In 1968, the man-years devoted to research, development, and innovation in education totaled just 5,390; in health, 59,400.

Only about 10,000 researchers work in education, while the number of researchers working on health is three to five times that figure.

Since 1950, the Nation has invested less than $1 billion in educational research and development; in that time, $7 billion has been devoted to agriculture research and $14 billion to health research. Private industry's research and development investments have been even higher-the electrical equipment industry, for example, spends $4.2 billion a year on research and development; the aircraft industry spends $5.6 billion.

Research and development receives only .3 percent of educational expenditures and 4.6 percent of health expenditures.

I mention research in health, agriculture, and industry, not because their tasks are identical to those of education research-they are not-nor because resources in these areas are sufficient to their needs: certainly there is always a need for new thrusts in these areas of knowledge. Of course, research in these fields has had the advantage of a strong base in the hard sciences and more easily observable results than educational research. But the mission of educational research and development is certainly as challenging and complex as that of research in health, in agriculture, or industry. And education research and development clearly lags several orders of magnitude behind.

In addition to problems of size and insufficient resources, educational research and development has not attracted enough top quality researchers from a broad range of disciplines; it has been approached mainly from the standpoint of educational psychology, testing, administration, and the like. And research has rested on a narrow institutional base-most of it has been conducted on university campuses. Industry, government, and other institutions carry on very little work in educational research and development.

Finally, we have not established a visible, high level national institution charged with educational research and development management. In part, this failure reflects a general lack of interest in educational research because of its relative weakness, and the lack of organizational prestige helps to perpetuate that weakness. In other fields, high level agencies devoted solely to research and development have proven extremely successful. In health, for example, nationally visible research efforts have benefitted from the establishment of research and development units separate from health operating functions. In contrast, the National Center for Educational Research and Development has remained a component of the Office of Education. As such, it has not been able to escape some measure of bureaucratic anonymity. While the top Federal management position ranks at a level IV in health research and a level V in agricultural research, NCERD's placement in the Office of Education has kept its head at a GS-17 level.

Creation of a National Institute of Education would address directly this last problem, and it would address indirectly educational research and development's other weak points. The National Institute of Education would bring greater stature to research and development in education, organize interdisciplinary teams to seek radically new approaches to solve educational problems, and invite the commitment of more resources.

Establishing a new agency will not by itself end all the difficulties facing educational research and development. But a separate research and development institute with special characteristics is needed, if we are to make room for major progress. The changes feasible within existing institutional arrangements simply will not lead to a quantum leap toward excellence in educational experimentation and innovation.

Creating a new agency can, for example, affect the size, scope, and vitality of the educational research community. A National Institute of Education will spark interest in educational research generally. Since education research has traditionally lacked prestige in the academic community, many top scholars have been reluctant to enter it. As education research gains in prestige, outstanding scholars from a wide range of disciplines will become interested in the field.

The National Institute of Education's prominence would be maintained by several key characteristics. First, as I have mentioned, the agency itself would be a distinct unit outside the Office of Education, allowing it visibility as a separate entity. Second, its director, as an Executive Level V, would be a high level appointee. This ranking is a necessity if we are to recruit a director with extensive experience and the highest national stature, and to compensate him appropriately.

The director must command enough respect to draw the very best academicians, educational practitioners, public administrators and so on to work in NIE. Third, the special personnel authority would allow the agency enough high level positions and freedom to bring in outstanding scholars. Their presence, both permanent and short-term, will build an institutional reputation and a high degree of confidence.

Beyond strengthening educational research and development itself, the new Institute would organize people, energies and resources more effectively to conceive fresh approaches to education. A "critical mass" of expertise from a variety of fields would be marshalled. The National Institute of Education's personnel system will allow special flexibility to gather the best minds and put them to work together. And as a new agency, the National Institute of Education can develop its own operational patterns best suited to a research and development agency.

