An important recent development in evidence-based policy is the federal government's use of a "tiered evidence" approach to allocating funding in grant programs such as the U.S. Department of Education's Investing in Innovation Fund (i3). A central feature of this approach is that the largest grants are awarded to fund large-scale…

As evidence-based reform becomes increasingly important in educational policy, it is becoming essential to understand how research design might contribute to reported effect sizes in experiments evaluating educational programs. The purpose of this study was to examine how methodological features such as types of publication, sample sizes, and…

This review synthesizes research on English reading outcomes of all types of programs for Spanish-dominant ELLs in elementary school. It is divided into two major sections: the effect of language of instruction on achievement (i.e., bilingual vs. English-only instruction) and effective reading approaches for ELLs other than the use of native…

A hypothesized model of state implementation of federal policy was extracted from empirical studies to discover the strategies states can use to gain compliance more cost effectively. Sixteen factors were identified and applied to the implementation of the Scientific Based Research provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act. Data collected from…

This report chronicles the record of the Reading First program as a research-based approach to teaching children to read, from early successes as a strict program whose funding would be distributed to states and districts using reading curricula whose effectiveness had been validated by scientific study, to one of eased eligibility that permitted…

Reading became a hotbed of policy activity during the 1990s with both state and federal policymakers launching major initiatives to raise reading achievement. When President George W. Bush introduced his Reading First initiative in early 2001, we saw a unique opportunity to investigate the policy processes, antecedents, and unplanned events…

The paper trail leading to reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, scheduled for 2007, is already clogged and will keep getting more so. One needs to select sets of recommendations carefully to avoid being awash in conflicting or redundant ideas. In this article, the author presents a critique, that calls for a major shift in…

This publication offers the 56th Yearbook of the National Reading Conference (NRC). This Yearbook begins with a preface and presents profiles of three awardees, Michael C. McKenna, Douglas K. Hartman, and Michael Kamil. Included in this Yearbook are the following papers: (1) What's It All About? Literacy Research and Civic Responsibility (Victoria…