well, it is coming up for its ninth revision now and it has been shaped by learners in the sense that the author Paul Samuelson of MIT Mr. BRADEMAS. I assumed that was the one. Mr. KOмOSKI. Yes; it is by the Paul Samuelson from MIT. But I would like to point out that he was not the Paul Samuelson from MIT 20 years ago when this text was first marketed. But he insisted the publisher gather information from learners on the effectiveness of his text. For instance, he has a class of students at another university that are less able than MIT students. He gathers information from their professor on how well the book is working. He also has students from other colleges respond to a user questionnaire prior to each revision. Certainly that is a big factor but this kind of informal learner verification. Mr. BRADEMAS. So Samuelson is really an individual model of the kind of process that you are advocating here this morning. Mr. KoмOSKI. Yes; I would like to see it much more formalized. I would like to see it universal in the elementary and secondary levels where it does not exist at all. Mr. BRADEMAS. So what we have to do, as I read you, and I harken back to Dr. Gideonse, also, is to build some uneasiness into the producers, to build much more competition into the producers in terms of their having to respond to the criteria of learner verification, to use your phrase. Is that right? Mr. KOмOSKI. Yes. But the other half of my recommendation has to do with guidelines for the schools because they are not demanding any sort of learner verification evidence. Mr. BRADEMAS. It is a two-way process: schools have to ask for evidence and the producer has to respond to it. Mr. KOмOSKI. Yes. Mr. BRADEMAS. Now you suggest in your recommendations that NIE could help establish such guidelines. Mr. KOмOSKI. That is right. Mr. BRADEMAS. You are not suggesting mandatory guidelines, I take it, but rather some research that, if disseminated to consumers, would be helpful to them in making judgments about the verifiable effectiveness of one set of tools as against another set of tools. Is that what you have in mind? Mr. KOмOSKI. I think that if needed we should have legislation that says that you, as a school purchaser, are not going to be able to spend Federal funds for materials when a producer does not supply any evidence that those materials have been successful with the kinds of learners that he claims they will be successful with. Mr. BRADEMAS. This reminds me of a fight I have been having with the Department of Defense with respect to the production of Army trucks, and the Defense Department at least on this particular item seems now to be moving toward a procurement process whereby competing contractors will have to build prototype models which the Government will try out to see which one really works. Hopefully, the Government will not have to continue to invest vast sums of money as they have been doing. Very often the Defense Department will put money into something which, you know as well as I do, has never been verified in any way and we lose a great deal of money. Maybe it is a somewhat farfetched model but that is the idea. Mr. KOмOSKI. In my written testimony, I point to a DOD study which was pointed out to me by a researcher at UCLA, Eva Baker. It is called Project Hindsight and I don't know if you ever heard of it, but the importance of it is that they retrospectively went back and looked at a number of technological systems in terms of performance and looked for what seemed to be critical variables in the performence of those systems. They with very little investment began to, I guest you would call it, tinker around with those particular variables and got enormous improvements in the overall performance of the system. Now that is the kind of thing that I think can and will happen in the educational materials field if you have this kind of feedback and it is used by the producer. Mr. BRADEMAS. A final question, Mr. Komoski. We have agreed that the tools are but one of the variables. Mr. KOмOSKI. Absolutely. Mr. BRADEMAS. And by tools here you means curricula materials, you mean textbooks, audiovisual aids. Mr. KOMOSKI. And learning systems. Mr. BRADEMAS. The whole business. Mr. BRADEMAS. Couldn't the same point be made with respect to various methods of educating teachers? Mr.KOMOSKI. Yes; of course. Mr. BRADEMAS. In other words, you would say, well, we will try five different ways to produce schoolteachers, several different techniques, processes, and see which one seems to be the most productive. It would be something that would be very complicated to arrange but Mr. KOмOSKI. Well, I think my point is that all five might be quite fine, that through learner verification you won't necessarily come up with a best of the five, but you will have some evidence that will enable the consumer to choose which among these five alternatives is best for his needs. Also this learner verification could be used to improve each of those five teacher training programs. You see, the importance of Samuelson's economics having been tried out on student is not that it is tried out on students and therefore is a good text, it is constantly tried out on students and shaped and reshaped. I return to that earlier point that the educational ground is constantly shifting under every tool that we have out there and we've just got to keep adjusting those tools to the changing needs of learners. You have a much more dynamic society than you had when you were dealing with McGuffey's Reader. Mr. BRADEMAS. Dr. LaVor, do you have any questions? Dr. LAVOR. No. Mr. BRADEMAS. Mr. Komoski, you have been a most stimulating and helpful witness. We appreciate very much your taking the time to be with us. We shall adjourn until Friday next, when we shall resume testimony on this proposal and hear a number of officials of the Office of Education. We