FEDERAL SUPPORT FOR EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

No matter how significant or conclusive they seem, the results of educational research will never be implemented unless researchers take into account the predicament and needs of the classroom teacher. Millions of dollars may be spent on endless numbers of research projects which will never provide the basis for new directions in educational policy or classroom practice until the decisive position of the teacher is given central recognition. As long as teachers are not key in defining research needs, and as long as the atmosphere in which teachers operate make individual experimentation a threatening enterprise, the results of research are unlikely to be of much use or consequence. Without this we will only continue in the unhappy pattern of educational fad following upon educational fad, each as irrelevant as the last and each never really implemented because the role of the teacher has been ignored.

Unfortunately federal support for educational research has not taken these realities into account. The National Institute of Education, created by the Nixon Administration in 1972, has floundered in dealing with this central problem. The regional educational laboratories and research centers supported mainly with NIE funds have largely ignored teachers in the development and implementation of their research agendas.

The American Federation of Teachers now welcomes the possibility for a change in this sorry history from a newly reorganized NIE with fresh leadership. We also appreciate the willingness of the labs and centers to reexamine their goals. We hope the NIE will address itself to the most basic problem for educational research: how research priorities should primarily emanate from teachers and classroom experiences and how research results get back to teachers in usable form.  We also believe the Institute must re-examine its research dissemination effort in light of those threatening aspects of the educational system which discourage teachers from using research results.

Within this framework there are a number of research priorities which are all too apparent to teachers to await this process. The American Federation of Teachers urges federal policy-makers to take immediate steps to bring their own agendas in line with these pressing needs:

• Research into the effects of student mobility on educational problems related to the curriculum, to learning and to teaching.

• Both the immediate and long-term effects of all federal legislative initiatives on both teachers and children. The most pressing example at the moment is PL 94-142, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act.

• Research into what constitutes the optimum role of the schools and institutions of higher education in relation to work preparation. This would include a reexamination of concepts like career education and the idea of giving credit for work experience, as well as consideration of a variety of approaches to secondary and post-secondary education.

• An examination of the school discipline problem-its causes, the forms it takes, and the ways of dealing with it that are worth trying. NIE should consider the possibility of supporting some experimental designs in this area.

• Research into the key factors that make for excellent schools, combined with a major effort to publish and spread knowledge of them broadly.

• Building a coherent body of knowledge on teaching based on what teachers already know but may never have shared. The concentration on teacher effectiveness research in the last five years has produced very little of value. In the meantime much of what teachers have learned through experience has never been compiled and made available in useful form. This kind of effort could begin with what teachers know but also include longer range observational research.

• Research that would locate and define excellent in service programs. Designs for educational renewal, sabbaticals, recurrent education and mid-career change could be subjects for research as well as experiments within the general frame-work of lifelong learning.

The American Federation of Teachers views these as immediate priorities that demand attention. We also believe that NIE should make finding the best mechanisms for teacher input on research a main priority. We would welcome the opportunity to take up this search jointly with the Institute in a serious long-term way. In the meantime we suggest that each research priority defined by the agency-even each research project undertaken-include consideration of its impact on teachers. We urge requirements for "teacher impact results" in relation to major research thrusts to help solve the problems of research distance from classroom realities in the short run while the long term approaches are thought through.