Contract Canceled

Evaluating the 2022-2027 Cycle of the Regional Educational Laboratories

NCEE Evaluation Division Postsecondary, Adult Education, and Choice Studies

Program: Regional Educational Laboratories

Program topic(s): Researcher-Practitioner Partnerships in Education Research

Award amount: $2,082,525

Awardee:

Westat, Social Policy Research Associates

Year: 2024

Duration: 5 months (09/23/2024 - 02/10/2025)

Project type:

Implementation Study

Contract number: 91990024Q0058

Purpose

The Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 tasks state and local education agencies with the responsibility of using rigorous evidence to improve outcomes for learners. The 2022-2027 cycle of the Regional Educational Laboratories (RELs), funded by the U.S. Department of Education at over $54 million per year, aimed to help these agencies carry out their responsibility. The ten RELs engaged with state and local partners to carry out applied research, educator training and coaching, dissemination, and other types of technical assistance designed to build capacity to use data to address state and local needs. With the 2022-2027 cycle of the REL program, the Department included some program refinements intended to build upon lessons learned from earlier cycles. This included providing the RELs with more flexibility in the composition of their partnerships so that they are better able to tackle high priority projects focused on improving student and educator outcomes. It also included new testing and reporting requirements designed to make REL work more evidence-based and ultimately more impactful. For instance, it required that the RELs create logic models to guide partnership work and to create and follow plans for measuring outcomes identified in those models. It also required that the RELs create “toolkits” to guide partners in the implementation of practices recommended in What Works Clearinghouse practice guides and to test the efficacy of the toolkits in improving student and educator outcomes. This evaluation would have examined the extent to which the REL program appeared to be meeting the objectives of those refinements. The evaluation would have fulfilled a congressional requirement to periodically evaluate the REL program, with results intended to inform ongoing improvements.

Project Activities

Research Plan

To what extent was REL work coherent and well-linked to state priorities?
Did partnership structures shift as intended, and did the shift better enable the RELs to undertake projects designed to improve student and educator outcomes?
Were the program’s new testing and reporting requirements leading to evidence-based work?

Structured Abstract

Research Design

This descriptive study would have been based on document reviews; interviews with REL project directors and staff, as well as Department staff; and potentially surveys of state and district staff partnering with the RELs.