ing and informing practice than in education (NRC, l999c). While the size of the increase needed to substantially change the relationship between research and practice is significant, as a fraction of education spending, it is very small.

For medical problems like cancer, we have created federal research programs that create a vision, focus research efforts on areas with promise for improving treatments, conduct extensive field tests to determine “what works,” and facilitate the movement of research findings into practice (National Cancer Institute, 2000). And those programs have been funded at impressive levels: The National Cancer Institute budget in fiscal year 2000 exceeded $3.3 billion. If we are serious about a research program that would support efforts to reduce the number of children who are on a trajectory that leads to school failure and disability identification and to increase the number of minority students who are achieving at high levels, then we will need to devote the minds and resources to that effort commensurate with the size and the importance of the enterprise.