This handbook describes the responsibilities of district and school assessment coordinators in the administration of the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA). This updated guidebook contains the following sections: (1) General Assessment Guidelines for All Assessments; (2) Writing Specific Guidelines; (3) Reading and Mathematics…

Community coalitions (CCs) have labored with some difficulty to demonstrate empirical evidence of effectiveness in preventing a wide range of adolescent problem behaviors. Training and technical assistance (TA) have been identified as important elements in promoting improved functioning of CCs. A reliable, valid, and inexpensive method to assess…

Examples from the evaluation of a program in which data collection systems were developed jointly by the program's staff and evaluators are described. The Louisiana SPUR (Special Plan Upgrading Reading) Project was evaluated by the Louisiana Department of Education Bureau of Evaluation. SPUR involves 63 of the state's 66 public school systems and…

In Tennessee, varied data-gathering devices have been employed in an attempt to determine whether an educator is qualified for a given level on the state's career ladder program and, thereby, should attain the meaningful financial benefits linked to that status. In its first year of operation, the Tennessee program employed several domains of…

This document provides a process for evaluation of Florida's tech prep programs. It first summarizes the philosophy guiding tech prep activities in Florida and then it outlines the tech prep evaluation process. The evaluation process section includes the following: the goals and objectives of the process; its characteristics; the continuous…

Reports on an evaluation of the higher levels of California's statewide reference referral network that involved an unobtrusive method utilizing existing records of actual reference transactions evaluated by panel of judges. Reference evaluation methods, findings of other studies, and other uses of the method are discussed. (Nineteen references…

This paper presents two examples of how methodological research in testing and evaluation simultaneously served the needs of both researchers and practitioners. The first example focuses on Center for the Study of Evaluation (CSE) research in writing assessment. This research investigated issues in domain definition, cognitive processing…

The Visiting Team Guidelines for Evaluation of Pennsylvania School Districts was prepared as a companion document for the three Pennsylvania Educational Needs Assessment Self-Study Guides for elementary schools, middle/junior high schools, and secondary schools. The purpose of these guidelines is to assist personnel of the school district and…

This report summarizes the findings, issues, and lessons learned from the Developing National Public Library and Statewide Network Statistics and Performance Measures study conducted between January 1999 and August 2000. The overall goal of the study was to develop a core set of national statistics and performance measures that librarians,…

In response to 1986 state legislation calling for improvements in college effectiveness and accountability, the California Community Colleges began various efforts to promote the evaluation of matriculation. One effort, the Matriculation Local Research Options Project, was formed in 1989 to develop models for local evaluation of matriculation and…

This paper describes the scoring of the upper levels of the Career Ladder system for teachers in the Tennessee Career Ladder Evaluation Systems. The instruments used to evaluate teachers include classroom observation, dialogue with the teacher, a peer questionnaire, student questionnaires, a professional skills test, professional development and…

Substantial emphasis has been placed on Florida Extension faculty evaluating their educational programs for impact and the utilization of these data for program accountability, yet little is known of the extent to which the faculty have accepted this responsibility. In order to assess the stage of adoption of impact evaluation as a practice, and…

The Alberta goverment has attempted to systematically address educational computing issues through programs of the provincial (K-12) education department (Alberta Education), which have included the development of computer literacy curricula for elementary, junior, and senior high schools; the Computer Technology Project (CTP); evaluation studies;…

A brief introduction states the purpose of and summarizes the five presentations made at a Southwest Educational Development Laboratory Regional Exchange (SEDL/RX) Project conference and notes that the SEDL/RX publication, "Evaluation of Educational Software: A Guide to Guides," was produced for use as a reference guide by participants…

This paper explores the functioning of the low-inference observation system used as part of the Tennessee Career Ladder evaluation system, which provides teachers with the opportunity to qualify for additional pay on the basis of outstanding performance. The analysis of the functioning of this form is intended to provide the basis for the ongoing…