History, Organization, and Current Projects

Introduction

The National Academy of Education (NAEd) is dedicated to the advancement of the highest quality education research and its use in policy formation and practice. Founded in 1965, the NAEd consists of up to two hundred U.S. members and up to twenty-five foreign associates who are elected on the basis of outstanding scholarship related to education. Since its establishment, the NAEd has undertaken numerous commissions and study panels which typically include both NAEd members and other scholars with expertise in a particular area of inquiry. 

In addition to serving on committees and study panels that address pressing issues in education, members are also deeply engaged in NAEd’s professional development programs focused on the rigorous preparation of the next generation of scholars. Since 1986, NAEd has administered the NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, funded by The Spencer Foundation, which supports early career scholars working in critical areas of educational research. Beginning in 2011, NAEd will also offer the NAEd/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship Program. The NAEd funds fellowship proposals that promise to make significant scholarly contributions to the field of education as well as to advance the careers of fellowship recipients.

Membership and Leadership

Today, the NAEd consists of 165 elected regular members as well as 46 individuals representing the membership categories of members emeriti, foreign associates-voting, foreign associates-non-voting and foreign associates-emeriti. The election process requires letters of nomination and endorsement from current members, a review of each candidate's qualifications by vetting committees and the board of directors, an advisory review by the full membership, and final election by the board of directors.

The NAEd is governed by a nine member board of directors:

President Susan Fuhrman Teachers College, Columbia University Vice President Edward Haertel Stanford University Secretary-Treasurer Susan Moore Johnson Harvard Graduate School of Education Directors Linda Darling-Hammond Stanford University

Greg Duncan University of California, Irvine Margaret Eisenhart, University of Colorado at Boulder Jacquelynne Eccles University of Michigan Judith Warren Little University of California, Berkeley Claude Steele Stanford University

History and Examples of Research

The NAEd was founded in 1965 on the initiative of John Gardner, then president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and James B. Conant, former president of Harvard University to "promote scholarly inquiry and discussion concerning the ends and means of education, in all its forms, in the United States and abroad."

Since its founding, the NAEd has sponsored numerous commissions and study panels including both NAEd members and other scholars. One early study, The Appropriate Federal Role in Education: Some Guiding Principles, was completed in the early 1970s with support from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW). Thereafter, in 1972, the NAEd was asked by the Secretary of HEW to assist in designing the structure for what was then the nascent National Institute of Education. Although no formal reports were involved, between 1968 and 1972, NAEd also made regular recommendations to the Secretary of HEW concerning funding for basic research. Another early example, Prejudice and Pride: The Brown Decision After 25 Years, was produced at the request of the Assistant Secretary of Education. It analyzed the Brown decision, the extent of its implementation, views of its present meaning and relevance, and policy options under which its spirit might flourish.

In 1987, NAEd published The Nation's Report Card: Improving the Assessment of Student Achievement. This included a review of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) by a study group appointed by then U.S. Secretary of Education, William J. Bennett, and chaired by Lamar Alexander and H. Thomas James. The report also provided a commentary on that review by a NAEd panel led by Robert Glaser of the University of Pittsburgh. The NAEd focused on NAEP again in the early 1990s, this time contributing the intellectual leadership and coordination for an independent evaluation of the NAEP 1990, 1992, and 1994 Trial State Assessments led by panel chairs Robert Glaser of the University of Pittsburgh and Robert Linn of the University of Colorado at Boulder; principal investigator Lorrie Shepard of the University of Colorado at Boulder; and project director George Bohrnstedt of the American Institutes for Research. These provide State-by-State comparisons of educational achievement, the first such use of NAEP data. A panel of experts coordinated the study portfolio, and examined a range of major issues: state-by-state and state-to-national comparisons; validity and reliability of the assessment data; content, curriculum, and consensus processes; operations, sampling, data analysis; and the methods of reporting results of the assessments. In 1995, NAEd published Improving Education Through Standards-Based Reform, which was written by Milbrey McLaughlin of Stanford University, Lorrie Shepard of the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Jennifer O’Day of Stanford University. Initially planned to provide advice to the National Education Standards and Improvement Council (NESIC) about critical issues in standards development, this report was instead directed to a more general audience once it became clear that NESIC would be abolished.

In addition to these examples of policy-relevant research, the NAEd has sponsored reviews of research and commentaries on the current state of education research. In 1969, a group of NAEd members collaborated to write Research for Tomorrow's Schools: Disciplined Inquiry for Education, edited by Lee J. Cronbach and Patrick Suppes and published by Macmillan.

