One of the goals of the Strategies and Models for Improved Learning through Effective Data Use (SMILE) project was to develop a data-capacity survey (DCS) to measure a schools capacity to use data. In this study, a DCS was developed and field tested. The DCS, which was field tested at six Milwaukee Public Schools (Wisconsin), was a pen-and-paper…

Since 1988 five evaluations of Federal demonstration programs in education have been implemented that had random-assignment designs to measure program impacts. The implementation of two of these evaluations, the evaluation of the School Dropout Demonstration Assistance Program and that of the Alternative Schools Random Assignment Program, are…

This paper reports the process by which Anne Arundel County Public Schools evaluated its mathematics program. The steps are outlined by which the evaluation was initiated, designed, implemented, and reported. The procedures developed to address and implement the evaluation findings and recommendations are described. The evaluation was intitiated…

Five authors representing diverse perspectives comment on the revised "Program Evaluation Standards" approved by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). Standards are considered in light of their development; measurement issues; program evaluation; evaluation in the local education agency; and the context of evaluation…

Use of time was investigated in program evaluations conducted by a school system's department of research and evaluation. All evaluation designs developed in the department's bureaus for the 1983-84 school year were examined, and key staff coordinating each evaluation bureau were interviewed. How time was scheduled in each design, and then how…

This paper is concerned with the identification and testing of salient variables which show potential for explaining client use of evaluation information. A single-page interview instrument was devised which aggregated the factors and factor categories collected following an extensive review of the literature. Data were collected from a…

Design and implementation of a curriculum evaluation plan for the vocational education program (occupational education under the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Applied Technology Act) of a large correctional system are described. An outside evaluator assisted in designing and conducting the first year's evaluation. The 1991-92 curriculum used was…

This paper describes efforts to design an evaluation system that has as its primary objective helping schools effect positive change through the Accelerated Schools Project. Three characteristics were deemed essential: (1) that the evaluation be useful and meaningful; (2) that it be sensitive to local conditions; and (3) that evaluations of…

The politics of program evaluation are discussed from the personal perspective of the Director of the General Accounting Office's Program Evaluation and Methodology Division, which has produced reports for committees of the United States Congress. It is concluded that successful evaluations must be useful to others and must understand the…

This essay focuses on a key change that the author has experienced in the practice of program evaluation research over the past 20 years: the accommodation of the logic of science and the psychology of politics. This change has substantially altered the role of the evaluator, the evaluator's relationship with clients, the design of an evaluation…

The implementation of research design in studies on substance abuse education is discussed in this meta-analysis. Findings indicate that the quality of research design is constrained by negative feedback from evaluation stakeholders. This finding is applied to an evaluation of the Here's Looking at You, 2000 drug education program currently…