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AEP Online |
Knowledge Alliance Head Seeks Federal Commitment to ResearchJim Kohlmoos, President and CEO of the Knowledge Alliance, gave testimony at the first hearing held by the House Committee on Education and Labor since they released their draft of the NCLB Reauthorization. Kohlmoos and a long list of education experts, teachers, and unions gave their input on what they thought would work and what might need improvement in the first draft of the Title I section of the law. In a recent interview with AEP, Jim talked about the importance of educational research and how the Alliance is working to expand the federal commitment to research that will improve education outcomes for students. Q. How would you describe the impact of research-based knowledge on the U.S. education system? A. Right now I think it is modest at best, and there are several reasons for this. First, USED's investment in research is the lowest of any major cabinet level agency. For example, the Defense Department invests $80 billion and the NIH (National Institutes of Health) $28 billion. USED invests only $300 million, which is less than 1% of the overall federal budget and less than one 100th of a percent of the total spent on education in the U.S. Second, there isn't a lot of venture capital available because the margins are so slim. We believe this should be a federal responsibility. In the case of supplemental publishers especially, there's a need for help and support if there is going to be new innovation. This should be a major function of the federal government, and they should provide the capital as well. Another reason for the lack of investment is that there has been controversy about the science of research for education materials. There is common acceptance that you can employ rigorous scientific methodology in the classroom, but how do you subject all instructional materials to that process? We need to find out how to ensure rigor and quality and at the same time be practical. To try and validate some of the evidence that a smaller scale intervention is using, there needs to be a more a practical method than randomized field trials when it comes to causality. This creates challenges in a commercial and developmental environment. Q. How has the Knowledge Alliance been involved with NCLB up to this point? A. We drafted our set of recommendations over a year ago after a lot of conversation within our membership. We sent the recommendations around last spring to the House and Senate, then we made personal visits to all sorts of offices presenting our recommendations. There were some issues within our recommendations that staffers wanted to know more about, so we met with the committee staff and gave them additional information. We kept alert and offered comments at any opportunity and now are preparing comments for Titles II through IX now. We continue to develop and maintain relationships with Hill staff. Q. What do you recommend the definition regarding research for instructional materials should be? A. We like the Scientifically Valid Research definition in the IES statute because it emphasizes the necessity of using the methodology that is most appropriate to the question being asked in a research design. It also deals with causality--you need to use a RCT or other methods to eliminate potential other explanations, but you can state, "I think the program has promise." You can't yet claim that this is the most effective intervention but you can say that it's doing good things in certain situations. We don't want to be against rigor, but we also don't want to prevent innovation.
Questions, ideas, or in need of more information? Please contact Stacey Pusey at 856-241-7772. |
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