are adjourned. (Whereupon, at 12 noon the select subcommittee adjourned, to reconvene on Friday, May 14, 1971.) TO ESTABLISH A NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION FRIDAY, MAY 14, 1971 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SELECT SUBCOMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, OF THE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR, Washington, D.C. The Select Subcommittee on Education met, pursuant to call, at 9:45 a.m., in room 2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John Brademas (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Representatives Brademas and Quie. Staff members present: Jack G. Duncan, counsel; Martin LaVor, minority legislative associate; David Lloyd-Jones, professional staff; Gladys Walker, clerk; and Christina Orth, assistant clerk. Mr. BRADEMAS. The Select Subcommittee on Education will come to order for further consideration of H.R. 33 and H.R. 3606 and related bills, to create a national institute of education. The Chair might open the hearings this morning by reading a letter which he received last month from the President: DEAR JOHN: Pat Moynihan has written to me regarding your support of the National Institute of Education. I want to express my appreciation as a former member of the House Committee on Education and Labor. I am particularly grateful that your hearings are finally drawing public attention to this much needed initiative in the field of education. As I noted in my March 1970 Message on Education Reform, ". . . there is only one important question to be asked about education: What do the children learn...?" Too many do not learn up to their capacity. The National Institute of Education can be a major force in improving the education of children. I hope that the Congress will be able to approve this significant new initiative early in the first session of the 92nd Congress. Sincerely, RICHARD NIXON. As our witnesses this morning will be aware, members of this subcommittee and the chairman in particular have been very enthusiastic supporters of what I, in any event, regard as one of the most significant initiatives by an American President in the field of education, at least since I have been a member of this committee. And one of the reasons that we have been engaged in hearings that may appear to be rather more extensive and intensive than some might have thought necessary, aside from the fact that the House of Representatives tends to go into these matters rather more deeply than do Members of the other body, that this proposal does represent such enormous potential for good for the enterprise of education in our country. So I am especially pleased to welcome to the subcommittee. this morning the distinguished witnesses from the Office of Education who are here. 65-510-71-24 I am glad to say that I am acquainted with all of our witnesses and, at least again during my time in Congress, I can think of few groups of top officials of the Office of Education of greater ability and talent and dedication than the group who are here this morning. I am looking forward to hearing your views. I regret that it has proved necessary, given the workload in our committee, to schedule the hearings this morning on a Friday when more members could not be here, but, as I think you are better aware than most, there is a whole series of bills before this committee in higher education and child development, to speak only of the educational side, and it is simply not possible for us to schedule all of the hearings during the middle of the week. That we are meeting on Friday and that there are no more members here should in no way detract from these hearings today, and I will be just as vigorous in my questions as I can in order to assure you that I am very grateful for your coming. So, Mr. Davies, we will look forward to hearing from you, sir. STATEMENT OF DON DAVIES, ACTING DEPUTY COMMISSIONER FOR DEVELOPMENT, OFFICE OF EDUCATION, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE Dr. DAVIES. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I have a brief statement that I would like to read, and my colleagues also have brief statements about the part of the research program for which they are responsible. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, we are happy to be here this morning to discuss the Office of Education's current research and development activities, and their relationship to the National Institute of Education. Let me introduce the members of the panel and make a few general comments. Each panel member is prepared to make a short statement about the research and development activities for which he is responsible. We have tried to keep these brief, in order to have as much time for questions as possible. The Office of Education administers a great variety of programs which could be loosely termed research and development. Most of these are funded under the Cooperative Research Act. The fiscal year 1972 request under cooperative research is $92.5 million. That sum will support a great range of activities, from basic research to demonstration, from researcher training to dissemination, from statistical gathering and analysis to program evaluation. In addition, research and demonstration activities are funded under several other authorities, principally authorities for the Education of the Handicapped Act and the research authority under the Vocational Education Act. Altogether, our budget office estimates that we are requesting some $172 million for next year for what they call "research and innovative programs." Not all of this can truly be considered research and development; not all would appropriately be handled by the National Institute of Education. Our first job in preparing the way for the NIE has been to determine which of these functions and funds ought to be shifted to the |