We are very happy to announce that Debbie Igunbor has accepted the position of an Associate at MNA. She will join us on June 1st. Debbie brings a wide range of experience in both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. She is very passionate about using data to inform impact. Within her evaluation work, she believes that it is important for people to be heard and for programs to accommodate everyone equitably and hopes to continue to use evaluation research to do so. Debbie has a …
News and Updates
Join Our Team!
WE ARE HIRING! POSITION: Associate, Consultant (contractual) HOURS: 20-25 hours/week; M-F SALARY: 30-35K/year LOCATION: Fully remote/U.S. east coast (highly preferred) START DATE: May/June 2022 RESPOND BY: May 15, 2022 MN Associates, Inc. (MNA) is a woman-owned, small business based in Northern VA that specializes in providing education research and program evaluation services to clients across the nation. Established in 2004, MNA is headed by Kavita Mittapalli, Ph.D. who has …
MNA Adds DoDSTEM Project to Their Growing Portfolio
In 2021, a few of us from MNA, the outreach office at the Army Research Laboratory (ARL) - U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM), and American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC) met via zoom to plan and write a proposal for a very competitive grant from the Department of Defense STEM (DoDSTEM) program. The goal of the project, Forge the Future, is to teach and engage high school students (rising juniors and rising seniors) at a school district in Utah Computer …
Site Visit Tips
It seems like the month of April is opening up a few "firsts again" for me in over two years. Earlier this week, I completed my first in-person site visit to the Charm City to observe students making things for an NSF-funded AISL grant being run by the good people at Digital Harbor Foundation. Suffice it to say, it was a very productive trip and I learned a lot from observing the activities and talking to the people who run the program. Mind you, some things simply cannot be captured via a …
Another Noyce Grant Evaluation Added to MNA’s Growing Portfolio
If you build it, they will come. (Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams, 1989.) The newly-funded National Science Foundation (NSF) project in the Noyce Scholarship teacher preparation program at University of North Texas aims to serve a national need for building pathways for engineering students to become grade 6-12 STEM teachers in high-need schools. With a one-year planning and capacity building grant, the project will develop a framework for recruitment, retention, and reshaping of …
Scope Creep In Evaluation….It Happens!
Can we take a minute or two to talk about scope creep in evaluation? I know this is a common talking point in project management across the consulting world, but I would like to narrow it down to state how it also affects our work in program evaluation. Often times, we work on fixed, small, tight budgets, and timelines with a few set of deliverables and try to scope out the work before we begin work. However, scope creep can happen at any point during the evaluation's life span and …
How Many Homeless Students Are Enrolled In Public Schools?
Since 2008, the number of homeless students identified by public schools each year across the nation has increased by more than 100%, from approximately 680,000 to 1,384,000 students in 2019-20. (National School Board Association and and National Center for Education Statistics data/websites). According to the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, homeless students are defined as students who lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence, that includes students living in shared …
Once An Educator, Always An Educator
All of us at MNA have either taught in K-12 and/or 2-and-4 year institutions in the US and abroad. We bring our classroom teaching experiences to all our grant evaluation work with our clients. One of the grants that we are immensely attracted to is the National Science Foundation's Robert Noyce teacher scholarship grant that aims to serve the national need for highly-qualified and diverse teachers of STEM. It is a known fact that the nation faces significant disparity in the percentage of …
‘Tis The Season Of Conferencing
A few weeks ago, I posted on an upcoming in-person conference and my (personal) anxieties around traveling and attending an in-person conference in over 2 years. Well, I am happy to report that I had a very pleasant experience at The Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA) conference for the National Professional Development (NPD) grants. Several project directors and evaluators were in attendance from across the country. I didn't count, but I am guessing maybe ~250? MNA is an …
Know the (Procurement) Rules Before You Play The Game
"OMG, I got played by a client who promised me work!" "They took my evaluation plan (writing) and gave the work to someone else." "I spent hours planning and collaborating on the proposal; wrote the full evaluation plan, yet, they put the work up for a bid and awarded the work to someone else." "I lost the work to the lowest bidder." "They stole my work!" "The client awarded the work to someone else and they are now not even responding to my emails or answering my calls." "I …