State policymakers are confronting well-documented intersecting crises -- medical, economic, and racial -- with especially dire implications for educational equity. State education leaders face a moral urgency to both understand and respond to the challenges students are experiencing and to do so in ways that address burgeoning equity gaps.…

Objectives: In the USA, 18% of school-aged young people are classified as obese, and rural populations appear to be particularly at risk. Achieving high levels of fitness reduces the risk of obesity and underlying health conditions. To better understand youth obesity trends and fitness levels, annual fitness testing ([FT], that is, surveillance)…

Prior Learning Assessment (PLA) is the evaluation and assessment of learning gained outside a traditional academic environment for college credit, certification, or advanced standing toward further education or training. The term PLA encompasses a wide spectrum of assessment methods, including, but not limited to, credit by examination, challenge…

Teacher preparation programs have both a desire and a responsibility to demonstrate, with affirmative evidence, that teacher education makes a difference in PreK-12 student learning. Program faculty need good data to make decisions about the progress of students, whom to recommend for state licensure, and how to improve teacher education. This…

The Bilingual Multicultural Education Bureau (BMEB) strives to serve all students participating in BMEPs so that all students achieve the determined program goals as outlined by New Mexico statute and education code, these are: (1) students become bilingual and biliterate in English and a second language; and (2) students meet all academic content…

This article reviews issues in questionnaire design beyond the creation of standardized questions and basic data collection rules. The use of magnitude scales, the application of decision theory, and the use of a questionnaire framework that replicates how choices are made by respondents are among the new design approaches discussed. (SLD)

Evaluation is critical to demonstrating program value and impact and to better communicating outcomes to stakeholders. Purdue Extension Health and Human Sciences (HHS Extension) created an evaluation tool based on the need to collect statewide metrics on a standardized set of questions addressing the topics of food, family, money, and health. This…

This report presents the evaluation findings for the 1982 Austin Independent School District's State Compensatory Education Summer School Program. It contains a description of the program, information about the data collection procedures employed in the evaluation, and a discussion of the student outcomes achieved by the program. Achievement…

Five major steps are involved in evaluating school reading programs: clarifying evaluators' role, data collection, data analysis, data reporting, and followup. This article explains these steps and presents a checklist for guiding the measurement of motivation, clarification, application, and satisfaction components. (MLH)

The purpose of this paper is to outline and explain the evaluation system used by the Rhode Island Department of Education to measure the effectiveness of compensatory education programs. An exposition of how relevant background, program and financial information is collected is presented. In addition, a delineation is made of the methods…

At the request of the Oklahoma Department of Education, the Technical Assistance Center 3 West conducted a statewide review of local Chapter 1 evaluation data to provide possible explanations for the unusual standardized test score gains or losses reported by a number of local school districts. During the two months of quality control visits, 35…

This paper discusses the theoretical scope and practical applicability of generalizability (G) theory through the principle of symmetry. Major ideas are summarized and factors hindering applications of G theory in research conducted in French-speaking Europe are presented. The principle of symmetry affirms that any factor of a design can be…

A study involving 84 special educators in two western states investigated special education knowledge and use of various transition assessment strategies. Although most of the educators indicated they were aware of all types of assessment strategies, they still relied heavily on those that were either standardized or teacher prepared. (Contains…

This volume is the technical appendixes to the evaluation study (ED 142 795) of the Career Intern Program (CIP), a program effort to help urban youth get a basic education and further training or a paying job. These appendixes include descriptions of the evaluation design, study sample, statistical treatment of the data, and measures used,…

Directors of educational projects need to be aware of the consequences their decisions may have for evaluation and appreciate the need for working closely with their evaluators from the earliest planning stage. Attempting to address the needs of project directors and evaluators, this guidebook deals with one central aspect of project…