Evaluation models have been taken as methodologies for actually conducting evaluations, instead of as persuasions or frameworks within which more specific constructs and methods must be placed. Although evaluation models do not provide methodologies, they do provide a guide for thinking about how an evaluation could be conducted. (Author/LC)

Illustrates a "systems approach," based on the quality deployment function, for examining the direct and interaction effects of multiple solutions aimed at improving access to college and student persistence. The high leverage solutions emerging from this study call for the improvement of academic achievement and schools for grades K-12. (SLD)

Validation studies, placement-enrollment comparisons, student surveys, and instructor interviews are discussed as operational methods in a synthesizing approach to undergraduate course placement evaluation. A range of suggested questions is coupled with various data sources in placement evaluation schemes and system procedures. (CM)

This article examines some of the reasons attempts to tighten the couplings between legislative and judicial intent and site level implementation have remained problematic. Specifically, this article argues that the assumption that program evaluation can force program implementation is faulty. (Author/BW)

Several conceptions of schooling are outcome-bound: input-output models, school effectiveness models, classroom learning models, and systems theory models. Problems with each of these conceptions are identified, followed by a brief discussion of an outcome-free approach in which schools are viewed as cultural ecologies. (BW)