DR. ORLAND: I think we are ready to begin the afternoon session. Hopefully you have been well satiated with your lunch as well as the intellectual discussion. We think we did a reasonable job or at least we hope we have in transitioning in the last session from the conceptual discussions of applications of multi-method research to the applied by looking at some specific examples.

In terms of having executive leadership roles at the federal, state and local levels in his 30-year career I guess now, Pat is currently the Superintendent of Schools in the Austin Independent School District. He has been in that position since 1999.

The 3 years prior to that he was Commissioner of Statistics at the National Center for Education Statistics. Prior to that he was the State Superintendent Schools for the State of Delaware and prior to that he was the first Executive Director of the National Education Goals Panel. This does not mean you can't hold a job, Pat. Interpretation of data is really very important in multi-methods examination and that is not how I choose to interpret it. He has also had positions in the Connecticut State Department of Education, has been public a schoolteacher, and has a PhD from Stanford University.

Kathy Borman is Associate Director of the David Anchin Center, University of South Florida and Associate Director for the Research Initiatives. The mission of this center includes assisting schools in carrying out school reforms as well as taking on research in scholarships that contribute to these activities and to ongoing national policy debates on contemporary education issues.

She has served as Associate Dean of Research and Development, University of Cincinnati in the early nineties where she provided support to faculty in that large urban university setting which linked faculty efforts with agencies including the Urban Appalachian Council and the Cincinnati Public Schools.

She received her PhD in sociology of education, the University of Minnesota in 1976.

Brian Rowan is the Burke A Hinsdale Collegiate Professor of Education at the University of Michigan and a principal researcher at the Consortium for Policy Research in Education as well as director of a study of instructional improvement.

He is a sociologist by training whose interests lie at the intersection of organizational theory and school effectiveness research. His current research includes a large-scale longitudinal study for design, implementation, and instructional effectiveness of three of America's largest comprehensive school reform initiatives.

Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Michigan Rowan was an associate professor, Chair of the Department of Educational Administration at Michigan State University and prior to that a senior research director at Far West Laboratory for educational research and development.

The way we are going to go ahead with this session is Pat is going to take about 10 minutes to describe the basic nature of the Austin blueprint and the challenge that he is going to be calling out for assistance from the panelists and later from the audience.

Pat as you know is very busy and the way I was able to persuade him to come to this session was that it was free consulting.

So, please members of the audience don't make a liar out of me. We will have initial comments then by Drs. Rowan and Borman, then some reactions from Pat and then we hope to have several minutes of give and take and back and forth with the audience, the end result being that we will all have a more solid understanding of both the opportunities and challenges that are associated with a multi-methods research program that can really inform key decisions by education policy makers.

With that I will turn it over to Pat.