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The Department of Education, in a bid to make its $15 million What Works Clearinghouse Web site more useful to policymakers and practitioners, quietly unveiled a new face for the site this month.

Begun in 2002, the What Works project is aimed at vetting research on educational interventions and programs so that decisionmakers can make informed choices about 鈥渨hat works鈥濃�攐r is likely to work鈥攊n their own schools.

The initial reports, posted on the Web site since 2004, mostly gauged whether individual studies met the clearinghouse鈥檚 tough evidence standards. So few studies passed muster, though, that clearinghouse operators worried that practitioners would get discouraged from using it.

To address the problem, the revamped Web site includes new 鈥渋ntervention reports鈥� that contain program descriptions, information on costs to implement the program, and simple, Consumer Reports-style ratings on program effectiveness in specific areas.

Gone Fishing?

To calculate the ratings, clearinghouse reviewers will also be allowed to weigh some smaller studies with strong positive effects as showing 鈥減otentially positive鈥� evidence that a program works, rather then disregard the findings for failing to achieve statistical significance.

View on character education from the .

鈥淭his is an attempt to deal with what to do with this whole literature when there鈥檚 so little literature out there,鈥� said Grover J. 鈥淩uss鈥� Whitehurst, the director of the department鈥檚 Institute of Education Sciences, which oversees the clearinghouse.

Mr. Whitehurst discussed the changes during the May 8-9 meeting here of the National Board for Education Sciences, a 14-member group appointed by the president to advise the institute on setting priorities for its work. While board members applauded the changes, some independent observers offered a more skeptical assessment.

鈥淭he problem they鈥檙e facing is they don鈥檛 have anything to report, so they鈥檙e fishing for other results,鈥� said Frederic A. 鈥淔ritz鈥� Moser, a senior consultant to the Consortium for Policy Research in Education, a five-university research collaboration housed at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e caught in a dilemma they鈥檝e created by stressing [methodological] rigor. Now they want to get back to relevance.鈥�

However, Rebecca Herman, the What Works project director and a principal research scientist at the Washington-based American Institutes for Research, said the clearinghouse was not retreating from its commitment to setting high standards for educational research.

鈥淲e鈥檙e trying to help people focus on the body of evidence for an intervention and not just one study at a time,鈥� she said.

Positive Thinking

The clearinghouse used the new format to review four character education programs: An Ethics Curriculum for Children, an elementary-level program developed by the Pittsburgh- based Heartwood Institute; Building Decision Skills, developed by the Institute for Global Ethics in Camden, Maine, and aimed at middle and high school students; Facing History and Ourselves of Brookline, Mass., which focuses on World War II and the Holocaust; and Lessons in Character, distributed by Young People鈥檚 Press Inc. of San Diego, for use in elementary and middle schools.

The resulting reviews, posted on the Web site two weeks ago, judge the four programs on how effectively they produce changes in three areas: students鈥� behavior; their knowledge, attitudes, and values; and their academic achievement.

No program was found to show 鈥減ositive鈥� effects, the group鈥檚 highest rating. But two programs鈥擝uilding Decision Skills and Lessons in Character鈥攇ot 鈥減otentially positive鈥� ratings in some categories.

Mr. Whitehurst told the board on May 8 that the introduction of the 鈥減otentially positive鈥� category also allows reviewers to weigh positive evidence from research that is well designed but 鈥渦nderpowered鈥濃�攊n other words, studies that may include too few students or classrooms to produce effects large enough to pass technical tests of statistical significance.

鈥淧art of what鈥檚 going on here is that we are reanalyzing all the studies because many were misanalyzed, and the underpowered problem is greater when you do the analysis correctly than it appears in the literature itself,鈥� Mr. Whitehurst said.

Now that the new ratings system is in place, project officials said, the clearinghouse will begin rolling out more reports. Currently, the Web site posts reviews in only two subjects areas: middle school mathematics and character education.

The clearinghouse redesign is part of a broader effort underway at the Institute of Education Sciences to make educational research more relevant to practitioners and policymakers.

Urban Research

Mr. Whitehurst also announced at the meeting that the institute had forged a formal agreement with the Council of the Great City Schools, a Washington-based group that represents the nation鈥檚 largest urban districts, to collaborate on research-oriented projects. Among the efforts on the two groups鈥� to-do list: forming an Urban Education Research Task Force, made up of researchers and practitioners, to advise the institute on the kinds of studies needed to improve learning in big-city schools.

鈥淚t鈥檚 easy to be relevant. It鈥檚 easy to be rigorous,鈥� Mr. Whitehurst told the board. 鈥淚t鈥檚 difficult to be both rigorous and relevant.鈥