The National Science Education Standards state "Teachers of science will be the representatives of the science community in their classes". A number of funding agencies, as well as industries, offer opportunities for teachers to be involved in research during the summer.

A number of NSF-funded centers, such as the Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers, run RET programs. The RET Network is a organization of people who run and work with these programs and their website has a lot of information, including a list of RET sites, and evaluation materials.

NSF funds a number of RET Programs

• The Engineering Directorate will fund supplements to existing grants and RET sites(NSF 07-557). This program funds current teachers as well as pre-service (i.e. undergrads) teachers and also funds two-year college faculty. Deadline for current RFP is July 7, 2007.
• The Biological Science Directorate accepts supplemental requests from current grant holders for RET funding for current K-12 teachers. Applicants may also include requests for funding in grant proposals (NSF 05-524)
• Most Directorates accept supplement requests and requests as parts of research grant proposals. Geosciences and Computer Science have Dear Colleague letters.

Unlike the closely-related REU (Research Experiences for Undergraduates), the RET has not been around long enough for there to be a lot of evaluation. A number of papers and presentations are listed below. Different places use the RET differently.

Literature

• Jay Dubner, Samuel C. Silverstein, Nancy Carey, Joy Frechtling, Tamra Busch-Johnsen, Jeannie Han, George Ordway, Nancy Hutchinson, Janet Lanza, Jim Winter, Jon Miller, Paul Ohme, James Rayford, Kathryn Sloane Weisbaum, Kaye Storm, and Elda Zounar, Evaluating Science Research Experience for Teachers Programs and their Effects of Student Interest and Academic Performance: A Preliminary Report of an Ongoing Collaborative Study by Eight Programs, J. Mater. Educ. 23, 57 (2001).
• Fiona Goodchild and Carol Johnston, Scientists as Mentors to Science Teachers, J. Mater. Educ. 23, 33 (2001).
• M. Johnson, Teacher as Researcher, The Science Teacher 69, 40 (2002).
• Ronald L. Musselman, Elizabeth K. John, and Glenn W. Shaffer, High School-College Research Collaboration, J. Chem. Ed. 66, 653 (1989).
• D.E. Nikles and Garry W. Warren, The RET program in the center for materials for information technlogy at the University of Alabama, J. Mater. Educ. 23, 29 (2001).
• Michelle A. Strand, Steve Wignall, and Diandra L. Leslie-Pelecky, Research Experiences for Teachers in Materials Science: A Case Study, Journal of Materials Education 27 (3-6) 222-226 (2005)
• Suzanne Coshow, Teacher Impacts of the RET Program: Survey Results from Six Sites (presentation)
• Carol Johnston, Translating the RET Experience to the Classroom
• An SRI evaluation of the RET program in the Engineering and Education Centers program