This overview of federal dissemination efforts introduces six articles intended to stimulate thinking about certain basic issues of dissemination of education research knowledge and the roles that the federal government can play in that dissemination. Some of the history of federal dissemination efforts in education are traced, especially the main…

This article argues that the U.S. dissemination system in education is unresponsive to organizational improvement needs, and that development of this bias is exacerbated by political, organizational, and programmatic thrusts in federal agencies. It is suggested that systems in the Netherlands and Denmark could provide useful models for adapting…