I'm not the biggest fan of the What Works Clearinghouse (as you might note from my earlier rant on "What Works" best for ELL tots: lions or aardvarks). So it gives me pleasure to share, as reported in a recent EdWeek article, that IES has formally acknowledged that WWC might need some tweaking to actually become relevant to educators.
You might have expected big things in the first 4 years of the WWC. I mean, when the American Institutes for Research, which must be the biggest ed research firm by now having eaten up most of its smaller competitors in the past five years, teams up with big-time subcontractors like Lockheed Martin and the University of Pennsylvania, you'd think something pretty big would come out of it. But you'd be wrong.
Yes, there's been a lot of time and effort (oh, and a little money too) invested in creating an initial infrastructure and then protocols for review, advisory groups and other "products, activities and services". But still there are only 7 topics covered and a paltry number of studies that may or may not work but at least made it through the crazy filter set up to distinguish good research from bad.
Really, though, I'm glad that they've seen the light and are looking for ways to include real programs and practices that schools and communities are using. It should push AIR or any other potentially winning bidders to change the approach, which is a good thing.
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