Technical Assistance

Increased pressure on schools, districts, and states for stronger performance and greater accountability has magnified their need for smart and strategic technical assistance. To advance reform goals, EDC draws upon our deep understanding of educational organizations as systems that must work smoothly together. Partnering with stakeholders, we consider their contexts—discerning strengths, challenges, and opportunities—and chart paths to move from the current reality to desired outcomes. Learn more about our technical assistance capacity in action:

Programmatic Aid to Districts and Schools
Capacity-Building for Program Leaders
Direct Assistance to States
National Networks of Assistance

Programmatic Aid to Districts and Schools

We work in consultation with schools and districts to assess the effectiveness and improve the quality of programs. This can include turnaround assistance, program audits, and professional development and instructional design. We take an explicit and considered approach to modifications in and adaptations of programs, helping practitioners understand innovations in their specific context with the goal of moving beyond surface activities to substantive change. A few of our initiatives:

Capacity-Building for Program Leaders

Effective leaders are critical for education reform, and we bring knowledge, tools and resources to build the capacity of program leaders to be successful in their work. We are thoughtful about instructional design to meet the users’ needs, and we leverage the full range of new distance technologies to complement in-person services. Our goal is to build the capacity of our clients to carry out their own improvement agendas by all means possible. A few of our initiatives:

Direct Assistance to States

We work closely with state-level stakeholders to advance their own policymaking and to translate federal requirements into practice. This can mean assembling the best available research to respond to the needs of staff facing multiple challenges or fostering a deep understanding of the importance of mandates. We help demonstrate how proposed goals and solutions contribute to the success of the system and its learners, ensuring that the change that will be effected is cohesive, sustainable, and produces results. A few of our initiatives:

National Networks of Assistance

EDC operates various training and technical assistance centers at the regional and national levels. We build and sustain good partnerships with the funding agencies (such as ED, HHS, and NSF), the client system, and experts and practitioners in the field. We foster learning exchanges across groups of grantees to stimulate productive peer-to-peer technical assistance; collect, create, and disseminate resources; and do original research to support programs. A few of our initiatives:

We know that technical assistance in and of itself cannot meet all education reform goals. Learn about our complementary curriculum, professional development, and research and evaluation services.