H Education Research Board Is Back. Here’s why
Nearly six years after its last meeting, the national board is helping prepare federally funded education research grants to become active again.
Last week, President Biden appointed 14 new members to the National Board on Science Education, which advises the Education Department on research. The newly restored board returns to the Institute of Education Sciences, which is strapped for funding and pressure to help educators and policymakers make sense of how the pandemic has changed education, as the field grapples with historically large drops in math and reading performance, rising student mental health needs, evaporating teacher workloads, and the development of technology used in school, among others.
The new board includes education researchers, city and business leaders and educators from across the country.
“It’s great to see a board with such a breadth of substantive and methodological research expertise and attention to the many varieties that have a mission-critical role for IES work, including attention to immigrant, disability, and immigrant communities,” said Felix. Levine is the executive director of the American Educational Research Association.
Congress created the NBES and approved the research priorities for the Institute of Education Sciences and the consulting agency, but the NBES has not held a meeting since November 2016. The existing members’ six-year terms expired without replacements when President Trump arrived, and the board could. of whom no longer to rule.
Levine said he was pleased the panel would be in place “at such a vital time and after such a long hiatus to help and advise IES as it moves forward with its generation of work.”
Earlier this spring, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released a report calling for major structural and thematic changes to IES’ research, as well as for increasing agency support for diverse researchers and conducting peer review to ensure more equitable representation.
Mark Schneider, director of the Institute of Education Sciences, said the board’s first order of business is to approve research priorities for IES, which has not been officially updated since 2018.
“The pandemic has clearly changed things. There is a different administration, a different organization. The nation has changed. The [National Assessment of Educational Progress] score ” [which declined in 2022 in reading and math] Scary,” Schneider said. “So the question is, what are their plans for receiving limited funds and, you know, how do we deploy them most effectively?”
Members of the statutory board do not need Congressional approval, but they still have to go through an ethics training and clearance process to ensure they have no conflicts of interest, so Schneider does not expect the new board to meet before the new year.
New Members of the National Science Education Board
- St. James Anayaa professor of international law at the University of Colorado School of Law, who focuses on human rights and indigenous peoples;
- Peter Darling-Hammondprofessor emeritus of education at Stanford University and president of the Institute of Education;
- Douglas FuchsInstitute member of the American Institute for Research and research professor of special education and psychology and human development at Vanderbilt University;
- Denise Gandaraassistant professor of education and policy at the University of Texas at Austin;
- Elmer Guy, Sr.president of Navajo Technical University;
- Anthony Harperassociate professor of education and business and chair in urban leadership at the University of Southern California, as well as founder and executive director of the USC Race and Equity Center;
- María de la Concepción Hernández Legorretaspecialist overseeing the education of blind and low-income students through the Maryland School of Education and Mary’s School for the Blind;
- Dana Hilliardmayor of Hilltop City, NH, and former teacher and principal;
- Stephen Klasko Dra medical doctor and executive in residency at Catalyst General, an advocate for transforming higher education and healthcare;
- Carol Leeat Northwestern University and president of the National Academy and professor emeritus of social education;
- Ruth Lopez TurleyRice University professor of sociology and director of the Kinder Institute of Urban Research;
- Derrick Cornelius Scottdean of the College of Natural Sciences and Health Sciences at Virginia State University;
- Carolina Sullivanexecutive director of the North Carolina Business Committee for Education, an education nonprofit in the office of the NC Governor;
- Hirokazu Yoshikawaprofessor of globalization and education at New York University