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McREL: Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning, delivering research and practical guidance to educators
Types of Work

Our Work

Contracts and Clients

By maintaining a reputation as an organization that exceeds client expectations, McREL continues to hold several major competitive contracts from federal, state, local and private-sector funding sources. Our current portfolio of work now includes programs and projects for sponsors, clients, and partners in 42 states.

Major contracts

nccc website home page artNorth Central Comprehensive Center
The North Central Comprehensive Center is a U.S. Department of Education-funded program that provides research-based services to state education agencies in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota to implement No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

National Partnership for Quality Afterschool Learning
As a subcontractor to the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory (SEDL), McREL is participating in a three-year, $9.6 million federal project to study and promote improvement in more than 1,600 federally funded after-school programs. Through this effort, McREL provides training and technical assistance to afterschool program staff in a 14-state region that spans from Colorado to Ohio.

Regional Educational Laboratory for the Central Region
Since 1966, McREL has held a contract with the U.S. Department of Education to serve as the educational laboratory for the Central Region states of Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming. In the current contract period, which began in 2006, REL Central is one of 10 regional educational laboratories that form a nationwide network for research and dissemination designed to provide educators with proven guidance on how to improve student achievement. To learn more about the work of REL Central and the nine other regional laboratories, visit the National Laboratory Network website.

Great Lakes West Comprehensive Center
As a subcontractor to Learning Point Associates, McREL provides school improvement services to the states of Wisconsin and Illinois through this federally funded Center.

Selected clients

Harcourt Achieve
McREL conducts rigorous, comparison studies of Harcourt Achieve educational programs.

National Aeronautics & Space Administration
McREL works with NASA since to provide comprehensive education and public outreach to inform K-12 students and the general public about its Genesis and Dawn missions.

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Principals’ Executive Program University of North Carolina
The Principals’ Executive Program in the Center for School Leadership Development at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has contracted with McREL to assist with leadership development for school administrators from across North Carolina.

Selected licensees & publishers

Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD)
ASCD is a major publisher of many popular McREL products, including Classroom Instruction that Works, School Leadership that Works, and Teaching Reading in the Content Areas.

Cable News Network (CNN)
CNN’s “Classroom Edition” lesson plans for teachers link to McREL’s compendium of K-12 standards.

The New York Times Learning Network
The New York Times Learning Network’s daily lesson plans for teachers link to McREL’s compendium of K-12 standards.

School Improvement Network
McREL has worked with the School Improvement Network to develop videos and professional development materials related to our popular research-based manual, Classroom Instruction that Works.

Selected partners

Southwest Educational Development Laboratory (SEDL)
In partnership with SEDL, McREL is studying and promoting the improvement of federally funded after-school programs across the nation.

National Science Teachers Association (NSTA)
McREL collaborated with NSTA to provide robust professional learning experiences for participants of the association’s 2006 national conference.