Performance contracting is sometimes expensive and not necessarily successful. Opportune school university programs as evidenced by the Atlanta public Schools project mean utilizing the combined resources to provide optimum in educational opportunities. (DS)

Visits in the Spring of 1972 to five school districts (Norfolk, Virginia; Texarkana, Arkansas; Gary, Indiana; Gilroy, California; and Grand Rapids, Michigan) that had implemented educational performance contracting programs during the 1970-71 school year are reported. Changes in the content and methods of instruction, measurement and evaluation,…

This paper reports an evaluation of a performance contract in reading with 2,500 seventh-grade students. Seventy-five percent of the students were to increase their reading speed five times over their beginning level with ten percent more comprehension after three months of instruction. Results indicated that only thirteen percent of the students…

This paper focused on evaluation efforts related to projects involving performance contracts and some of the major problems encountered. (Author/RK)

This document, part one of a report on performance contracting, explores its basic issues and considerations and is addressed to educational decisionmakers. The evolution of performance contracting is traced and the concept as it is currently being applied in education is discussed. The second part will analyze the outcomes of some programs when…

The General Accounting Office (GAO) evaluated the Office of Economic Opportunity's (OEO) performance contracting experiment because of its potential impact in education. Performance contracting has been defined as an agreement between a local education agency, such as a public school, and a private educational firm, known as a learning system…

Studied contract grading, which emphasizes greater investment of time and effort by student and instructor, but provides benefits to students difficult to develop through conventional methods. Desirable student outcomes are examined and a sample contract is included. (Author/JAC)

This volume presents conclusions and implications derived from five cities' experience with performance contracting in education: Norfolk, Virginia; Texarkana, Arkansas (with Liberty-Eylau, Texas); Gary, Indiana, Gilroy, California; and Grand Rapids, Michigan. The five case studies cover eight programs in 15 schools. While each study is treated in…

This book examines in detail the experiment in educational performance contracting conducted by the United States Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) during the 1970-71 school year. Major objectives of the OEO project were to find out whether a private educational firm could teach educationally disadvantaged children to read and write better than…

This document explicates what is involved in educational performance contracting. Four basic types of contracts can be used to procure goods and services: fixed and performance contracts for resources and fixed and performance contracts for results. The basic considerations in choice of type are risk, relative technologies, management skills…

This report describes the experimental design, presents the contract provisions, and provides conclusions and recommendations. The document is comprised of five chapters that discuss (1) the statistical analysis methods used, (2) the problems of using standardized tests in performance contracting, (3) the contractual procedures between OEO and the…

This report discusses the merits of performance contracting in the light of recent performance contract experiment evaluations, and it provides guidelines for administrators who are considering the use of performance contracts. The merits of the OEO experiment and the interpretation of the results by the OEO and the Rand Corporation are discussed.…

This report is a summary and review of a study on the effects of introducing an independent learning system in low socioeconomic (SES) schools. The report is organized into five sections. The first provides background information on the independent learning system, the research design and student variables of interest. The second section describes…

This Educational Testing Service conference provided an opportunity to clarify many of the issues and problems involved with educational accountability. Among these issues were assessment, evaluation, auditing, and performance contracting. The papers included in these proceedings are: The Means and Ends of Accountability (Terrel H. Bell); Issues…