The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened an ad-hoc committee to examine learning and development in out-of-school time settings across the K-12 age span. To inform its deliberations, the committee held three public sessions, on October 19, 2023, February 8, 2024, and April 18, 2024. This publication summarizes the…

The issue of the perceived success of human services program evaluations is the specific focus of this paper. Five areas that affect the potential for producing effective program evaluation form a framework for discussing factors related to perceived success. The areas include inappropriate conceptualization of what an evaluation can accomplish,…

To assure accountability to educational policy developed by elected and appointed leaders, agencies and organizations must adopt high quality evaluation designs tailored to meet three basic tenets: (1) different processes for policy formation and demonstration of accountability; (2) clear accountability expectations built into policies; (3)…

A setting is described in which an evaluation was used with significant impacts on policies and programs. Some of those impacts are delineated, types of utilization employed by staff within the system are illustrated, and conditions under which the evaluation was conducted to obtain such a high level of use are discussed. In the 1979-80 school…

An interview study in Delaware gathered information about educational administrators' perceptions of effective high schools and existing statewide standards for effective schools. This report describes the design and analysis of this study and demonstrates how the resulting information was used to reformulate the state's policy and program for…

A case study illustrating the political influences on higher education in a hypothetical state is presented. Higher education became a target for reform by the state's governor, who expressed interest in the sharing of resources between institutions in close geographic proximity; supported the more extensive use of management tools as a means of…

This paper presents an analysis of a long-term project at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) to insure that effective teaching is rewarded. The document attempts to frame the issues and explore the effects of the project first in the area of the role of teaching in the awarding of tenure. Noting the tradition in academe of awarding tenure on…

A discussion of language policy in Australia chronicles the history and context of policy formation and looks at the role of the National Languages and Literacy Institute. The paper first examines the phases and processes of both explicit and unofficial policy-making on language issues in Australia, highlighting the role that language…

The political processes involved in an academic program evaluation are discussed. The focus is on how evaluative information is politically linked to programmatic decisions within the context of various organizational and evaluative utilization models. To examine the explanatory power of the various theories and models, information from a program…

Although vast numbers of educational innovations have been introduced into the nation's schools over the past 20 years, few have succeeded in effecting affective, behavioral, and cognitive student gains. Many recent studies have focused, therefore, on school change processes and the formulation of strategies for successful innovation…

This paper reviews the literature on parental involvement and covers four basic activity areas intended to foster parent participation in the schools: (1) volunteerism; (2) parent school communication; (3) parent education or training; and (4) policy-making. The authors summarize and analyze the objectives and methodologies of the research in each…

Education and training for 16- to 19-year-olds have undergone expansion and diversification in the United Kingdom in the 1980s. In the context of high youth unemployment, the introduction by the central government of a host of vocational preparation programs has aimed to delay labor market entry for a significant proportion of 16-year-olds, while…

This paper describes the results of an evaluation of the Palliative Care Service, one of the first hospices in North America (Montreal), and the implications of that research for social policy development. The objectives of the research were to evaluate the reliability of predictive assessments of bereavement risk and the effectiveness of…

Both the federal administration and Congress, through more dollars and more legislation, are expanding the federal role in education. Major themes running through the various legislative proposals will result in a reduced emphasis on fiscal controls, encouragement for process-oriented requirements, better integration of federal programs, and…

In 1985, Edward Koch, Mayor of New York City, established an Early Childhood Education Commission and gave it the task of recommending how best to begin to provide public education for all of the city's 4-year-olds, beginning in September, 1986. After introductory remarks indicating the confluence and interplay of social elements underpinning the…