(b) A plan for broad participation in the design, implementation, and operation of the project including a viable relationship with the community.

(c) A coherent, integrated, mutually reinforcing set of "operational variables" including, but not limited to

(1) The nature and substance of the curriculum;

(2) The nature, role, and organization of staff, and necessary staff training;

(3) The use of time and space, including possible variations in the length of the school day, school year, or number of years required of participants in the project;

(4) An administrative and organizational structure consistent with and supportive of the program.

(d) The term "comprehensive" has acquired a specific connotation among educators referring to the breadth of the curriculum; for example, the comprehensive high school. The term is used here in its broader and less technical sense meaning "accounting for or comprehending all or virtually all pertinent considerations"; for example, including at a minimum all the significant elements of a formal educational

program.

As you know, the experimental schools program will be transferred to the National Institute of Education. We are now making long-range commitments to the schools we have chosen for support. Over the next five years, we expect the program to fund five educational organizations annually, encouraging them to design and construct a comprehensive educational program which presents a significant alternative to present school programs, structures, and practices and performance. By 1976 we expect to see 20 to 30 projects in operation. A deliberate attempt at diversity will be made so that these projects will represent a full range of alternatives in terms of program content, approach, organizational structure, and potential solutions to many of the Nation's educational problems, both urban and rural.

The experimental schools program should not duplicate programs presently available. The experimental schools program is not a "model" school program in the sense of a building model that represents Federal preference. The experimental schools program is concerned with demonstrating new and better ways to educate citizens, applying ideas already verified as feasible by prior research and prac tice, as well as ideas yet to be evaluated.

Support for each project will be limited to incremental costs associated with the implementation of the program such as the development of staff necessary for the operation of the program, the development of materials, minor remodeling, and evaluation and documentation of the project. The experimental schools program cannot support the basic per pupil expenditure which provides for the operational costs of the project, and it cannot support major construction. Each applicant organization must indicate its commitment to provide operating costs for the full 5 years of operation of the experimental school project.

The eventual cost of operating an experimental school project after the anticipated development work is completed must be kept within the limits of available resources so that the program could be continued after the anticipated 5 years of Federal support.

Dr. DAVIES. The next statement, Mr. Chairman, will be made by Dr. Lee Burchinal, Director of the National Center for Educational Communication.

STATEMENT OF LEE G. BURCHINAL, ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER, NATIONAL CENTER FOR EDUCATIONAL COMMUNICATION, OFFICE OF EDUCATION, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE

Dr. BURCHINAL. Mr. Chairman, the National Institute of Education will attain its promise only if its results are actually in widespread use to help improve education. We are pleased to have an opportunity this morning to discuss some ways in which the Office of Education will be able to help the National Institute for Education to attain its goal.

One of the programs in the Office of Education that should assist in this regard is that operated by the National Center for Educational Communication.

The National Center for Educational Communication administers an $8.5 million budget. In managing this dissemination program, we are pursuing five basic objectives:

1. accelerating the spread and installation of validated practices and research based products;

2. strengthening the capabilities of educational organizations to communicate and apply validated practices;

3. increasing access to the current knowledge base or in education; 4. interpreting and disseminating summaries of current knowledge for use by educators; and

5. improving the application of knowledge through applied R. & D. To work toward these goals NCEC is carrying out a number of different kinds of activities. We are supporting generalized communication programs, serving all educational audiences. ERIC and the targeted communications program are two examples. We support projects for disseminating information about and installing specific exemplary program outcomes. Three model States dissemination systems are being developed. The Center provides technical assistance in dissemination and using capabilities among education organizations. Finally, we are providing information services to OE professional staff, through the Educational Materials Center and the Educational Reference Center.

NIE will assume responsibility for research and development of new delivery systems. NCEC has budgeted $550,000 for this function in fiscal year 1972, and these funds will be transferred to NIE the next year. NCEC would continue to allocate a small amount of resources for operations and policy-oriented research for quality control of its dissemination and installation programs. We expect a substantial increase in NIE's funds for research in dissemination to support a major development effort in dissemination.