In 1991, Michael W. Kirst of Stanford University and Diane Ravitch, then of Teachers College, Columbia University, chaired a committee that again reviewed the state of the field. Consisting entirely of NAEd members (who, in addition to Kirst and Ravitch, included Michael Cole, University of California at San Diego; James S. Coleman, the University of Chicago; Linda Darling-Hammond, then of Teachers College, Columbia University; Lauren B. Resnick, the University of Pittsburgh; and Marshall S. Smith, then of Stanford University), the Kirst-Ravitch committee produced a report published by NAEd and entitled Research and the Renewal of Education.

Another notable study, The Commission on the Improvement of Education Research, was a self-generated study panel co-chaired by Ellen Condliffe Lagemann, then of New York University and Lee S. Shulman of Stanford University and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, which completed its work in 1999. The commission (whose members, in addition to Lagemann and Shulman, were: Charles E. Bidwell, University of Chicago; Ann L. Brown, University of California, Berkeley; Jerome Bruner, New York University; and Allan Collins, Northwestern University) studied the ways in which education research is changing and should change. Seventeen papers were written for the commission. They were edited and published by Jossey-Bass as Issues in Education Research: Problems and Possibilities (1999). The final report of the commission, Next Steps, was a report to NAEd concerning what it might do to strengthen the scholarship of education.

In 1998, at the request of the National Educational Research Policy and Priorities Board (NERPP), NAEd undertook a one-year study of research priorities related to the board's focus on high achievement for all students. Under the direction of James G. Greeno, Stanford University, and Ann L. Brown, University of California at Berkeley, the NAEd convened three discrete panels. The first panel, chaired by Hugh Mehan of the University of California, San Diego, considered critical transitions and the curricula and assessment practices that support them. The second panel, chaired by Magdalene Lampert of the University of Michigan, studied professional development and teacher communities, including teachers' development of curriculum and assessment practices, and assessment of teaching quality. The third panel, chaired by Lauren B. Resnick of the University of Pittsburgh, considered how to strengthen the nation's capacity for research that will contribute to educational practice and public policy. Within the domain it considered, each panel tried to determine which research topics have already been explored in considerable depth, which need further examination, and which need not only further examination, but also the development of research capacities that do not currently exist. The final report, Recommendations on Research Priorities, was issued in March 1999.

In September 2000, the NAEd was awarded a grant from the U. S. Department of Education’s Office of Innovation and Improvement to convene a Committee on Teacher Education (CTE). Co-chaired by Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford University and John Bransford of the University of Washington, Seattle, the committee met regularly to develop a set of understandings about pedagogical knowledge that, in addition to content knowledge and in-service experience, would be indispensable to good teaching. A reading subcommittee was also formed and chaired by Catherine Snow of Harvard University. The members of the CTE, which was composed of researchers, teacher educators, and teachers, developed recommendations and collaborated with a network of seven universities to investigate how these recommendations might be implemented. The project was initially funded as a three-year initiative and NAEd received additional funding from the Ford Foundation to complete the work of the committee. Three major publications resulting from the work of the NAEd Committee on Teacher Education (CTE) were published in 2005: Preparing Teachers for a Changing World: What Teachers Should Learn and Be Able to Do; A Good Teacher in Every Classroom: Preparing the Highly Qualified Teachers Our Children Deserve; and Knowledge to Support the Teaching of Reading.

In the fall of 2006, a committee was constituted to synthesize the social science research as it related to the “Meredith” Supreme Court cases on the use of race-conscious school assignment policies. In June 2007, the committee, which was chaired by Robert Linn of the University of Colorado at Boulder, released the now widely disseminated report, Race-Conscious Policies for Assigning Students to Schools:
Social Science Research and the Supreme Court Cases.

In 2008, NAEd undertook an initiative designed to help policymakers better understand key education issues by providing them with independent, research-based information. Project working groups, consisting of the nation’s top education researchers, developed white papers to address the following important education policy areas: science and mathematics education; standards, assessments, and accountability; teacher quality; and time for learning. Briefing sheets were also developed for these topics as well as for equity and excellence in American education and reading and literacy. Each white paper reviews the best available research evidence and presents possible policy options or recommendations. The initiative was chaired by Lauren Resnick, University of Pittsburgh.

Current Projects Sponsored by the National Academy of Education (NAEd)

NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship Program:

For the past twenty-five years, the NAEd has administered a postdoctoral fellowship program funded by the Spencer Foundation to promote scholarship in the United States and abroad on matters relevant to the improvement of education in all its forms. National Academy of Education members serve on the postdoctoral selection committee each year, and all NAEd members are asked to participate in the process by reading selected semi-finalist applications or participating in fellowship activities. Hilda Borko, University of Colorado at Boulder, currently serves as chair of the selection committee. Fellows receive funding for one full-time or two half-time years of research. In addition, fellows are asked to present their research at NAEd annual meetings and attend retreats where they can discuss their work and participate in career development activities with NAEd members and former fellows. To date, the NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship Program has provided over 680 fellowships to scholars in the United States and other countries around the world.

