National Evaluation of the Comprehensive Technical Assistance Centers

State education agencies have generally felt that the technical assistance provided by federal Comprehensive Centers has helped build their capacity to implement education policy, according to a new report. However, states also pointed to a few areas where Centers can improve, such as communicating how states can best use their services. The National Evaluation of the Comprehensive Centers Program Final Report describes how the federal Comprehensive Technical Assistance Centers designed and implemented their services, what challenges they encountered, and what outcomes they achieved. These 15 Regional Centers and 7 Content Centers—funded in 2012—had a broad mandate to build state capacity to support local education agencies in improving student outcomes. Key findings include: States that received technical assistance reported improvements in their capacity, particularly related to building knowledge and skills. Centers shared similar approaches to the design and implementation of their work. Common principles of capacity-building included fostering ownership, long-term change, and organizational process changes. Common strategies to implement these principles included thought partnering, cross-state sharing, and modeling new practices. Centers and states considered multiple forms of assistance to be instrumental to building capacity, including support for gathering stakeholder input on policy, strategies for navigating transitions in state leadership, and various products and tools. Centers and states pointed to a few areas for program improvement, including clarifying the role of the Centers and expected outcomes related to their work with local education agencies.