The New Essential Education Discoveries (NEED) Act would establish NCADE as a fifth center of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), a branch of the Department of Education focused on statistics, research and evaluation. Two IES centers are already devoted to research, but NCADE’s specific focus would be on fast pathways to adoption and scalability.
According to a joint statement from the bill’s sponsors, U.S. Senators Michael Bennet, D-Colo., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, robust federal investment in education research and development (R&D) is necessary to reverse pandemic learning losses, prepare students for a tech-focused workforce and strengthen the overall education system in America.
To accelerate advancements in classrooms across the country, NCADE would use the high-risk, high-reward research model employed by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA). Designed to encourage big ideas, fast failures and equally fast improvements, this approach to research has resulted in innovations such as the Internet, GPS and automated voice recognition.
The DARPA model is much needed in the realm of education R&D, according to Sara Schapiro, executive director of the Alliance for Learning Innovation (ALI), a coalition of more than 40 organizations that range from the Federation of American Scientists to the State Educational Technology Directors Association.
“We haven’t had this kind of research in education before. We haven’t had the kind of investment in education research that other sectors of our economy have had,” she said. “We think education is overdue for that sort of investment and that type of breakthrough research.”
An analysis released by ALI in June shows federal funding for education R&D equates to $4 spent per U.S. resident each year. In comparison, annual federal funding for agriculture R&D is $11 per resident, and federal spending for defense R&D is $236 per resident, according to the report.
ALI has been a leader in the effort to increase federal investment in education R&D and advance the NEED Act, meeting with policymakers to convey the importance of these initiatives. Two of the coalition’s policy recommendations make up the NEED Act: creating NCADE and modernizing the Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems, which can track student outcomes from preschool into the workforce.
“We want these data systems to be upgraded and updated so that we can inform research that actually improves student outcomes,” Schapiro said. “This is a big piece of being able to do better R&D — you need better data.”
Support for better education R&D and the data infrastructure behind it appears to be gaining momentum, Schapiro said. The introduction of the NEED Act in the Senate last week follows the introduction of a companion bill in the House in December. Both bills propose NEED as an amendment to the Education Sciences Reform Act (ESRA) of 2002.
A bill to reauthorize ESRA, called the Advancing Research in Education Act (AREA), was approved by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in December, opening the door to amendments such as NEED that would update the decades-old ESRA law.
Otto Katt, government relations advocate for ALI, said the coalition hopes NEED will be rolled into AREA when the latter is taken up for consideration by the full Senate. He said the soonest this might happen is after the November election.
“So that’s the ideal world, but as you know, in D.C. ideal conditions are not frequently present,” Katt said. “We just want to keep building the momentum, and we’ll see what the next Congress potentially looks like.”
For now, both Katt and Schapiro said their coalition remains on the lookout for other bills that could serve as vehicles for NEED and provide funding for education R&D as quickly as possible.