There must be an aggressive program to disseminate information and foster adoption of the outcome of research and development. It will be the responsibility of the Office of Education to manage that program, while NIE is exploring new approaches.

There are several reasons for this:

The undesirability of burdening NIE with operating responsibilities in any area, including dissemination. These could distort its R. & D. function;

The need to avoid duplication of activities;

The chance to build on NCEC's existing capabilities; and

The need to make use of OE's support programs in installing research and development results.

Both the Office of Education and the National Institute will benefit from mutually supportive relationships between the two organizations. Among the benefits to the Office of Education will be:

1. Production by NIE of an increased number of validated alternative practices to current practices.

2. Generation of research findings and prototype development of improved dissemination and installation strategies by NIE for implementation by OE.

3. Development of prototype designs for training of personnel for dissemination and installation roles in education.

Benefits accruing to NIE from support to be provided by OE in<clude:

1. Assistance during product development to assure that NIE products are not only effective, but cost competitive with existing materials and feasible for use in operating educational settings.

2. Use of ERIC for:

Providing NIE planners and managers quick access to current knowledge relevant to education, including both research reports and examples of exemplary school-developed programs.

Storage, retrieval, and worldwide dissemination of all documents emerging from the total NIE program.

3. Delivery of NIE products through:

Use of existing publication and distribution systems, as facilitated by the OE copyright program and the Publishers Alert Service.

Use of delivery systems that draw upon the contributions to product utilization by State educational agencies, local educational agencies, and institutions of higher education.

The impetus of major support programs administered by OE. including the Education Profession Development Act, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Vocational Education Act, and the like.

Dr. DAVIES. I would like to call next on Dr. Edward W. Martin, associate Commissioner, Bureau for Education of the Handicapped. He is accompanied by Dr. James Moss from his staff.

STATEMENT OF EDWIN W. MARTIN, ASSOCIATE COMMISSIONER, ACCOMPANIED BY JAMES MOSS, BUREAU FOR EDUCATION OF THE HANDICAPPED, OFFICE OF EDUCATION, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE

Dr. MARTIN. Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit the statement for the record and then just abstract it by reading certain sections of it and perhaps shorten it up that way.

(The statement referred to follows:)

PREPARED STATEMENT OF EDWIN W. MARTIN, ASSOCIATE COMMISSIONER, BUREAU FOR EDUCATION OF THE HANDICAPPED

Mr. Chairman, members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss with you our plans for research and demonstration activities in the area of education of handicapped children in relationship to the NIE. Essentially, we propose to continue the development of our activities in this area, sharing the responsibility between the National Institute for Education (NIE) and the research and demonstration program of the Bureau of Education for the Handicapped (BEH).

This year for the first time we are moving into a new phase of Office of Education concern for the education of the handicapped. United States Commissioner of Education, Sidney Marland, has made education of the handicapped one of the Office's five main priorities, and on April 21 the Commissioner called for the development of a national goal, involving State and local, as well as Federal efforts, to provide full educational opportunity for handicapped children by 1980. Research, development, demonstration, and dissemination activities in the National Institute of Education and in the Bureau should be developed as part of a comprehensive attempt on the part of the Office of Education to achieve full educational opportunity for handicapped children.

Concern for education research for the handicapped children can be traced to the first Office of Education research activities under the Cooperative Research Act. From this beginning, appropriations have grown from $1 million under Cooperative Research in 1957 to about $15 million under the Education for the Handicapped Act.

Since Congress mandated the creation of the Bureau of Education for the Handicapped in 1966, research, training, media and grants to the States for education of the handicapped were brought together into one operational unit. The relationship of the research program to the personnel training and services programs of the Bureau of Education for the Handicapped has provided many examples of successful interaction. The current emphasis on preschool programming is directly related to promising research funding in this area. Personnel training programs for the blind have been altered significantly on BEH supported research showing that blind children can use and should use residual vision for educational purposes. The Instructional Materials Center system, over 300 units across the Nation, now operated as a service program to teachers, began as a research program and in general-a research, training and services partnership has been created to work on specifically identified targets such as the above.

