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.…

Innovation inducement prizes have been used for centuries. In the United States, a recent federal policy change--the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010--clarified and simplified a path by which all federal agencies can offer innovation inducement prizes, thus intensifying interest in how government agencies can most effectively design…

To conduct evaluations that can benefit individual programs as well as the field as a whole, environmental educators must have the necessary evaluation competencies. This exploratory study was conducted to determine to what extent a self-directed learning resource entitled "My Environmental Education Evaluation Resource Assistant" (MEERA) can…

Discusses the need for standards for the evaluation of educational programs, projects, and materials, and describes the development of such standards by a joint committee representing 12 organizations with widely differing constituencies. (Author)

Four functions of federal project officers in managing program evaluations with support from contract research firms are described: (1) articulating evaluation requirements; (2) providing for fairness in contract awards; (3) monitoring ongoing studies; and (4) transmitting evaluation results to decision makers. (Author/PN)

Discusses the political and economic factors that lay behind a federal mandate for evaluation of the 4-H program. Reviews the themes of other articles in this journal issue dealing with various aspects of the evaluation. (GC)

This statement describes the Elementary and Secondary Education Act Title I's evaluation effort. Evaluation activities are mandated by Section 151 of the Act and are varied and complex. The evaluation efforts focus as a first priority on improving local and state evaluation activities. The efforts involve the development of evaluation models, the…

Several years ago, California, along with other states, discovered that there was a layering effect of categorical programs, both state and federal. Most programs were aimed at unique populations--disadvantaged, bilingual, etc. This proliferation and the evaluation requirements inherent in each of the categorical efforts created problems of…

Evaluations of Chapter 1 programs usually center on one of three questions: (1) Does the program constitute an appropriate Federal investment? (2) Does the program have the potential to benefit students? and (3) Is the program feasible enough to implement? Often, evaluators and legislators disagree over which of these questions is most important.…

This paper reviews the findings of TEMPO's 1967 and subsequent evaluation studies and offers some conclusions and recommendations aimed at strengthening Title I compensatory education programs. An overview of Title I and a description of the TEMPO study and its methodology are provided. It is stated that, with the measurement methods used, no…

In 1980, five federal special education longitudinal qualitative impact evaluations were all prematurely terminated. What happened, why it happened, and what salvage decisions were made are examined in this article. The impact of these decisions on the design of RFPs and future evaluation plans are also discussed. (Author/EGS)

Evaluation must take into account both executive and legislative politics and their interactions. A five-part continuum evaluation process is suggested for the development of a policy question and its translation into knowledge that is credible, timely, responsive, and usable. Evaluators have a major responsibility in this process. (Author/JAZ)

Although hundreds of state and local organizations provide homelessness prevention assistance, the Government Accounting Office (GAO) could not determine the effectiveness of this assistance because few assistance providers have the resources available to collect the client follow-up data needed for evaluation. Homelessness prevention programs,…

This general program evaluation framework provides a wide range of criteria that can be applied in the evaluation of diverse federal progams. The framework was developed from a literature search on program evaluation methods and their use, the experiences of the United States Government Accounting Office (GAO), and consideration of the types of…

The Holtzman Project at Northwestern University reviewed educational program evaluations at the federal, state, and local levels of government. This paper focuses on the administration of the project, including constraints on its operations, the strategic decisions that seemed correct at the time, and some decisions that now seem wrong. (BW)