1965 National Association of Educational Broadcasters Convention; Educational Broadcasting and the NDEA: Dr. Hendrick Gideonse

Which now were the responsibility of the office. And if it was not organized to sort of handle those functions how might the office be reorganized so that it would or could be three individuals headed by Dwight NK The Atomic Energy Commission were given 60 days in which to explore this problem and make recommendations to the president the secretary and Commissioner couple. They conducted a thorough and gentle review of the Office of Education. I've said this before. It's not my phrases steal from Frank couple that the the way in which. The route to the review and analysis of the administration is conducted was gentle. The indication of that was that no one ever called it an inquisition and it could have been called that with writing cutting it. It was not. And it was a thorough self study. The office could have been organized along a whole

series or a variety of different parameters. They elected to go with age group or level school level as the fundamental organizing principle of the office one could have done other things but you picked what seems to be best and they picked educational level so that the main operating branches of the office are now organized into four. Bureaus of your own elementary secondary education. If you're a higher education bureau of adult and vocational education and a bureau of research the latter being the bureau for which I am the planning officer. The Bureau of research. So I'm going to blackboard whether your research was conceived as a separate bureau that would support the functions of the other three bureaus.

And it was organized in the following way you have five divisions. You had a division of elementary secondary research which corresponds to the Bureau of elementary secondary. A division of Higher Education Research again corresponding and a division of adult vocational research corresponding to the Bureau of adult and vocational education. Two other divisions a division of research training and dissemination responsible for the training of educational researchers and formatting certain kinds of dissemination programs and. Title 7 be of course fits there. And a fifth division of laboratories and research development. Responsible for all of our major programs of program matic support laboratories research and development centers and other programs that we would get into the program attic support and then the research development function which is. Essentially starting things in areas where nothing is being done and and some of the

gari far out not immediately obvious payoff kinds of things. Well if you're going to organize a research bureau in that way the first thing that's going to happen is you're going to get lots of squawks from the researchers. If they don't think that educational research should be organized that way. And of course it shouldn't be. But then we're not suddenly in the business of doing educational research we're in the business of supporting. The educational system. And if we are in that business then to organize it so that it supports elementary secondary or looks as if it does and therefore creates a responsibility to do so then maybe those activities will really begin to support those those levels of education. We have. Six different pieces of legislation.

Which authorize the Office of Education to engage in the support of Educational Research in one area or another. The one with which you're probably most familiar is Title 7 of NDA. She's media research and media dissemination part a part B. That's one piece of legislation another piece is Modern Language Research which is Title 6 of NDAA. Another is the research authority under vocational education. A fourth is Research Authority under handicapped children and youth which is under the mental health facilities Act which as a title about this long which I can't remember offhand. A fifth. Area where we might engage in an education researches is authorized under the surplus foods. Which are foreign surplus which

leads to an accumulation of fines and certain foreign countries and which we may tap to a certain degree that the bureau the budget the State Department says we need for doing education research in those countries which is both relevant and relevant to them. And then finally the the piece of legislation with the largest amount of dollars behind it the Cooperative Research Act which is a piece of legislation designed to do are to enable the doing of educational research. It is it is blanket its authority is as broad as one could possibly want in the field of education. Those are the pieces of legislation. Let me put this on the board right here. You'll forgive the alphabet soup but that stands for research training and dissemination elementary secondary

research higher ed adult vocational and laboratories and research development. And that's the Bureau of research at the top. And I think that the significant thing is in terms of this bureau is that none of the legislation in terms of its administration. Resides in any one division. It all resides in the bureau. That is the responsibility for the legislation resides in the bureau and all of the divisions have access to the different pieces of legislation through the Bureau. This is very important because it's a radical departure from what used to be the case the office used to be organized so that discrete. Branches or divisions had. Full responsibility for pieces of legislation or parts and pieces of legislation. This opens the doors wide. It also makes things somewhat confusing because you can't go to Tom Clemons anymore and say