CURRENT RESEARCH ACTIVITIES

The program of research in education of the handicapped has emphasized applied research. The guidelines issued by the Bureau indicate that an applicant must specify the educational problem which he is attempting to solve and indicate how his proposed research will either solve the problem or lead to its solution. Applicants are generally asked to indicate how programs for handicapped children would be different if his research hypotheses were confirmed. A division of labor emerged between the old Bureau of Research, now called the National Center for Educational Research and Development and BEH, with NCERD supporting more basic research and all other applied educational research, and with BEH supporting only that research which was clearly relevant to problems of handicapped children.

Current research and related activities in the Bureau of Education for the Handicapped fall into several broad categories, as follows:

Approximately $5 million is currently invested in research projects and R&D centers, making up about one-third of the Division's budget of $15 million. Almost half of the Division's current funds (and approximately half of its funds over the life of the program) go into demonstration or dissemination activities,

Examples of such activities include: (1) a demonstration of how deaf youngsters can be given postsecondary technical training in institutions normally reserved for hearing students, replicated in three settings; (2) a demonstration of a program for educating cerebral palsied children found to be successful in a foreign country; (3) field testing of the OPTICAN, an optical to tactile converter for the blind; (4) a demonstration of a preschool program for deaf-blind children; (5) a demonstration of the use of theater to influence attitudes toward the deaf; and (6) the dissemination of an instructional program found effective for treating children with voice disorders.

The Bureau presently supports a number of curriculum development activities. One project is developing an arithmetic curriculum, another adopting the general biological curriculum for handicapped children, and a third developing a social learning curriculum for retarded children. The Bureau is also investing in the development of a computer-aided-instruction program for use with the deaf, the first application of CAI to a handicapped population.

RELATIONS WITH NIE

Approximately $5 million is currently invested in activities which we feel are most appropriate for support under NIE. This would include support for the R&D centers and the project research. It can be anticipated that the ongoing project research will not require support from NIE by FY 73, as the projects will either be terminated or fully funded. If the R&D centers are continued in NIE at their present levels, approximately $2.5 million will be available for new activities. We will continue to manage the research projects and centers until NIE is appropriately staffed to assume professional responsibility for monitoring them.

It is important to specify those functions which will be the responsibility of NIE and those which will be responsibility of BEH. It is proposed that the distinction be made based on projected end-products of the activities rather than arbitrary descriptions of the activities themselves. This is because similar activities may produce different end products. For example, evaluation studies and research studies may employ precisely the same procedures but in one case the end product is a new addition to the knowledge base while in the other it may be an adjustment in an operating program.

It is proposed that NIE assume responsibility for expanding the educational knowledge base, while BEH assumes responsibility for immediate impact on the education of handicapped children. This, in general, would lead to NIE supporting research of a long-term nature on variables such as the development of intelligence, the development of communication, language, and cognitive skills, the effective integration of handicapped children into regular education programming, the study of personality characteristics and their interaction with educability, etc.

BEH on the other hand, would invest in activities which were of immediate need for program development, improvement, management, and evaluation. This would include short-term applied studies such as the effects of various educational models now supported by BEH programs on the learning of handicapped children, the efficacy of differing administrative structures for organizing preschool programs, the utilization of specially designed resources in the classroom, and the need for and effect of paraprofessionals in classes for the handicapped. Research supported by BEH would therefore be characterized by the need for an immediate answer to a problem which effects the operation of the Bureau or related OE programs.

In addition to its research and development efforts as they relate to immediate programmatic decisions, the Bureau would continue its demonstration and dissemination activities. This would include a range of activities such as our efforts concerning visual aids for the blind I mentioned before. In this particular instance, the Optical to Tactile convertor was developed becauae of the obvious problem that blind children have in obtaining information from the printed page as an attempt to supplement and improve on the information that can be gained from braille materials. Development of the device is to be followed by extensive field testing and evaluation which in turn will be followed by a large-scale demonstration of its use. We can then use our resources to encourage manufacturing of the device and see to it that funds become available either through the private sources and/or from the Bureau in combination with other State or Federal agencies, for dissemination to blind users.