1. For a discussion of the ongoing debates to abolish the U.S. Department of Education, see Riddle, Wayne et al., “Education Department: Debate over Its Cabinet-Level Status,” CRS Report for Congress, 95–693EPW, 26 May 1995.Google Scholar

2. There are surprisingly few studies of the changing federal role in education from a historical perspective. For some notable exceptions, see Graham, Hugh Davis, The Uncertain Triumph: Federal Education Policy in the Kennedy and Johnson Years (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1984); Kaestle, Carl F. and Smith, Marshall S., “The Federal Role in Elementary and Secondary Education, 1940–1980,” Harvard Educational Review 52 (Nov. 1982): 384–408; Ravitch, Diane, The Troubled Crusade: American Education, 1945–1980 (New York, 1983); Silver, Harold and Silver, Pamela, An Educational War on Poverty: American and British Policy-making, 1960–1980 (Cambridge, Eng., 1991).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. The longer study, upon which this essay is based, was commissioned by the U.S. Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) when I served as a consultant to that agency. A preliminary 185-page draft of that report, “Changing Views of the Federal Role in Educational Statistics and Research,” was completed in September 1995 and is available from the agency. Both that report as well as this essay have benefited from my continuing project, “Congressional Oversight of the Regional Educational Laboratories and the Research and Development Centers,” which has been funded by a small grant from the Spencer Foundation. Naturally, the views expressed here are strictly my own and do not necessarily reflect those of either the U.S. Department of Education or the Spencer Foundation.Google Scholar

4. Given the limitations of time, this essay will focus mainly, but not exclusively, on the experiences of NIE and OERI in the post-1970s. It will not attempt to provide a broader, in-depth analysis of program evaluations in other U.S. Department of Education agencies or a study of educational research done elsewhere (such as at the U.S. Department of Defense or at the National Science Foundation).Google Scholar

5. For a discussion of education in early America, see Axtell, James, The School upon a Hill: Education and Society in Colonial New England (New Haven, Conn., 1974); Cremin, Lawrence A., American Education: The Colonial Experience, 1607–1783 (New York, 1970); Kaestle, Carl F., Pillars of the Republic: Common Schools and American Society, 1780–1860 (New York, 1983); Moran, Gerald F. and Vinovskis, Maris A., Religion, Family, and the Life Course: Explorations in the Social History of Early America (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1992).Google Scholar

6. On the early involvement of the federal government in educational matters, see Berube, Maurice R., American Presidents and Education (New York, 1991); Mattingly, Paul H. and Stevens, Edward, eds., “—Schools and the Means of Education Shall Forever be Encouraged: A History of Education in the Old Northwest, 1787–1880” (Athens, Ohio, 1987); Taylor, Howard Cromwell, The Educational Significance of the Early Federal Land Ordinances (New York, 1922); Tyack, David B., James, Thomas, and Benavot, Aaron, Law and the Shaping of Public Education, 1785–1954 (Madison, Wis., 1987); Zook, George F., The Role of the Federal Government in Education (Cambridge, Mass., 1945).Google Scholar

7. The best work on the origins and development of the Department of Education in 1867 is Warren, Donald R., To Enforce Education: A History of the Founding Years of the United States Office of Education (Detroit, 1974). Another study is Kursh, Harry, The United States Office of Education: A Century of Service (Philadelphia, 1965). Kursh has provided a useful introduction to the organization and functioning of the agency in the 1960s, but it is written more for a popular audience than a scholarly one. The lack of footnotes, for example, makes it difficult to inspect the documentation that underlies the descriptions and analyses found in that volume. A draft, unpublished history of the agency by Stephen Sniegoski, however, provides some useful insights, especially about the successive U.S. commissioners of education. Sniegoski, Stephen J., “History of the Department of Education and Its Forerunners” (unpublished manuscript, July 1995).Google Scholar

8. For a discussion of how nineteenth-century educational reformers used statistical information to further their educational efforts, see Glenn, Charles Leslie, The Myth of the Common School (Amherst, Mass., 1988); MacMullen, Edith Nye, In the Cause of True Education: Henry Barnard and Nineteenth-Century School Reform (New Haven, Conn., 1991); Vinovskis, Maris A., Education, Society, and Economic Opportunity: A Historical Perspective on Persistent Issues (New Haven, Conn., 1995).Google Scholar

9. For a recent evaluation of the activities of NCES, see Atkinson, Richard C. and Jackson, Gregg B., eds., Research and Education Reform: Roles for the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (Washington, D.C., 1992). A useful analysis of the evolution of the NAEP tests in NCES is provided by Hazlett, James A., “A History of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, 1963–1973: A Look at Some Conflicting Ideas and Issues in Contemporary American Education” (Ed.D. diss., University of Kansas, 1974).Google Scholar

