News from the
Committee on Education and the Workforce
John Boehner, Chairman

WASHINGTON, D.C. - President George W. Bush yesterday signed important bipartisan legislation, authored by Education Reform Subcommittee Chairman Mike Castle (R-DE), to help students learn reading, mathematics, and other essential skills by improving the quality of education research. H.R. 3801, the Education Sciences Reform Act, is widely viewed as an essential counterpart to the recently enacted No Child Left Behind law, which was signed into law last January.

“This Act will substantially strengthen the scientific basis for the Department of Education's continuing efforts to help families, schools, and State and local governments with the education of America's children,” the President said. “This Act is an important complement to the No Child Left Behind Act enacted earlier this year.”

By modifying and streamlining education research methods, H.R. 3801 eliminates existing methods that are not held to high standards and replaces them with new, more independent and innovative approaches that are based on coordinated, high quality education research.

“I am extremely pleased that President Bush yesterday signed this important legislation into law. This measure will ensure that scientifically-based education research leads to good policy, effective instruction, and, most important, student achievement,” Castle said. “I believe this legislation is critical to achieving this committee's goals of improving academic achievement and narrowing the gap between our lowest and highest performing students.”

H.R. 3801 builds on the success of President Bush’s No Child Left Behind law, which requires accountability and high academic achievement from our students. It requires all federally funded research activities to meet high standards of quality (by including a definition of scientifically based research standards consistent with definitions in the No Child Left Behind law). The legislation also ensures that research priorities are driven by the needs of parents, teachers, and school administrators -- not political pressure -- and focuses on solving key academic problems.

By replacing the current Office of Educational Research and Improvement with a new, more autonomous Institute of Education Sciences, the bill enhances efforts to coordinate and improve federal research -- ensuring better results for our children. The bill also creates three separate centers under the academy -- for research, evaluation, and statistics -- guaranteeing more autonomous research.

“The reauthorization of the Office of Educational Research and Improvement has been stalled in Congress for more than three years. I want to commend Rep. Castle for his leadership on this issue,” said Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), chairman of the Education & the Workforce Committee. “Without his hard work, this legislation would not be getting signed into law. I would also like to thank President Bush and his Administration for realizing that this legislation, coupled with the new education reforms, will give every child a chance to receive a quality education.”

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