The Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Appalachia serves the applied education research needs of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. REL Appalachia has identified three priority research areas—ensuring college and career readiness, improving low-achieving schools, and supporting effective teachers and leaders. The CNA research team will focus on a targeted research agenda in these areas in partnership with research alliances of state and local school officials in our four states.
Research Alliances
The REL achieves its mission through a series of research alliances:
Ensuring College and Career Readiness
- Southern Virginia College and Career Readiness Alliance: REL Appalachia works with school districts in the Southern Virginia College and Career Readiness Alliance to build strategies for identifying students at risk of dropping out of high school; to increase access to college-level curricula and dual enrollment opportunities; and to help rural districts better use the Virginia Early Warning System.
- Eastern Kentucky College and Career Readiness Collaborative: The Eastern Kentucky College and Career Readiness Collaborative is an alliance of school districts that have partnered with each other and REL Appalachia through the Southeast/South Central Educational Cooperative. REL Appalachia helps the Collaborative to better serve students by addressing staffing needs in rural districts and schools, understanding data related to college and career readiness, and reducing the need for remediation in post-secondary education.
- Southwest Tennessee Rural Education Cooperative:REL Appalachia and school districts in the Southwest Tennessee Rural Education Cooperative work to improve college readiness and preparation, to provide information on online college preparation coursework, and to improve college acceptance and completion rates.
Improving Low Achieving Schools
- West Virginia Turnaround Alliance: REL Appalachia works with the West Virginia Turnaround Alliance to improve student achievement by: studying student engagement in achievement gap schools; working to understand the effects of increased learning time on students; and identifying research-based indicators of school improvement.
Corporate Experience
CNA is a multi-disciplinary, non-profit research and analysis organization that provides solutions to a range of clients in the public sector. In addition to operating REL Appalachia, CNA Education serves as the lead evaluator for the Northeast Tennessee College and Career Ready Consortium (NETCO), funded by an Investing in Innovation (i3) validation grant. Under support from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES), CNA is implementing a randomized controlled trial examining the effectiveness of a professional development program aimed at helping teachers enhance their ability to use data. In 2012, CNA Education was awarded another multi-year grant from IES to conduct research evaluating the Florida College and Career Ready Initiative (FCCRI), a program to ensure students are prepared for college and careers across the state of Florida.
Lab Director:
Dr. Justin D. Baer
Governing Board
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Contractor: |
REL Appalachia Partners:
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