you're in charge of media research and dissemination therefore you're the person I should go to. What it what it forces upon everybody in the field is to say to themselves. This is what I want to do with this project. And it happens to be in this area. So I go to higher education research if that's what I want to do or elementary secondary research or adult or vocational I want to happens to be in other words it's this it's the area in which you're doing your research which counts now not the legislation which you you might fit under. We worry about the legislative authorization. You worry about doing the research and doing the projects. Let us let us put them to the divisions into the and to the legislation. We have legislation which is blanket its authority the Cooperative Research Act we also have categorical Khans and vocational and so on are our thinking now as a bureau is to use up the categorical ones in

funding projects in those categories and then save the flexible money to fill the gaps and do more. When the Media Council ask me to speak before them two or three weeks ago they were very worried that the media branch had disappeared. And my reply to them was that it had turned into a bureau. And that's exactly what it has done and so has every other piece of legislation and every other administrative unit in it. We now can do educational research and and all we need to know from you is what's the area and the proposal comes into the Bureau of research. Period standard format for all programs and so on. It sounds positively sensible. It's going to take about a year and a half for that to iron out all the difficulties in-house but in the long run it will be a sensible way of going at it. Well. Title 4 of the Elementary Secondary Education Act the whole act being watched what brought about this reorganization title for that. ACT is a series of amendments to the

Co-operative Research Act. And I'm going to say just something in the brief about that to give you an idea of how broad our authority really is now. We used to be able to do research surveys and demonstrations in education through state education agencies colleges or universities. That was the old Cooperative Research Authority. The amendments to cooperative research in Title 4 of EFCA allowed us to deal with every other possible kind of applicant you can think of nonprofit profit individuals school districts the works. It also permitted us to use both grants and contracts. It also authorized us to engage in the establishment and and support programs for the training of researchers in education so that we can if in effect train the people who are going to be using the money that we

asked for from the Congress in the future. Fourth there is. Authorization and appropriation for the construction of facilities in which research or research related activities can be undertaken and this might include the assistance and the supporting of experimental schools and 50 specific authority to design and disseminate the results of research. I find it hard to think of anything that could not fit under all those different kinds of authority as far as educational research and development is concerned and as is its as expansive as we could possibly want. With all those new authorities we fought long and hard in argued and pounded the table and called each other names

for about five months trying to figure out how we might establish a program or do things differently than we were doing. In order to make research and development a more effective function in terms of the whole educational system. The results of our deliberations was to the establishment of a national program of educational laboratories. A laboratory not in the sense of a place or room or a test too or you know a single location a laboratory because President Johnson called in laboratories. And what we had to do was build an institution to use that title. I would do all the things that we wanted to do in education research and development because we thought they would be helpful to the schools. We our deliberations went something like this we've done research and development for nearly

10 years funded at ever increasing levels of support about 100 million dollars total from the federal. Source and yet precious little of it was getting into the schools we had a marvelous room full of black bound silver lettered volumes detailing the results of research but it wasn't getting out. Teachers weren't using it administrators were using it. Researchers are having a marvelous time talking back and forth to one another and citing one other studies to come in with new kinds of it. But what they were finding out wasn't getting into the schools. We just we talked it over and and came up with the following analysis of the situation there was research talent. There were other institutions research talent colleges and universities primarily but also in industry and we can now begin to approach this source. There is political responsibility for education which rests with the states. There is operational responsibility for schools especially school districts and

administrators and teachers. And then there is the lay public and industry and educational television and museums and and. Theater and and music and so on. All the other areas which we would like tied in somehow because they're educational or quasi educational and they somehow had to come together in some way to talk to one another and communicate back and forth to one another about the research and development function in order that what R&D was doing got into school operation and we became convinced that a new kind of institution had to be set up to do this. Called an educational laboratory which would draw in its governing board on a variety of different elements although not necessarily every single institution that would be represented in a region. If I can I can illustrate this graphically I think you'll get a better idea. They.

