The purpose of this article is to provide an assessment and analysis of public sector performance contracting as a performance management tool in Kenya. It aims to demonstrate that performance contracting remains a viable and important tool for improving public sector performance as a key element of the on-going public sector transformation…

Improving Performance in Practice (IPIP) is a large system intervention designed to align efforts and motivate the creation of a tiered system of improvement at the national, state, practice, and patient levels, assisting primary-care physicians and their practice teams to assess and measurably improve the quality of care for chronic illness and…

This article seeks to nuance arguments about the impact of broad policy technologies of auditing processes upon teachers' practices by providing empirical evidence of the effects of such processes, in context. Specifically, the article draws upon a cross section of teachers' accounts of schooling practices in a specialist, academically oriented…

In the fragmented out-of-school-time sector, defining and measuring quality in terms of staff behaviors at the point of service provides a common framework that can reduce obstacles to cross-sector and cross-program performance improvement efforts and streamline adoption of data-driven accountability policies. This chapter views the point of…

Accountability and performance incentive plans in education are compromised by goal distortion, gaming, and corruption. Education policy makers who design such plans have paid insufficient attention to similar experiences in other fields. This paper describes institutions in health care, job training and welfare administration, and in the private…

Quality is fast becoming a policy priority in states and localities around the country. As a result, formal and informal networks of youth organizations are seeking and developing strategies to help them assess and improve performance. This report takes a close look at efforts underway in three networks and provides a preliminary framework for…

Training interventions can be evaluated by calculating return on investment (ROI) and cost-benefit analysis. The four-level model proposed by Kirkpatrick is the dominant evaluation model used. Calculating ROI has been a critical issue for trainers and executives, but only a few organizations have implemented the process that is considered as…

These four papers are from a symposium on evaluation in human resource development (HRD). "Assessing Organizational Readiness for Learning through Evaluative Inquiry" (Hallie Preskill, Rosalie T. Torres) reviews how evaluative inquiry can facilitate organizational learning; argues HRD evaluation should be reconceptualized as a process…