Rules for Federal Panels Slows Research, Slavin Says

By Ines Alicea, ELL Outlook™ Contributing Writer

Rules governing what experts can or cannot do while they serve on federal panels can have a chilling effect on those experts and can slow the progress of research, said John Hopkins University's Robert E. Slavin, a prominent researcher who has conducted extensive studies on bilingual education and English as a Second Language. "[The rules] can be quite a disincentive to be on a panel," said Slavin.

Slavin is also chairman of the Baltimore-based Success for All Foundation, which provides reading programs in both English and Spanish. He resigned from the National Literacy Panel on Language Minority Children and Youth last year in a dispute over a panel rule. The federal panel is conducting a comprehensive review of literacy research related to the education of language minority children and youth and will provide research-based recommendations to guide educational practice and inform educational policy.

Slavin said he was already researching whether bilingual approaches were more effective than English-only methods when he was asked to join the panel. Once he joined, he offered his research to the panel. But once he was done with his work and was ready to publish it, he said the Education Department prohibited him from publishing his research before the panel's conclusions were publicly released. At the time it appeared it would be another two years before the panel's work was completed.

"I would rather have remained on the panel but there was no way around the rule. I was not willing to wait that long. [Such a rule] holds up the whole field for two years," said Slavin. "I did not resign out of disagreement with what the panel was doing. I'm still very supportive of the panel."

Diane August, principal investigator for the panel and a senior research scientist at the Washington-based Center for Applied Linguistics, expects that the Education Department will release the panel's report by spring 2005. The report was commissioned by the Education Department, with some additional support from the National Institutes for Child Health and Development, at a cost of $1 million.

When asked about Slavin's departure from the panel, August said she was unclear about his motivation but that the rules placed on researchers were not overly restrictive. "We are allowed to publish all our research with the exception of work specifically conducted under the auspices of the panel," said August, who is serving on her third federal panel and is conducting independent research on literacy in language minority children. "This does not delay any research. All the panelists are working on and publishing research concurrent to the panel. It delays the publication of work done under the auspices of the panel until the panel report is completed."

The panel is redoing the part assigned to Slavin, who said he is sure the new researchers will come to similar conclusions as he did in his study, titled "Effective Reading Programs for English Language Learners: A Best-Evidence Synthesis." After reviewing numerous studies, he found that bilingual approaches are more effective than English-only methods in teaching children who speak other languages to read in English. Moreover, students are positively impacted when they are taught to read in their native languages and in English at the same period in their lives, although at different times in a single day.

But his decision to depart seems to stray from federal panel protocol. Timothy Shanahan, professor of urban education at the University of Illinois in Chicago, commented on Slavin's decision to "quit because he wanted to individually publish the work he was doing for the panel without panel approval or agreement and without any credit to his coauthors." His opinion was that "no one should ever take work done in concert with others and publish it on his or her own without their agreement or approval or without credit." August concurred: "It would be hard for somebody to take a product they have written under the auspices of the panel, publish it independently, and consider it a product of the panel, because it may not meet all of the final criteria established by the panel."

Moreover, other ELL experts serving on the literacy panel who also have served on numerous other federal panels disagree with Slavin's viewpoint on federal panels, saying they feel the rules are designed to protect the integrity and credibility of the panel's work The researchers said the U.S. Department of Education asks them to wait to publish their part of a panel report until all the contributions for that report from individual researchers can be reviewed internally and externally to ensure they followed the methodological rules established by the panel. Once those reviews are completed, the reports are returned to the researchers for revisions so a strong report will be produced.

"If I have done a study in the area and want to publish it, or if I have written a chapter or commentary on the topic and want to publish it, I can," said Claude Goldenberg, professor and associate dean of the College of Education, California State University, Long Beach. Goldenberg, who prepares many teachers to work with ELLs, has served on two other federally funded panels, one called Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children and one known as the Head Start Research Panel. "What I can't do-and shouldn't do-is publish the results of the review that we have been asked to undertake (and for which we have been provided research assistance, logistical support, and-in the case of the National Literacy Policy-stipends) until that review is done."

Robert Rueda, a professor at the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California who has focused his career on ELL students, said he did not feel that the restrictions placed on panelists were unreasonable but that experts sometimes decline to participate because of the amount of work and time required to participate. "Most people do it as part of their academic contribution to the field," said Rueda, who teaches courses in educational psychology, language, literacy, and learning. "Although there is a stipend involved, it in no way covers the amount of time and effort. No one does it for the money."

The researchers said sometimes it is easier and more efficient for them to work independently or in small groups to conduct research. They said panel work can be cumbersome, slow, frustrating, and time consuming. However, most welcome opportunities to work on panels because they learn from the experience and they get to exchange ideas with some of the "most accomplished and recognized people in their fields," said Rueda.

"The work undertaken by the panel as a whole would be difficult for a single individual to undertake, and certainly could not be undertaken in the same level of detail," said David Francis, professor and chair of psychology and director of the Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation and Statistics at the University of Houston. "Dr. Slavin focused on one part of one question addressed by the panel. More importantly, there is benefit to working as a panel in framing the questions and in deciding on the methods and standards to be applied in the review. Those processes take time, but, in the end, they enhance the research and justify the added time."

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