NIE, and which ought to remain in the Office of Education. Basically, we have tried to draw the line between research, development, and experimentation (which will be the essential functions of NIE) and program support and implementation (which are properly the responsibility of OE).

Where a program's main task is creating new knowledge or new solutions, it belongs in NIE. When its main thrust is to assist schools today to use tools we already possess, it belongs in OE. The main exception to this principle is decision-oriented research-research with a short-term bearing on operating programs and decisions about them. Any agency needs the flexibility to do some of this work, and OE will retain a small capacity in this area.

Of course, none of these distinctions are quite as simple as they sound, and we have simply tried to make reasonable judgments in areas where those distinctions are blurred.

In the process of establishing the NIE, hard and careful decisions will have to be made about the status of individual projects to be transferred to NIE. Some projects will naturally expire at the end of fiscal year 1972; some will be continued because they fit with NIE's program; some will be continued because strong commitments made should not be broken; and, some will be discontinued. It is impossible to begin making these decisions now-more basic decisions will have to come first. For example, we believe that the NIE director should be hired before decisions on individual projects will be made. At any rate, it is clear that the NIE will have to seek a balance between keeping faith with past commitments and applying its own priorities. As you know, I have recently been appointed Acting Deputy Commissioner for Development. Commissioner Marland has asked me, as he had asked my predecessor, to assume overall responsibility for the Commissioner's planning for NIE and to chair an internal advisory committee. Dr. Harry Silberman serves as Director of the planning unit.

We now have three full time members of the planning unit in addition to its Director. The group has developed a work plan which establishes a timeframe for the accomplishment of various aspects of the task. The plan has recently been approved, and the unit can now go into full gear on the basis of their plan.

We will be able today to give you more detailed information on the relationship of recent programs to NIE than was supplied by the Secretary and the Commissioner. I hope you will understand, though, that the blueprint for the new agency will take long and careful planning if it is to be done correctly. We expect to keep you informed of our progress as we go along, and we would like to receive input from you during the planning process.

I would like to assure you of my strong personal commitment to the NIE and to express my appreciation to vigorous leadership you are providing in support of improved research and development in edu

cation.

That is the conclusion of my statement. If you would like, Dr. Silberman will proceed.

Mr. BRADEMAS. Dr. Silberman.

STATEMENT OF HARRY F. SILBERMAN, ASSOCIATE COMMISSIONER, NATIONAL CENTER FOR EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, OFFICE OF EDUCATION, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE

Mr. SILBERMAN. Mr. Chairman, as Dr. Davies mentioned, I serve as Director of the Commissioner's planning unit which has three other members and also lets contracts to outside agencies for the preparation of planning documents.

Funds to the extent of $300,000 have been set aside to enable the planning unit to carry out its task, for the period ending June. This is the first segment of a larger work plan designed to culminate by June 30, 1972, in a collection of documents that would analyze education problem areas, describe relevant resources and provide program alternatives.

These documents worked out in some detail would thus provide guides that could be used by a director of NIE. For example, for each identified area of important educational needs, these documents would consider where are there significant programs addressing this need, what assumptions and methods are being used in analyzing this problem area, how well do these solutions work, how adequately has each program been described, what research questions does it raise, what development remains to be done, what different viewpoints exist as to the most promising R. & D. approaches.

Most importantly, for each problem area, alternative R. & D. programs will be described with detailed cost and time projections accompanied by a discussion of relative advantages and disadvantages of proceeding with each program alternative. The document would also include alternative personnel policies and alternative program management policies for educational R. & D.

The NIE legislation calls for an organization which will be dedicated to the development of radically new alternatives in all phases of American education. The higher status of the NIE within the Government and more flexible staffing arrangements due to relaxed civil service requirements will attract high-quality personnel from many disciplines and professions, including educational practitioners.

No-year funding will allow many programs to be initiated and deveolped according to schedules that are not tied to the deadlines of the fiscal cycle.

Intermural R. & D. would also be an important part of the NIE's ability to effect change and to relate to the work of educational R. & D. throughout the country. These features are not readily available in the National Center for Educational Research and Development, which occupies half of my time at this moment.

Let me take a few minutes to describe the National Center for Educational Research and Development for you.

The center, referred to as NCERD, has four major activities: educational research, development, institutional support, and researcher training.

RESEARCH

Our research activity is concerned with unsolicited proposals that are initiated from outside the Office of Education. Because the prime objective of this activity is to promote the development of new knowl

edge, the researchers we fund should be drawn from all the disciplines relevant to education. We are attempting to increase the range of disciplines from which our grantees are obtained and to identify the best talent in the country to work on educational problems.

NCERD's unsolicited research is divided into three programs: basic research, applied research, and regional research. The basic research program supports research in academic disciplines related to education. This program contributes to our knowledge about how. people learn and helps us to better understand the social factors that affect the ability of children to benefit from educational programs.

The second program is applied research, a program that encourages development of projects for more immediate impact upon pressing educational problems. For example, the University of Pittsburgh has a project to plan ways for an urban university to change the emphasis of its program from highly academic to activities that solve community problems.

Educational Testing Service had two projects to identify the extent of the reading problem in the country and to describe the reading skills and adult needs to cope with everyday problems of work and living. As a last example, we have just begun a new project to develop a televised program that trains disadvantaged mothers to teach their children. Dr. Lanny Morreau from Minnesota heads that project.

