The Role of State Departments of Education in Comprehensive School Reform

States have the legal responsibility and authority to provide public education for their citizens. How each state fulfills its responsibility varies. Whether state education agencies (SEAs) are supporting school reform efforts, providing technical assistance, defining and controlling educational content, or assessing the outcomes of education, it is generally agreed that SEAs are there to assure that districts and schools are providing quality opportunities to children, and in a manner that meets the standards the state has set for achievement. With that in mind, this article addresses some of the specific ways SEAs set out to accomplish these goals. Having worked with dozens of CSR implementing schools and CSR implementation staff at several SEAs, Edmund T. Hamann and Brett Lane detail the initiation and early management of the federal CSR program by the Maine and Puerto Rico Departments of Education. Both Hamann and Lane are research and evaluation specialists at the Education Alliance at Brown University.