A review of 25 technical assistance models and frameworks was conducted to identify the core elements of technical assistance practices. The focus of analysis was on generally agreed upon technical assistance practices that were considered essential for planning, implementing and evaluating the effectiveness of technical assistance. Results…

Increasingly, early education, regardless of setting type, is considered to be an educational intervention that sets the stage for children's long-term school success. Accordingly, policymakers are focused on how to develop and support educators who have the skills and capacity to deliver high-quality programming to children. A pressing question…

Demands on community-based prevention programs for performance accountability and positive outcomes are ever increasing in the face of constrained resources. Relatively little is known about how technical assistance (TA) should be structured to benefit community-based organizations and to lead to better outcomes. In this study, data from multiple…

"Success for All" (SFA) is one of the best known and thoroughly evaluated school reform models. Further evaluation of the initiative is especially important for two reasons. First, the program model has continued to evolve over time, with a greater emphasis placed on the use of engaging technology in the classroom and on the deployment…

The National Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center was charged by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs from October 2001 through September 2006 to develop, implement, and evaluate an approach to technical assistance (TA) that would result in sustainable systems change in state early intervention and…

Response to intervention (RTI) can be both a system for providing early interventions to struggling students and a special education diagnostic tool for evaluating and identifying students with specific learning disabilities. Contributing to the very limited literature on state-level approaches, this report describes how nine states define and…

Community coalitions (CCs) have labored with some difficulty to demonstrate empirical evidence of effectiveness in preventing a wide range of adolescent problem behaviors. Training and technical assistance (TA) have been identified as important elements in promoting improved functioning of CCs. A reliable, valid, and inexpensive method to assess…

Check & Connect was created in a five year period from 1990 to 1995. The original manual, entitled "Keeping Kids in School: Using Check & Connect for Dropout Prevention" and written by David Evelo, Mary Sinclair, Christine Hurley, Sandra Christenson, and Martha Thurlow, was published in 1996 (ED398701). This newly revised Check…

This document includes reports of three research studies concerning the process of providing supported employment services to persons with disabilities. An introductory chapter by Frank Rusch et al. describes the Illinois Supported Employment Project, noting its target population and its technical assistance and program evaluation services. In…

Evaluation for accountability has become a significant part of federal funding guidelines. However, local project resources and needs, and, more recently, federal insight, suggests that the evaluation functions are most successfully carried out with the cooperation and active involvement of the local project staff. Under a contract to the District…

Though program evaluation has been an important focus of higher education for the last 20 years, traditional evaluation models have been ineffective for on-going programs, particularly those where the outcomes are multifaceted or undefined. Over the last five years, several alternative viewpoints on program evaluation have been suggested which…

A product of the Kansas Planning and Community Development (CD) Division within the Kansas Department of Economic Division, the Kansas CD Assistance Pilot Project was created to meet the more technical needs of small and principally rural communities (up to 20,000 in population). Funded from July 1, 1974 through October 31, 1975, the Project…

This manual provides rehabilitation service provider organizations with necessary information and instructions for completing an Information Request Form (IRF), the first step in the process of applying for recognition by the Regional Rehabilitation Exchange (RRX) Project as an exemplary program model in the area of independent living services.…

The Action Training Model (ATM) was developed for the delivery of evaluation training to development workers in Kenya and Botswana and implemented under the aegis of the German Foundation for International Development. Training of evaluators is a challenge in any context, but in the Third World environment, evaluation training offers special…

This final report discusses the activities and outcomes of a multi-site, multi-state outreach training project that used information generated from a proven model of exemplary practices previously funded by an early childhood education model demonstration program. The outreach training and technical assistance was developed in conjunction with…