Concord Consortium Blog

Education Week of January 24, 2007 has two articles about the What Works Clearinghouse (www.whatworks.ed.gov). One of them notes that the WWC is costing the Department of Education $435 million over five years!!! This is a lot of money. The WWC does not conduct any original studies. Instead, it reviews existing studies of education “interventions” (such as elementary school math textbooks). Surprise, surprise … most of the “interventions” that it investigates don’t have much good evidence to support them.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to figure out how much money it would take to actually conduct good research about math and science education interventions: textbooks, computer software, supplementary materials, etc? Certainly hundreds of millions of dollars. Perhaps billions. Where is that money going to come from? Nowhere fast--at least not anytime soon.

And where is the money to develop and test new instructional materials? Especially significantly different, technology-based interventions.

This whole topic of “evidence-based practice” would require a book, or two or three. (And of course there are some that are at least related.) The No Child Left Behind Act actually defines “scientifically-based research,” which is a very strange idea. (Can you imagine the Congress defining medical research?). And the same Act also requires (strong language) that billions of dollars of federal monies be used only for proven ("scientifically-based") practices. Of course, that "requirement" is impossible to adhere to, partly because the evidence base is so weak. (Not to mention the Reading First scandal, in which it was discovered that the manager of the $1 billion federal Reading First program was biased for some programs and against others, independent of the research.)

Then there’s the whole question of appropriate outcome measures. Take the goal of teaching students to write well. There is now evidence (a) that if you teach students using a word processor (and other technology tools) they write better and (b) if you test students with paper and pencil those who have learned to write with a computer may be disadvantaged. Virtually all writing in the real world, especially of any length, is now done with computers. But very few students are tested that way--yet.

Contemplating the government’s decision to invest more than $400 million in the What Works Clearinghouse should give one pause. Is this a wise investment? What do you think?

The Wall Street Journal published an article August 31, Saying No to School Laptops: Programs to Give All Students Computers Come Under Fire Over Costs, Inappropriate Use by Kids (p. D1). Reporting on a purported backlash against such programs, the article focuses almost entirely on problems and concerns, including the old news about Cobb County, Georgia rejecting a laptop program more than a year ago (which was more a governance issue than it was about laptops). In response, I submitted the following letter to the editor:

Jessica Vascellaro writes (August 31) that some parents are saying no to school laptops. That's hardly news, because in districts with tens of thousands of students parents have a variety of opinions. But Ms. Vascellaro chose to focus on the negative. Research shows that students who learn to write using word processors become better writers, and students in laptop programs are more engaged in school. She did not write that Henrico County, VA commissioned public opinion polls showing overwhelming support for their laptop program from parents, teachers, administrators, and students. Nor did the article mention that two successive governors have strongly supported Maine's laptop program, as have Maine legislators and the public. It is a disservice to readers to ignore the substantial body of good news about laptop programs.

Andy Zucker Cambridge, MA