Book Description

This final report presents findings from a multi-year evaluation of the Comprehensive Technical Assistance Centers, a federally funded program that provides technical assistance to states in connection with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, as reauthorized by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001. With the redesign of the Center program, the primary focus of technical assistance was directed to states. In order to build states' capacity for carrying out NCLB responsibilities, which include assistance to struggling school districts and schools as well as other areas of NCLB program administration, the Center program was designed to supply ongoing technical assistance in using research knowledge and promising practices. There are two types of Centers: (1) Sixteen Regional Comprehensive Centers (RCCs) are responsible for providing ongoing technical assistance to states assigned to their region, working with a range of one to eight states per Center; and (2) Five Content Centers (CCs) are expected to supply knowledge to RCCs and work with RCCs to assist states in the CC's specialty area: Assessment and Accountability, Instruction, Teacher Quality, Innovation and Improvement, or High Schools. Given this program design, the evaluation provides a description of Center operations. It also reports on assistance delivery and contributions to state capacity as judged by managers in state education agencies (SEAs), on quality as judged by panels of subject-matter experts, and on relevance and usefulness as judged by practitioners who participated in Center activities or received Center products. The evaluation data, collected annually, pertain to the Center program years 2006-07, 2007-08, and 2008-09, covering three of the five program years starting with the second year of program funding. Findings include: (1) The operations of the RCCs and CCs were consistent with the Center program design; (2) Centers addressed the most frequently cited state priority of "statewide systems of support," and an increasing number of state managers reported each year that Center assistance served their purposes; (3) Center assistance was reported by state managers as having expanded state capacity in "statewide systems of support," which has been a predominant focus of Center assistance; and (4) On average across each of the three years, expert panels rated sampled project materials between "moderate" and "high" for quality, and project participants rated the sampled projects "high" for relevance and usefulness. Appended are: (1) Center Lead Grantee and Subgrantee Organizations; (2) Study Sample: Center Projects and Project Participants; (3) Describing Center Operations; (4) Supplemental Tables--Center Operations; (5) Survey of State Managers and Case Study Visits to 10 States; (6) Supplemental Tables--State Manager Survey Results; (7) Ratings of Quality, Relevance, and Usefulness; and (8) Supplemental Tables--Quality, Relevance, and Usefulness Ratings. (Contains 58 exhibits and 83 footnotes.) [For "National Evaluation of the Comprehensive Technical Assistance Centers. Final Report. Executive Summary. NCEE 2011-4032," see ED523401.].