Washington
The Education Department has awarded $8.2 million in contracts for studies evaluating the impact of education reforms.
Each of the 12 contractors, whose awards range from more than $600,000 to just over $700,000, will study a different category of reform effort. They are to report on the expected and actual outcomes of reform initiatives in multiple locations and to identify successful projects that could be replicated.
The Congress agreed to a request by the Bush Administration to earmark $3 million for the project in the department’s budget for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. The rest of the money will come from discretionary research funds, a department spokesman said last week. The contractors and topics include:
- The National Association of State Boards of Education, $653,742 to study innovative early-childhood education programs.
- The University of Southern California, $693,716 to study experiments with school-based management.
- SRI International, an educational-consulting firm based in Menlo Park, Calif. $631,611 to study technology-based reform efforts.
- The American Institutes of Research, a think tank in Palo Alto, Calif., $684,244 to study initiatives designed to help at-risk students.
- The University of Colorado at Boulder, $689,936 to study curricular reform.
- The Academy for Educational Development, located in Washington, $690,563 for a study of programs to ease students’ transition from school to work.
- The University of California at Santa Cruz, $693,716 to study reforms related to student diversity.
- RMC Research Corporation of Denver, $711,812 to study initiatives promoting parent and community involvement in education.
- Pelavin Associates Inc., of Washington, $696,736 to look at reforms in student assessment.
- The Network Inc., a nonprofit Andover, Mass., firm focusing on teacher training, $688,015 to study efforts to improve teaching and increase the professionalism of teachers and other school personnel.
- The Consortium for Policy Research in Education at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., $680,518 to study system-wide reforms.
- Policy Studies Associates Inc., a Washington consulting firm, $649,019 to study reforms related to schools’ use of time, such as experiments with a longer school day or year.
