Evaluation of the Comprehensive Technical Assistance Centers
Contractors: Branch Associates, Inc., Decision Information Resources, Inc., and Policy Studies Associates, Inc.
Background/Research Questions:
The Department awarded five-year grants in FY 2005 to 21 Comprehensive Technical Assistance Centers under authority provided in Section 203 of Title II of the Educational Technical Assistance Act of 2002. The purpose of the Comprehensive Centers is to provide technical assistance to States to support their implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 and to benefit school districts and schools, especially those in need of improvement. The FY 2008 appropriation for the Centers is $57 million and ranges from $875,000 to $6.3 million per Center.
A network of 21 Comprehensive Technical Assistance Centers was established by the U.S. Department of Education under the Educational Technical Assistance Act of 2002 (ETAA) to provide State Education Agencies with technical assistance to support NCLB implementation and the improvement of academic achievement. There are 16 Regional Centers that provide technical assistance to specific states and 5 Content Centers that provide content-area expertise in five topics: assessment and accountability; instruction, teacher quality, innovation and improvement, and high schools. The national evaluation of the Comprehensive Technical Assistance Center is mandated under ETAA. It focuses on the following research questions:
- What kinds of technical assistance do SEAs report needing and do Centers provide?
- Based on ratings by panels of content-area experts, to what extent is Center work of high quality?
- Based on surveys among SEA staff, to what extent is the work of each Center of relevant and useful?
- To what extent has Center technical assistance expanded SEA capacity meet the goals of NCLB?
Design:
Five data collection methods will be used in this study. Four of these methods will recur annually and collect information on Center performance during the 2006–07, 2007–08 and 2008–09 program years: (1) site visits conducted to each Center to learn about the Center's relationships with its clients and the types of products and services that are delivered; (2) expert panel review of a sample of projects undertaken by each Center to assess the quality of the technical assistance provided; (3) a survey of Center clients to rate the relevance, usefulness and other aspects of the services they have received; (4) a survey of senior SEA officials who are responsible for negotiating the nature of technical assistance that is provided by the Center network to their SEA to meet state priorities. Finally, a set of approximately Case Studies will focus on approximately 10 SEAs and examine the extent to which senior SEA officials (and Center staff) believe the range of technical assistance received from the Centers have helped to build the state's capacity to implement key NCLB provisions.
Duration: 52 months (August 2006 to December 2010).
Current Status: The contractor is currently preparing the first report from this evaluation, expected in 2009, that will examine Center during the 2006–07 program year. Data collection is ongoing for the 2007–08 program year.
