The text of the Director of the National Institute of Education's February 27 address to the American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting in New Orleans. (Author/JM)

This paper views the formulation of national education policy from a systems perspective; the principal foci of the inquiry are the origination of ideas and their movement onto the agenda for action. (Author/JM)

Reproduces chapters on the second and third of five proposed programs, which are: (1) internal NIE capability to monitor the R & D System and operating system of education, (2) the R & D system, (3) the linkage and support system, (4) capacity in the operating system and (5) field-initiated research on the processes of educational change.…