Regional Needs  |  Projects

Northeast & Islands: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire,
New York, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, Vermont, & Virgin Islands

REL-NEI serves a geographically large and demographically diverse region that includes more than 5.3 million students, 11,049 schools, and 2,609 districts across the six New England states, New York, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The region encompasses many isolated school systems in economically distressed rural regions as well as several of the largest districts in the country. Despite this diversity, the P–20 education systems of all nine jurisdictions struggle with similar issues, including improving low-performing schools, preparing students for college and careers, and increasing educator effectiveness. Each jurisdiction also is seeking to build more innovative and equitable educational opportunities during a time of significant budgetary stress.

Research Alliances

Research alliances in REL NEI include:

• Northeast Educator Effectiveness Research Alliance: This alliance includes state-level, teacher-quality representatives from the New England states and New York, with the opportunity for representatives from Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands to join in future years. Its goal is to build the long-term capacity of states to structure and utilize state longitudinal data systems that can inform the development, implementation, and assessment of educator evaluation systems.
• Northeast Rural Districts Research Alliance: Rural districts face the same national and state data-analysis demands as their urban and suburban counterparts, but they seldom have the capacity to create meaning out of the data due to limited qualified staff and small cell sizes that make analyses unreliable. This cross-state alliance will address the data-analysis and evaluation needs unique to small rural schools and build the long-term research capacity of rural schools and coalitions, either independently or in tandem with a related university partner.
• Longitudinal Data Utilization Alliance: This alliance will include directors of research, assessment, and evaluation from state and local education agencies, as well as representatives from related support organizations. Its goal is to assemble a network of peers to collaborate on improving structures and processes that will facilitate the development, maintenance, and pursuit of coherent research agendas at the state and local levels on low-performing schools.
• Early Childhood Education Research Alliance: The goal of this alliance is to increase state and local capacity to use data to inform policy and program decisions that improve the cognitive and socio-emotional development of young children in the region. These decisions may include, but are not limited to, the use of evidence to improve the quality of early education settings; increase school readiness; and refine transitions during early childhood (birth through age eight).
• Quality Education to Meet the Diverse Needs of English Language Learners Research Alliance: All states and most districts in the Northeast are serving increasing numbers of English language learner (ELL) students, and educators are asking increasingly specific questions about how best to serve this burgeoning population. This alliance will utilize data to better understand ELL populations and make use of findings to inform policies and practices that will help meet the differentiated needs of students.
• College & Career Readiness Research Alliance: This alliance will bring together stakeholders from New England and New York to develop a research agenda that explores a variety of strategies and approaches to college and career readiness, including early warning systems, career/workplace skill development, dropout prevention, personalizing learning, and connecting academics with careers.
• Puerto Rico Research Alliance for Dropout Prevention: Whereas high school dropout rates appear to be no higher in Puerto Rico than in the average of the 50 states, Puerto Rico's dropout rate for pre-high school students appears to be higher than in almost all states. This alliance will provide research and analytic technical assistance to improve Puerto Rico's data system to address critical issues of dropout prevention.
• U.S. Virgin Islands College and Career Readiness Research Alliance: To address the Virgin Islands' high dropout rate, this alliance comprised of members of the Virgin Islands Department of Education, University of the Virgin Islands, and the Virgin Islands Community Foundation will develop and implement a data system that provides early warning of students in danger of dropping out of school.

Corporate Experience

Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC), the prime contractor for REL Northeast & Islands since 2006, has been providing research support and technical assistance to schools, districts, and state education agencies (SEAs) across the region for more than 50 years. The company has established extensive networks and relationships with educators and policymakers.

Lab Director:
Jill E. Weber
Governing Board