American education has always had its critics, and undoubtedly always will. Nonetheless, there are signs that the educational environment is improving in unexpected ways. This issue of the Brookings Papers on Education Policy, the eighth volume springing from a series of annual meetings sponsored by the Brookings Institution to examine specific…

Describes a Committee on Basic Research in Education that was formed in 1968 and that worked for four years in cooperation with the U. S. Office of Education to identify problems to be attacked by basic research in education and to develop and try out plans and procedures for stimulating and supporting such research. (Author/JM)

Evaluates the activities of the Committee on Basic Research in Education (COBRE), pointing out that its work was based on the premises that basic research is oriented to the academic disciplines, that its outcomes are scientific knowledge as opposed to products or solutions, and that its outcomes are unpredictable. (Author/JM)

Emphasizes need for continued high-level fundamental bio-medical research as opposed to the current edict to curb National Institute of Health-sponsored pre-doctoral and post-doctoral training and fellowship programs as well as the career development awards. (EB)

Defining research as systematic, self-critical inquiry open to public criticism and/or empirical test, the author considers the relevance of scientific, historical, and educational research to practice. He asserts that teachers must be involved in educational research and that researchers must justify themselves to practitioners, not practitioners…

Reports results of an experiment involving a hydranencephalic infant lacking cerebral hemispheres and a normal twin in testing for associative learning. Cardiac orienting responses to stimulus omission indicated that learning had taken place in both infants. (CS)

Summarizes a National Science Foundation study of patterns in government research and development (R and D) funding for the fiscal years 1978-1980. Defense received a smaller percentage of the R and D funding while energy, biomedical research, and basic research received a larger percentage of said funding. (Author/DS)

Random samples of 50 articles each from the education and health-sciences literature are used to compare uses of quantitative evidence. Study designs and approaches in these fields are similar; thus no support is provided for the idea that educational research is less rigorous than that of the health sciences. (SLD)

Argues that the limited results achieved so far by empirical educational research are a result of a fundamental difference in the generalized concepts used therein and the abstract concepts used in the natural sciences. Discusses the work of Galileo and Newton to clarify the difference between generalization and abstraction. (DMM)

Describes the Interagency Education Research Initiative, which joins specialists from many areas of science, medicine, and education in a common crusade to improve learning. Projects include brain research on people with reading disabilities, development of an automated reading tutor, and a cross-cultural study of how young students in three…

Assessments such as ranking exercises arguably level the playing field for stakeholders. Quality assurance may remain a challenge for consumers, but "public" assessments do provide a nominal element of independence or autonomy. This article outlines, from a German perspective, the way in which research assessments are frequently subject…

Much of the discussion in the news, schools and statehouses about the NO Child Left Behind Act has focused on testing and accountability, and whether there is enough money to fund the act sufficiently. However, bubbling underneath this publicity is a term that has the potential to cause a minor ripple on the surface or to erupt like ah underwater…

To define what is special about the education of students with severe disabilities, this article provides a snapshot of research-based practices that are relevant to the "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) focus on accountability. The NCLB requirement to assess all students in reading, math, and science is contrasted to the functional approach typical…

Since the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002, educators have been advised that it is no longer acceptable to allow ideology, fads, or untested procedures to define teaching. Therefore, knowing what counts as evidence and why it counts is the primary issue of the early 21st century in the field of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders…

This paper explores the issue of the social relevance of instructional technology research, and examines the state of research in the field today. A modification of Dick and Dick's (1989) research article classification scheme is used to categorize the field's research literature. This new classification scheme represents an effort to distinguish…