Discusses the opportunities and dangers associated with various aspects of implementing the Engineering Criteria 2000. Topics include: (1) understanding the continuous quality improvement process; (2) use of assessment terminology; (3) development of performance criteria; (4) use of local resources; (5) hiring an expert to aid the transition; (6)…

Describes the revision process that the National Catholic Educational Association's Department of Religious education is currently undergoing to update and improve its religious education assessment surveys. Factors that have prompted revision pertain to ecumenical, social justice, and human sexuality concerns and use of age-appropriate and…

Case studies in the National Camp Evaluation Project and National Inclusive Camp Practices project used interviews with counselors and parents about camper's growth to yield qualitative data for camp program evaluation. The importance, methods, and benefits of case studies are described. Sidebars give examples of comments on perceived camper…

This study was designed to determine the degree of use, level of client satisfaction of professional development and educational services, and to identify suggestions for improving services. Results from a mixed methodology approach indicated moderate to high levels of satisfaction in two program areas and moderate to high levels of…

Noting that information is needed about libraries' roles in literacy activities in terms of the outcomes, the Library Programs Office of the U.S. Department of Education awarded the Division of Library Development a grant to develop a model that would evaluate literacy activities in such a fashion. A result of this effort, this library literacy…

Smaller class sizes in California were viewed as a way to improve K-3 education, especially in the area of literacy. The urgency to act prompted state leaders to adopt class-size reduction (CSR) without knowing for sure that it would work and without establishing a formal procedure for evaluating the program. This report looks at past research on…

This guide shows why organizations need an assessment strategy to raise the quality and flexibility of the assessment they provide for learners. It contains guidelines to assist organizations in designing a strategy for offering a range of services for their own particular context. Section 1 discusses why organizations need an assessment policy.…

Divided into two sections, this report describes research on the range and degree of assessment of students' communication skills in colleges and universities and includes the following findings: (1) of the 384 respondents from college speech communication departments, 45 reported using large-scale, uniform testing of students; (2) these…

The authors argue that most current modes of formative and summative teacher evaluation are fundamentally unproductive. Unproductiveness stems from focusing upon efficiency rather than effectiveness, post rather than future performance, individual rather than organizational performance, and authoritarian rather than collegial relationships.…

This document reviews schools operated by the Department of Defense (DOD) for dependents of military and DOD civilian personnel located overseas. Major issues concern the adequacy of information on educational quality provided by the schools and the responsiveness of the school system to parental concerns. Interviews, document analysis, and…

The Sacramento City (California) Unified School District found its own way to combine local school effectiveness assessment with state required local district quality reports. The evaluation matrix developed by the district identified information needed in six district goal areas for local long-range planning, the state-required reports, and an…

This guide is intended to assist states and service delivery areas (SDAs) in addressing the new oversight responsibilities and opportunities stipulated by the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA). The first section examines the objectives and outcomes of the project to develop this and the other eight JTPA evaluation guides in the series. A listing…

This paper describes ten generic characteristics that are essential for the meaningful evaluation of a teacher education program. A summary is offered of each characteristic, problems that can be encountered if the characteristic is ignored, and how the characteristic is essential to the operation of program evaluation. These ten characteristics…

The papers presented at this symposium offer discussions on the program evaluation needs of three categories of teacher education institutions. An introductory paper examines state-of-the-art teacher education program evaluation, the requirements of national and regional accreditation agencies, and the evaluation requirements involved in the state…

The National Study of School Evaluation (NSSE) developed and tested a self-evaluation instrument to be used by unit schools (having grades K-12 under one administration and usually under the same roof or at least on the same grounds). A National Advisory Committee wrote the new instrument, compiling items from existing NSSE evaluative materials…