The scientifically based research (SBR) requirement of the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is slowly changing the way schools approach new learning solutions. It's also changing the way companies market their products to educators. But while everyone agrees the provision's intentions are good, the law has created a host of new problems its authors never anticipated.

Educators, policy experts, and industry heads who spoke with eSchool News all agreed that a cloud of confusion still exists around the SBR portion of the law. And while parties on both sides have struggled to make the necessary adjustments, some school leaders contend that finding proven solutions often amounts to a blind leap of faith in favor of strategies that simply sound good.

At its best, the provision's staunchest supporters contend, SBR will lead to a paradigm shift in education, where a research-based approach to learning eventually will elicit a level of accountability equaled only in the medical field. At its worst, critics say, the law offers too little guidance and asks students to play the role of guinea pigs in a disruptive chain of control-based research experiments that would serve only to reinforce the line between the haves and the have-nots in the nation's schools.

In short, the law specifies that all federally funded education initiatives deployed in grades three to eight must be proven effective by way of "scientifically based research." So if a school district uses federal grant money to purchase reading software, for example, the software in question must be proven to work through rigorous analysis. The same holds true for math and science software, and so on.

But what, exactly, constitutes rigorous analysis? Unfortunately for educators, opinions vary. Mark Dynarski of Mathematica Policy Research Inc., an independent research group tapped by the U.S. Department of Education (ED) in October to begin evaluating the effectiveness of educational technology initiatives in the nation's schools, says the most effective form of research is what's known as random assignment.

Dynarski says service providers can test the effectiveness of their products by conducting control-based experiments on two like groups of students to demonstrate the products had a direct impact on student test scores, for example.

But for many school leaders, the control approach--while effective--raises serious political and ethical concerns. To conduct such research, educators would have to give the technology or learning solution in question to a single group of students within the school, while denying other students access to the same potential benefits.

Many people who spoke with eSchool News agreed the dilemma has resulted in a standoff between companies looking to put the evidenced-based seal of approval on their products and educators who ask: What's in it for us? While some schools have requested that the companies leave their products behind when they finish, others have demanded their corporate partners pay for staff development or, in some cases, reportedly buy their way into the schools the old-fashioned way: with cold, hard cash.