Take a region of the country where schools. And universities and colleges state educational agencies. Oh yes. I think it's clear from the diagram here that what I'm getting at is a region that's pretty large. We're talking about 18 to 20 of these laboratories over the nation. And the TV stations and museums and industry and so on. This is a region of the country and we create. Out of. All these different pieces. And I draw out of this complicated way because I want to indicate that it's not in one place

it's all over it's not a laboratory. All of these different. Institutions in the region would have a program needs inputs. This is what we want you to do in research and development universities with top state agencies without schools without and so on. Industry might say you know we've got a problem in training and maybe you could do this kind of research that would assist us in our training function. My retort would get all these things that may happen now people understand that this is just schematic to indicate what's going on the laboratories are by far we have so many dollars we've got to develop the research and development program we're going to do some in-house research. We're also going to set up some relationships between schools and universities and between schools in the laboratory and between a state agency a school and maybe between a state agency

University and maybe triangular relationships between schools universities and a laboratory a whole series of different R&D kinds of relationships and that's doing that's designed to do the research and development part of it. And then comes the other part. Are we having fun. Life for me falling down in the past. And that's the question of service to educational institutions based on what already turns out so the laboratories would turn around and start some dissemination activities to universities and to schools and to state agencies to read TV and they have an incident with two and they might very well do an R&B type of relationship. The idea is to get engaged you know whole series dissemination or service activities to relate the R&D function to school operations.

Let me say a word about the summer nation dissemination can be a lot of things. I use the term in a very broad sense. I don't mean just the scattering of information. I also mean paying some attention to the degree of receptivity on the part of practitioners with respect to receiving that information. Not just planting the seed but plowing the soil a little bit too. And if you get engage in that sort of thing the sort of thing where you hear dissemination activities cover all the gamut of activities you might do teacher training you might do administrative training you might have institutes and workshops you might support in local school systems in a region assistant superintendents in charge of heresy. You might send people around in buses. You might have educational extension agents. Anything you might do with your educational TV you might have a

continuing and service training program based on educational research using local ATV facilities in a real sense the entire program of these institutions is going to be limited only by the imagination and the sense of responsibility that people are engaged in. Now this is a grand scheme. It's going to take time to hammer those kinds of institutions out of these different elements. The first. The first date for. The receipt of prospectuses for these kinds of institutions was the ark was October 15th and we have received some 30 of these. It's not really a competitive program. No one. We can't afford to leave anybody out. Nor can the laboratories. And it's if we're committed in the long run two three five years to have all schools in the nation in a position to be served by. One of these or more of these institutions.

I am painting a grand design. I'm convinced that's my job he invents I suppose as prying officer that. That we are we are now at a position where we're no longer scratching the surface of educational R&D where we're just below the surface and having penetrated we now have some responsibility to think about how we relate to the whole school system the whole school operation. I would argue that that. Three things. Come from this this responsibility one is a redefinition of what R&D is all about in education. That is it's not just enough to say we have to research learning or develop curriculum or find out how to use technology or devise technology to to suit the particular needs. But there may be areas of the educational system such as the in-service training of teachers which might very reasonably consider be considered part of the development function.

That is your human resource factor. I said nothing about exemplary programs or demonstrations that might be something a laboratory would do or might get local school districts to apply through Title 3 which didn't. Did you hear about this this morning. Alperin and Philips and so on. Which has the capacity for innovative an example reprograms as well. We're very much concerned to see that we use dollars in order that people in the field use dollars in the ways that are most closely appropriate to their particular needs in terms of legislation so that they go the farthest. And if we can if the laboratories can can use title 3s money to do the demonstration function of the stock based R&D that's fine at 75 million dollars a demonstration by the week. We like to think we have and we're working very closely with them as a matter of fact. Well. The second point besides the redefinition of the research

