ment alone, over $7 billion have been invested in agricultural R. & D., but less than $1 billion have been invested in educational R. & D.

Thus, the present inability of the educational R. & D. system to satisfy the needs of education for knowledge to guide improvement and reform becomes understandable. It is very likely too small. But smallness has been exacerbated by other deficiencies.

The reputation of educational R. & D. has been relatively low. It has not occupied the rank in the hierarchy of scientific activities that its importance and challenge warrant, nor has it attracted as many people of as high competence as it needs.

The scientific base has been narrow, psychology has provided most of the basic concepts and techniques.

Its focus has been diffuse. Most of its efforts have been dissipated in small projects asking small questions with small effect.

The linkage between educational R. & D. and the classroom has been weak. Not enough output has found its way into practice, nor have enough classroom problems been solved through R. & D.

Finally, the support for educational R. & D. has been unstable. Rapid changes in staff and priorities in Federal agencies have caused frequent fluctuations of emphasis.

So the reasoning continues, the educational R. & D. system must be strengthened. It needs greater support, higher stature, more high quality personnel from a wide range of disciplines, effort channeled into critically sized activities addressing issues of high scientific or practical consequence, closer linkage with the educational system, and the stable support and leadership essential to the development and maintenance of multiyear programs addressing major questions.

However, the action to overcome these difficulties cannot be taken by the educational R. & D. community alone. Almost 90 percent of educational R. & D. funds are provided by the Federal Government.

How much Federal money is spent, how well, where, and for what, strongly affects the direction and quality of educational R. & D. Thus, it is argued, strengthening educational R. & D. must begin with the strengthening of Federal support and leadership.

Two things are essential, wise management and sufficient funds. But, as a practical matter, neither wise managers nor sufficient resources can be attracted and employed to best effect in the absence of the proper institutional framework.

Thus, the characteristics of the principal Federal agency supporting educational R. & D. are of central importance.

Now we come to the last step in the chain of reasoning. Considering the need, and reviewing the diagnosis of the problems, the conviction developed that to strengthen educational R. & D. would require the support and leadership of a Federal agency with the following characteristics.

One, stature within the Government comparable to that of such R. & D. agencies as the National Institute of Health, National Science Foundation, and National Bureau of Standards. Such a position seems essential if the agency is to achieve leadership among the several Federal agencies that support educational R. & D. and if it is to have a strong voice in support of educational R. & D. within the executive branch and before Congress.

This heightened administrative position and visibility would also be expected to have the effect of raising the stature of educational R. & D. among the public, educators, and the R. & D. community.

Two, active advisory councils, broadly representative of the education and R. & D. communities and the public, to help the agency develop its policies and programs. These councils would be expected to help to assure that the Federal Government's support of educational R. & D. activities reflects the needs and has the support of the educational community. They would also advise on the choice of areas of program focus and help maintain stable support for multiyear programs.

Three, an internal R. & D. activity concerned with illuminating the major issues facing American education and identifying promising directions for educational R. & D. The deliberations of this internal group would help the agency to define appropriate areas in which to focus resources.

The group would also be expected to establish the climate of intellectual challenge and concern for education that would help to draw first-class staff to the agency.

Four, a flexible personnel system, modeled on those in other Federal R. & D. agencies, such as NSF and NIH. The personnel system, it is maintained, should enable the NIE to hire competent staff from many disciplines and backgrounds in competition with universities, industry, and other R. & D. agencies and to provide short-term positions as fellows to those who plan to spend most of their careers in other organizations.

Five, authority, to carry over unexpended funds from one year to the next. The funding authority would permit it to provide stable funding for multiyear R. & D. programs.

The principal Federal agency for Federal support and leadership in educational R. & D. NCERD, as currently constituted, has none of these five characteristics.

Thus, the conviction has developed in recent years that the best way to strengthen Federal support and leadership for educational R. & D. is to supplant NCERD with an agency having these characteristics, the proposed National Institute of Education.

What might the National Institute of Education be like? Now, having reviewed the reasoning, as I understand it, that has led to the call for a National Institute of Education, I would like to present one picture of what the NIE might become if it is authorized by the Congress.

In the interests of brevity, I would like to emphasize the answers to three major categories of questions asked during the planning study. objectives, program, and organization. I would be happy to discuss the other categories in response to your questions.

I will also phrase my description of the NIE in more definite terms than the current stage in development of the NIE may warrant, since obviously what the NIE will become will be determined by the Congress, deliberations within the administration, and the advice and decisions of the NIE's staff, advisory groups, and clientele.

So I hope you will understand my description to refer to the model of the NIE that was developed during the preliminary planning study. With that understanding, let me summarize what such an NIE would be like.

What would the NIE's objectives be? The primary objective of the NIE would be to improve and reform education through research and development. Improvement and reform of three specific kinds would be sought, increased equality of educational opportunity, higher quality of education, and more effective use of educational resources. Education in all settings, both within schools and outside of them, and all of Americans, before, during, and after the traditional school ages, would be within the NIE's scope of interest. And all kinds of R. & D. activity, from basic research to large field tests and demonstrations, would be in its repertoire.

To attain this primary objective, the NIE would undertake efforts directed toward four specific supporting objectives:

First, to help solve or alleviate the problems and achieve the objectives of American education;

Second, to advance the practice of education as an art, science, and profession;

Third, to strengthen the scientific and technological foundations on which education rests; and

Fourth, to build a vigorous and effective educational research and development system.

What would the NIE's program be? The design of the research. program would follow from the NIE's objectives. Associated with each supporting objective would be a major program area of the Institute. Program area I, solution of major educational problems; program area II, advancing educational practice; program area III, strengthening education's foundations; and program area IV, strengthening the research and development system.

