Looking Back on

37 Years at NWREL

Editor's Note: When Jerry Kirkpatrick came to the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory in 1967, he thought he'd stay just a couple of years. Now, almost four decades later, NWREL's Deputy Executive Officer is leaving to enjoy a well-deserved retirement. Kirkpatrick, who holds a law degree from Lewis & Clark College and worked as a journalist before entering the education field, recently reflected on the changes that have marked his career.

The regional educational laboratories were conceived to shorten the time span between completed research and its impact on practice. Originally, the goal was to move from 20 years to only five years. The concept today is unchanged: The goals now are to make the research base more reliable and to shorten the time span even more.

After Congress passed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, President Johnson proclaimed the "birth" of regional educational laboratories, saying: "They should be large and significant enterprises... comparable in their way to the large-scale laboratories of the Defense and Atomic Energy establishments... Their missions are equally important."

The basic challenge that led to the establishment of regional educational laboratories was the conclusion that education researchers, primarily at universities, were conducting studies on more effective ways to teach children and for children to learn, but they were having absolutely no impact on what happened in classrooms. The reason, the framers of the federal legislation believed, was that the results of research were not in a form that could be readily used by practitioners—the teachers and school administrators on the frontlines. Thus, the challenge to regional laboratories was to translate these research results into new teaching techniques and curriculum materials, and assist school personnel in using them.

Today, there hangs in my office the quilted text of President Johnson's pronouncement—created by another long-time NWREL staff member, Dr. Joyce Ley—to remind me of its significance. It also brings to mind the wisdom of the founders of this particular Laboratory: Dr. George Brain, the first board chairperson and then dean of education at Washington State University, and Dr. Lawrence Fish, who came from the University of Oregon to be the first executive director.

The vision of NWREL's founders continues to guide it. And I proclaim, with no hesitation or weasel words that typically pepper the conclusions of a doctoral dissertation, that NWREL is acknowledged as the nation's most successful example of an organization that assists schools to meet the challenge of applying and using the research results to become more effective.

What are the enduring concepts that make NWREL successful? There are several, but I would say that foremost is one we have termed a "field-based approach." Perhaps an illustration can best define it. One approach is for a bunch of very bright people to sit in a facility—a laboratory, perhaps—and spend a year, or two, or more, scouring research and creating the greatest, most effective teaching technique or curriculum unit possible, then driving out to a school to announce: "We have the greatest thing for you ever created and we're here to help you." Experience shows that approach has limited success. Some of us call it "the NIH factor" or Not Invented Here. "Now put your miracle work in the Lab van and go back to Portland and leave us alone" is the likely response.

NWREL, instead, adopted its "field-based approach" through which our staff performs roles such as coordinator, facilitator, and source of usable, reliable research. We emphasize building skills and helping local schools and districts to "do for themselves." The developers of the new teaching technique or curriculum unit are teachers and administrators at a school, or more likely several collaborating schools, who work with Laboratory staff and each other to design, develop, try and test, and eventually use the new and more effective practices. Data on the numbers of practitioners and other stakeholders in the education process who are involved and have ongoing roles in NWREL activities clearly show the impact of this approach.

To the thousands of teachers and other education practitioners who are working with us in our region and across the nation, I say, "This and the next generations of children will appreciate your efforts very much. Thank you." The mission that President Johnson termed "significant" on July 5, 1966, remains even more so today.