The No Child Left Behind Act has high-lighted the need for scientific evidence in edu-cation policy as never before, just as the Edu-cation Sciences Reform Act, passed months before NCLB, sought to correct its dearth…. And yet, the goals of these sister laws are heading for conflict, as districts’ ever-more-pressing need for “research-based” programs butts up against the lengthy, expensive creation of “gold-standard” research championed by the Institute of Education Sciences. As both laws enter reauthorization, experts worry the still-limited state capacity and lack of federal funding will crumble one of the foundations of modern education reform….

“What’s really changed in the past five years is it doesn’t take a generation for the research to sink in,” said Aimee Guidera, director for the Data Quality Campaign. “If you have good information, you can start clos-ing achievement gaps in a month. There’s now an emphasis on research that’s applicable and actionable.”…That’s true, but far from easy, argued Nikola Filby, senior program director at WestEd, part of ED’s regional education laboratory system. She noted one recent state school board member who wanted to know what high school exit exam remediation would look like and how state officials could tell if it was effective. “To answer that, we’d need the results of an evaluation study that hasn’t even been designed yet…. We try to work with states to see what they can do with the data they do have, but state people want quick, clear answers to what’s working, and it can be frustrating when we can’t give an answer.”…

 “NCLB was not revolutionary, it was evolutionary; each reauthorization has built upon the others, emphasizing different aspects of the reform movement based on where the research field was,” said James Kohlmoos, president of the National Education Knowledge Indus-try Association. “In the next reauthorization, the focus should shift from an obsession with technical aspects of accountability to a focus on solutions to the problems identified in the accountability system. It will not be enough to have quality data; you have to connect it to broader knowledge.”

Sara Sparks, Education Daily, March 7.