On September 26, 2022, LEARN wrote the Chairs and Ranking Members of the U.S. House and Senate Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies (LHHS) Appropriations Subcommittees overseeing funding for education research. In this letter, LEARN advocated for robust funding increases for the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) and provided a set of recommendations to ensure that, should the Committee create a National Center for Advanced Development in Education (NCADE), that it has clearly established structures and responsibilities.
Those recommendations include:
• Require that the Center be led by a Commissioner: NCADE should be led by a presidentially appointed Commissioner. This role should be equal in stature and responsibility to the National Center for Education Research (NCER) and NCSER Commissioners.
• Require the Establishment, with Public Input, of Annual Priorities: The NCADE Commissioner should be responsible for setting annual policy priorities for NCADE’s work. These priorities should be subject to public input and feedback.
• Require that NCADE be Integrated Within IES: The IES Director and Commissioners should coordinate the work of NCER, NCSER, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance (NCEE) with NCADE to maximize the effectiveness of Federal resources and production of high-quality education research.
• Require that NCADE Projects are Evidence-Based: While honoring NCADE’s vision to invest in “high-reward, scalable” projects, we urge Congress to require NCADE funded projects meet the definition of evidence-based as defined in section 8101(21) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) before being widely disseminated.
• Require Dissemination Plan for NCADE Funded Projects: NCADE funded projects should be required to outline how they will publicly disseminate and scale their evidence-based resources to the classroom. IES should encourage NCADE funded projects to leverage the agency’s existing dissemination network to meet this requirement.
• Require the Inclusion of IHE’s and MSI’s as Eligible Grantees: Similar to NCER and NCSER, NCADE should allow Institutes of Higher Education (IHE’s) and specifically Minority Serving Institutions (MSI’s) to be eligible to apply to all NCADE led competitions.
The full letter regarding funding for education research and recommendations for the creation of NCADE can be found here.