The Fordham Institute conducted a survey of experts who are advocates of private education, soliciting opinions about how private schools accepting public monies, such as from voucher programs, should be held accountable. The experts were in agreement that private schools should not accept regulation of their day-to-day operations, but disagreed…

Drug studies are often cited as the best exemplars of evaluation design. However, many of these studies are seriously biased in favor of positive findings for the drugs evaluated, even to the point where dangerous effects are hidden. In spite of using randomized designs and double blinding, drug companies have found ways of producing the results…

Presents a framework for judging evaluations on the basis of their potential for democratic deliberation that includes the interrelated requirements of inclusion, dialogue, and deliberation. Operationalizes these requirements in 10 questions to guide evaluation and meta-evaluation from a democratic viewpoint. (SLD)

Our scientific conceptions of evaluation are strongly influenced by underlying, deep-seated metaphors. This analysis draws upon recent philosophic work concerning the role of metaphors in all thought processes. (Author/PN)

Chelimsky, former head of the Program Evaluation and Methodology Division of the General Accounting Office, suggested that advocacy by evaluators destroys their credibility. Evaluators should, this author argues, be advocates for democracy and the public interest, with the question being how explicitly and how defensibly. (SLD)

Among nearly 40 States attempting to apply the accountability principle to school operation by legislative fiat, Michigan is clearly a leader. This exhaustive study reveals disturbing defects in Michigan's plan, particularly in the assessment component. (Editor)

Outlines problems with the U. S. Office of Education sponsored report on Project Follow Through. The problems are in the areas of classification of models, measurement techniques, methods of analysis, and fairness. (Author/IRT)

The thesis of this paper is that the humanistic mode of inquiry is underemployed in evaluation studies and the future evaluation of Follow Through could profitably use humanistic approaches. The original Follow Through evaluation was based on the assumption that the world consists of a single system explainable by appropriate methods; the…

Data from a Class Activities Questionnaire was used in the evaluation of the state gifted program in Illinois to determine patterns of cognitive and affective emphasis in gifted and average classes. Significant differences were found in the degree of emphasis on higher thought processes, classroom focus, and classroom climate. Significant…

A report of the Illinois Gifted Program Evaluation, the document first presents origins, policies, and scope of the reimbursement section of the Illinois Plan for Program Development for Gifted Children. Outlined is the evaluation design, in which subjects were 34 school districts representing a 10% stratified random sample of 340 districts. Each…

The large government market in evaluation that has developed in recent years does not follow the idealized image of open markets because of the contracting process, which means that a few firms conduct most evaluations. To produce honest, unbiased evaluations, evaluation ethics must take government market factors into consideration. (SLD)

The evaluators of Push/Excel assumed that it was a systematically developed program with measurable outcomes, not a charismatically inspired movement whose effects would be hard to pin down. As a result, neither the program nor the evaluation approach used were adequately tested. (Author)

Different approaches to evaluation are described: systems analysis, behavioral objectives, professional review, and case study. For an evaluation system to operate, it must be perceived as being fair; the legitimacy of evaluation is dependent on the issue of fairness. (MLW)

Examines the Abt Associates, Inc. findings on the effectiveness of Project Follow Through and disputes the report's conclusion that so-called "basic skills" approaches to the schooling of poor children are superior to other methods. (Author)

Evaluation techniques and practices do not belong to a particular theory of justice. Systems analysis evaluation consists of defining quantitative outcome measures of program success and the establishment of causal links between this measure and the program by experimental design. (JN)