10. The recent National Academy of Science evaluation of OERI concluded that major improvements were still needed to assess more rigorously which promising programs were actually the most effective. Atkinson, and Jackson, , eds., Research and Education Reform, 154–56.Google Scholar

11. For some discussions of earlier efforts to expand the role of the federal government in education, see Bailey, Stephen Kemp and Mosher, Edith K., ESEA: The Office of Education Administers a Law (Syracuse, N.Y., 1968); Lee, Gordon Canfield, The Struggle for Federal Aid, First Phase: A History of the Attempts to Obtain Federal Aid for the Common Schools, 1870–1890 (New York, 1949); Thomas, Norman C., Education in National Politics (New York, 1975); Timpane, Michael P. and Barro, Stephen M., ed., The Federal Interest in Financing Schooling (Cambridge, Mass., 1978).Google Scholar

12. The best overall assessment of how educators and policy makers view OERI is by Carl Kaestle. Kaestle interviewed thirty-three prominent and knowledgeable individuals between May and August 1991 who were or had been associated with the activities of NIE or OERI. The insightful analysis based upon these interviews is available in Kaestle, Carl F., “Everybody's Been to Fourth Grade: An Oral History of Federal R&D in Education,” Report 92-1, Wisconsin Center for Educational Research, Apr. 1992. A shorter version of this paper has been published as Kaestle, Carl F., “The Awful Reputation of Education Research,” Educational Researcher 22 (Jan.-Feb. 1993): 23–31. For a thoughtful, but critical personal assessment of the role of OERI today, see Ravitch, Diane, “Adventures in Wonderland: A Scholar in Washington” American Scholar 64 (Autumn 1995): 497–516. See also the very useful analysis by the National Academy of Science: Atkinson, and Jackson, , eds., Research and Education Reform. Google Scholar

13. Henningsen, Victor William III, “Reading, Writing, and Reindeer: The Development of Federal Education in Alaska, 1877–1920” (Ed.D. diss., Harvard University, 1987); Kursh, , The United States Office of Education ; Smith, Darrell Hevenor, The Bureau of Education: Its History, Activities, and Organization (Baltimore, Md., 1923); Warren, , To Enforce Education. Google Scholar

14. For an excellent discussion of the creation and functioning of NIE, see Sproull, Lee, Weiner, Stephen, and Wolf, David, Organizing an Anarchy: Belief, Bureaucracy, and Politics in the National Institute of Education (Chicago, 1978).Google Scholar

15. Kaestle, , “Everybody's Been to Fourth Grade.” Google Scholar

16. For example, see the comments of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, one of the chief architects of NIE, who anticipated major breakthroughs in educational research. U.S. Congress, House, Select Subcommittee on Education, To Establish a National Institute of Education, Hearings … on H.R. 33, H.R. 3606, and Other Related Bills, 92d Cong., 1st Sess., 24 Feb. 1971 (Washington, D.C., 1971), 86.Google Scholar

17. On American science policy in recent years, see Kleinman, Daniel Lee, Politics on the Endless Frontier: Postwar Research Policy in the United States (Durham, N.C., 1995); Martino, Joseph Paul, Science Funding: Politics and Porkbarrel (New Brunswick, N.J., 1992); Morin, Alexander J., Science Policy and Politics (New Brunswick, N.J., 1992); Smith, Bruce L. R., American Science Policy since World War II (Washington, D.C., 1990).Google Scholar

18. On developments in the other social sciences, see Gerstein, Dean R. et al., eds., The Behavioral and Social Sciences: Achievements and Opportunities (Washington, D.C., 1988); Larsen, Otto N., Milestones and Millstones: Social Science at the National Science Foundation, 1945–1991 (New Brunswick, N.J., 1992); Nathan, Richard P., Social Science in Government: Uses and Misuses (New York, 1988); Smelser, Neil J. and Gerstein, Dean R., eds., Behavioral and Social Science: Fifty Years of Discovery: In Commemoration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the “Osburn Report” Recent Social Trends in the United States (Washington, D.C., 1986).Google Scholar

19. On the low regard for educational research, see Clifford, Geraldine Jonçich and Guthrie, James W., Ed School: A Brief for Professional Education (Chicago, 1988); Kaestle, Carl F., “Everybody's Been to Fourth Grade”; Powell, Arthur G., The Uncertain Profession: Harvard and the Search for Educational Authority (Cambridge, Mass., 1980).Google Scholar

20. Larsen, , Milestones and Millstones; Nathan, , Social Science in Government. Google Scholar

21. Dow, Peter B., Schoolhouse Politics: Lessons from the Sputnik Era (Cambridge, Mass., 1991); Larsen, , Milestones and Millstones ; Nathan, , Social Science in Government. Google Scholar

