Given the proportion of young children experiencing disadvantages in achieving optimal health due to inequities related to race, place, and income, there is increasing attention to developing effective early childhood (EC) systems. As EC leaders embrace methods such as collective impact in driving systems change, there is a growing recognition…

Increasing community awareness and knowledge about environmental problems is the primary goal of environmental education. This study explores the best practices of the Youth for Environment in Schools--Organization (YES-O) in selected schools in the National Capital Region, Philippines. A qualitative study involving interviews and focus group…

This article offers a case example of how experimental evaluation methods can be coupled with principles of design-based implementation research (DBIR), improvement science (IS), and rapid-cycle evaluation (RCE) methods to provide relatively quick, low-cost, credible assessments of strategies designed to improve programs, policies, or practices.…

(1) Background: Programmatic assessment optimizes the coaching, learning, and decision-making functions of assessment. It utilizes multiple data points, fit for purpose, which on their own guide learning, but taken together form the basis of holistic decision making. While they are agreed on principles, implementation varies according to context.…

Teacher education program evaluation is one of the most recent research areas under development. One of the main reasons for the interest in this issue is the need for accountability of these teacher preparation programs in order to show evidence of high-quality teacher preparation (Wilson, 2014). In fact, according to Karimnia and Kay (2015) and…

Teacher appraisal (TA) or teacher performance appraisal (TPA) has assumed a central importance in educational systems and reforms worldwide, contributing to the improvement of teaching practices, and therefore it is considered an essential factor for teachers' early training, teachers' professional development, school management, and promotion of…

Teacher education faculty are often expected to engage in accreditation work. Our purpose was to document the collective driving mechanisms of junior faculty who volunteered to redesign key accreditation assessments. Specifically, we explored the values and expectations for success that led junior faculty to engage in and persist through key…

Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems (ECCS) grants help states and communities improve early childhood systems to support child development, equitable access to quality services and supports, and family well-being. Truly interdisciplinary, ECCS promotes cross-sector systems change initiatives that focus on integrating health care, mental health,…

The Wisconsin School Violence and Bullying Prevention Study, funded by the National Institutes of Justice (NIJ), was a two-year case-control study in 24 Wisconsin middle schools (11 experimental; 13 control) seeking to understand the impact of a comprehensive bullying prevention program on bullying victimization rates. Participating schools'…

Participatory evaluation tools have been shown to be effective for program development in various settings, including in higher education. Taking student perspectives into consideration is key for graduate program development, particularly in interdisciplinary programs. The current study utilizes Group Level Assessment (GLA), a participatory…

Leaders of higher education need practical solutions to engaging in program improvement, providing student supports, and fortifying partnerships with collaborators. Compounding these needs are the heightened demands thrust upon faculty to advise students online, reconfigure in-person courses to hybrid and online models, and attend to their…

Funded grant projects all involve some form of evaluation, and Advanced Technological Education (ATE) grants are no exception. Program evaluation serves as a critical component not only for evaluating if a project has met its intended and desired outcomes, but the evaluation process is also a central feature of the grant application itself.…

In this results-oriented era of accountability, educator preparation programs are called upon to provide comprehensive data related to student and program outcomes while also providing evidence of continuous improvement. Collaborative Analysis of Student Learning (CASL) is one approach for fostering critical inquiry about student learning.…

Systemic efforts to strengthen teacher preparation in Louisiana led to the first statewide value-added assessment (VAA) of teacher preparation programs (TPPs). Subsequently, a number of states have adopted VAA of TPPs. The authors describe challenges that were confronted around the deployment of Louisiana's VAA of TPPs. The discussion is organized…

The articles in this special issue discuss efforts to improve academic reading outcomes for students and ways to achieve high implementation fidelity of promising strategies. At times the authors discuss if--and how--strong fidelity is associated with strong outcomes and potentially even impacts (the difference between program and control group…