The U.S. Department of Education (ED) issues its Multiple Award Task Order (MATO) Contract to qualifying organizations for the purpose of fulfilling various work orders on an indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity basis.  ED uses this contract as a means of providing products and services across a wide range of subject areas relating to key educational issues in an effort to help individual offices achieve their missions in a timely manner.  All principal offices within the Department along with independent, affiliated organizations use the MATO contract to issue competitive bids for products and services.

In July 2006, Hezel Associates qualified as a U.S. Department of Education Multiple Award Task Order (MATO) vendor in four out of the five areas of services listed under MATO:

Category A:     Research and policy analysis/assessment
Category B:     Research and Evaluation Design, Data Collection and Analysis
Category C:     Performance Measurement
Category D:     Program Assessments

Hezel Associates, LLC, is a nationally-recognized research and evaluation firm that maintains a professional staff of 30, which includes senior and junior researchers and analysts, as well as an administrative support team which facilitates business operations and project activities.  We offer our clients the individual attention and agility of a small firm, coupled with a reach comparable to a multi-national consultancy.  In addition to Hezel Associates’ own staff, the company maintains relationships with consultants, subcontractors and formal alliances with other research and marketing research organizations, which provide increased depth to the issues we address and activities we undertake. 

Research Is Our Core
Hezel Associates utilizes a research-based approach to serving our clients.  Our work has focused on critical issues in education, including:

Distance Learning and Instructional Technology
Online and distance learning have become reliable means of delivering high quality education opportunities to students who might otherwise have little access to advanced courses.  As education leaders turn to individualized computing to help support instructional change and student achievement, they rely on research literature and the results of pilot studies to inform their decisions.  With an early company focus on technology-facilitated education, Hezel Associates was among the first to identify the forces and influences for distance learning and technology.  Because of that focus, our company has long been a leader in national policy discussions on the applications of telecommunications and technology in education. 

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Teacher Professional Development
Teacher professional development is a key strategy schools employ to increase capacity and improve student achievement.  Establishing the link between teacher professional development, teacher classroom instruction, and student outcomes requires analyses of complex data, including school district context, instructional practice, teachers’ beliefs and attitudes, content, and student cognition.  This is not a straightforward task.  Hezel Associates has been the evaluator for PBS TeacherLine, a project funded through the U.S. Department of Education’s Ready to Teach grant, through two grant periods, the most recent from 2006-2010.  PBS TeacherLine engaged our firm to conduct an external evaluation that documents the effectiveness of its online teacher professional development courses and its newest product, PBS TeacherLine Peer Connection. 

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DataDriven Decision Making
Today, our firm leads the nation as we begin to help states review the impact of their longitudinal database systems.  As external evaluators, Hezel Associates gathers feedback from data system users and professional development participants to determine whether and how data-driven decision making impacts teacher and student outcomes.  Through our evaluation of data-driven decision making initiatives, Hezel Associates has determined first-hand that educators play a key role in creating a culture that values the powerful role data plays in today’s schools.  Our DataDriven Decision Making evaluations carefully investigate both the longitudinal data system’s design and efforts to build decision makers’ capacities to use the data system.  Because so many states, districts and schools are just beginning to design and implement these initiatives, both formative and summative evaluations are essential for optimizing widespread evidence-based practice.

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Literacy
The Reading First program, the conduit for reading research finding its way into classrooms, has helped to raise student achievement in many areas of the country.  Hezel Associates’ experience extends from state Reading First programs to teacher professional development in literacy.  Our literacy experts have conducted evaluations of state Reading First programs, engaged in product testing for special needs software, measured the impact of participation in adult literacy programs and developed research protocols for a national study of Reading First.

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Math and Science
For the United States to remain competitive in the global marketplace, schools need to graduate qualified and interested future scientists.  Part of the challenge is to ensure that all students have—and take—the opportunity to understand science, mathematics, and technology at the level of our national standards.  Hezel Associates has experience with the evaluation of a number of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education programs, including a five-year evaluation of a national pre-engineering curriculum for middle and high school students, an assessment of a state’s Physics First program, and an experimental study of teachers’ attitudes and student outcomes associated with online teacher professional development courses in mathematics.

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Transitions in Education
Hezel Associates’ research and evaluations address multiple aspects of the entire spectrum of learning from early childhood into PK-12, higher education, corporate learning as well as leisure learning.  Our company views learning as a fabric of many interwoven levels, and we have been researching the ways in which children and adults embark on and succeed through the transitions.   Conducting evaluations of the U.S. Education Department’s Ready to Learn projects for preschool children, researching the literacy antecedents for success in middle and high school, studying the feasibility of early college high school, evaluating the effectiveness of community college-to-university articulation and transfer systems, finding a market for new degree programs for working adults are all examples of the types of investigations we conduct around those lifelong education transitions.  Specifically, the transformation of the high school experience and the preparedness of traditionally under-served populations to enter the college environment are rising to the top of the priority list for school administrators.  Hezel Associates believes in the interconnected benefits and necessities of life-long learning and achievement. 

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