This testimony is submitted to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies by M. Christine Dwyer as Chair of the Board of Directors for the National Education Knowledge Industry Association (NEKIA).

NEKIA appreciates the opportunity to inform the Subcommittee of our appropriations proposals for FY 2006. The mission of our association is to advance the development and utilization of research-based knowledge for the improvement of the academic performance of all children. NEKIA's members are committed to finding new and better ways to support and expand high-quality education research, development, dissemination, technical assistance, and evaluation at the federal, regional, state, tribal, and local levels.

Our appropriations proposals seek greater federal investments that will support the use of research-based knowledge in America's K-12 classrooms and spur the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act and the Education Sciences Reform Act. These two laws ushered in a new era of evidence-based education in which educators are required to use practices based on scientifically based research. Our proposals for FY 2006 are also designed to address both greater demand for evidence-based education and under-funded supply of well-tested practices and programs.

NEKIA's proposals are based on three critical points:

1. Now is the time to enhance and expand the federal system of education research, development, dissemination, and technical assistance. Federally supported programs—specifically the Regional Educational Labs, the R&D Centers, the Comprehensive Centers and Comprehensive School Reform—are playing a vital role in meeting the tremendous needs for research–based practices and technical assistance. Each of these programs fills a unique role in the spectrum of knowledge utilization—from basic research to applied research, from development and dissemination to technical assistance—all aimed at improving student achievement. Given that more than 20,000 U.S. public schools are not making adequate yearly progress and 10,000 schools are already designated in need of improvement under the No Child Left Behind Act, we must become more aggressive in using research-based education solutions in the classroom.
   
   NEKIA's members are fully supporting the implementation of No Child Left Behind through applied research, development, dissemination, technical assistance, and evaluation programs. Our organizations are working together with state and local partners to address the needs of under-performing schools and districts. A recent example: the Comprehensive Center serving New York State has worked with the Northeast and Islands Regional Education Laboratory at Brown University (LAB) to implement and improve New York's structure for supporting schools that have been identified as needing improvement under NCLB. In a state-level policy seminar organized by the LAB in March 2005, New York's education agency leaders joined with their New England colleagues to examine the effectiveness of their approaches to working with low-performing schools and plan next steps.
   
   
2. Current federal support for education research, development, dissemination, and technical assistance lags far behind other federal research investments. While the No Child Left Behind Act clearly requires educators to use instructional practices and innovations supported by research, the Department of Education spends less than one percent of its budget on research, development, and statistics. Education is a $745 billion industry representing an estimated 7.2 percent of the gross domestic product. However, only 0.03 percent is spent on research and development. That is only three cents for every hundred dollars spent on education. In comparison, other agencies' R&D budgets as percentage of their discretionary spending: Defense, 17 percent; NASA, 68 percent; Energy, 37 percent; HHS, 42 percent; NSF, 74 percent; and Agriculture, 4.6 percent. In other words, the Department of Education's research budget has been and remains among the smallest of any federal agency. Without an increased investment in developing and testing research-based practices, schools and districts will continue to find it difficult to fulfill NCLB's mandate for using such practices.
   
   
3. To address this capacity crisis we urge Congress to double its investments in education knowledge utilization over the next three years. Not only would increased investments help meet demand, they would also address a number of high priorities such as:
   
   

• Improving teacher quality by providing research based information on best practices to teacher training institutions as well as information and technical assistance to schools districts implementing professional development programs.
• Helping schools and teachers who serve special populations of students meet state adequate yearly progress goals. These special populations include English language learners, special needs children, and students in rural areas.
• Working with educators at state, district, and school levels to interpret and manage a variety of data about student performance and classroom instruction.
• Scaling up school improvement efforts at the local level so that reform efforts in single schools can expand to district wide initiatives and beyond, if proven effective.
  

To adequately respond to the capacity crisis and meet these priorities, NEKIA proposes the following investments:

Priority Investment: Fund the Regional Educational Laboratories at $70 million—an increase of $3 million over FY 2005

The Regional Educational Laboratories play a critical role in linking research to the needs of educators and policy makers by turning research findings into programs that can be applied in local contexts. A 2000 Department of Education independent evaluation found that educators considered the labs among the most trusted institutions in the nation for research support and reported they were highly responsive to customers, that is, local educators. Regional governing boards—representing educators, parents, and businesses from each state of each lab region—set research and development priorities for each lab. The ability to respond to customers in their regions helps keep the laboratories' work focused on real world needs and creating valid research, development, tools and assistance in the successful implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act. For example:

Drawing on multidisciplinary research, the Western Regional Laboratory at WestEd's (WREL) (serving California, Nevada, Arizona and Utah) Teacher Quality Initiative (TQI) is developing a set of nine content-based modules for training secondary teachers of English learners. All modules include exemplars of good practice (video, vignettes, or cases), reflection activities that help teachers make sense of the material, elaboration activities and resources for more in-depth study, and road maps that enable trainers to shape the materials to meet specific teacher needs. Chula Vista High School, a low performing school near San Diego, served as one of several TQI pilot sites in 2002-3. Together with other initiatives, TQI helped the school meet the state's academic performance goals. A randomized control trial in underway to provide rigorous evidence of the effect of the training on teacher knowledge and practice and student achievement.

