The following databases and websites are good starting points for Education research

Databases

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Education Research Complete
Our largest and most complete collection of full-text education periodicals.

ERIC: Education Resources Information Center 
ERIC provides unlimited access to more than 1.4 million bibliographic records of journal articles and other education-related materials. If available, links to full-text are included.

Films on Demand   
Films on Demand is a well organized collection of several thousand educational films on history, business, the humanities, psychology, science, and careers.

GREENfile  
GreenFILE offers well-researched information covering scientific, business, and political aspects of human impact to the environment.

History Resource Center -- World 
This is a heavily-hyperlinked set of primary and secondary world history documents.

World Almanacs
Offers a fundamental reference source for students, library patrons, library reference staff, and scholars alike. Includes biographies, encyclopedia entries, facts, statistics. Funk & Wagnall's New Encyclopedia, The World Almanac and Book of Facts, The World Almanac of the U.S.A., The World Almanac of U.S. Politics, The World Almanac for Kids

ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials   
ATLA is the main online resource for researching religion and theology. If you are interested in the intersection of religion and public education, you will find much of interest here.

Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts  
Includes a vast amount of articles pertinent to educators, especially in regards to reading literacy and information literacy.

Gale Virtual Reference Library   
Nearly 400 specialized reference eBooks on all academic subjects to dig deeper into the background information.

Academic OneFile   
Academic OneFilehas the full-text of a few million of articles from all domains of knowledge.

OmniFile Full-Text Select  
OmniFile is a social sciences and humanities database that only contains full-text articles.

ArticleFirst  
ArticleFirst is a search interface that can link you to the articles you need. It searches descriptions of 23 million articles from all domains of learning.

Ebrary eBooks      
This search engine exclusively searches our collection of 70,000 eBooks.

Encyclopedia Britannica Academic Online    
This general purpose encyclopedia is a great place to begin your research and obtain the background knowledge on politics and politicians that will make your research process go quicker.

Websites for Educational Statistics & Reports

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National Center for Education Statistics
The National Center for Education Statistics gathers statistics from all the states and collects them in one place. This facilitates national and cross-state comparisons. You can download the datasets to conduct your own research.

Kids Count Data Center
Kids Count is a statistical project of the Annie E Casey Foundation. It can provide you with customzed maps, graphs, and charts of statistical data pulled from vast database of child wellbeing information. Customized statistical or visual data can give your paper or presentation an edge.

Data.gov
This website has two functions 1) making government datasets available to web and app developers and 2) linking citizens and researchers to those websites and apps. The resulting mashups of maps and government data are valuable for politicos, business and voters alike. Most applications involve mashups of search, mapping and visualization technology to make the data more useful.

Government Printing Office [GPO] publications
The GPO pubilshes all of the official documents created by the federal agencies, congressional reports, the Office of the President, supreme court, and more. Find reports on public education here. Links on the home page will take you to the official reports and law created by each of the 3 branches of government.

Websites for Lesson Plans and Resources

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Open Educational Resources Commons (OER Commons)
OER Commons is a website that collects and organizes open source educational materials from many different sources, such as PBS, Smithsonian, NASA, any many smaller groups. They have an extensive search and browsing system that makes it easier to find specific types of materials for your age group. 

Educators Reference Desk
Sponsored by Syracuse University, this site allows you to search and browse lesson plans, a resource collection, and an archive of questions. Many of these resources are not represented on OER Commons currently. 

Free Technology for Teachers
Free Technology for Teachers exists to share information about free resources teachers can use in their classrooms, and has an audience of over 36,000. It is authored by Richard Byrne, who is a Google Certified Teacher of U.S. History and Civics. 

The Gateway to 21st Century Skills
The Gateway is a project of the National Education Association (NEA). You can search and browse thousands of educational resources such as lesson plans and activities. Look for the interactive, spherical tag-cloud on the home page which is simultaneously creepy and intriguing.

Discovery Education
Offers a lesson plan library for educators to make use of their educational videos. 

Lexile Framework for Reading
If you’re struggling to find appropriate books for a child to read, check out the free online book search called “Find a Book” to select fiction and nonfiction titles that best match reading ability and interest. Then, click the WorldCat button to find the title in the WJU Library or another local library. This will also be useful in lesson plans, summer reading lists, and as a tool to match a reluctant reader to a book title more suitable to his or her reading level.

NASA for educators
NASA has organized a wealth of information by grade level and topic.

National Biological Information Infrastructure
A complex name for a robust educational website for elementary thru college level students. Produced by the Biological Informatics Office of the U.S. Geological Survey. It includes toolkits, lesson ideas, a biology web search engine, datasets, maps, and much more.