NAEd/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship Program:

Beginning in 2011, the NAEd will begin administration of the NAEd/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship Program. The fellowship program will provide stipends to promising young scholars to support them in completion of their dissertation writing. Fellows will also be funded to attend a series of community building and training activities that will provide them with opportunities to interact with and learn from leading scholars in the field. The goal of program retreats will be to provide guidance and professional development support to help fellows expand and deepen their academic research and to launch their academic careers.

Adolescent Literacy Predoctoral Fellowship Program:

The goal of this program, launched with support from Carnegie Corporation of New York, is to strengthen and stimulate adolescent literacy education by encouraging more scholars to conduct dissertation research focused on improving literacy outcomes for middle and secondary students. Fellows receive research funding to support them in finalizing their dissertation proposal, designing and conducting rigorous research, analyzing their data, and writing up their dissertation research results. Two cohorts of twenty fellows have been funded for the two-year fellowships. Catherine Snow of Harvard University serves as chair of the fellowship selection committee.

Systematic Assessment of Education Research Doctorate Programs:

The American Educational Research Association (AERA) and NAEd are working together to conduct a systematic assessment of education research doctorate programs using the methodology of the National Research Council (NRC) Assessment of Research Doctorate Programs. Currently, education research is not included as a field in the NRC study taxonomy. The study will provide critical data that can be used to establish benchmarks and quality criteria to improve education research doctorate programs nationally. In addition to collecting and reporting on program attributes such as student and faculty demographics, program characteristics, and the scholarly productivity and impact of faculty, this study will also assess the extent and nature of methodological preparation of education research doctoral students. This effort is being co-led by Felice Levine, AERA, and Lorrie Shepard, University of Colorado at Boulder.

Collaborations with the National Research Council:

Beginning in 2005, the NAEd and the NRC have entered into a more formal collaboration to engage their respective disciplinary strengths in order to advance the highest quality education research. To facilitate the development of this collaboration, the NAEd moved its offices to the Keck Center of the National Academies in Washington, DC.

Two reports developed in collaboration with the NRC and funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York have been released in 2010. Getting Value Out of Value-Added documents discussions of a workshop to help policy makers understand the current strengths and limitations of value-added approaches, including their responsible and defensible uses in education settings. The report committee was chaired by Henry Braun of Boston College, and the workshop brought together experts in educational testing and accountability, value-added methodology from both the economics and statistical traditions, and state and local data systems to help identify areas of emerging consensus as well as areas of disagreement regarding appropriate uses of value-added methods. A second joint report, High School Dropout, Graduation, and Completion Rates: Better Data, Better Measures, Better Decisions, was also released by NRC and NAEd in 2010. The committee was chaired by Robert M. Hauser of the National Research Council and University of Wisconsin, Madison. The report provides recommendations to federal, state, and local education officials on how data systems can be enhanced to supply a more accurate and comparative assessment of high school completion rates.

Exploring the Uses of Data Captured from Adaptive Educational Technologies (AET):
In late 2010, the NAEd received funding from the Pearson Foundation to carry out a project to explore the potential uses of data captured from interactive learning technologies for research on learning. Bringing together researchers, industry leaders, and research funders, an organizing committee convened an initial planning meeting (May 12, 2011) and a larger collaborative summit (December 1-2, 2011) organized around the following questions:

Two publications for this project are being finalized and will be released later this year: a background paper canvassing current research on adaptive educational technologies, and a white paper based on proceedings of the AET Summit. Susan Fuhrman of Teachers College, Columbia University, James Gee of Arizona State University, and Brian Rowan of University of Michigan, serve as co-chairs for this project.

Evaluation of Teacher Education Programs: Toward a Framework for Innovation:
Funded by the National Science Foundation, the goal of this project is to review existing methods for evaluating the quality of teacher preparation programs and to design a framework for developing new and innovative approaches. The steering committee is planning its first workshop on June 25, 2012, and a second workshop will take place at the end of 2012. A set of commissioned papers and a workshop synthesis report will also be produced as part of this project.

Planning committee members include: Michael Feuer (Chair), Deborah Ball, Jeanne Burns, Robert Floden, Lionel Howard, and Brian Rowan. This project is being undertaken as a collaborative project between the NAEd and the Graduate School of Education and Human Development of the George Washington University.