and development function is the training of educational researchers to do this job and we are this year inaugurating the programs which by 1970 will train something like 18000 researchers in education different disciplines. Appropriate to the study of the field of education related to that of course is an assumed growth in the level of funding. But then we're still spending even though we have something like a hundred two million dollars this year for the support of educational R&D. That is still less than half of 1 percent of the total amount of money spent every year. On education in this country. An industry that's that operated on that principle in this country at this time wouldn't last five years in terms of its competitive position. And just in terms of figures alone I think you could make a good case for a 1 and a half to 2 to 3 percent expenditure

on research and development. If you redefine it in terms of some of the things I've been talking about then the third point that I would would make with respect to this new responsibility. Is that if we're going to be that big and if we're going to do those kinds of things. And when I say we I'm a den of fighting with everybody that applies to us. Then we have to tie ourselves in to the educational system in a way that we're not tied in now. And whether it happens through laboratories like this or it happens through local school systems setting up people who become in effect training officers or the educational extension agent or a continuing demonstration programs in regions. These are all points for a legitimate debate an argument a discussion doesn't really make a lot of difference. The point is that we have to tie these things together if we really expect the school system to use my boss's phrase to be in a situation where it can can

provide for its own continuous renewal. And I conclude my remarks there and and leave myself open to questions. Like where are all right. Right right right. He was you know he you know where you live you know. And he's well there in their particular concern is directed toward the poverty question which is which is one area just one area of many.

And what is isn't now incumbent upon us that we were we are set up this way is that we we do the same thing with respect to educational research that the National Science Foundation doesn't respect the science if there's a mission oriented agency which is picking up one component then we ought not to be engaged in that area unless we have very good reason replication or that they can't pick up the whole tab or whatever it is. But there is a great deal of coordination between us and our you know on the research function in fact we have one full time person whose principal responsibility is to keep going back and forth between us and I think that history. At Gordon is a consultant to both our you know and your research. And there is a great deal of coordination so that they see things that we have that are of interest to them and we see things that they have they are of interest to us. And there's joint funding possibility we've done some of this already just as we've done with NASA.

There we are. It's it isn't it. Yes right right. It's a proposal by proposal function with respect to things in the office. I can I can tell you a lot of great deal of personal experience about this kind of adjustment between titles. I'm the liaison person in the bureau of research with with the Bureau of elementary secondary education on Title 3 the innovative an exemplary project supplementary education centers and services in the bureau of research offers and performs a specialist review of every application that comes in under Title 3 so that there is very close coordination. And if if a proposal comes in and there is a great deal of confusion in the field as to what exactly is Title 3 and was Title 4. We can iron this out very effectively between the two between your eyes because everything goes as between us.

I should let me say a little bit more about this kind of organization. I hinted at it or implied it when I said when I said that a researcher wouldn't organize things that way. When I first saw that I'll be frank to say that I was very disturbed because I thought I would be impossible to organize a research function which I saw as divided in terms of functional areas like curriculum improvement and basic learning and sociology at both basic and applied research areas. And that that bothered us all. What it has done is forced a great deal of communication between divisions. It has forced the establishment for example. Days composed of people from both divisions. This this is a again unheard of for the Office of Education divisions and branches used to be very tight principalities. And you didn't get outside of your area.

That's that has got to break down in this kind of a structure. Give you an example. Elementary secondary research deals with the whole population the whole universe as. It is defined by the term elementary secondary. That means all the pupils in that category and also the practitioners in that category. So if you're doing research on teaching. It's in the elementary secondary school it's done in that division. Now clearly what is found out about the nature of teaching is going to be very important. For. The development of pre-service training programs. But that. Particular problem is a curriculum problem for higher education since those programs are curriculum programs for institutions of higher education and the students taking them are in the higher education population so that the research on teaching and the curriculum development in higher education on pre-service

people and projects must talk to one another must communicate with one another. Otherwise the whole. Point of doing either one breaks down. Consequently a commission or a committee set up with people from both divisions sitting on it talking about teacher education study of the teachers role as contrasted to the kind of program you develop for training teachers and you can repeat this all along. For example a population group of disadvantaged youngsters is basically elementary secondary vocational education has specific authority to research problems of vocational training for disadvantaged youth. There is a great deal of conversation taking place between elementary secondary and adult vocational on this kind of problem. Further questions.

