Two new books address two issues of critical concern on the eve of the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA): how confident can teachers, principals, parents, district administrators, and state education agencies be in the quality of the evidence upon which school improvement plans and educational reform policies are based?

 And when educational research shows particular curricula, internet-based learning tools, teacher professional development programs, and other innovations work well for some students and teachers, how confident can we be that they will be as effective for others in different classroom settings?

Answering these questions is the goal of "Scale-Up in Education," two edited volumes produced by the Data Research and Development Center (DRDC) with support from the National Science Foundation. Both questions are concerned with the 'what works' issue, which focused attention in two key pieces of federal legislation on the quality of educational research and the evidence it yields: the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 and the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002. The second question - 'what works well, for whom, under what conditions?' - is sometimes overlooked, but is critically important given the wide range of individual, family, school, and local school community factors that affect children's learning experiences and outcomes. It is particularly important in the U.S. public educational system, where local control encourages diversity across schools and districts, and variety and choice are increasingly encouraged through magnet school, voucher, charter school and other initiatives.

"Selecting educational practices in the classroom and developing educational policies at the district, state, and federal level based on solid evidence of what does - and does not - improve student learning has been a consistent goal of school reform in the United States since the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) in 1965," said Barbara Schneider, the John A. Hannah Chair and University Distinguished Professor in the College of Education and the Department of Sociology at Michigan State University. "From the Education Amendments of 1978 to the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, federal policymakers have been concerned with what we know about what works to improve student learning. These volumes bring together experts in medicine, manufacturing, software engineering, public health, and other fields that routinely extend successful innovations in multiple contexts with education researchers to identify effective models for scaling-up exemplary practices," said Schneider, the principal investigator of the DRDC and co-editor of the books. "They present the results of major, multi-year studies to determine the effectiveness of new science education programs, technology-enhanced reading interventions, assessment-driven instruction, and national efforts to bring extend successful reforms in high-poverty schools. These results tell us a lot about 'what works' - and about how educational researchers can work with teachers, principals, and commercial organizations to identify and hopefully overcome challenges to implementing successful interventions on a larger scale."

The "Scale-Up in Education" books show the key challenges and lessons learned for designing reforms that promise to be effective across a wide range of educational contexts and for conducting studies that provide compelling evidence of their impact at scale. "Volume 1: Ideas in Principle" and "Volume 2: Issues in Practice" are the result of large-scale, scientific research investigating the effectiveness of evidence-based, educational interventions across the country as part of the U.S. government's Interagency Education Research Initiative (IERI). "The ultimate objective of IERI is to improve student learning outcomes and close achievement gaps by bringing effective educational interventions to more students, classrooms and educators in early childhood development programs and elementary, middle, and high schools across the U.S.," Schneider said. "DRDC contributes to that effort by supporting research on the science of scale-up, and the types of research designs required to demonstrate what works best, for whom, under what conditions."

"Scale-Up in Education, Volumes 1& 2" combine specially commissioned manuscripts and commentaries prepared by experts in their fields, including Eva Baker, president of the American Educational Research Association and co- director of the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST) at UCLA; Robert Slavin, chairman of the Success for All Foundation and co-director of the Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed at Risk at Johns Hopkins University; and Nancy Songer, professor of education at the University of Michigan and director of the BioKIDS Project. Baker, Slavin, and Songer will be joining the editors at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 29, 2007 at 9:00 am to discuss their research and educational scale-up research. "A number of factors influence the way educators and policymakers think about the challenges of improving student learning, and the decisions they make about the best ways to address those challenges," said Sarah-Kay McDonald, co-editor with Schneider on the books. "The contributors to these volumes underscore the challenges - and the necessity - of designing rigorous, relevant research, accumulating and disseminating our findings efficiently to effectively inform judgments about the most appropriate strategies for helping children learn."