Noting that child advocates are increasingly implementing monitoring projects to track the status of former welfare families and are using the findings to inform their agendas, policymakers, and the general public, this issue brief introduces monitoring strategies and suggests issues for consideration in designing a monitoring project. Monitoring,…

This report describes how one of our nation's largest urban school systems works through the complexities of diverse testing programs, testing schedules, and students to produce timely results that help students, parents, teachers, administrators, and policy makers to produce sound decisions about learning. (Author)

This study investigated factors influencing use of evaluative information for decision making by administrators and school boards. The factors investigated included: (1) the quality of the decision to be made; (2) the amount of personal conflict involved; (3) the context of the program, and (4) whether participants were board members or…

Describes reasons for utilizing follow-up studies of elementary and middle school graduates, providing two case studies demonstrating the efficacy of follow-ups. Suggests that such studies improve accountability to customers, provide schools with useful feedback, and actively involve students and parents in evaluation efforts. (MAB)

Describes the practice of benchmarking and its use in staffing. Examines benchmarking's roots in quality control and how businesses can establish reference points in pursuing their goals. Includes suggestions on planning benchmarking efforts, strategies for data collection, data analysis, and taking action. Provides a benchmarking code of conduct…

A "policy communities" framework is proposed to explain why three evaluations of home care and services for the elderly in Quebec (Canada) either influenced, or failed to influence, policymaking in the area. It is suggested that program evaluation strategies should reflect the political context of the evaluation. (SLD)

This article discusses the 6-E Report Card, a tool that provides a quantitative evaluation of instructional programs based upon a unique decision-making model that meets objectives by measuring excellence, equity, efficiency, effort, effectiveness, and ethics. Programs are assessed for their ability to meet or exceed predetermined performance…

The experience of development assistance (donor) agencies with the monitoring and evaluation of their projects in the developing countries is reviewed. The concepts and definitions of monitoring and evaluation are traced and problems and issues that emerged in the 1970's are reviewed. Future directions are discussed. (SLD)

Examines teachers' evaluations by principals over a 10-year period to compare criteria used and determine whether movement toward research-based criteria exists. Finds evaluations to be neither professional nor bureaucratic, but rather serving ritualistic purposes of little help to teachers' professional improvement or to personnel decision…

Examines perspectives of Barbadian teachers on existing methods for evaluating teachers and on recommendations set forth in the literature. Results revealed support for evaluation but much dissatisfaction with existing methods. Points out that primary teachers are more inclined to believe that evaluation is a basis for promotion. (KO)

A Peace Corps evaluator describes ways of improving utilization of evaluation results. Focus is on structural/organizational changes to facilitate knowledge and researcher use. Methods for use within and outside agencies; agency decision makers as end users; and the importance of context, as opposed to philosophy or methodology, are discussed.…

An expanded framework for validating tests is needed to include the perspectives of teachers and students as well as of test makers and scientists. The development of educational assessments must take place within an understanding of how tests are used in context. (SLD)

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)

The author's optimistic view of evaluation in the future includes increased utilization, especially in the private sector; more professionalization, with potential for conflict; more academic program development; more use in policy; increase in the use of complex methods; and more involvement in program development. (SLD)

Conjectures about the future use of controlled randomized experiments for planning and evaluating social programs suggest that they will frequently involve institutions and organizations rather than individuals and that their applications and the publicity surrounding them will increase as they are used in new and controversial ways. (SLD)