Projects

Project Overview

Regional Advisory Committees (RACs) are groups of education stakeholders that help identify regional education needs and recommend priorities for Comprehensive Assistance Centers. For this project, Insight provided logistical and administrative support, technology services, technical assistance, and information to support the operation of the 10 RACs. This support helped each RAC member collect feedback and provide an individual report assessing the educational needs of that member’s region. The needs assessment reports were considered when establishing FY 2017 priorities for the work of the Comprehensive Assistance Centers. The Commissioner of the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance also considered the reports when overseeing FY 2017–2022 Regional Educational Laboratory contracts.

For this project, Insight—

• Provided an orientation explaining RACs’ purpose and how needs assessment reports are used
• Developed regional data profiles that helped RAC members understand the context of education across their regions
• Facilitated discussions with each RAC on collecting feedback and engaging with stakeholders to identify needs
• Provided technical assistance to RAC members as they sought input from chief executive officers of states, chief state school officers, educators, and parents on the educational needs of each region and how to address those needs
• Developed data collection and reporting templates
• Summarized and synthesized RACs’ identified needs and recommendations

Products

Ten regional data profiles (2016), online collaborative workspace (2016), 10 RAC reports (2016), summary report on needs and recommendations of all 10 RACs (2016), briefing slides (2016)