One is always looking for new projects for students that will be of lasting benefit and also stimulate enthusiasm and thinking. A teacher at Wingate High School, New Mexico, a Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school, combines Navajo weaving with magazine writing in order to interest and stimulate her students. (Author/RK)

Provides a detailed description and evaluation of the French system of preschool nursery schools for children aged two to six. (SL)

Discusses major trends and consequences of the use of policy analysis in state and local government decision-making. (JG)

Content and performance standards can underlie high-quality assessments that provide useful information about how students and schools are doing. These data should be used to inform teaching decisions, trigger special supports for students' learning, and evaluate school practices, rather than simply allocating mechanistically determined rewards…

Workshop evaluation has become more complex as adult learners diversify, their needs evolve, and additional stakeholders require evaluative data. The evaluation process should be integrated into program planning. (SK)

According to responses from 118 of 126 secondary agriculture instructors in Nebraska, 73 offered junior high/middle school agriculture programs, most for less than 10 years. School schedules were a deterrent for those wanting to add such programs. They were offered to promote agricultural awareness, recruit students, and provide exposure to career…

The Minnesota Tech Prep Self-Evaluation System is a framework based on ideas from Deming, Juran, and the Baldridge award. Testing with 17 Minnesota tech prep consortia found it effective in identifying areas needing improvement and promoting dialog among those involved in tech prep implementation. (SK)

Reports on a preliminary evaluation of the Metropolitan Family Intervention Service at the Victorian Parenting Centre, Melbourne, Australia. It presents an analysis of pre-post data collected from 589 mothers who commenced and completed parenting programs between 1999 and early 2003. Significant improvements were noted in measures of parental…

Conducted an economic evaluation of five outpatient adolescent treatment approaches (12 total site-by-conditions) to identify average economic costs to society. Results suggest that some types of substance-abuse intervention for adolescents can reduce social costs immediately after treatment. (SLD)

Examines the relationship between meaningful program implementation and capacity to assess the impact of James P. Comer's School Development Program in a large-scale study, describing how the impact study became an implementation study because of such factors as changes in study design, disappearing treatment, difficulties implementing randomized…

Graduate apprenticeships in a British college's hospitality management course involved integration of key skills and National Vocational Qualifications units. Qualitative and quantitative data from seven students indicated they felt that integration enabled formal recognition of competency, provided valuable managerial experience, and facilitated…

Introduces "Students Against Violence Everywhere" (SAVE), describing a process for use in preparing for program evaluations. Suggests 10 evaluation questions for preparing essential information about the program being evaluated. Describes program information prepared by SAVE staff to inform evaluators about SAVE, their purposes in seeking…

Children appear at schoolhouse doors with many challenges that interfere with their ability to learn All too often, multiple psychological impediments to learning are concentrated in restricted segments of the population, thereby magnifying the risk experienced by the most vulnerable children. This article describes a community school initiative…

The tactics adopted by the Task Force on Evidence-Based Interventions in School Psychology have advantages in terms of literature coverage and providing data on multiple dimensions. Two suggestions to improve Task Force efforts are offered in terms of the specification of key outcomes and the use of effect sizes to gauge the impact and value of…

Advances the argument that advocacy in evaluation is inevitable when advocacy is understood as a value commitment to a particular representative ideal. The regulative ideal advanced in this article is a commitment to democratic pluralism. Three case examples illustrate these ideas. (SLD)