22. U.S. Office of Education, Annual Report, 1944 (Washington, D.C., 1945), 2.Google Scholar

23. Geiger, Roger L., Research and Relevant Knowledge: American Research Universities since World War II (New York, 1993); Kidd, Charles Vincent, American Universities and Federal Research (Cambridge, Mass., 1959); Larsen, , Milestones and Millstones ; Nathan, , Social Science in Government. Google Scholar

24. For discussions of the state of educational research in this period, see Bloom, Benjamin S., “Twenty-Five Years of Educational Research,” American Educational Research Journal 3 (May 1966): 211–21; Brim, Orville Gilbert, Sociology and the Field of Education (New York, 1958); Carroll, John B., Coladarci, Arthur P., and Othenal Smith, B., “Neglected Areas in Educational Research,” Phi Delta Kappan 42 (May 1961): 339–46; Coladarci, Arthur P., “Towards More Rigorous Educational Research,” Harvard Educational Review 30 (Winter 1960): 3–11; Coleman, James Samuel, Cronbach, Lee J., and Suppes, Patrick, eds., Research for Tomorrow's Schools: Disciplined Inquiry for Education (New York, 1969); Good, Carter V., “Educational Research after Fifty Years,” Phi Delta Kappan 37 (Jan. 1956): 145–52. For a description of the Cooperative Research Program, see Clark, David L. and Carriker, William R., “Educational Research and the Cooperative Research Program,” Phi Delta Kappan 42 (Mar. 1961): 226–30.Google Scholar

25. Gardner, John, “Report of the President's Task Force on Education,” 14 Nov. 1964. The report is available at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library, Austin, Texas. The best analysis of the Gardner Task Force remains Kearney, Charles Philip, “The 1964 Presidential Task Force on Education and the Elementary and Secondary Act of 1965” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1968).Google Scholar

26. On the development of the Regional Educational Laboratories and the R&D Centers, see Vinovskis, Maris A., “Analysis of the Quality of Research and Development at the OERI Research and Development Centers and at OERI Regional Educational Laboratories,” Final Report, Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), U.S. Department of Education, June 1993.Google Scholar

27. Zodhiates, Philip Phaedon, “Bureaucrats and Politicians: The National Institute of Education and Educational Research under Reagan” (Ed.D. diss., Harvard University, 1988).Google Scholar

28. For a thorough and thoughtful analysis of the problems of the 1977–78 reorganization of NIE, see McGonagill, Grady, “Reorganization—Faith and Skepticism: A Case Study of the 1977–78 Reorganization of the National Institute of Education” (M.A. thesis, Harvard University, Oct. 1981). See also Kaestle, , “Everybody's Been to Fourth Grade.” Google Scholar

29. For a life-course framework for mapping and evaluating educational research, see Vinovskis, Maris A., “A Life Course Framework for Analyzing Educational Research Projects,” Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), U.S. Department of Education, July 1995.Google Scholar

30. Atkinson, and Jackson, , eds., Research and Education Reform.Google Scholar

31. Verstegen, Deborah A., “Educational Fiscal Policy in the Reagan Administration,” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 12 (Winter 1990): 355–73; Verstegen, Deborah A. and Clark, David L., “The Diminution in Federal Expenditures for Education during the Reagan Administration,” Phi Delta Kappan 70 (Oct. 1988): 134–38; U.S. General Accounting Office, Education Information: Changes in Funds and Priorities Have Affected Production and Quality, GAO/PEMD-88-4 (Washington, D.C., 1987).Google Scholar

32. Vinovskis, , “Analysis of the Quality of Research and Development.” Google Scholar

33. Kaestle, , “Everybody's Been to Fourth Grade.” Google Scholar

34. Dow, , Schoolhouse Politics; Larsen, , Milestones and Millstones. Google Scholar

35. Vinovskis, , “Analysis of the Quality of Research and Development.” Google Scholar

36. ibid. Google Scholar

37. Sproull, et al., Organizing an Anarchy.Google Scholar

38. Kaestle, , “Everybody's Been to Fourth Grade.” Google Scholar

39. For a notable and thoughtful exception, see Kaestle, , “Everybody's Been to Fourth Grade.” Google Scholar

40. Warren, , To Enforce Education.Google Scholar

41. Sproull, et al., Organizing an Anarchy.Google Scholar

42. Zodhiates, , “Bureaucrats and Politicians.” Google Scholar

43. Kaestle, , “Everybody's Been to Fourth Grade.” Google Scholar

44. Vinovskis, , “Analysis of the Quality of Research and Development.” Google Scholar