The $17.2 million Rural Community College Initiative (RCCI) demonstration grant program funded by the Ford Foundation which ran from 1994 to 2001 represents the largest philanthropic project specifically aimed at rural community colleges in United States history. While a good deal of literature has been published about this initiative, much was…

Interested in bringing the benefits of the arts as integral to quality education for all children, in 2004 the Ford Foundation launched the National Arts Education Initiative, a seven-year demonstration in nine communities across the United States. Building from arts education programs that serve "pockets" of children, Ford investments…

Unfortunately, little is known about school-based interventions that address the needs of struggling adolescent readers. To help fill these gaps in knowledge and to provide evidence-based guidance to practitioners, the U.S. Department of Education initiated the Enhanced Reading Opportunities (ERO) Study--a demonstration and random assignment…

In this article, the authors describe a case in which school district officials used state regulations for new teacher mentoring programs as justification to cut funding and incrementally dismantle a model program. (Contains 1 table.)

Guided by research and the experiences of judges nationwide, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges made a commitment in 1998 to improve community response to families experiencing domestic violence and child maltreatment. A year later, the council's work culminated in a set of recommendations commonly called the "Greenbook,"…

The Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) project is the most comprehensive effort thus far to ascertain which approaches help welfare recipients and other low-income people stay steadily employed and advance in their jobs. Launched in 1999 and slated to end in 2009, the ERA project encompasses more than a dozen demonstration programs and…

The methodology and design of the process evaluation system of the Pawtucket Heart Health Program (an 11-year project for changing/documenting change in cardiovascular disease risk status of a northeastern city's residents) are described. Examples of the system's use are provided. The maintenance of such a system without substantial evaluation…

A video mock-up is a "design story", described by Patrick Parrish in a recent "TechTrends" article as "imagining the journey of a learner's experience in engaging with a finished design". A design story allows designers to show their design vision to others and to observe features and benefits of the program as a learner would experience it. The…

This article describes the design and formative evaluation of a Web-based tool that supports curriculum developers in constructing competence maps. Competence maps describe final attainment levels of educational programs in terms of--interrelated--competencies. Key requirements for the competence-mapping tool were validity and practicality.…

Classroom research and formative evaluation, the most efficient methods of assessing and planning teaching improvements, form the link to quality student learning. An assessment program at Alverno College (Wisconsin) and an instructional improvement program at Miami-Dade Community College (Florida) demonstrate the importance of bringing assessment…

Objective: Tailored nutrition Web programs constitute an emerging trend in obesity prevention. Initial investment in innovative technology necessitates that the target population be well understood. This pilot study's purpose was to determine the feasibility of a workplace nutrition Web program. Design: Formative research was conducted with gaming…

This evaluator's report of a career education project for the Detroit Public Schools is divided into two sections. Section 1, process evaluation, provides a summary of the activities reported by the project personnel for the eight deliverables collected and analyzed by the evaluator staff: (1) curriculum infusion, (2) career…

During the last 2 years (1980-82), selected schools in the Broward County School District in Florida participated in the National Sex Equity Demonstration Project (NSEDP) to create a model for demonstration of curricular materials, educational practices, and program arrangements that feature gender-fair instruction and associated educational…

This interim report, part of a series of documents examining the feasibility of the longitudinal evaluation of Project Developmental Continuity (PDC), presents the results of an analysis of PDC impact at the Head Start level, using Spring 1977 data. PDC is a Head Start Demonstration Program aimed at providing educational and developmental…

This operations manual for field staff (site monitors, site coordinators, and testers) involved in the observation and testing of children is part of a series of documents on the evaluation of Project Developmental Continuity (PDC), a Head Start demonstration program aimed at providing educational and developmental continuity between children's…