20 U.S.C. § 7981 — Evaluations

(a) Reservation of funds. Except as subsections (b) and (e) say otherwise, the Secretary, working with the Director of the Institute of Education Sciences, may set aside up to 0.5% of the money given to each program under this chapter to pay for evaluations. If the Secretary sets money aside, it must first be used, through the Director, to: (1)(A) run thorough, high-quality evaluations of the programs that follow the plan required by subsection (d) and that mainly use experimental or quasi-experimental designs — methods rigorous enough to support strong conclusions about cause and effect — wherever that's practical; (1)(B) study how effective the programs are and how they affect schools and school districts administratively; and (1)(C) widely share what the evaluations find — quickly, in forms people can understand and use, through electronic and other means such as posting on the websites of state agencies, school districts, the Institute, or the Department, and in ways that encourage people to actually use the findings. The money may also be used, under paragraph (2), to: (2)(A) evaluate the combined short- and long-term effects and cost efficiency of programs under this chapter together with related federal early-childhood, preschool, elementary, and secondary programs under other laws; (2)(B) make evaluations more useful by improving the quality, speed, efficiency, and use of performance data; and (2)(C) help grant recipients collect and analyze data for their own high-quality evaluations. (b) Subchapter I. The Secretary must use money set aside under section 6302(e) to evaluate subchapter I programs, and may not set aside any other money from subchapter I for evaluation. (c) Consolidation. The Secretary may combine the money reserved under subsections (a) and (b) to carry out the activities in subsection (a)(1), and is not required to evaluate every program under this chapter every year. (d) Evaluation plan. Every two years, the Director of the Institute of Education Sciences must write, send to Congress, and publish an evaluation plan that: (1) describes the specific evaluation activities planned for the next 2 years and their timeline; (2) reports the results of the activities from the past 2 years; and (3) explains how programs under this chapter will be regularly evaluated. (e) Evaluation activities authorized elsewhere. If some other part of this chapter already provides money for evaluating a particular program, the Secretary can't set aside additional money under this section to evaluate that same program.