After an organizational meeting in September, having not met since 2016, the National Board for Education Sciences (NBES) dug into a long agenda on December 4th and 5th. The recently reconstituted NBES faces new challenges to their task to guide federally funded education research. The Institute of Education Sciences is being called upon to help educators and policymakers recover from significant education losses during the pandemic, concerning drops in math and reading performance, rising student mental health needs, teacher shortages, and evolving technology use in the classroom, to name a few – all at a time of limited federal funding. The new Board (not yet listed on the IES site) includes 14 diverse education researchers, city and business leaders, and educators from across the country.
Recent reports from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) served as a significant focus of presentations and conversations. The reports call for major structural and topic changes to IES’ research, overhauling peer review to ensure more equitable representation, and increasing the agency’s supports for diverse researchers. National Center for Education Research (NCER) Commissioner, Liz Albro and National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER) Commissioner, Nathan Jones, responded to NASEM recommendations in The Future of Education Research at IES. National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Commissioner, Peggy Carr, thanked NASEM for providing A Vision and Roadmap for Education Statistics, which will guide the future of NCES.
The Board received program updates from National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance (NCEE) Commissioner, Matt Soldner, and IES Deputy Director for Science, Anne Ricciuti, and established a subcommittee to hire a much-needed NBES Executive Director. Just days before the NBES meeting, Senators Sanders and Cassidy announced a bipartisan bill to reauthorize IES. The shared draft generated many questions and engaged conversation.
The Board’s responsibilities include advising and consulting with the Director of IES (Director) on the priorities and policies of IES; review and approve procedures for technical and scientific peer review of the activities of IES; presenting to the Director such recommendations as it may find appropriate for (a) the strengthening of education research, and (b) the funding of IES; evaluate the work of IES, to ensure that scientifically valid research, development, evaluation, and statistical analysis; ensuring that activities conducted or supported by IES are objective, secular, neutral, and non-ideological, and are free of partisan political influence and racial, cultural, gender, or regional bias.
