We appreciate the attention given to the U.S. Department of Education's priority published in the Federal Register on January 25 related to scientifically-based evaluation ("Science and nonscience: The limits of scientific research," February 17). While Rick Hess made a number of valid points about the appropriateness (or lack thereof) of experimental evaluation designs to answer certain education policy questions, we fear that he might have misled your audience about the intent of this priority.
The Department intends to use this priority in conjunction with discretionary grant programs that support distinct interventions. As explained in the Federal Register, "The priority is intended for use only with discretionary grant programs in which grantees may use their funds to implement clearly specified interventions, and when the Department desires to obtain evidence of the impact of those interventions on relevant outcomes." Only a small subset of Department programs will meet this criterion, and the priority will be reserved for them. To date, we have only used it to award "bonus points" for proposals with scientific evaluations in five programs, all of which fund discrete educational interventions.
We believe this priority is a major step forward. The Department funds thousands of discretionary grants every year and, to date, has developed precious little knowledge about whether any of the interventions we fund are effective in terms of raising student achievement. The use of this priority will transform at least a handful of our programs from a random collection of interesting projects to a serious research-and-development effort. We think that's a good thing for the nation's children - and for education research and evaluation.
Michael J. Petrilli
Office of Innovation and Improvement
U.S. Department of Education