Finally, the research activity includes a $2 million small projects program that awards grants up to $10,000. These grants are administered in the 10 regional offices and serve to help identify and support the work of outstanding young people from both small and large colleges and universities all over the country.

DEVELOPMENT

Our development activity is aimed at solving a few major problems in education. We have decided to focus first on the problem of unemployability of young people who are leaving school without saleable skills and without the inclination to continue their education. We are planning a program of development to help alleviate this problem. Our planning has resulted in an effort to establish three models for career education: a school-based model, an employer-based model, and a home-based model. The models will be developed and modified until they prove to be successful as measured by the career outcomes of students and by the exportability of these models to other loca

tions.

The school-based model, aimed at improving school practice, would organize the entire curriculum around career development, beginning in the elementary school. We plan to develop one to three major demonstrations of this model in fiscal year 1972, building from the best current programs available.

The employer-based model will be created, developed, operated, and supported primarily by business organizations. A group of industrial, commercial, and other kinds of firms would collaborate in developing the program for the benefit of the 13- to 20-year-old age group. The emphasis in this model will be on providing work experience to familiarize young people with the corporate world of work.

The home-based model will provide experience and opportunities for individuals to become more employable by using the home as a center for learning. One of its primary purposes will be to increase the accessibility of career education to individuals who are confined to the home, such as women with young children. The major component of the model will be a career-oriented TV program. The program will consist of spot commercials and special programs to be broadcast on commercial and ETV networks. The primary ob jective will be to change attitudes toward work.

INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT AND RESEARCH TRAINING

The third and fourth activities of institutional support and researcher training are combined into one program area because of their logical relationship. The primary functions of these activities are to develop R. & D. capability in the country and to undertake R. & D. programs.

Our $33 million institutional support program has eight R. & D. centers and 11 laboratories which operate some 60 different R. & D. programs. Among their major areas of emphasis are development of instructional programs (such as the SWRL reading program and the Wisconsin multiunit schools approach); problems of urban education (such as the midcontinent lab's inner city teacher education program to place prospective teachers in ghetto schools during their senior year); evaluation, which is the major area treated by the UCLA R. & D. center, and early childhood education, represented by centers in the national program for early childhood education.

The researcher training program has been changed from fellowship support of researcher trainees seeking the doctorate to internship training of people in development skills.

We have established three consortia of development agencies, like publishers, film producers, laboratories and universities, to provide internships for potential developers.

The remainder of our program is used for internship institutes for developers, materials development, training of minorities in R. & D., manpower analysis and planning studies for researcher training.

Nearly all of NCERD's budget and functions will be transferred to the NIE. This represents $88.5 million at the 1972 requested level. The major demonstrations program, at $2.25 million in fiscal year 1972, would be one exception-this is consistent with the decision to have demonstration programs in the Office of Education. The other exception is the National Achievement Study, which will remain in the Office of Education as part of its information-gathering role.

As Dr. Davies stated, we cannot say at this time precisely what will happen to each program and project as NIE assumes responsibility for these funds. Commitments must be honored whenever possible, without blocking the new agency's drive for progress.

Dr. DAVIES. I would like to call on Dr. Robert Binswanger, Director, Experimental Schools Program, to read his statement, Mr. Chairman.

STATEMENT OF ROBERT B. BINSWANGER, DIRECTOR, EXPERIMENTAL SCHOOLS PROGRAM, OFFICE OF EDUCATION, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE

Dr. BINSWANGER. Mr. Chairman, the experimental schools program is a new initiative of the Office of Education that serves as a bridge from research, experimentation, and demonstration to actual school practice by supporting a limited number of large-scale projects of comprehensive design that have a major focus on documentation and evaluation.

The failure of so many schools to educate and of so many children in school to learn, is, perhaps, the most persistent and critical challenge of our times. Efforts to correct this negative condition and attempts to bridge the gap between developmental educational research and actual school practices have been fragmented and piecemeal and have had a very limited effect upon solving educational problems.

A number of educators, both inside and outside the established school system, are seeking opportunities to experiment on a large scale with comprehensive educational alternatives. The experimental schools program supports such initiative. In January 1971, letters of interest were solicited from the field and from 514 applications received eight planning grants were awarded in February to those applicants who demonstrated both the ability and the commitment to combine a series of promising practices into a comprehensive program of education reform ready for operation by September 1971.

The eight applicants (Austin, Tex., Berkeley, Calif., FergusonFlorissant, Mo., Pierce County, Wash., McComb, Miss., Minneapolis, Minn., Portland, Oreg, and Rochester, N.Y.) submitted proposals in April and these were reviewed by an independent selection committee. Three were asked to submit final plans based on the strengths of the proposals and Berkeley, Franklin Pierce, and Minneapolis were designated as experimental school sites.

A second competition was announced at the end of March and letters of interest were again solicited from a broad spectrum of agencies, organizations and institutions. The new competition differs from the first in its stress of alternatives to what exists today. It invites creative, innovative, comprehensive designs to reform, reshape, and redefine current school organizations, practices, and performance. The experimental schools program is conceived as a bridge (or set of bridges) between research and development and actual teaching practice.

It emphasizes the utilization of research findings and new educational programs and practices in the development of workable alternatives. And it welcomes new organizations and organizational structures committed to testing new approaches to education; hence the experimental schools program is not limited to school districts.

An experimental school project must be comprehensive in that it includes at least the following:

(a) Project goals in terms of the kind and purpose of the learning experiences to be provided.