What Works Clearinghouse Technical Advisory Group Holds First Meeting

The joint venture of the American Institutes for Research and the Campbell Collaboration, contractors for the U.S. Department of Education’s What Works Clearinghouse (WWC), convened the first meeting of its new Technical Advisory Group (TAG) in Washington on Nov. 4-5.

Among the TAG’s responsibilities are to advise the joint venture in its development of standards for scientific evidence on educational effectiveness. The meeting was led by Larry Hedges of the University of Chicago, chair of the TAG, and coordinated by Harris Cooper, of the University of Missouri, who is leading the effort by the joint venture to develop these standards.

The WWC, created in August 2002, is a project of the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences. The clearinghouse will provide educators, policymakers, and the public with a central, independent, and trusted source of scientific evidence of what works in education.

The TAG, composed of 14 experts in educational methodology and research, will play a central, ongoing role in advising the joint venture on the work of the clearinghouse. The TAG will help validate standards for research syntheses, monitor and inform the methodological aspects of the research syntheses, review and recommend improvements to the WWC evidence reports, as well as recommend whether draft reviews of evidence should be entered into the WWC database. The critical reviews and feedback from the Technical Advisory Group will provide a source of expert input into WWC products that is independent of the U.S. Department of Education.

“The TAG will serve an indispensable role as the conscience of the What Works Clearinghouse, validating the scientific integrity of its review processes and reports of evidence about what works in education,” said Grover (Russ) Whitehurst, director of the department’s Institute of Education Sciences, which sponsors the clearinghouse.

The draft standards will be posted for public comment on the Clearinghouse website (w-w-c.org) from Nov. 11-Dec. 3. The final standards will be issued by the WWC in January 2003, to act as a guide in developing synthesis reports on the evidence of effectiveness of a variety of approaches, products and practices intended to raise student achievement and produce other important educational outcomes.

Technical Advisory Group members are:

• Betsy Jane Becker, professor of Measurement and Quantitative Methods, College of Education, Michigan State University.
• Jesse A. Berlin, professor of Biostatistics, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and director of Biostatistics at the university’s Comprehensive Cancer Center.
• Douglas Carnine, professor of Education, University of Oregon, and director of the National Center to Improve the Tools of Educators.
• Thomas D. Cook, professor of Sociology, Psychology, Education and Social Policy, Northwestern University, and Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Policy Research.
• David J. Francis, professor of Quantitative Methods, chairman of the Department of Psychology, and Director of the Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics, University of Houston.
• Edward H. Haertel, professor in the School of Education, Stanford University, and chairman of the Committee on Standards, Design, and Methodology on the National Assessment Governing Board.
• Larry V. Hedges, Stella M. Rowley professor of Education, Psychology, Public Policy Studies, and Sociology, University of Chicago, and editorial board member of the American Journal of Sociology, the Review of Educational Research, and Psychological Bulletin.
• Robert L. Linn, distinguished professor of Education, University of Colorado at Boulder, and co-director of the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing.
• Mark W. Lipsey, senior research associate, Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies, and director of the Center for Evaluation Research and Methodology.
• David Myers, senior fellow, Mathematica Policy Research, and former director of the U.S. Department of Education’s national evaluation of Upward Bound.
• Andrew C. Porter, Anderson-Bascom professor of Educational Policy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and director of the Wisconsin Center for Education Research.
• David Rindskopf, professor of Psychology and Educational Psychology, City University of New York Graduate Center, and elected Fellow of the American Statistical Association.
• Cecilia E. Rouse, professor of Economics and Public Affairs, and joint appointee in the Economics Department and Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University.
• William R. Shadish, Dunavant University professor of Psychology, University of Memphis, and director of the Research Design and Statistics doctoral training program.

For more information on the WWC and the Technical Advisory Group, visit the Clearinghouse website at http://w-w-c.org/.

Contact:

David Thomas

(202) 401-1576