Stakeholder Engagement/ Support to Task Forces & Committees
We help clients by gathering and synthesizing stakeholder perspectives, ranging from parents to policy makers. We expertly facilitate task forces and work groups charged with informing policy and practice.
Examples of our work with stakeholders and task forces include:
Supports for students with dyslexia (New York)
State systems of support for low-performing schools (DC OSSE)
Other projects that involved stakeholder engagement and task force and committee support include:
Delivery of services to students in the juvenile justice system
Special education tuition rate setting
Services for homeless youth
Statewide strategic planning
Policy Analysis
We work with clients to analyze opportunities, challenges, and goals of state and local policy. We provide actionable policy recommendations based on evidence from landscape scans of policy and best practice, both within client contexts and in other states or jurisdictions.
Examples of our work involving policy analysis include:
Redesigning high school graduation requirements (DC OSSE)
Understanding school staffing shortages (New Jersey)
Other projects that involve policy analysis include:
Developing a system for special education oversight
Revising state academic standards
Analyzing state adoption of summative assessments
Strengthening a pipeline of bilingual educators
Professional Learning
When clients are developing or revising their own programs, PSA can provide a variety of supports such as collaborative design of program frameworks, development of public resources, and gathering evidence to inform continuous improvement.
Examples of our work include:
Designing and delivering Academies for new and aspiring district superintendents (Maryland)
Supporting the development of a state strategy for strengthening school leadership as a lever for school improvement (Delaware)
In addition, we have helped clients develop:
Leader Preparation Academies (principals, principal supervisors, etc.)
Frameworks for High-Quality Instructional Materials
Improvement strategies for low-performing schools
A toolkit of resources to support teacher implementation of the revised state standards in ELA and math
A statewide guide on PK-3 instruction
Statewide trainings to principals on teacher feedback
Statewide framework for Work-Based Learning
Organizational Capacity-Building
PSA has engaged clients in deep partnerships to support organizational improvement. We work collaboratively on strategic planning, coordination and “breaking down silos” between offices, development of new operating procedures, and support for growing staff capacity.
Examples of our work include:
Facilitation of cross-divisional coordination to support district-level comprehensive needs assessments
Developing a state employee evaluation system
Our work is wide-ranging and includes:
Developing state guidance for strategic use of federal and state funds
Aligning state supports for school climate and culture
Improving the usability of a state teacher certification website
Supporting a pipeline of bilingual educators
Skilled and sustainable system of support for school improvement
Program Evaluation
We help clients evaluate their programs, as well as increase their capacities to act on evaluation data and conduct evaluation on their own. PSA regularly analyzes qualitative and quantitative data—including state-level administrative and performance data sets—in order to report useful actionable findings and foster continuous improvement. We work with clients to clarify their program model and measures of progress, and we help them make meaning of data through collaborative debriefings and data visualization.
Examples of our work include:
Evaluation of state-wide teacher development
Evaluation of state-wide principal preparation
In addition, we have helped clients evaluate the implementation and outcomes of programs that have informed state efforts involving:
Literacy
School improvement
Afterschool and summer programs
Community schools
Education of homeless and migrant students
Educator pipelines
Professional learning
