008.

Education Resources Information Center (ERIC)

ERIC is the world's largest and most frequently used digital library of education, comprising more than 1.2 million bibliographic records and more than 214,000 full-text materials indexed from 1966 to the present. Funded through the Institute of Education Sciences, ERIC was modernized under a contract awarded in 2004, transitioning from a paper and microfiche collection built over the prior 35 years by 16 ERIC clearinghouses to a centralized electronic database. Prior to the modernization, approximately 7 million searches were reported in 2001. After modernization, utilization rose rapidly to 93 million searches in 2007. The entire microfiche collection of 350,000 full-text documents has been converted to digital image files, preserving the historic ERIC collection along with the digital library. ERIC is also re-distributed under terms of a license agreement, with major subscription services and Internet search engines providing access to ERIC.

Urban Education Research Task Force

IES convened the Urban Education Research Task Force to obtain counsel on a broad range of issues pertaining to research to improve urban education. Task force members include superintendents of large urban districts, leading researchers who have focused on urban education, and other education decisionmakers. The task force has met three times since January 2007 and is preparing a report to IES, Congress, and the next administration on research needs in urban education.

Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness

The Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness was organized in 2005 with IES support to provide a professional home for researchers who study the causal effects of education interventions, practices, programs, and policies. SREE held its second national conference in March 2008 in Crystal City, Virginia. The widely attended conference focused on the needs of those who must make decisions about how best to educate students and the technical features of educational research. The conference brought together a community of individuals interested in the application of scientific research methods to pressing education issues, problems, and questions.

SREE will provide an organizational capacity to disseminate and consolidate the highest research findings by sponsoring three publications.

  • Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness (JREE). JREE is a peer-reviewed journal that publishes full-length articles on research of cause-and-effect relations important for education.
  • The Handbook of Research on Educational Effectiveness. Published in three volumes, The Handbook of Research on Educational Effectiveness will contain both seminal works and reports of recent developments related to the study of cause-and-effect relations important for education.
  • Research Notes on Educational Effectiveness (RNEE). RNEE will serve as a rapid turnaround, peer-reviewed electronic outlet to disseminate recent research findings in the form of accessible research briefs.

National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL)

The National Conference of State Legislatures received a 4-year grant from IES in September 2006 to support state education policy and legislative decisionmaking that is informed by scientific research. The NCSL project is organized through 10 seminars on particular topics pertinent to state legislators, starting with teacher quality and dropout prevention. Three seminars in 2007–2008 each attracted approximately 30 chairs of state education committees, and 2 seminars for state legislative staff also had full attendance.

Annual Research Conference

The Institute of Education Sciences held its third annual research conference June 10–12, 2008, in Washington, DC. Over 830 grant and contract awardees and IES staff attended. The conference was organized around the theme "Education Research: What's Now? What's Next?" and represented the broadest assemblage of IES-funded education researchers to date. The conference featured 18 panel sessions, 8 topical open forum discussions, and 130 poster presentations by predoctoral and postdoctoral fellows from training programs at 17 universities, as well as 219 posters showcasing IES-supported research. The inaugural Outstanding Predoctoral Fellow Award was also presented during this conference.

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