State and local report cards help ensure local educational agencies (LEAs), parents, families, educators, and communities have critical data and a common framework for gauging educational progress and success. Title I, Part A (Title I) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) requires States to annually share this important…

Technology can change higher education by empowering students to make an impact on the world as undergraduates. Done systematically, this would allow institutions to close the credibility gap with an increasingly dubious public. Authentic student achievements that are addressed to a "real world" audience can lead to richly detailed…

Every state can create secure, robust linkages between early childhood and K-12 data systems, and effectively use the information from these linkages to implement initiatives to support programs and children, answer key policy questions, and be transparent about how the state's early childhood investments prepare students for success in school and…

"Data Wise: A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Assessment Results to Improve Teaching and Learning" presents a clear and carefully tested blueprint for school leaders. It shows how examining test scores and other classroom data can become a catalyst for important schoolwide conversations that will enhance schools' abilities to capture…

This guide describes a strategy for implementing new training products in operational units of the United States Army. Its purpose is to help the training developer ensure that units use and sustain new products once they are introduced. An introduction discusses the need for this guide, its benefits, and the organization of the guide. The guide…

This document is the fourth volume in a set of five Career Education Measurement Handbooks intended to help local education personnel in measurement and evaluation. Divided into thirteen units, this handbook is designed to show how evaluation can help improve the accountability of career education programs. Each unit is written to stand alone, and…

When faculty evaluation systems are proposed, students, faculty, and administrators often think only of questionnaires and assignment of data-processing tasks. Much more must be considered, including balancing the needs of all constituencies, designing student-rating forms and administration procedures, and the treatment and uses of the…

This guide presents an introduction to the basics about data collection and discusses the uses of data in daily work. The emphasis is on youth programs in Indiana, but the information is useful for programs in other states. Ways in which program planners and advocacy activists can use data are described, and local, state, and national resources…

Addressed to professionals involved in program evaluation, this working paper covers various aspects of evaluation planning, including the following: planning as a sociotechnical process, steps in evaluation planning, program planning and implementation versus evaluation planning and implementation, the literacy system and its subsystems, and some…

This handbook was designed to assist local Teacher Corps projects to plan and implement the Teacher Corps'"Fourth Outcome:" the adoption or adaptation of the project's educational improvement activities by other educational agencies and institutions. Section I provides an overview of seven scenarios which might be applicable to local…

This section of the School Environment Handbook can be used by schools to improve school environment and to develop the necessary change strategies. The handbook serves four major purposes. First, the material is designed to facilitate thinking about steps in the planning process. Second, it discusses how to set goals and to state them in ways…

Designed to provide a systematic means of analyzing the whole process of planning, implementation, and evaluation, these guidelines (1) suggest how national policies on user training may be related to national information policies in general, (2) suggest lines of action for the achievement of a national policy on user training, and (3) give advice…

A proposed evaluation model for measuring the impact of demonstration projects in vocational education defines sets of criteria, standards, and documentation for both interim and final acceptable evidence of project impact. Interim acceptable evidence is that evidence of project success which should be expected during the demonstration grant…

This report contains materials from the TECHlinx Technical Education Clearinghouse project designed to promote the effective development of the Texas work force by linking individuals and institutions to information and resources focused on work force education. Part 1, an executive summary, reports how the project was successfully established and…

Targeted to mental retardation/developmental disability (MR/DD) and vocational rehabilitation agencies, developmental disabilities councils, consumer and advocate groups, and protection and advocacy programs, this manual is designed to assist in the development of state-level data systems responsive to current accountability requirements. It also…