Right. Well as as you're aware are seven B has there is specific authority to disseminate. I mean. Oh that's right. Over.

Well if it's if if it is we're not going to get engaged in the laboratory and start to start over again. The the authority to disseminate the results of research is specifically that and we expect it to be exercise principally through the laboratories or as we would not be funding individual projects. By and large unless there were a special need that could be demonstrated at the at the national level to disseminate. Specific sorts of things. On the other hand we do intend through the education research information center to do a great deal more and more effective dissemination of research information to researchers and broad broadside to the to the. Whole nation. The laboratories will be linked together through a elaborate. Communications Network which will permit whatever happens in one to be known in another and

the service function. Let's say at this laboratory might be utilizing or employing techniques or materials or technology that was developed in another laboratory at a time. You know you know you know him. Are you asking if we're going to provide the risk capital. You know you're. Right we as a matter of fact we have already done this in the case of modern language

research where. The market. For a particular language shall we say we know to be very small and yet it still exists no matter how small it is. And so we have we have contracted for the production of a supply of these materials which then are available at cost to. To the user. But. That isn't THAT is one area of couples hope for cooperation between education and industry that's going to take some hammering out. And I'd like not to be on the anvil. Further questions. About presumably that there will be physical facilities if you have if you have

in-house research that presumes that you're going to have a house to have it in. But I think the point is that if if one of these large Maurice develops for oh let's say just for the sake of argument Louisiana Oklahoma and Texas that the laboratory won't be in. Baton Rouge. It'll be they'll be parts of it in Houston and parts of it in Dallas and parts of it in Norman and parts of it in Baton Rouge parts of New Orleans and it'll have an administrative center. Yes it will have to have an entity an administrative entity. But if it's in one place and serves an area that big it's not going to serve it. That's I think that's the point it has to have this network. Characteristic. Why here or I should say right here all of us should say so. This is that the seed comes by saying we have the program and there's X

numbers of dollars for it. And you should see the things sprout. And they do. People have been working since well since the president announced they were going to be educational laboratories in the 12th of January they've been thinking about what they might do. There are lots there are a lots of developments. The three southernmost states in the east coast Georgia Alabama and Florida have been working on something. There are at least four or five different things going in New England that I'm familiar with. I'd rather that many emerge as that in the end is another question. There are things going California and Kansas and Nebraska. Wisconsin Illinois Indiana and the Seattle area lots of different things underway. And surprisingly enough we're all worried about who's going to take care of Kentucky. And there are four groups all over Kentucky which has some interest.

We hope to have. Anywhere from 6 to 13 to 15. We just don't know because the prospectuses will in large part determine. What it is possible to do what we expect to have a fair number on the way to the 20 funded either as laboratories or as development grants. By June 30 1966 the dissemination function is the subject of a number of research projects we have underway right now. And hopefully what do they turn out will be of interest to the laboratories in terms of the different kinds of activities that they will engage in which is all to say that not very much is going to get down for the first eight months or a year and a half but that

gradually this function will be assumed. We're very worried about the fact it's not being done. And I think that is spurring us to move rapidly here. You can't move too rapidly. People do have to talk to one another in foreign languages to communicate. With one another and. Our school people still are Charie of talking with university people. And their jury of talking with state education agency people and so on. And everyone seems to be. Groping in the dark mostly toward one another. But they have a healthy respect for the static electricity. You're. Right. There is no one here.

Is right over here. That will never be there. There is I know myself what I read. Oh. Oh. Oh oh oh oh

oh oh oh. Oh. Oh. 0. 0 0 0 0 0 0. 0. 0. 0. 0. 0.

0 0 0. I'm not going to answer this your question in two ways One is to say that the assurance is the same for this program as it is for any other federal program where dollars go to two institutions. They submit compliance forms. These are checked through by Mr. Seely's office. If there are. Indications of noncompliance investigation the whole legal process all charred out in the act. Second point though is and this is the real dilemma is that if the fines are cut off they are cut off precisely to those areas where they are needed most. And that's that's the one that you get impaled on.

