The federal government’s education research and development initiatives have the potential to help teachers, school leaders, and parents improve learning opportunities for children across the nation. But only if the best practices and models identified through R&D are published, disseminated, and used.
A clear example of this dynamic is the science of reading. Decades after a federal panel identified the best strategy for teaching children to read, many school districts have continued to ignore best practices, with devastating results.
With roughly $900 million spent annually on the Department of Education’s Institute for Education Sciences (IES) and Education Innovation and Research (EIR) program, Congress has a responsibility to ensure that these programs are operating efficiently and that funding is being spent on activities that have a high return on investment (ROI).
In December, the Senate HELP Committee took a productive step by passing the bipartisan Advancing Research in Education Act, which would reauthorize and update the main laws authorizing IES.
While the bill made significant improvements over existing law, my colleague Robert Bellafiore and I offered additional recommendations for federal reform in a December report discussing the Education Sciences Reform Act. Several of our main recommendations addressed improving the transparency and dissemination of existing federal education R&D programs to apply best practices, reforming or ending ineffective federal programs, and establishing an ARPA-like entity within IES. These changes could significantly increase the ROI of existing federal education investment.
While the House Education and Workforce Committee has yet to take up its own reauthorization or reform of the Education Sciences Reform Act, the House Appropriations Committee included language in its committee report for the House Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies’ funding bill, which includes the Department of Education.
First, the Committee reiterated its call for additional transparency and a focus on publicizing the research findings from the Education Innovation and Research program, which received $259 million last year:
This commonsense provision will ensure that the Department of Education shares the lessons learned and best practices identified by education research so that stakeholders can use that information to improve learning opportunities for students.
The House Appropriations Committee report also describes the Committee’s decision to end funding for the Regional Education Laboratories at IES:
As Robert and I have explained, the RELs have received funding in the federal education R&D ecosystem for nearly 60 years. But the value of this program has been questioned for decades. During the Reagan administration, Department of Education Official Chester Finn directed an internal review of the education labs and told Congress that they were providing little value but had become “entrenched institutions whose primary goal seems to be self-perpetuation.” More recently, former IES Director Russ Whitehurst told Congress in 2011 that “RELs have pulled down a significant proportion of the total federal investment in education R&D with little to show of value from that investment and a lot to show that should be an embarrassment,” adding that “I don’t think any amount of tinkering with the legislative language that authorizes the RELs or aggressive intervention by the Institute of Education Sciences can fix what is wrong with the program.” A 2013 GAO report identified lax oversight of the REL program and related dissemination efforts, which raise additional questions about the program’s utility.
On the other hand, there’s a promising recent example of a state education leader using the resources of a REL to support an evidence-based strategy to improve student outcomes. The Alliance for Learning Innovation (which FAI is a member of) highlights how Dr. Carey Wright used a Regional Education Laboratory to support her successful effort to apply the science of reading in Mississippi. This partnership between education practitioners and researchers is a good example of how education R&D is supposed to work.While the future of the REL program remains in question, as Senate appropriators may insist on continuing its funding, IES, researchers, and state education leaders should draw lessons from the Mississippi model.
Looking forward, Congress should consider broader reforms of federal education R&D programs to increase their return on investment. A key step, which the House Appropriations Committee did not take in this bill or report, would be to provide more resources for IES to establish ARPA-like research capabilities within the federal education R&D enterprise. Repurposing funding that has been going to the RELs to support the new National Center for Advanced Development in Education, which is inspired by the ARPA model, would be a good place to start.
In 2025, Congress and the White House should prioritize reforms to strengthen and improve federal education R&D activities. Congress’s incremental reforms suggest growing interest in this area, which could open the door to broader reform opportunities next year.
