Isolated research conducted by federal agencies or individual researchers is not as effective in implementing educational improvement as a well-integrated program among government, theoretical researchers, and local schools. In order to reduce federal intervention in local school affairs, federal agencies should work cooperatively with universities and local school districts, as the National Institute of Education does with the University of Texas Research and Development Center for Teacher Education and the Austin Independent School District. Such cooperation could help to minimize research problems, such as covering old ground again and simply calling it by new names. Interinstitutional cooperation could also help educators and researchers to make some collective sense of research findings by offering an environment conducive to synthesis. This paper is one contribution to the symposium, "A Federal Institute, A University R&D Center, and a School District Join Forces: The Processes and the Problems." (Author)