The first national youth fitness evaluation conducted in the United States was in 1958. Since that time, schools have continued to administer fitness evaluations using a variety of tests with no national-level assessment of youth fitness [Institute of Medicine (IOM), 2012]. However, in September 2012, the Presidential Youth Fitness Program (PYFP)…

Many educators believe that comprehensive school reform (CSR) holds real promise for improving schools, as many CSR programs are based in research and have documented success. However, in the past year, there has been increased emphasis on CSR programs' evidence of effectiveness and scrutiny of CSR evaluations' degree of rigor. Questions exist…

Programs targeting at-risk young adolescents, aged 10 to 15 years, were studied through a literature review and examination of issues related to evaluating programs for at-risk youth, and site visits to 9 programs at 6 locations. Chapter 1 introduces the study and its objectives, and chapter 2 reviews the literature on youth at risk. Chapter 3…

This is volume three of a six-volume guide to the establishment and management of a comprehensive family-support program. This volume explains the role played by evaluation in the evolution of family-support and family-education services, introduces key aspects and important considerations in planning an evaluation, and discusses how to choose a…

In the late 1990s the Texas Education Agency advocated the transformation of all counseling services into developmental guidance programs. This document describes the process undertaken and the lessons learned when evaluating a small, rural school district in north Texas in order to begin this model transformation. The purpose of the study was to…