Regional Needs  |  Projects

Midwest: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin

REL Midwest serves the educational needs of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Work focuses on four priority areas identified through a variety of needs-sensing activities across the Midwest. The four areas are educator effectiveness, college and career readiness, low-performing schools and school improvement, and early childhood education. Underlying all of the priority areas is the need for better understanding and use of the application of data.

Research Alliances

It conducts its research mission through several research alliances:

• Urban Research Alliance: The Urban Research Alliance is designed to generate a series of content-based projects focused on the unique needs of urban districts aligned with REL Midwest priority topics. The concept for this alliance recognizes that an adaptable urban-focused technical assistance and research agenda for the region requires moving beyond abstract needs or overly localized issues to negotiating and prioritizing how REL Midwest resources can best serve critical needs across urban districts.
• Rural Research Alliance: The main goal for the Rural Research Alliance is to provide a forum for the development of a research agenda focused on rural issues as they relate to the four priority areas. The alliance will be used as a jumping-off point to create new rural-focused, topic-based projects to tailor research and evaluation findings and technical assistance products for use with a specifically rural audience.
• State Data Director Alliance: This alliance is linked to the overall goal of the REL program to assist states in "using" their data systems, that is, conducting high-quality research and evaluation focused on priority topics, and helping policymakers and practitioners incorporate data-based inquiry practices into their ongoing decision making. Because the data directors are part of each state's educational leadership, this alliance is essential for developing ideas for rigorous applied research and evaluation projects and technical assistance products tied to the priority areas.
• Early Childhood Research Alliance: The general focus of this alliance is examining how to improve access to and continuity of high-quality early childhood educational programming (from birth to age 8) through the integration of multiple systems of support.
• Leadership for School Improvement Alliance: The purpose of this alliance is to design, carry out, and disseminate research on school and district leadership that will drive school improvement. Together with alliance members, we will work to develop a multiyear agenda focused on the extent to which professional development programs influence leadership effectiveness.
• Supports for Virtual Teachers Alliance: The overall focus of this alliance is to understand what kinds of supports states can provide to virtual teachers to improve the performance of online teachers and, secondarily, to improve student achievement.
• Teacher Effectiveness Alliance: The focus of this alliance is to provide research and technical assistance for the purposes of evaluating and conceivably scaling up effective teaching practices.
• Beating the Odds: This alliance is interested in examining practice, policy, and organizational variables that may be related to success in schools that are performing "better than expected" given their demographic characteristics. In addition, the alliance will examine what policy levers in relation to these variables can be developed at the state level to improve performance in a larger number of low-performing schools.
• College and Career Success Alliance: The College and Career Success Alliance aims to better understand factors that support college completion and workforce success (i.e., increasing completion rates and gaining a better understanding about what happens after high school and college).
• Dropout Prevention Alliance: The overall focus of this alliance is to answer the question, "What are effective district-level programs and services to reduce dropout rates in high-need schools?" To address this question, the Dropout Prevention Alliance will assist high-need districts and schools in improving dropout prevention programming for students through the development and application of data-based decision-making tools and studying the impact of locally developed programs.

Corporate Experience

American Institutes for Research (AIR), through its merger with Learning Point Associates, has a major Midwest presence. With more than 150 employees based in the Midwest and a history of operating the Midwest's regional educational laboratory for more than 25 years, AIR has worked with state education agencies, governors' offices, and districts and schools to isolate cross-cutting priorities and needs and identify efficient methods for addressing them.

Lab Director:
Matt Dawson, Ph.D.
Governing Board