Finally, the NIE could stimulate the increases in funds for research that we have not yet been able to achieve. Perhaps because of its immaturity as a field, education research has not received the public support needed to secure substantially increased resources. If the agency does indeed succeed in boosting public interest in educational research and development, a willingness to increase public investment should follow.

I would like to emphasize the President's commitment to a sound and systematic growth of Federal expenditures for educational research and development under the NIE. We would expect NIE's first-year budget to fall within a range of $150 to $200 million. An estimated $120 to $140 million of this represents projected of programs to be shifted from the Office of Education. After the first year, we would expect to see NIE's budget rising steadily to a level of $310 to $420 million in Fiscal Year 1977.

In summary, let me reiterate that renewing education's promise requires new tools and techniques developed by a vigorous research and development system. The system of educational research and development itself needs strengthening if it is to match that challenge. Prominent researchers from many disciplines must be drawn to the task, funds must be marshalled to devise imaginative and radically new approaches.

As the next step toward these ends, we must mold a new agency capable of providing energetic national leadership-a National Institute of Education I urge you to join in support of this move by acting favorably on the bill before you at the earliest possible date.

Mr. Chairman, I will now turn the discussion over to Dr. Marland. Although for the reasons I've mentioned we feel it crucial that the National Institute of Education be organizationally distinct from the Office of Education, I also wish to make Dr. Marland responsible for all major efforts in education, including the National Institute of Education. He speaks today in the broad role of the Administration's chief education officer.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. SIDNEY P. MARLAND, JR., U.S. COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION

Thank you Mr. Secretary.

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I would like to begin by noting that we are in the midst of comprehensive planning for research and development. Ultimately, this complex process will produce a detailed blueprint for the NIE-its organization, staffing, and program. In developing this blueprint, we are working with many expert and knowledgeable individuals through the country. In the initial stage of the planning process. Dr. Roger Levien of the Rand Corporation was asked to direct a study of major issues involved in creating a new educational research and development agency. That study has produced a number of options and recommendations for consideration— concerning major educational problems NIE should tackle, organizational development to deal with these problems, projected funding levels, and so on.

We are now considering the range of options, including those suggested in Dr. Levien's extremely useful document. We are forming an internal planning group, which will analyze these options and devise a detailed first-year agenda for the agency's program and organization. Since this work is still in progress, I hope the Committee will understand that much of our thinking must be considered tentative. With that caveat, let me share with you our general views on how the NIE would operate.

FUNCTIONS

First let me talk about the Institute's functions. The NIE would pursue several broad aims. Its first aim, claiming the lion's share of the agency's budget, would be to mobilize the ablest scholars and direct their talents to comprehensive research and development programs to find solutions to education's most serious problems. Some of these solutions will build on the best current techniques-many will probe radically new aproaches to learning. All will lean heavily on development and on the invention of effective means of translating ideas into materials and practices workable-and working in the field. In any case, the Institute's independent, creative atmosphere and flexible organization will enable its staff to take a hard look at common assumptions and hallowed traditions in the profession of teaching.

Teams of people with different expertise-research and development personnel, educators, teachers, public officials, etc.-would be organized around basic problems. They would plan research and development programs designed to yield new knowledge, materials and methods--coordinated to provide powerful leverage on each problem. For example, finding successful approaches to educating the poor might mean supporting a range of projects from basic language studies to designing alternatives to formal schooling for alienated ghetto teenagers.

Another broad aim of the NIE would be to reinforce the scientific and technological foundation of education, strengthening the role of pure research techniques. We need to understand better how physical and biological processes affect learning, and we must deepen our scientific understanding of behavioral and social phenomena. The forces of science must be brought to bear on educational issues; scientists in all disciplines must be encouraged to join the effort. As Secretary Richardson has already noted, the Institute would be particularly well suited to attracting these researchers.

