REL Contracts Announced

Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Education issued a press release announcing that the department had awarded new 5-year contracts to 10 Regional Educational Laboratories. There is some information in the announcement that I didn't have when I posted Four Labs Flip on Tuesday.

The comments of Institute of Education Sciences Grover J. (Russ) Whitehurst are of interest. He noted that the labs "provide a critical link between research and practice." He added, "I'm pleased with the quality of the 10 organizations that have won the competition. We look forward to a very productive relationship as we work to meet the research needs of those engaged in improving the effectiveness of education."

The other piece of information is the total amount of each contract for the next five years. To get a sense of how much research the labs are supposed to do on issues affecting rural schools use the following calculation. (1) Add up the contract amounts for all the labs. (2) Multiple the sum by 25% since IES is required to make sure that a quarter of the labs work focuse on issues affecting rural communities. (3) Divide the product by 5 to get the amount the ten labs collectively are supposed to allocate toward rural issues each year. Could someone with a calculator post the answer for us?