These program areas would be divided, in turn, into several program elements. The number and definition of the program elements in an area might change over time as priorities and competencies change. The program elements would comprise, in turn, a cluster of program activities. These would ordinarily be individual projects or groups of closely related projects.

The four program areas would differ in the priority and support assigned to each, in the criteria and methods for program design, and in the range of R. & D. activities involved. They would require different internal organizational structures for their appropriate manage

ment.

What would the NIE's organization be? The NIE would be a separate agency within HEW, parallel to the OE, reporting to the Secretary of HEW through the Commissioner of Education, led by a Director at executive level 5.

Its administration would be provided by the National Advisory Council on Educational Research and Development, which would assist in setting general policy, and the Director, who would be responsible for continuous administration of the Institute's policies and programs.

The internal structure of the Institute would correspond to the structure of its programs. It would comprise a Directorate of Programs, headed by an Assistant Director for Programs, responsible for program area I, development and management of comprehensive national programs that address major educational problems: a Directorate of Research and Development, headed by an Assistant Director for Research and Development, responsible for program areas II, III,

and IV: development and support of coherent, cumulative efforts to strengthen educational practice, the foundations of education, and the educational R. & D. system; a Center for Educational Studies, headed by an Assistant Director for Studies, responsible for intramural studies, conduct of a program of studies of the state of education, analyses of educational problems, and design and evaluation of R. & D. programs; and the usual staff functions for administration and communication.

How would the NIE function? The NIE's functioning may be best described in terms of its four major program areas and its intramural

program.

The first priority of the NIE would be to organize, support, and carry out comprehensive national programs, combining research, development, experimentation, evaluation, and implementation activities, attacking major educational problems. It would devote a major portion of its resources, on the order of 50 percent, to this program area.

Illumination of the nature of education's crucial problems would be a major function of the NIE; the intramural R. & D. activity would play a central role in this process. However, that illumination has not yet been performed, so an adequate definition of problems warranting national R. & D. efforts does not exist. Thus, the following exemplars of problems to be addressed must be viewed as preliminary and tentative. Major problems warranting national R. & D. efforts are the poor education received by the disadvantaged, the inadequate quality of the education received even by those from more comfortable backgrounds, and the need to use education's limited resources more effectively.

Certainly these problems would have to be narrowed and sharpened before comprehensive R. & D. programs addressing them could be developed.

To help solve these major educational problems, the NIE would want to do two things. First, bring to bear in a coordinated way all that is already known or developed that might help in resolving the problem; and second, focus careful effort on learning and developing what is needed to provide better solutions.

Central management of each program element would be provided by an NIE program task force, led by a program manager and advised by an advisory panel of educators, R. & D. personnel, and laymen. The staff of the task force would comprise not only permanent problem-oriented R. & D. management personnel but also personnel seconded from those parts of the NIE concerned with support of work on educational practice and foundations.

The latter group would bring to the problem task forces an awareness of the state of the art in their areas of concern, and would take back to those areas an enhanced appreciation of the needs of the edu cational system.

Program area II, advancing educational practice. The NIE would commit a significant portion of its resources, up to 25 percent, to continuing, cumulative programs intended to advance the practice of education in its artistic, scientific, and professional aspects.

These programs would attempt to do those things that offer the best hope of moving the state of the art forward. The activities would be carried out in many settings, would be less tightly linked together than

the components of a problem-focused program element, and would provide both nearer and farther term returns.

This area would be concerned with the instructional process, content and methods, the educational system, forms of education and their administration, educational assessment, and the education of educational personnel.

Management would reside in a division of educational practice within the directorate of R. & D. Because of the continuing nature of these concerns, each one could be the responsibility of a separate national center, led by a center director, and advised by a center advisory group drawn from those distinguished educators and scholars with a direct interest and competence in the center's area of concern.

The staff could comprise both permanent members and a number of educators or scholars serving temporary tours. To facilitate the exchange of information between problem-oriented and practice-oriented R. & D., center staff members would serve part time on problem task forces.

Program area III, strengthening education's foundations. The NIE would invest a stable proportion of its resources, say 10 to 15 percent, in a portfolio of programs intended to strengthen educational foundations in the sciences and technologies.

Educational practice and the solution of educational problems are rooted in an understanding of the individual as a learner, group processes and how they affect learning, society and its relation to learning. and the technology and media useful in instruction. These would be the central concerns of this area.

Management responsibility would reside in a division of educational foundations within the directorate of R. & D. Each subject of concern would be associated with a program of studies, headed by a program director, and relying heavily on review panels drawn from the scientific community for assistance in program development.

Staff would be both permanent and short term. Many of them would serve part time on problem-oriented task forces.

Program area IV, strengthening the R. & D. system. The NIE would devote a portion of its resources, say 10 to 15 percent, directly to the development of the R. & D. performer community through fellowships, institutional grants, and similar mechanisms.

Among the constituents to which it might want to devote attention are R. & D. manpower, R. & D. institutions, the linkages between R. & D. and practice, and information transfer within the R. & D. system.

Management responsibility for this area would reside in a division of R. & D. resources within the directorate of R. & D. Each constituent would be the responsibility of a program, headed by a program direc

tor.

The program professional staff would comprise permanent members primarily. Care must be taken to coordinate these programs with those of other parts of the NIE so that manpower and institutional programs respond to actual needs.

Intramural program, Center of Education Studies. The NIE would devote a small portion of its resources, say 5 percent, to an intramural R. & D. program that would undertake careful study of educational problems, practices, and R. & D. The intramural program would bring together permanent staff and a large number of 6-month to 2-year visi