And that's why this is true. This is this is very true. You're right. You're right it is not that I should not get into the argument but that is not necessarily if you know the case one has to examine each case by itself. And there is a structure now established to do just this and it performs the function for the whole office. If every single we are all responsible for for checking the compliance statements this is true but the actual negotiation or or administration of the of the that particular portion is the responsibility of the civil rights unit in the office and it's a function which carries across the board for all the programs not just the research or the dissemination or the construction or whatever it is programs. Yes.

You might meet them there. Now you know we're on the same race where. I'm. Out of. Here. Do you read here. Or. Not here here here. Throw away. The knife.

And call. Out. Our rights. Look. For their own plane. No I mean you know. I think that in fairness to. In fairness to all relate one must say that this particular unit of the office. Is only just beginning and is only just started and all the people who staff are from the rest of us. I will not tell you the figures but if you would be surprised to see

what really happened this better be rubbed off his take to the positions that we were going to get. They went to that unit and because they were needed there to do the kinds of investigations that have to be done I think what what you what you say is you believe a man if he said if he tells you something and if you then find out that what he told you is not so then you do something else. But I think first of all you have to believe and and let let the evidence then tell you otherwise if such is the case. It is being pursued with vigor for the questions I have time for a couple more before I run for my plane. What about as rigidly as a piece of spaghetti that's been cooked for 15 minutes. I think that's one of the problems in research in education. We haven't really asked

ourselves what we mean by it. For a long time. Curriculum development for example was an operational function in schools or it was something that the leading publishing houses asked individuals to do by writing a textbook. Only recently really with the NSF providing the impetus has curriculum development become a kind of research function where you have universities scholars and cognitive psychologists and curriculum people and teachers and sometimes administrators. And I would argue the more the better there because they're the ones who really make the difference. They're the ones who make the decisions. All coming together in teams and devising ways to talk to one another and then doing a job of curriculum development and evaluation and redevelopment and evaluation again and then the final refinement. And it's in that. The process of successive

approximation which is really a research function we have. We have redefined that function as a as a research and development function for more development perhaps in the research being an evaluative variety to the point I was making before about perhaps the the development of the teacher ought to be considered a part of the research and development function at least after he or she becomes a practitioner is perhaps the next step. It doesn't make any sense to develop curriculum. Packages in all sorts of films tapes slides games so forth unless the teacher is in the position to use or not you use that particular development. And it it suggests to me that the development process isn't complete unless the capacity to use that material exists in individual teachers. Now that may be a very broad notion of research and development but I'm prepared to argue it.

I think so. Well not necessarily not necessarily. Effecting it in the sense that that program therefore becomes inaugurated or set up in the school but that the that it becomes functionally available to the teacher that the teacher can choose to use it or not to use it as the case might be. So you're not telling anybody you must do this or you must do that. You're just saying Here are several things and here's to the way to use this one if you want to use it and here's the way to use that one if you want to use and here's a way to use this other one. And then once we were certain at the competence is developed leave the teachers free to make their own decisions about what to do when and where. Yeah there's there are there are problems for example in other areas of research and higher education is a

completely different from from research in elementary secondary education. The institutions are far fewer. They have strong traditions of of diversity of approach and maybe research and an institution means only providing ministers of hard occasion means only providing a capacity to do research in that institution that is the planning function. Maybe only that. We don't know and we haven't done very much research and hard to cation in our faces a little read because of it but we intend to do more. May I say something about to leave the rural question we've also not done very much research about what to do with rural schools and there are a lot of rural schools in areas where there are real problems and we and this is another area of priority to which we intend to direct our attention. I really must go I have to go preside over the posting of the banns of of industry and education at the conference and and in Cambridge not the marriage just the posting of the banns.

Thank you very much. Good he certainly thank you for coming and sharing the very exciting prospect that he will remind those of you who are your vice president. I'm going to die from the years of 350.