The Institute of Education Sciences: A Model for Federal Research Offices

• Author: Grover J. (Russ) Whitehurst
• DOI: 10.1177/0002716218768243
• Published date: 01 July 2018
• Date: 01 July 2018
• Subject Matter: The Contributions of Institutions

124 ANNALS, AAPSS, 678, July 2018

DOI: 10.1177/0002716218768243

The Institute of

Education

Sciences:

AModel for

Federal

Research

Offices

By

GROVER J. (RUSS)

WHITEHURST

768243ANN The Annals Of The American AcademyThe Institute Of Education Sciences

research-article2018

Within each cabinet-level department of the federal

government there are offices responsible for research,

evaluation, and statistics. These offices are critical to

producing evidence for social policy and encouraging

its use. An evidence agenda within a department will

flounder, or never even emerge, if its research office is

weak. The Institute of Education Sciences (IES), estab-

lished in 2002, is markedly different from the iterations

of a federal education research offices that preceded it,

and it has been successful in developing an evidence

agenda in the Department of Education. Here, I use

the IES example to address the challenge of improving

the functioning of research offices in the federal gov-

ernment. I identify key ingredients in the success of

IES that may be relevant to the reform of other federal

research offices.

Keywords: education; Congress; research; statistics;

evaluation; U.S. Department of Education;

Office of Management and Budget; evi-

dence agenda

The federal government plays a senior role

in promoting evidence-based policy not

only because it invests so much in social pro-

grams, but also because the responsibility for

advancing scientific knowledge as a public good

is uniquely federal. At its core, the evidence

agenda blends the functions of delivering social

programs, producing knowledge of how they

work, and using that knowledge to improve

program performance. In each cabinet-level

Correspondence: gwhitehurst@brookings.edu

Grover J. (Russ) Whitehurst is a senior fellow in eco-

nomic studies at the Brookings Institution. He was

previously director of the Institute of Education

Sciences, chair of psychology at Stony Brook University,

and vice president of the Merrill-Palmer Institute. He

was also the last person to serve as assistant secretary

for educational research and improvement in the U.S.

Department of Education (2001–2002). His current

areas of focus include early childhood policy and school

choice.