Introduction: The results of a 2009-2010 program evaluation study that examined parents, teachers of students with visual impairments, administrators, and students regarding overall satisfaction with and effectiveness of the short-term programs at a residential school for students who are blind and visually impaired are described. The findings are…

This publication describes basic skills improvement programs and activities ongoing throughout the United States. The guide is organized into two sections. The first section contains program descriptions and hands-on materials from 25 elementary and secondary programs across the nation that have been selected for inclusion in the National…

The evaluation of the Bowling Green, Kentucky, K-12 Career Education Incremental Improvement Project consisted of five components: professional staff survey (PSS), student career maturity, career education program assessment, record of student career development, and academic achievement. PSS findings indicated that the seventy principals,…

The Learning Initiatives Program (LIP), formerly the Learning Initiatives Fund (LIF), is a contribution program which was established in 1994 to encourage and support initiatives that contribute to the development of a results-oriented, accessible, relevant and accountable learning system in Canada. Through this program, Human Resources and Skills…

Early care and education can prepare children for school, but while some preschool and child care programs do an excellent job, others are inadequate and some may even harm healthy development. This study focuses on child care center directors to better understand why there is so much variation, and how public initiatives can better help…

Harvard Family Research Project's Out-of-School Time (OST) Program Research and Evaluation Database and Bibliography provide accessible and timely information about research and evaluations involving OST programs and initiatives. This Research Update explores key themes emerging from 13 recent reports added to the OST Research and Evaluation…

Universities today need to become quicker on their toes. They must continually scan the environment and seize emerging opportunities--and institutional advancement must lead this effort. An unfortunate number of institutional advancement operations are ill equipped for the task at hand. Many suffer from high staff turnover and overly hierarchical…

Owing to national emphasis on accountability, teacher education programs are under close scrutiny by federal and state-level entities to justify their purpose and usefulness in preparing future teachers. Accrediting agencies have set high standards, which ask for systematic assessment of teacher education programs and their candidates. The purpose…

The paper offers a retrospective evaluation of recent evaluative studies of bilingual programs in the Australian state of Victoria, in an attempt to determine how successfully the evaluation process met the dual criteria of external accountability and development. The programs in question were located in primary or secondary government schools and…

Using concepts from the evaluation literature, this case study describes the instrumental, conceptual, and political influence of the Head Start National Reporting System (NRS) and on-going child assessments in a local Head Start program. This study found that a local program intentionally aimed to limit the influence of the NRS. The NRS validated…

The authors tell about their heterogeneous 91 person research and evaluation unit at an operating foundation in St. Paul, Minnesota. They focus on evaluation for program improvement, one of several purposes of studies they work on. The three authors write from their different manager positions within the unit. Included are the context of the…

The author urges human resource professionals to think and act strategically to market themselves more effectively. The following elements of such a strategy are discussed: operating philosophy, stakeholders' expectations, departmental capability, program profiling, the grand strategy, critical success factors, impact elements, strategic…

Using data from Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count, this issue looks at changes in cohort composition. The analysis addresses the changing composition of the Achieving the Dream student cohorts from 2002 to 2005. The data show that at Achieving the Dream colleges, the percentage of Hispanic students increased over the four cohorts…

Perhaps a decade ago, accreditation agencies might have been satisfied with a list of student learning outcomes and some evidence that students achieved them. More and more, accreditors request evidence of "improvement". It is not enough to merely demonstrate that what one is doing works reasonably well; one must also show that he or she…

School counselors are required to implement accountability strategies in order to increase student performance and contribute to closing the achievement gap. This study investigates the beliefs and practices of school counselors who have earned national recognition for implementing comprehensive school counseling programs based on identifying…