Ascension LLC is seeking a part-time Education / Evidence-Use Subject Matter Expert to support a federal education evaluation focused on the next cycle of Regional Educational Laboratories and Comprehensive Centers. This role is intended for a senior advisor with strong knowledge of education technical assistance, evidence use in state and local education systems, state education agency priorities, and the operating models of federally funded education support programs.

The ideal candidate will help the evaluation team interpret prior REL and Comprehensive Center outcomes, assess how state priorities and Learning Agendas inform technical assistance, and review evaluation products for credibility, usefulness, and alignment with the Department’s goals. The Department’s draft SOO emphasizes the need for expertise in evaluation methods, evidence use, and relevant content areas, including REL and Comprehensive Center program context.

This is not a full-time delivery role. It is a targeted SME position designed to close Ascension’s education content-area gap and strengthen the technical quality of evaluation findings, instruments, and stakeholder-facing products.

Summary of Contractor Role

The Education / Evidence-Use SME will provide specialized advisory support to Ascension’s evaluation team as it assesses prior-cycle outcomes and the evolving REL/Comprehensive Center model. The role will focus on ensuring that evaluation questions, instruments, findings, and derivative products reflect the realities of state education systems, technical assistance delivery, evidence-use practices, and capacity-building support.

The SME should bring practical experience working with or supporting SEAs, LEAs, RELs, Comprehensive Centers, education technical assistance providers, or education research-to-practice initiatives. The successful candidate must be able to review complex evaluation materials, identify whether findings are actionable for policymakers and practitioners, and help translate technical results into useful insights for federal, state, and education-sector stakeholders.

This role requires a thoughtful, detail-oriented professional who can work independently in a virtual consulting environment, provide concise written recommendations, and collaborate with evaluators, analysts, statisticians, survey leads, and project leadership. The SME must be comfortable reviewing interview protocols, survey instruments, analysis plans, technical reports, derivative products, briefing materials, and Technical Working Group inputs.

Key Role Alignment to the Requirement

This position supports the following requirement areas:

Task 2: Prior REL/CC Outcomes Interpretation
The SME will help interpret long-term objectives and outcomes from prior REL and Comprehensive Center cycles, including whether technical assistance and evidence-use activities produced meaningful value for states and recipients.

Task 3: Collaboration, State Priorities, Learning Agendas, and Students with Greatest Need
The SME will advise on how to evaluate collaboration between RELs and Comprehensive Centers, whether state priorities and Learning Agendas drive services, and whether Centers address students with the greatest need.

Task 6: Technical Working Group Support
The SME may help prepare materials for Technical Working Group review, interpret expert feedback, and support follow-up revisions to ensure evaluation and derivative products are high-quality, useful, and technically credible. The SOO anticipates a Technical Working Group of national experts in evaluation and/or relevant content areas, with annual engagement during the contract.

Anticipated Day-to-Day Activities

• Review evaluation questions, analysis plans, data collection instruments, and protocols for alignment with REL/CC program goals, education technical assistance practice, and evidence-use concepts.
• Advise the project team on how RELs and Comprehensive Centers support SEAs, LEAs, schools, and other recipients through capacity-building, evidence-use, and technical assistance activities.
• Interpret prior-cycle outcomes and help distinguish between short-term outputs, intermediate outcomes, and long-term changes in recipient practice or capacity.
• Assess whether proposed measures adequately capture collaboration, streamlined access to services, alignment with state priorities, service usefulness, and recipient satisfaction.
• Validate assumptions related to state Learning Agendas, state-identified priorities, statutory priorities, and support for students with the greatest need.
• Recommend refinements to survey items, interview questions, focus group protocols, and document review templates to improve clarity, usefulness, and respondent burden.
• Review draft technical findings to ensure interpretations are grounded, practical, and not overstated.
• Contribute to derivative products intended for non-technical audiences, including briefs, summaries, slide decks, or practitioner-facing materials.
• Support Technical Working Group preparation by reviewing agendas, background materials, discussion prompts, and post-meeting summaries.
• Identify implications of findings for federal program improvement, state education agencies, technical assistance providers, and institutional policymakers.
• Collaborate with evaluation leads, statisticians, qualitative analysts, survey/data collection staff, and project management personnel in a remote team environment.
• Provide concise written comments, tracked edits, annotated feedback, and recommendation memos as needed.