Finally, the Institute would seek to strengthen the educator's capacities in his various roles: as teacher, as chief architect of educational form and content, as a public official responsible to his community. In furthering this cause, NIE might support projects to devise self-evaluation techniques for teachers, to study and reinforce local processes of curriculum development, and to test various accountability mechanisms. It would support projects designed to broaden the concept of teachers to include students themselves, older students, paraprofessionals, parents, and volunteers.

ORGANIZATION AND STAFF

NIE's success in pursuing these aims will depend in part on the way staffs are organized to work on them. We are now working to design an organization which would best serve NIE's purposes. Dr. Levien has proposed a "matrix" model of organization, allowing staff to move between permanent organizational bases and temporary project task forces. His plan conceives of three constituents organizations. One would manage problem-solving programs, one would manage programs to strengthen the scientific base of education and educational practice generally, the third would evaluate the state of education and educational practice generally, the third would evaluate the state of education and of public education policies. This is one possible model: we are currently evaluating it by examining its effectiveness in situations where it has actually been applied. At the same time, we are looking at alternative designs. For instance, a “functional" model would move staff among tasks associated with different stages of research and development, from basic research to application in the field. Other models might organize staff around educational objectives, age levels, and so on. However staff are organized, certain personnel patterns characteristic of leading research and development agencies will emerge. These distinctive patterns will be made possible in large part by the bill's authority to hire and compensate technical and professional staff exempt from civil service classification and compensation regulations. This authority, I should stress, will only apply when there is a specific reason to use it-hence most of the staff will be hired under the civil service system. The special authority would not be likely to be used for those engaged in support functions for the agency: budget, personnel, contracts, and so on.

The concept of exemption authority builds upon the experience of other successful research and development institutions, such as NSF and NIH. As these agencies have found, drawing the highest quality staff for research and development re

quires staffing patterns and compensation levels specially adapted to the career patterns and professional traditions of the scholarly community. Exemption permits, for example, a system of short-term, noncareer appointments. Distinguished academicians and educators whose permanent career commitment is to a university, school system or industry could spend a year or so at the NIE. Those with special expertise could join the staff for even shorter periods to work on a single project. In addition, the authority would permit streamlined hiring procedures particularly suited for short-term, high-level personnel.

RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER AGENCIES AND CLIENTELE

This brings us to NIE's relationship with other agencies and organizations, for the Institute must maintain an active and continuing interchange with a variety of these.

First, NIE's relationship to the Office of Education must be a particularly close one. NIE must be responsive to the role of OE as the latter serves American education broadly. The Office of Education, on the other hand, must be in a position to help formulate the questions NIE would address. Further, OE must support the delivery system for promoting implementation of the practical results of education research and development in the field. The Commissioner of Education would be responsible for both agencies; Secretary Richardson would delegate responsibility for the NIE to him. I can say for myself that I would expect to use this strategic position as forcefully as possible to ensure that the two agencies complement each other. In addition, there must be a variety of formal and informal mechanisms for easy interchange between OE and NIE staff. I would expect that Office of Education officials would serve on NIE advisory groups, and vice versa. OE staff could be drafted to serve on a short-term basis on NIE's problem-solving groups. Permanent NIE staff might be required to take temporary assignments in the Office of Education as part of their development.

NIE would assume responsibility for most activities now conducted by the National Center for Educational Research and Development. NIE would assume responsibility, for example, for programs in basic research, ongoing development activities, the research and development centers and regional education laboratories, research training, and construction of research and development facilities. The transition can be orderly and systematic, but it must be carefully planned; preparation would extend through Fiscal Year 1972. These activities currently carried on by NCERD would very likely be organized differently from the present organization. In addition, OE would retain its responsibility for evaluation and policy-oriented research relating to OE programs, and statistical gathering services. While NIE would be charged with designing new delivery systems for research products. the Office of Education would oversee demonstration and dissemination activities, and support whatever new systems the NIE might develop.

