Provides services and technical assistance for students so they benefit from research-based curricula taught in safe environments.

Adult Education & Literacy Children's Mental Health District Consulting Education Evidence & Indicators Early Childhood Education Finance Education Technology Higher Education School Reform Special Education

Produces and disseminates information to provide motivation and tools to enable individuals to make informed decisions about health issues.

Communications & Social Marketing Research & Policy Analysis Conference Services, Technical Writing & Clearinghouse/Call Center Management Technical Assistance & Training Informatics, Web Site Development & Information Management

Develops and implements education testing programs that benefit students, parents and public officals.

State Student Testing Computer Statistical Services

Works with the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the government's primary source for collecting and analyzing data about public education.

Helps to provide all children with access to a quality education, and empowers people, organizations, and communities to bring about social change.

Is committed to helping clients improve the effectiveness of their workforce through a wide range of management, organizational, and business improvement efforts.

Equity Analysis Organizational Performance Skills Assessment Team Performance Usability Engineering

Produces, maintains and disseminates systematic reviews of the effects of social and behavioral interventions.

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Special Education

The Access Center: Improving Outcomes for All Students K-8

• The purpose of this Center (www.k8accesscenter.org) is to strengthen the capacity of states and districts to help students with disabilities access the general education curriculum. This is accomplished by providing technical assistance in the form of state-to-state mentoring, district-to-district mentoring, direct assistance to states and districts, and web services, with the goal of achieving improved school and classroom capacity for students with disabilities to access and learn in the general education curriculum.

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Special Education Expenditure Project/Center for Special Education Finance

• Through the Center for Special Education Finance (CSEF), the U.S. Department of Education contracted with AIR to conduct SEEP, a comprehensive, nationally representative study designed to provide national special education expenditure information. SEEP provides the first nationally representative special education expenditure data in 15 years. Data were collected by mailed surveys and requests for pre-existing documents and materials containing demographic, budget, and staffing information. A national database was compiled that represents states, districts, schools, teachers, and students: all 50 states and the District of Columbia, 350 local education authorities, over 1,050 elementary, secondary, and special education schools. A series of SEEP reports have been released throughout the data analysis period.

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National Center on Student Progress Monitoring (NCSPM)

• Working in conjunction with researchers from Vanderbilt University, NCSPM is a national technical assistance and dissemination Center dedicated to the implementation of scientifically-based student progress monitoring. The Center's mission is to provide technical assistance to states and districts and disseminate information about progress monitoring practices proven to work in different academic content areas for grades K-5.

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The National Center for Technology Innovation (NCTI)

• NCTI (www.nationaltechcenter.org), funded by the U.S. Office of Special Education Programs, U.S. Department of Education, seeks to provide researchers, developers, and vendors with information on technology innovation to advance the learning opportunities for children with disabilities. The Center provides resources, information, and networking opportunities to assist in the development of new tools and applications through the Center Web site, publications, conferences, information briefs, online forums, and webcasts. Two recent online services include a networking service and a reading matrix. The NCTI Networking Service allows our stakeholders to easily locate like-minded researchers, developers, and manufacturers through a comprehensive database. The NCTI Reading Matrix allows people to dynamically search for technologies that assist reading instruction, reviewing almost 40 technologies according to purpose and individual features.

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Center for Implementation of Technology in Education (CITEd)

• CITEd was established in October 2004 by the U.S. Office of Special Education Programs, U.S. Department of Education to provide a coordinated system of technical assistance to support states and districts in implementing and evaluating selected evidence-based technology practices. AIR and its partners provide resources and guidance to ensure that these technology-based practices are effectively used by teachers so that children with disabilities will have access to the general education curriculum and achieve high education standards.

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OSEP Multiple Award Task Orders (MATOs)

• This project provides the Research to Practice Division (RTP) of the U.S. Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) with ongoing technical advice and support regarding the development, communication, and use of Individuals with Disabilities (IDEA) Part D research to improve programs and services for infants, toddlers, children, and youth with disabilities and their families. AIR manages the contracts, assures the selection and implementation of appropriate procedures for carrying out individual tasks, and monitors the content and quality of all work conducted on behalf of the agency's policymakers. There are three current MATOs:
• IDEA Part D Communication and Dissemination Task Order – This contract supports RTP/ OSEP in analyzing IDEA-Part D research and developing and implementing innovative approaches to coordinate and link this research to appropriate IDEA stakeholders in states and localities across the country.
• Quick Turn Around Support for the Research to Practice Division of OSEP Task Order – This contract supports the quick turn around policy assessments of critical issues and emerging trends educating children with disabilities that are of interest to policymakers at RTP and OSEP.
• RTP/OSEP Part D National Program Meetings and Program Analysis Task Order – This contract coordinates, analyzes, and evaluates national conferences, policy forums, and other meetings that support the Division’s on-going policy initiatives in special education and early intervention.

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Long-term Outcomes of Children Receiving Preschool Intervention for Behavioral or Developmental Concerns

• This grant examines the long-term effects to school outcomes associated with participating in a promising, intensive preschool intervention for children with behavioral and developmental concerns. The study will also address the mechanisms of impact and cost-effectiveness of a Cleveland-area early intervention program. The study uses a matched-child design to analyze outcomes by type of preschool special education service (private vs. school district-based) and timing of special education (preschool vs. first grade) compared to matched peers. Study results are expected in 2005.

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Federal Interagency Coordinating Council (FICC) Support Task Order

• The FICC was established to assist various agencies in coordinated program and policy efforts for children from birth to age 5 with or at risk of developing disabilities. Both technical and logistical support will be integrated to accomplish the basic goal of the agency – to overcome the barriers to effective interagency collaboration among a variety of Federal agencies and service systems. AIR covers meeting details, including planning and communication, travel coordination and reimbursement, setting up and ensuring the successful completion of calls, producing quick and polished meeting minutes, and taking care of all post-meeting tasks that the council deems appropriate. For technical support, AIR develops targeted, web-based searches to find appropriate material for the FICC website, and produces issue-based reports and quick-turnaround policy and legislative analyses. AIR further submits biweekly abstracts of information relevant to young children with disabilities for potential use on the FICC website.

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Evaluation Data Coordination Project (EDCP)

• The purpose of the EDCP was to identify and select common measures of constructs and reporting formats for nine selected Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) evaluation projects; to facilitate and improve the quality of potential future secondary analyses and cross-project syntheses, thereby making more efficient and effective use of resources earmarked for evaluation; and to create options documents for selected domains and constructs. The results of this work were two products: options documents and informational papers. Options documents provide information about a range of measures available for assessing a given construct, such as the psychometric properties and the periodicity. The informational papers were developed to complement the options documents.

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