MEDIA CONTACT: Wendy Leopold at 847-491-4890 or w-leopold@northwestern.edu

October 26, 2004

$3.7 Million Grant Funds Teaching Practices Study

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Northwestern University has been awarded a grant of almost $3.7 million to develop a cadre of researchers who will be able to help K-12 teachers discern which education practices work and which do not.

“Educators today often fly by the seat of their pants and adopt new curricula or teaching practices that seem good but are largely unproven. Our Department of Education grant will create scholars who will undertake relevant and reliable research on pressing policy and practice problems in education,” said Professor James Spillane of Northwestern's School of Education and Social Policy (SESP). Spillane will direct the new program.

The highly competitive grant -- one of only five awarded by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) -- will establish an interdisciplinary training program that will support 22 new, three-year fellowships and provide 50 percent funding for a new, tenure-line faculty position. A group of 10 core program faculty will be drawn from psychology, sociology, economics, statistics, human development and social policy and learning sciences.

“The Department of Education wants to make sure that educational policies are based on solid, evidence-based research,” said Penelope Peterson, dean of the School of Education and Social Policy. “Educational policy, like other policies, should be made on the basis of rigorous evidence, and we want to produce a cadre of scholars who are qualified to conduct the work. Our children deserve that, and we are excited to be part of this mission.”

The new training program addresses one of the most critical problems in education today -- the absence of empirically sound knowledge based on core education issues. It is intended for students who wish to pursue a research agenda that will focus on practical questions in U.S. education from an interdisciplinary perspective.

The University will support the five-year pre-doctoral research training program with an additional $1.2 million. Four students will enter the five-year program in its first year; six will enter in each of the program's remaining years. The hallmarks of the program are interdisciplinary teaching and mentoring of fellows by core and affiliated faculty engaged in education-focused research.