Research Effort Aims to Bury 'Nothing Works' Image

Washington

Now that an independent panel has given the federal What Works Clearinghouse a thumbs up for the rigor of its methods for reviewing education research, clearinghouse operators are taking another step to make their reviews more useful to the policymakers and practitioners for whom they’re intended.

At a Dec. 12 forum held here, Mathematica Policy Research, the Princeton, N.J.-based research firm that runs the clearinghouse, and the federal officials that help oversee it invited researchers and members of the public to share ideas on charting a course for the next phase of their mission: making the clearinghouse’s work more relevant.

Launched by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences in 2002, the What Works Clearinghouse was originally intended to be a Consumer Reports -style Web resource where educators could find reliable information on “what works” in schools. But early on, it developed a reputation as the “nothing works” clearinghouse because few reviews were posted on its Web site and even fewer pointed to promising...