July 21, 2009
Contact: Dr. Tony Marchesi, 304.347.0427 or 800.624.9120, ext. 5427
tony.marchesi@edvantia.org

CHARLESTON, WV—Edvantia, Inc. has been chosen as the evaluator by three of the 123 districts across the country that recently received funding from the U.S. Department of Education's Teaching American History program. For the next three to five years, Edvantia will collaborate with Miami-Dade County Public Schools, Florida; Charlottesville City Schools in Virginia; and West Virginia’s Regional Education Service Agency III to collect data and provide feedback on program performance.

Teaching American History grants focus on helping school districts partner with organizations that have history content expertise to develop, document, evaluate, and disseminate innovative models of professional development. Edvantia evaluations provide ongoing information to help district grantees understand how well their programs are working and see where project leaders might make changes to improve results.

Edvantia evaluators have deep experience with the Teaching American History program, as they have worked with eight previous grantees since the program began in 2001. Bob Brazofsky of Miami-Dade County Public Schools explained why his district chose Edvantia for a second evaluation partnership: "Edvantia has truly been involved in the program—the evaluators take a hands-on, in-person approach to evaluation implementation."

Some Edvantia evaluation reports for Teaching American History projects have gone above and beyond their initial purposes. In addition to providing valuable information to project staff, the reports have won awards from the American Educational Research Association's Division H publication competition.

To find out more about the Teaching American History program, or to see the complete list of 2009 grantees, visit the U.S. Department of Education Web site.

About Edvantia: Edvantia is a nonprofit corporation, founded in 1966, that partners with education agencies, foundations, publishers, and service providers to apply expertise in research, evaluation, professional development, and technical assistance to help schools and students succeed. Specialty areas include district and school improvement, teacher quality, systems development and alignment, STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math), 21st century skills, and college access. Learn more at the Edvantia Web sites or contact Dr. Tony Marchesi (see above).