Introduction: SEDL Celebrates Successes Past and Present

2006 has been a great year for SEDL. Not only have we celebrated our 40th anniversary, but we’ve also broken ground on a new headquarters and taken on new projects to strengthen teaching and learning. The recent work includes overseeing three randomized controlled trial studies, joining forces with the Harvard Family Research Project to serve as the national coordinator for the Parental Information and Resource Centers, working with the Campbell and Cochrane collaborations to facilitate systematic reviews of disability research, and participating in a dissemination effort with the National Institute for Literacy to reach parents and teachers with research-based reading resources.

This issue of SEDL Letter celebrates our history and touches upon our new work. Throughout the years SEDL has remained committed to quality education for all learners, especially students living in poverty and English language learners. With each reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, our staff has taken on new challenges and usually new scopes of work. Given the orientation toward the use of more rigorous education research called for in the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), the most recent reauthorization, we are committed to developing such research findings and helping educators to use them. In this issue, we have included an article on the need for educators to have access to relevant, high-quality research findings and to be able to apply those findings to their local settings. We also discuss briefly the three randomized controlled trials that SEDL is monitoring to examine the effectiveness of certain types of reading programs in afterschool settings.

We wish all of our readers joyous holidays and a happy new year!

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