Without the regional labs, a critical link between basic research and technical assistance would cease to exist.

Unfortunately, the Regional Education Lab program is at risk. The President's budget for fiscal year 2005 proposes to eliminate funding for the program. Last year, the Administration proposed eliminating the labs. Fortunately, Congress acted in a bipartisan way to fund the laboratory program. We urge Congress to do so again for fiscal year 2006.

Priority Investment: Fund the Research, Development, and Dissemination Line, including the Research and Development Centers at $170 million—an increase of $5 million over FY 2005.

The centers address enduring issues of national significance in education through sustained and focused research programs. They address specific topics such as early childhood development and learning, student learning and achievement, at-risk students, adult learning, and education policy. The research done by the R&D centers is used by regional labs to develop programs, strategies and assessment tools which in turn are adapted by technical assistance providers (including the Comprehensive Centers) to assist districts and schools. For example:

With access to QSP--Quality School Portfolio--educators found that they could collect and disaggregate data more efficiently to investigate the performance of different sub groups of students and to identify students who lagged behind in various subject areas. Schools that had implemented QSP reported that with this data analysis tool, they were better equipped to meet the mandated requirements of NCLB, to focus on at-risk students by early identification and frequent monitoring, and to take actions to close the achievement gap. For example, one principal used QSP to generate a master list of all students in her school whose performance was below standards and identify students' math and reading scores on state tests. Classroom teachers used the information to focus on students' needs and plan instruction tailored to individual students, including additional instructional time.

Having access to QSP encourages educators to conduct more frequent classroom level assessments, which provide continual monitoring and interpreting of student performance. Frequent local assessment helps identify at-risk students early on so that they can benefit from academic intervention programs.

The Quality School Portfolio was developed by the Center for Research in Evaluation, Standards and Student Testing at UCLA, one of the Department of Education's Research and Development Centers.

The research centers need additional resources to create more programs and tools for use in under-performing schools.

Priority Investment: Fund the Comprehensive Regional Assistance Centers at $60 million—an increase of $3 million over FY 2005.

The purpose of Title II of the Education Sciences Reform Act (ESRA) and specifically the newly reformed Comprehensive Centers program, is to provide comprehensive technical assistance services to states, districts, tribes and schools in administering and implementing school reform efforts under No Child Left Behind. The focus of the Comprehensive Centers is to help schools and districts improve opportunities for all children to meet performance standards. Next year (FY2006), at least 20 new centers will be operational. The new centers will encompass the scopes of work of the current Comprehensive Regional Assistance Centers, the Eisenhower Regional Mathematics and Science Consortia, and the Regional Technology in Education Consortia. For example:

The Comprehensive Center Network (CCN) has been collaborating since 1997 in the implementation of a reading coaching initiative that, to date has supported hundreds of teachers throughout the U.S. The Reading Success Network (RSN) initiative supports improvements in teacher practice through professional development and mentoring of reading coaches who work with classroom teachers in grades K-6. The initiative is grounded in scientifically based reading research and helps educators to implement reading intervention strategies of the type supported by the National Reading Panel. A distinctive feature of RSN is that it partners highly trained reading coaches with reading teachers as part of a comprehensive strategy to model effective reading instruction and use data to make instructional decisions.

In a national evaluation contracted by the CCN, based on a sample of 32 schools from across the nation, RSN students demonstrated large gains in the acquisition of foundational reading skills at kindergarten and first-grade levels; moderate gains at second grade; and modest gains at third grade compared to students in demographically similar classrooms not implementing RSN.

The Comprehensive Centers represent the link to state policymakers, and district and school leaders to implement research-based practices in local contexts.

Priority Investment: Fund the Comprehensive School Reform program at $233 million—an increase of $30 million over last year.

Comprehensive School Reform targets the neediest schools. Forty-five percent of CSR schools have poverty rates of 75 percent or greater—almost double the rate of Title I schools. And, almost half (46 percent) of CSR schools are low performing at the time of funding. CSR schools have baseline achievement scores lower than Title I school wide programs (in reading and math) at the time of funding. Finally, CSR Schools address the whole school and are more likely to use research-based models and measurable goals for student performance. Unfortunately, the Comprehensive School Reform program is at risk. The President's budget for fiscal year 2005 proposes to eliminate funding for the program. We hope Congress will act in a bipartisan fashion to preserve it.

NEKIA is very heartened by the continuing interest Congress shows in the work of our member organizations to provide the research-based tools our children and teachers need to succeed. If we are to ensure even greater success for all our children, we must increase the federal investment in knowledge utilization efforts.

Thank you. We appreciate your consideration of our proposals.