aTime did not permit our verifying information the department provided in a response to a draft of the "Periodicity could not be determined for one survey in 1974. Source: Department of Education data for 1984 and 1985; National Center for Education Statistics, Evaluation Contract activities for the Office of Planning, Budget, and Evaluation from 1975 to 1985 are presented in table 2.4. The activities shown here were ongoing or received funding during the fiscal year. The high level of activity that began late in the 1970's (80 or more awards annually) peaked in 1980 and began to drop in 1981, leveling off to 25-28 activities annually. Overall, the decline from 1975 to 1985 was 73 percent. From 1980 to 1985, the decline was 79 percent. The Production of Information 1975 1976 1977 1978 Table 2.4: Number of Office of Planning, Budget, and Evaluation Awards for Fiscal Years 1975-85 by Program Funding Areaa Area 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 aAwards were ongoing or had funds obligated in the year of the report; empty cells denote the absence Source: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Planning, Budget, and Evaluation, Annual Evaluation Because of a change in reporting during our period of study, we had to reclassify studies appearing in 1983 through 1985 according to the earlier program designations. With this reclassification, we could look across areas from 1975. Within elementary and secondary education and postsecondary education programs, we see declines of 54 and 88 percent, respectively, in the awards from 1975 to 1985. The biggest overall decrease followed the passage of block grant legislation, which affected many of the elementary and secondary education programs that had previously received the bulk of the evaluation support and review.2 Summary When considered in total, the production of information has declined dramatically during the past decade. We did not find a substitution of one kind of information for another. Rather, by 1985 there were fewer research, statistical, and evaluation activities. 2In 1981, the Congress passed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (Public Law 97-35), consolidating 80 federal categorical programs into nine block grants to the states: 38 categorical grants for education were converted under chapter 2 of the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act of 1981. This act eliminated other reporting requirements and evaluation activities, and legislative setasides for evaluations of five of the programs that were folded into the chapter 2 block grant were rescinded. The Production of Information Education Information In addition to the general transition in recent years to fewer awards for Priorities Shift Away From New information, the data on research, statistics, and evaluation suggest that the major information-producers have made changes in priorities in recent years, shifting away from the production of new data, and in the areas of study. Research Table 2.5: National Institute of Education The National Institute of Education funded a variety of activities every Looking at the distribution of awards across these years, we found a very large shift away from new data collection to other activities. In 1980, 293, or 65 percent, of the total 450 nonlaboratory and noncenter awards were for new data collection. By 1985, this number had shrunk to 17 of 157 awards, or 11 percent of the total. In absolute terms, activities other than new data collection, such as dissemination, declined. Dissemination awards, for example, dropped from L The Production of Information Laboratories and Centers 98 in 1980 to 68 in 1985. In relative terms, however, these other activities received the major share of the institute's nonlaboratory and noncenter awards in 1985. Dissemination increased notably, from 22 percent of all such awards in 1980 to 43 percent in 1985. "Other" activities also increased notably from 13 percent in 1980 to 46 percent in 1985. The types of "other" activities funded in both years included research syntheses, commissioned papers, study groups, and expert panels. Activities that were awarded funds in 1985 but not in 1980 included the development of technology, computer software, and curricula and the use of expert witnesses to give legal testimony and write depositions for civil rights cases. Types of activities funded in 1980 but not in 1985 included the development of data files, archives, and fellowships. (In commenting on this report, the department claimed that the items under "Other" in table 2.5 (computer software, witnesses in civil rights cases, and so on) were inaccurate, but we coded them directly from OERI'S information system and have not deleted them, as the department suggests.) We examined activities involving new information collection versus dis- As table 2.6 shows, the laboratories were putting proportionately less The aggregate figures mask substantial variability in the activities of Excludes 1985 data for the Educational Technology Center and the North Central Regional Education Multiyear awards in millions of current dollars. Excludes data from centers supported by NIE's discretionary funds. Source: Department of Education Office of Research Computer Management Information System. ratory-sponsored projects in 1980 involved some funds for dissemination, but by 1985, 96 percent of all projects devoted funds to this activity. Furthermore, across the projects, the median allocation of funds spent on dissemination rose from 20 percent to 30 percent between 1980 and 1985. The shift away from new data collection by the research units may have serious long-term consequences for education information. At present, it is possible to use prior research to address questions when new data collection has not been undertaken. However, prior research may quickly lose its relevance or it may be too low in technical adequacy to sustain continued reapplication to new questions. New data must constantly be produced to meet both departmental and congressional information requirements and to provide up-to-date information to disseminate to teachers and other practitioners. If it is not, information will be forgone and policies will be based on less than the most complete, relevant, and timely data. |