With political change coming soon to the nation's capital, policymakers and national groups are trying to divine what the shifts might mean for the U.S. Department of Education's long-running, and sometimes controversial, campaign to transform education into an "evidence based" field. The movement to promote more scientifically rigorous…

This article discusses how a U.S. education research arm earned qualified praise for playing a difficult role. Concerned about the credibility of federally financed education studies, Congress passed a law in the fall of 2002 that replaced the U.S. Department of Education's top research office with the Institute of Education Sciences. This article…