Given the necessity to bridge the gap between what happened and what is likely to happen, this paper aims to explore how to apply Bayesian inference to cost-effectiveness analysis so as to capture the uncertainty of a ratio-type efficiency measure. The first part of the paper summarizes the characteristics of the evaluation data that are commonly…

Launched in the 1990s by the Annie E. Casey Foundation as a five-site demonstration project, the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI) has steadily swept the country in recent years and is on track to become the standard of practice for how local justice systems nationwide handle the critical front end of the juvenile court process.…

An increasing number of jobs in today's workforce require postsecondary education, yet large numbers of workers lack the essential skills and credentials to fill these jobs. The result is that many workers remain underemployed, reaching a ceiling early in their working careers. In 2007, the Joyce Foundation launched the Shifting Gears initiative…

Recent efforts to improve K-12 educational outcomes have had mixed success. One possible reason is that many students entering kindergarten lack the basic skills to succeed in school. In 2007, with support from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, Hawai'i launched its P-3 (preschool through third-grade) initiative, the early childhood component of the…

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and its Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP) are committed to bringing effective substance abuse prevention and behavioral health promotion programs to every community in the Nation. As more knowledge is gained about efficacy and effectiveness of prevention and…

The report summarizes evaluation findings on the Learning Centre, a research and demonstration centre of the Calgary Society for Students with Learning Difficulties. The report addresses evaluation of formal research projects (on such topics as instrumental enrichment with low achieving adolescents); pilot projects (such as an animation film…

The report details findings and accomplishments of the North Central Louisiana Model Preschool Program for Handicapped Children, a regional cooperative agency and school based model. Personnel, instructional, and behavioral variables are discussed. Program objectives for 1979-80 are outlined, and the evaluation findings for each objective are…

The project addressed the discrepancy between research (documenting the vocational potential of severely handicapped adults) and current services (which include an expanding national program of nonvocational day activity centers) with five coordinated components designed to improve, implement, and evaluate vocational services. The first component,…

Preschool children (n=194) with special needs enrolled in the Model Preschool Program for Children with Down Syndrome and Other Developmental Delays exhibited significantly higher rates of development during intervention than when the children entered the program. Effects were mixed for the 92 children with Down syndrome, with higher rates of…

This investigation identified purposes, activities, outcomes, and barriers reported by 45 postsecondary model demonstration projects funded by the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS). Outcomes reported most frequently at the individual, program, organizational, and community levels included student assessment, materials…

The paper is a product of the 3-year project, "Functional Mainstreaming for Success," designed to develop a model for instructional mainstreaming of handicapped children (3-6 years old) in community settings. The literature on in-service training needs of regular teachers teaching handicapped children in the mainstream is reviewed and a proposal…

The paper is a product of the 3-year project, "Functional Mainstreaming for Success," designed to develop a model for instructional mainstreaming of handicapped children (3-6 years old) in community settings. The paper reviews research on parent involvement in their children's mainstreaming along with variables that may promote or discourage…

Using a framework that draws upon current organizational theory and assumptions about knowledge utilization and school improvement this report examines the process of change at the school level. The model developed attempts both to categorize the "strategies" employed by the Research and Development Utilization (RDU) program/projects and…

The full-purpose partnership (FPP) schoolwide model primarily focuses on prevention and early intervention. This model brings the tenets of service coordination directly into the school and focuses efforts to involve families from a strengths perspective before behavioral issues become significant. A preliminary evaluation has shown that this…

Four influential studies on school effectiveness reported by Brookover and Lezotte (1979), Edmonds and Frederiksen (1979), Phi Delta Kappa (1980), and Rutter and others (1979) are limited in their usefulness as recipes for creating effective schools by the following four issues: (1) The four studies differ in their definition of what…