Independent Review and Evaluation for Regional Educational Laboratories (RELs)

The Regional Educational Laboratories (RELs) produce and disseminate high quality, rigorous research to support improvements, answer important questions, and provide useful tools and databases for educators. To meet the growing demand for scientifically valid evidence, the RELs have increased their evaluation and dissemination efforts to bring even more data and tools to the educational community.

For the past decade, Mathematica has provided analytic and technical support for rigorous education studies conducted by the RELs, including, for the first time, randomized controlled trials. As a result, the RELs published reports from 25 randomized controlled trials as well as several dozen descriptive data analyses that serve as valuable resources for education decision makers. To further enhance the quality of RELs’ work, Mathematica peer reviews a broad array of products, including plans and reports for descriptive studies, technical assistance products, systematic reviews, and plans for randomized control trials. To date the study team has developed criteria and procedures for reviewing REL products, trained reviewers, and developed a quality assurance process.