The Evaluation of State and Local Education Programs and Policies (State/Local Evaluation) topic supports the evaluation of fully-developed programs and policies implemented by state and local education agencies to determine whether they produce a beneficial impact on student education outcomes relative to a counterfactual when they are implemented under routine conditions in authentic education settings. These evaluations are to determine both the overall impact of the programs/policies and the impact across a variety of conditions to determine if there are positive impacts for all , for some groups, or under some conditions.
History
Initially run as a standalone research competition (84.305E) in 2005, and between 2009-2012, State/Local Evaluation became a topic under the Partnerships and Collaborations Focused on Problems of Practice or Policy, which ran between 2013 and 2019.
Through the State/Local Evaluation investment, the Institute seeks to establish long-term partnerships between research institutions and education agencies that will focus their research efforts on programs/policies of high relevance to policymakers and practitioners. The Institute expects the education agencies to identify research questions of high importance to their work, help shape the evaluation to meet their conditions, and have direct access to the results. The results of such evaluations are of value not only to the education agency directly involved, but also to other states and districts that may be using or considering the use of similar programs/policies.