Working with IES
Fall 2004, Volume 26, Number 2
Three IPR faculty fellows are currently working with the Institute of
Education Sciences on various committees and panels. Greg
J. Duncan and Fay
Lomax Cook were appointed to a panel to review applications
for the establishment of four new national education research and development
centers.
Each will be devoted to one of the following areas: innovation in education
reform, rural education, improving low-achieving schools, and postsecondary
education and training. The IES intends for the centers to help solve
some of the nation’s most pressing educational problems through
the development, testing, and dissemination of new approaches to teaching
and to learning. Cook is IPR’s director and professor of human development
and social policy. Duncan is Edwina S. Tarry Professor of Education and
Social Policy and an economist.
 |
| Thomas
D. Cook |
Thomas D. Cook currently belongs to seven IES working groups and review boards, including the Independent Technical Work Group for the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) and the Independent Review Panel for the National Assessment of Title 1 (No Child Left Behind Act). He holds the Joan and Sarepta Harrison Chair in Ethics and Justice and is a leading expert on experimental design and causal studies.
The WWC work group has the goal of identifying and reviewing the best experimental studies currently available in education. It also sets standards to ensure high-quality study syntheses and that the studies are presented in a user-friendly fashion. The studies are then made available to the public on WWC’s Web site.
Mandated by Congress, the 17-member Title 1 Review Panel reports to Whitehurst and advises him on the design, implementation, and reporting of Title 1 evaluation studies, as well as allocation of research funding. He also belongs to a subcommittee to improve classroom practices in reading and math.
All of these are designed with one goal in mind, to improve educational outcomes for America’s children. For Tom Cook, this entails posing the question: “How do we go about making schools better in ways that have a direct impact on kids as opposed to spending money on areas such as improving a school’s organizational structure that do not?”
The IES’s current push for education studies using randomized clinical trials should provide more complete answers.