January 2024

The National Board for Education Sciences (NBES), the advisory board for the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), held its most recent meeting on January 29. The meeting agenda included a conversation with Friends of IES (FIES), represented by AERA Executive Director Felice Levine and AERA Assistant Director for Government Relations Christy Talbot. The mission of FIES is to advocate for robust and sustained funding to enable IES to carry out its mission of producing research, statistics, and evidence-based tools to inform education policy and practice.

In a presentation to NBES members, Levine and Talbot provided a brief overview of the mission and composition of the FIES coalition, detailed the coalition’s activities, and provided potential opportunities for collaboration to support advocacy for the overall investment in IES.

“The value of groups like Friends of IES includes the opportunity for like-minded organizations to network and engage in activities with a common goal such as advocating for education research and data funding,” said Levine. “We welcome collaboration with the board in thinking through how it can highlight the impact of IES investment and showing why it is important to invest in IES.”

NBES members discussed how the work of the policy subcommittee could complement efforts undertaken by groups such as FIES, including by detailing examples of IES investment and needs, along with disseminating IES-funded work. NBES Chair Carol Lee noted the importance of outcome data to demonstrate impact as well as to determine whether there are significant gaps in particular areas.  

The board also discussed the process and timeline for appointing an executive director, a position that has been vacant since 2017. The executive director would support the board’s congressionally mandated responsibilities under the Education Sciences Reform Act, such as its annual report to Congress. The executive director would also support the two subcommittees established for policy and review of the 2022 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine reports on IES activities (The Future of Education Research at IES, A Pragmatic Future for NAEP, and A Vision and Roadmap for Education Statistics).