We look to NIE to promote the coordination of education and related research and development activities supported by the various Federal agencies. A number of agencies support research and development activities relating to education as part of their own particular missions, but there has been little effort to coordinate them. NIE would act as a clearinghouse for information on relevant programs. The agency would provide an intellectual meeting ground where personnel of various government agencies concerned with educational research and development can think together about educational problems, and thus avoid duplication among their own programs.

The Institute would also complement the proposed National Foundation on Higher Education. The Foundation would support exemplary operating programs in post-secondary education. While NIE works to devise and test new educational methods, the Foundation will encourage the demonstration and adoption of promising practices in higher education already known. NIE will deal with broadly based problems and practices, many running throughout all levels of education: the Foundation will focus on needs and issues particular to higher education. The same coordination mechanisms used to link NIE to the Office of Education would be used with the Foundation: advisory councils, staff exchanges, direction from the Commissioner, and so on.

NIE will need a constant and lively interchange with people in a variety of non-Federal agencies and organizations. State agency personnel, local school administrators, independent scholars, school board members, teachers, private and informal education organizations, schools of education, colleges and uni

versities, scientific and professional societies, students-all these and more must be continuously involved in the workings of NIE.

The National Advisory Council on Education Research and Development will be one mechanism for involving outstanding individuals engaged in research and development, education, public affairs. The Council would have 15 members serving staggered 3-year terms. Other mechanisms would be developed to foster a continuous flow of information to NIE, as well as to facilitate the flow of information from NIE through the Office of Education and other channels to the classrooms of the Nation. The exchange of personnel working at the agency on short-term projects will also strengthen ties between NIE and the field. In concluding my formal testimony here, Mr. Chairman, I would note that I have dealt briefly with a number of basic issues involved in creating a new agency its aims, its staffing patterns, its relationship to current programs and other agencies. In all of these areas, our thinking is necessarily exploratory. Designing this new agency is a complex task. If the NIE is to fulfill its promise, it will call for the ablest organizational talents we can assemble. The basic characteristics of the proposed new agency-its distinct identity, its stature, its flexibility-create the potential for bold national leadership toward superior educational research and development. We are shaking off the traditions and enstoms of historic government agencies as we construct this new instrument for the improvement of learning. In our planning, we are searching for a design that best capitalizes upon the experiences of like agencies and developing criteria to use in evaluating NIE's effectiveness on an ongoing basis. A National Institute for Education promises new scholarly leadership and excellence in educational research and development. I join Secretary Richardson in urging your support for this new effort.

Thank you.

Mr. BRADEMAS. Let me start by asking a question about a matter to which both of you made reference, that is the relationship between the Office of Education and the NIE. I had a letter this morning from a very distinguished leader of American education commenting on precisely that issue. Without getting into who he is, let me say that he clearly indicated grave apprehensions about the point that you both have made and which is represented, Dr. Marland, by your line on page 5 that NIE must be responsive to the role of the Office of Education as the latter serves American education broadly.

My correspondent remarked that, on the contrary, NIE must be able to spit in the eve of the Office of Education. I must say that my instinct is to think that he is quite right, and you will understand that that observation has nothing to do with the present distinguished occupant of that Office.

I am rather apprehensive that anybody who is serious about American education is going to take seriously the NIE if it is thought to be a captive of the Office of Education. I put my case only with slight hyperbole to get a response from you.

That is a rather significant question.

Dr. MARLAND. I welcome the chance to respond to that, Mr. Chairman. Following your comment, I would say depending on how the wind is blowing the Office of Education often spits in its own face.

Quite seriously, I would say that we are perhaps at this time our most enthusiastic critics. If there is any question about our ability to engage in self-criticism and to find a way to make this new institution which as the Secretary has said must be wholly autonomous from the Office of Education a service to the children of this country without being a servant of the Office of Education, I would say that the very structure of the new agency itself will make that workable.

Mr. BRADEMAS. I appreciate that response. I would just observe that I think there is a lot to be said for the separation of powers system.