The national education reform agenda has rapidly expanded to include attention to continuous improvement research in education. The purpose of this analysis is to propose a new approach to "developmental evaluation" aimed at building a foundation for continuous improvement in large-scale school improvement networks, on the argument that…

This chapter features a recent conversation with Dr. Arnold J. Love, a long-time proponent of internal evaluation and one of the most cited internal evaluation authors. In 1983, Love edited the first issue of "New Directions for Program Evaluation" on the topic of internal evaluation. He is the author of the book "Internal…

An overview is presented of forces that have shaped how public and private funders approach evaluation, including the challenges that funders, and particularly foundations, face in effectively using evaluation within an organizational learning framework. Even with internal organizational challenges to learning, foundations are increasingly…

Portland Community College has a firmly rooted career and technical education (CTE) partnership with its service area high schools. However, the partnership was continuing to operate as it had for many years. Given the rapid pace of change in the region's workforce, Oregon's secondary and postsecondary educational initiatives, and a shared…

Evaluation capacity building, or ECB, is an area of great interest within the field of evaluation as well as in Extension evaluation. Internal Extension evaluators have long offered training and technical assistance to help Extension educators conduct evaluation. Today ECB in Extension encompasses myriad activities and processes to advance…

The authors present the argument that evaluation as currently practiced is failing the needs of the social sector, if the goal is to help organizations achieve their mission. Three case studies are presented in which evaluation played a key role in the development of a learning culture within the organization. Each case highlights the positive…

If museums and libraries are to compete for both public and private funds in an accountability-driven environment, they must develop evaluation practices that provide the most compelling picture of the impact of their services. The two essays in this document present clear arguments for the adoption of a specific approach to evaluation known as…

The 1996-97 school year was the second year of the Children Achieving reform initiative in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania). This summary describes findings from this second-year evaluation. The evaluation team conducted interviews and observations in 21 schools and 14 clusters, interviewing education reform leaders in the school district and…

Guidance is provided to organizational personnel in establishing a means for assessing the effectiveness of a new performance appraisal system. (TA)

The proposed use of performance indicators for evaluating higher education institutions in a number of countries is critically analyzed, particularly regarding their use for institutional and program rankings and comparisons. A more developmental system retaining positive aspects of performance indicators and encouraging program improvement is…

This document is a transcript of a panel discussion on the development and early stages of implementation of an accountability system for vocational education professional personnel development in Pennsylvania. Representatives of the Bureau of Vocational and Adult Education, Pennsylvania Department of Education, and three of the four participating…

This report examines the process of school reform in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) during the last half of the 1995-96 school year. It focuses on the progress of the Children Achieving initiative in the first 6 of the projected 22 clusters and considers 11 schools in these 6 clusters in detail. The focus of work in this first year of operation was…

A study of program review at 156 community colleges shows that it is widely used for accountability and program improvement; that substantial use is made of results; and that key leadership support, organizational communication, a clear understanding of purposes, and frequent action on program review recommendations at all organizational levels…

Philadelphia's school reform initiative, Children Achieving" was evaluated. The focus in this report is on decentralization, exploring how Children Achieving is strengthening schools' capacity to make and carry out informed decisions that lead to schoolwide standards, how the new structures are working at various levels of the system, and how…

This report explores issues related to accountability in the context of Children Achieving, the school reform effort of Philadelphia (Pennsylvania). The accountability system begins with content standards in English/language arts, mathematics, science, and the arts. The Stanford-9 Achievement Test has been designated to assess how students are…