V. Upcoming Activities

As this report makes clear, to date the Board has emphasized its statutory requirements to approve the Director's priorities and the Institute's peer review procedures. In the coming year, the Board will continue to monitor the processes that ensure the rigor of the Institute's work, while supporting an ongoing dialog with the field to assure its relevance. In addition, the Board will be discussing a variety of issues that may lead to recommendations for congressional actions in the following areas:

• Demonstration authority for evaluation of components of Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) that require compliance so that participating schools and districts could vary practices from those required under law in the context of evaluating the effects of those variations
• Requirement for all congressionally mandated or authorized evaluations of Department of Education programs to be carried out by the Institute
• Ways of meeting the privacy requirements of Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act that allow independent research using data collected by local and state education agencies pursuant to ESEA
• Fungibility of the .5% evaluation set aside for evaluation of small programs
• Requirement of longitudinal data for reporting of graduation and other persistence outcomes
• Rationale and funding levels for congressionally mandated national research and development centers
• Reauthorization of ESRA