This study considered how 25 highly diverse after-school programs with funding of $5.6 million were evaluated during a 10-month period. The paper describes the evaluation methodologies used and determined which methodologies were most effective within a diverse and political context. The Bayview Fund for Youth Development (name assumed for…

Educational reform is becoming synonymous with accountability. However, designing an effective accountability system poses serious challenges for states as is clear from the progress and pitfalls experienced by states such as Texas, Kentucky, and California. For example, many states tend to overload their new accountability programs, resulting in…

This report presents an evaluation of the Scottish classroom assistants initiative. The evaluation explored: the relationship between student achievement and use of classroom assistants; whether the initiative enabled better utilization of teaches' time; and the effects of the initiative on classroom interaction and students' learning experiences.…

This study evaluated differences in teacher and student perceptions about communication patterns within classrooms and the effect of a teacher-student communication system, the Learning Expressways System, on teacher-student communication. High school teachers who had or have had students with disabilities in their classes participated. In the…

Federal agencies use information dissemination programs as one of several tools to achieve various social or environmental goals. Evaluations of five federal information dissemination program cases were examined to assist agency efforts in evaluating and improving the effectiveness of such programs. These cases were: Environmental Protection…

Relative to violence among adult intimate partners, violence among adolescent dating partners remains an understudied phenomenon. In this review, we assess the state of the research literature on teen dating violence. Our review reveals that the broad range of estimates produced by major national data sources and single studies make conclusions…

The Higher Learning Commission (HLC), a commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools (NCA), accredits Wyoming's seven community colleges. Institutional accreditation is a voluntary process that serves the critical purposes of quality assurance and institutional and program improvement. Colleges that are accredited by the HLC…

This paper summarizes what is known and what is not known about mentoring programs focused on youth and related to college-going. Several aspects of mentoring are reviewed so that the concept and some program variations--such as peer and adult mentors, informal and formal mentoring, compensated and uncompensated mentoring, one-to-one and group…

This research analyzed 12 Minnesota Technical Colleges' Program Assessments in terms of: (1) Did assessments of their Career and Technical education programs focus on results-related outcomes? (2) Were program assessment measures "related" to programs' goals? (3) Were targeted programs' goals attained? Conclusions: (1) Report findings…

Many school districts lack in-place processes for planning and evaluating their programs. In addition, most practicing educators do not have much time to design and carry out program evaluations. This handbook provides a practical guide to program evaluation drawn from action-research principles. The book uses effective, low-cost practices that…

More than 50 years ago, the Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study provided services to a randomly selected half of matched pairs of young boys living in congested urban environments. This "model intervention program" is analyzed in this paper. Between 1935 and 1939, information on approximately 1800 boys was gathered. This information was…

The Youth Fair Chance (YFC) program is funded by the U.S. Department of Labor to help young people finish high school, get better jobs, and address personal and family problems. Twelve YFC programs operate in urban areas, and four operate in rural areas, including a locale with a high proportion of Native Americans and one that is home to many…

In 1992 legislation enabled the U.S. Department of Labor to establish a program of Youth Fair Chance grants to provide comprehensive services to youth in selected urban and rural high poverty areas. The legislation also asked to an independent evaluation of the 16 urban and rural programs these grants funded, and this evaluation was undertaken by…

A short overview of an experimental evaluation of lower teacher-pupil ratios is presented in this report. The research under review is the Student Teacher Achievement Ratio (STAR) project. This longitudinal project was conducted in Tennessee and was designed to prove to state legislators the efficacy of smaller class sizes. For STAR, evaluation…

High school students who are involved in community service work are more likely to continue such community service after graduation. Highlights of a study using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, Second Follow-up (1992) and Third Follow-up (1994), include the following: (1) in 1994, 43 percent of 1992 high school seniors…