A growing number of foundations, entrepreneurs, national education groups, and public officials have called in recent months for a stepped-up emphasis on generating findings, programs, and products that practitioners find useful and that will help revolutionize the way America does school. If it takes hold, the new focus represents a break from the "scientifically based" research push, which called for investing more heavily, but not exclusively, in rigorous studies in which participants are randomly assigned to either control or experimental groups, with the aim of generating new, more credible, knowledge on "what works" to improve student achievement. A focus on development and innovation, in comparison, would mean often recycling existing knowledge, and, in some cases, old-fashioned practical know-how, into new, relevant uses for schools. The education plan that Mr. Obama proposed during his presidential campaign called, in fact, for doubling the federal government's $321 million investment in educational research and development by the end of his first term. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, likewise, pledged at his Senate confirmation hearing to promote innovation in the field. Moreover, the economic-stimulus bill unveiled this month by Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives calls for setting aside $325 million for an innovation fund to help spread the ideas underlying the success of high-performing schools and districts.