ERIC is a system of subject-based clearinghouses and other support activities that maintain the world's largest and most used education database. The laboratories conduct applied research and development, disseminate research-based products and strategies, and provide training and technical assistance. In general, their particular priorities are determined by their own regional governing boards. They give priority to high-poverty school districts and to schools that most need to improve student achievement. The laboratories play a critical role in linking research, policy, and practice.
Reliable data are critical to inform decision-making in efforts to improve education in America.
While today's education and the task of assessing its scope, quality, and impact are immensely more complex, the National Center for Education Statistics continues to carry out this core function for the Department and the Nation. The Center collects, analyzes, and reports data on all levels of education from pre-primary education through graduate study, including adult education. The education policy issues addressed by its data collections are equally wide ranging, including enrollment trends, access of minorities to postsecondary education, the academic achievement of students, comparisons of the U.S. education system with education systems in other countries, and the effects of education on employment and economic productivity. This increase is needed to maintain the current program of the Center. Without the increase, the sample for the National Assessment of Adult Literacy, to be conducted next year, will have to be scaled back to such an extent that it will be impossible to report results for small, but important, subgroups of the population.