An overview is provided of the planning processes used at Okaloosa-Walton Community College (OWCC) in budgeting and curriculum, staff, and program development. First, the curriculum planning process is described in terms of its purpose; faculty, staff, and administrator involvement; educational goals for OWCC; the development of evaluation…

The purpose of this pilot study was to investigate the relationship between achievement, teacher-reported letter grades, and instructional levels in a sample of 100 Chapter 1 students who had participated in the program for two years. For each student, third grade and fifth grade California Achievement Test scores, end-of-year letter grades, and…

The purpose of the present study was to reexamine the screening process being used to select students for gifted and talented programs in the Montgomery County Public Schools, Maryland, and to determine whether problems in screening have been overcome. Specifically, the study was designed to: (1) determine whether the revised screening procedures…

The intent of this paper is to illustrate the use of stakeholder information in evaluating a school program. The material presented is part of a comprehensive formative evaluation of a crisis intervention program operated by a suburban school district situated near a large industrial city in the Midwest. The crisis intervention program provided…

This report provides an illustrative discussion of the nature of a cost-effectiveness study in a higher education setting. It focuses on the cost-effectiveness of two field-based teacher preparation courses taught in a college of education. It is not a comprehensive cost analysis study, but an exploratory review of the dimensions and problems of…

This report provides financial, demographic, personnel, and performance information on Wisconsin's Title I program, designed to assist some educationally disadvantaged students. This information is presented in descriptive summaries, tables, and graphs for fiscal year 1981-82, with some comparisons fiscal year 1981-82, with some comparisons…

The Austin Independent School District Superintendent of Schools required a process for monitoring district activities. The Office of Research and Evaluation developed LOOP (Linking Outcomes to Organizational Planning). LOOP is a management information system through which progress in a number of activities within the school system may be…

The idea that all curricula should reflect learnings that are common across subject areas has only recently been considered in British Columbia. Within the past year, the change in focus resulted from the British Columbia Ministry of Education's (BCME) adoption of a definition of an educated person as an ideal toward which educators should be…

Revised procedures of the Portland Achievement Levels Tests (PALT) for grade 3 and teacher and test coordinator perceptions of the revised testing program are summarized. The revised program included changes in the PALT and locator test, the answer sheet, and practice test, and a new teacher's manual and wall charts. An evaluation collected…

This study describes a computer based, performance rating information processing system, performance rating theory, and programs for the application of the theory to obtain ratings free from the effects of reviewer stringency in reviewing abstracts of conference papers. Originally, the Performance Rating (PR) System was used to evaluate the…

Telephone interviews were conducted with key individuals in each of the 50 states to gather information on both the most successful and the least successful technology-based educational projects at the elementary and secondary levels in each state. The survey was designed to elicit information on the following: (1) the instructional needs…

The three articles in this newsletter focus on questions of what teacher knowledge consists of and how it can be measured. Three contemporary efforts to assess teacher knowledge, each with a different purpose, are presented. The first, based on a report of the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, summarizes state assessment efforts and…

The philosophy of accreditation is discussed in a paper commissioned by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools for a project on "Rethinking Accreditation." After defining accreditation and distinguishing it from assessment, evaluation and "meta-evaluation" are discussed, including the nature of accreditation in…

This paper discusses and describes an industry-based process for the design and development of criterion-referenced tests in vocational-technical subject areas to support vocational program evaluations. The following topics are covered in the paper: (1) use of criterion-referenced tests; (2) test design; (3) preparation of test materials; and (4)…

Specific recommendations are made concerning the circumstances under which the benefits of out-of-level testing outweigh the problems associated with it. Topics explored are: various methods for deciding when a set of test scores is invalid and the utility of these methods for local evaluators, the accuracy of vertical scaling, and the usefulness…