Education research flounders in the absence of competition from for-profit schools.

• Author: Lieberman, Myron

Relatively little attention is paid to research in controversies over educational policy. For instance, A Nation at Risk (NCEE 1983), the most highly publicized document on educational reform in our nation's history, did not include any references to educational research. In addition, there is a broad albeit not unanimous consensus that educational research has had little if any impact on teaching or other aspects of education. Although commentaries differ on why this is the case, few allege that educational research has been productive or is likely to be productive in the absence of drastic change.

Professional educators often join in the severe but long-standing criticisms of educational research. Robert Slavin (1997: 22), one of the most prominent educational researchers in the nation, notes: "For decades, policymakers have complained that the federal research and development enterprise has had too little impact on the practice of education. With few notable exceptions, this perception is, I believe, largely correct."

Negative comments about educational research in the late 1960s and early 1970s led to the establishment of the National Institute of Education in June 1972. Its sponsor, the late Sen. Patrick Moynihan (D-NY), expected NIE to be similar to the National Institutes of Health, which conducts long-range studies on health issues. Nevertheless, one congressional opponent of NIE, Rep. William J. Scherle (R-IA), made a comment about it that seems as relevant today as when the comment was made:

This provision simply opens the Federal Treasury to the same educational researchers without any assurance that the quality of education would be improved. The Office of Education in the last 10 years has spent approximately $1 billion on education research. Most of this was contracted out to various educational research organizations. Under this bill all that would happen would be that a new organization, the National Institute of Education, would be created to do the same thing which is being done now.... By defeating this amendment, the House will have an opportunity to reject the concept that the way to solve problems is to recast an old agency with a new name and increase its size and scope with the same people who run the old program, with additional waste of time and effort [Scherle 1971: 39214]. The latest reorganization of the research activities of the U.S. Department of Education took place in 2001, when the Bush administration established the Institute of Educational Sciences (IES), headed by an executive director appointed for a six-year term to facilitate bipartisanship in the department's research program. This may be a constructive change, but it will not affect the department's entire research program.

Educational Research and Drug Research: A Comparison

In view of the near unanimous consensus on the deficiencies of educational research, let us consider how it differs from research in the pharmaceutical industry, which is often cited to suggest the potential importance of educational research if it received comparable funding. Pharmaceutical companies conduct or finance a great deal of research. (1) Their research expenditures, accounting for billions annually, are made in anticipation of discovering drugs that will help millions avoid or overcome pain and disability or delay death. Because the researchers are searching for drugs that will be patented and widely utilized, their research focuses on drugs that can help large numbers of persons, or dominate a market niche.

The following analysis does not ignore the criticisms of the pharmaceutical industry. Some of the criticisms have merit, but no one questions the fact that the pharmaceutical companies develop valuable drugs based upon their research. Some argue that the companies charge too much or unjustifiably fail to make the drugs available in poor countries that need them desperately or do not publish the results of research with negative outcomes, but these issues would not arise if pharmaceutical research did not lead to valuable drugs. (2) Although government support plays a critical financial role in the development of some life-saving drugs, the following analysis reflects the most common pattern of research and development in the pharmaceutical industry.

Inasmuch as the companies must pay for the research out of their revenues, their research programs are scrutinized from several standpoints. The researchers must stay abreast of developments in medicine, the pharmaceutical industry, and relevant biomedical sciences. Because drugs lose their patents after three years, there is enormous pressure to discover new drugs that will compete successfully in the marketplace; however, before this can happen, the new drugs must be tested extensively and approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The approval process includes reviews of the research to ensure that it was conducted pursuant to rigorous standards. The process may require billions and several years, and because rejections are not unusual, the researchers must be careful to meet the standards required for approval. Despite these costs, however, the outcome is a highly profitable drug industry because of its success in identifying drugs that extend life, ease pain and suffering, and eliminate or reduce disabilities.

In contrast, most educational research is conducted by academies and is not proprietary. Because it is not proprietary, it is not likely to result in a successful commercial product. The education research community sees the large research budget of the pharmaceutical companies and the impressive results. The common reaction is, Give us this much money and we will generate comparable results in education. Unfortunately, everything between the money and the results in the pharmaceutical industry is ignored. The absence of any discussion of these matters in the educational research journals and conferences is remarkable; few, if any, of the approximately 1,300 presentations at the annual conventions of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) are devoted to the reasons why educational research is so unproductive compared with commercially sponsored research. (3)

Hugh Burkhart and Alan Schoenfeld (2003: 46) illustrate the mindset in education:

Consider the matter of tangible support. Just how important in dollar terms, is the research enterprise in education? Organizations in applied fields where change is recognized as important (medicine, engineering, electronics) typically spend 5 to 15 percent of turnover on R&D, with about 20 percent of R&D expenditures on basic research and 80 percent on design and systematic improvement. Here is how education compares. The U.S. House Committee on Science (1998) wrote currently the U.S. spends approximately $300 billion a year on education and less than $30 million, 0.01 of the education budget, on education research.... This minuscule investment suggests a feeble long-term commitment to improving our educational system. We trust that the case has been made. Unfortunately, the case has not been made. Let's see what is missing from their argument.

Who Chooses the Research Topic?

The identity of the decisionmaker on the research topic is a critical difference between research in the two industries. In academe, the decisionmaker is ordinarily a professor who is largely free to decide the research topic. A dean or a university business official may have to sign off on a research proposal intended to generate external funding, but the choice of a research topic is seldom the reason for a refusal to sign off. The business office will want to be sure that the proposal accords with institutional policies on overhead rates, released time, and employee benefits. The academic officials who sign off also need to know those things as well as the extent of replacement and support. Approval of the research topic, however, is ordinarily pro forma.

In the for-profit sector, the choice of research topic is much more a company than an individual researcher decision. The expertise and recommendations of the researchers are accorded careful consideration, but so are the company and research budgets, the anticipated cost, the revenues if the research is successful, and what the competition is doing. In contrast, the costs of poor educational research are largely absorbed by taxpayers, not the researchers or their employers. In the for-profit sector, the cost and consequences of poor research materially affect other employees, officers, and owners of stock in the company. For this reason, research issues in the for-profit sector undergo a much more thorough vetting than is customary in educational research.

Universities are mainly concerned about the ability of educational researchers to attract external funding. Whether the funding is likely to have any impact upon practice is seldom a concern. Business failures due to poor research, or no research, are a frequent occurrence, but nobody has heard of a university going into bankruptcy because its educational research never affected educational practice.

The Department of Education is the largest single funder of educational research and development, hence it will be helpful to consider how it manages the R&D process. Educational R&D is funded by different units within the department--hence, there is no single decisionmaking process on what to fund, how much to provide, who should conduct the R&D, and other questions of this nature.

When the Department of Education reviews external research proposals, it usually employs three or more external reviewers for each proposal. The reviewers are often paid a small amount ($100-$150 per proposal in 2003) to evaluate requests for several million dollars. The reviewers are asked to answer several weighted questions, such as the quality of the research design, the competence of the research staff, and the potential impact of the research...