Proposed Priorities for IES and Request for Comment

Institute of Education Sciences (IES) Director Mark Schneider proposes priorities to guide IES research and provides a 60-day period for the public to comment. When he submits the priorities to the National Board for Education Sciences for approval, all comments received will be provided as well. Once approved, the board will transmit the priorities to the appropriate congressional committees.

The deadline for public comment is Tuesday, May 28, 2019.

How to Submit Comments: Submit your comments through the Federal eRulemaking Portal at https://www.regulations.gov/. Only include information that you wish to make publicly available.

Please see the full notice in the Federal Register: Proposed Priorities for the Institute of Education Sciences and Request for Comment. ID: ED-2019-IES-0017-0001 [Docket ID: ED-2019-IES-0017]

Standards for Excellence in Education Research

To increase the quality and usefulness of education research, IES promotes, encourages, and supports the use of the Standards for Excellence in Education Research (SEER), which is available at https://ies.ed.gov/seer.asp. The SEER Principles encourage researchers to

• Preregister their studies.
• Make their data and methods openly available.
• Identify the core components of interventions.
• Document implementation.
• Focus on meaningful outcomes.
• Analyze costs and calculate the cost-effectiveness of interventions.
• Have a strategy for scaling up.

In furtherance of these goals, IES has the following specific priorities: 

A Focus on Outcomes

• At infancy, toddler, and preschool levels, key measures include:

• Readiness for schooling
• Developmental outcomes for infants and toddlers with or at risk for disabilities

• At kindergarten through 12th grade, key measures include:

• Higher achievement in reading, writing, science, technology, engineering, and math
• Improvement in other indicators of achievement besides student performance on assessments, such as annual student attendance and retention rates and, where applicable and available, student academic growth, high school graduation rates, and postsecondary enrollment and persistence rates
• Improvement in non-academic outcomes such as, but not limited to, parent satisfaction, school climate, student mental health, and civic engagement
• Improved teaching and learning
• Improved behaviors and social skills that support learning in school and successful transitions
• Functional outcomes that improve success in school and transitions to employment, independent living, and postsecondary education for students with disabilities

• At the postsecondary level, key measures include:

• Enrollment in, and completion of, programs that prepare learners for successful careers and lives
• Family sustaining wages post-completion
• Improved teaching and learning
• Acquisition of skills by adults

Increasing Dissemination and Use

• Increase outreach to teachers and other educators, parents and families, learners, administrators, researchers, policymakers, and the public using both traditional and new media.
• Enhance the experience of What Works Clearinghouse users, adding features that make its reviews more useful and usable.
• Increase the number of What Works Clearinghouse Practice Guides and Intervention Reports, ensuring that they are written in an accessible manner and supported by material that increases the use of this information.
• Develop and refine education research methods including new methods that take advantage of large administrative data sets and increased computing power.
• Expand the use of research using longitudinal data sets.
• Invest in postsecondary programs that develop a pipeline of talented education researchers, especially programs that include apprenticeships in education agencies.
• Encourage partnerships between researchers and private companies, both non-profit and for-profit, to put interventions that work into more schools and in the hands of more teachers, parents and families, and learners.

For further information contact: Teresa Cahalan at (202) 245-7299 or by email at: teresa.cahalan@ed.gov.