State and local report cards help ensure local educational agencies (LEAs), parents, families, educators, and communities have critical data and a common framework for gauging educational progress and success. Title I, Part A (Title I) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) requires States to annually share this important…

Experts have heralded domain-specific play-based curricula coupled with regular coaching and training as our "strongest hope" for improving instructional quality in large-scale public preschool programs. Yet, details from different evaluations of the strongest hope model are not systematically compiled, making it difficult to identify…

There is growing pressure to make efficacy experiments more useful. This requires attending to the twin goals of generalizing experimental results to those schools that will use the results and testing the intervention's theory of action. We show how electronic records, created naturally during the daily operation of technology-based…

For decades, discussions regarding assessment have been taking place in higher education, which has forced institutions to take a look at outcomes and indicators of student achievement. Although the literature indicates an acceptance that assessment is not going away, the process that takes place within higher education institutions has led to…

For many districts, evaluation is an afterthought to implementing a new initiative. Educators participate in professional learning experiences, apply what they learn to their practice, and then, at some point, school and district staff begin wondering if the initiative is making a difference. Then they scramble for nuggets of data that provide any…

The United States has experienced tremendous growth in the development of coaching initiatives including professional training programs, state endorsements and resources for coaches. These developments bring attention to the potential for coaching to improve education. They also raise the question of how best to facilitate implementation in local…

In 2006, six community and technical colleges in Washington State joined the innovative national reform initiative called Achieving the Dream (ATD). This report describes the progress each college made in implementing ATD's "culture of evidence" principles for institutional improvement, examines strategies implemented by the colleges to…

Review of literature concerning the use of program review in higher education lists sources discussing the review process, focusing on the links between program review and other institutional processes, and addressing application of program review principles and practices to different higher education settings. Critical factors for successful use…

Addressed to professionals involved in program evaluation, this working paper covers various aspects of evaluation planning, including the following: planning as a sociotechnical process, steps in evaluation planning, program planning and implementation versus evaluation planning and implementation, the literacy system and its subsystems, and some…

A survey of 43 high school principals about the usefulness of feedback reports generated through the evaluation of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation's Community Health Promotion Grants Program suggests that principals found the reports very valuable in a number of ways, especially in designing and implementing programs. (SLD)

This report summarizes the proceedings of an Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) sponsored meeting. The discussion and followup papers address issues related to disseminating promising and exemplary programs in conjunction with OERI's responsibilities to plan a system of expert panels. Section 1 of the report includes the minutes…

This paper describes the use of a theory-based framework, the Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM), in evaluating the implementation of three educational innovations in the Portland (Oregon) Public Schools during 1986-87: (1) Project READ, a districtwide alternative language arts program for grades 1-8; (2) Timeline, project management software…

Designed to provide a systematic means of analyzing the whole process of planning, implementation, and evaluation, these guidelines (1) suggest how national policies on user training may be related to national information policies in general, (2) suggest lines of action for the achievement of a national policy on user training, and (3) give advice…

A proposed evaluation model for measuring the impact of demonstration projects in vocational education defines sets of criteria, standards, and documentation for both interim and final acceptable evidence of project impact. Interim acceptable evidence is that evidence of project success which should be expected during the demonstration grant…

This report contains materials from the TECHlinx Technical Education Clearinghouse project designed to promote the effective development of the Texas work force by linking individuals and institutions to information and resources focused on work force education. Part 1, an executive summary, reports how the project was successfully established and…