After reviewing past experience and talking with many researchers, practitioners and policy makers, we conclude that effective programs of research and development would have a number of critical characteristics.

1. The programs should be organized and managed in ways that attract first-rate people and proposals to do the work. The quality of the people associated with the program and the appropriateness of their training and experience is the most important determinant of its outcome. The continuity of a program though time will be one important contributor to attracting first-rate people.

2. Program managers and the relevant professional communities should actively work to promote the accumulation of knowledge and understanding. It is crucial that specific actions are taken to reflect on what has been learned and what research must be undertaken to resolve conflicting findings or to replicate and validate preliminary findings. The program leaders and the field itself must be accountable for assuring their work adds up to meaningful knowledge and applications.

3. The programs should promote strategic behaviors that move such knowledge and understanding into effective practice. Outstanding research on teaching and learning is not enough. Design and development work needed to make the research findings useful in practice is needed. Steps to help integrate research findings into the preparation of teachers or their continuing professional development are just as essential.

4. Teachers and other practitioners should be important participants in the R&D program. The wisdom of practitioners is as important to solving problems as the methods and insights of researchers. Much of the work supported by the program should occur within school settings with active collaboration between teachers and researchers.

What we have done

In collaboration with the Office of Educational Research and Improvement and The National Educational Research Policy and Priorities Board, we have brought together two study groups made up of a wide diversity of experts that will propose long term strategies to guide programs of research related to problems that virtually all would view as critical to future national welfare. Not surprisingly, the problem areas chosen are mathematics and reading. The study groups were asked to develop clear goals in these areas, broadly assess what is known concerning the problems and about strategies for dealing with them, and to propose appropriate long-term guidance for R&D programs. These study groups have been aided in no small measure by existing and past efforts to assess the findings of research in these areas by committees of the National Research Council, professional organizations, and by the work of the National Reading Panel.

The study group reports are intended as starting points for a major process of community building. We believe that members of the research and practice communities should actively review the reports relevant to their interests. Assertions made by the study groups must be tested in discussion, debate, and ultimately in research and practice.. Alternatives to the study group proposals may be put forward and debated. Areas of research and development that some feel have been neglected can be introduced into the discussion.

To promote the building of active research and practice communities, the study group reports will be distributed widely. Presentations are being made to appropriate professional meetings. The web site you are visiting is intended to provide you with opportunities to participate. We hope for extensive participation by a wide variety of concerned publics, not just those directly engaged with research.

Professional staff members from OERI are actively monitoring and helping to manage the discussions on this website. If we have not got the site design quite right, we hope you will help us improve it so it supports your needs. We hope it will become a commons on which you will meet in constructive efforts to forge good R&D work.

What will follow

We expect that the study groups we have assembled will revise their reports on the basis of the discussion here at this Web site and in other venues around the country. Revised reports are scheduled to be available at the end of September 2001. Additional papers may be commissioned or study groups convened if the discussion seems to call for them.

Ultimately, of course, the strategies proposed by the study groups and modified on the basis of the discussions they provoke, must be translated into appropriate requests for applications or grants announcements. The agencies will need to attend not only to the research but also to the infrastructure that supports that research and its translation into practice. These are concerns that are dealt with briefly in the study group reports but will become clearer with experience.

The success of this whole endeavor depends on financial support from Congress and the active participation of both the research and practice communities. This support and participation will have to be earned and the Department of Education will have to develop programs, plans, and staff that earn the respect of both the Congress and researchers and practitioners.

However successful the department is in obtaining funding and staff, it will not be successful in creating and sustaining good programs if research and practice communities do not emerge to participate in the effort. Moreover, the goals that we seek will not be met if this community does not, itself, actively engage in the reflection and conscious effort to cumulate results necessary to reach the solid understanding needed to develop the practices and programs that lead to improved instruction and learning.

We hope this site will help you to join and build such a community and that you find the participation in the community personally and professionally rewarding.