Earth science, which in this context does not include oceanic, atmospheric, and space sciences, is vital to the wellbeing of the United States and many of its issues, such as water resources, are expected to grow in importance. An earth science workforce will be needed to deal with this issues and it's important that this workforce draw on the…

This testimony discusses US Government Accountability Office's (GAO's) recent report entitled "Opportunities to Reduce Potential Duplication in Government Programs, Save Tax Dollars, and Enhance Revenue." This report delineates dozens of areas across government where fragmentation, overlap, and potential duplication merit the attention of Congress…

This research evaluates the social context of adolescent intervention programs through a critical lens to determine the impact on youth postsecondary decisions with respect to both educational attainment and deviant behavior, further examining the role of education from a social and political perspective. The Education Longitudinal Study 2002/06…

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is committed to bringing together museums and libraries across the country for conversations dedicated to developing a better understanding of the roles of libraries and museums as providers of public service to communities. The Future of Libraries and Museums in the 21st Century Planning…

Recommendations to increase the relevance of information, improve the communication of information, and increase user responsiveness to information are presented. Recommendations include the following: (1) the Department of Education (ED) should institute a flexible planning system for evaluations of federal education programs; (2) congressional…

The evolution of the social indicators movement is described, focusing particularly upon the split between those who hold that indicators are statistical time series for the measurement of social change and those who look to social indicators for evaluations of government programs. In addition to discussing these two positions and their impact on…

The purpose of this paper, one of three related documents, is to present hypotheses about the causes for the success of the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education. The fund's success is demonstrated by the following achievements, all discussed indepth: diversity among the fund's applicants and grantees, multidimensional projects,…

The state of the art of randomized social field experiments is discussed. Topics discussed include disciplines of primary actors involved in such research, scientific value of experimentation, the nation's capacity to conduct field experiments, and society's willingness to permit such experiments. (TJH)

Part of a forum on a Federal offices' search for a strategy to gain better evaluation utilization, this paper discusses the strategy's conception. Three categories of educational evaluations, defined by social and structural characteristics of the program environment, are identified: (1) trial evaluations, whose funding is not guaranteed beyond…

The emergence of a sequence in evaluation approaches at the local level during the decade of Title I is discussed. These recurring patterns related to objectives, evaluation designs and data collection modes reflect impact of both external factors (e.g., changes in funding guidelines) and internal factors (e.g., changes in priority needs).…

An impact evaluation of the Spanish/English component of the federal Bilingual Education Program (BEP) was done by the American Institutes for Research (AIR) between 1974-76. The AIR evaluation took three years, cost $2 million, and examined many aspects of the BEP. This paper explores the influence of the AIR evaluation on the 1978…

The Follow Through program epitomizes many of the successes and failures of federally funded compensatory education. The program, designed to "follow through" in grades kindergarten through three on the documented gains of disadvantaged children graduating from Head Start, emerged as a planned variation experiment that systematically…

The author contends that within executive government, which already has all the information it needs to make decisions, program evaluation is seen as a symbolic rather than a substantive enterprise. If it is assumed that program evaluation is an end of policy, not a means, the reasons for government investment in evaluation include: (1) no choice;…

In April 1976, 95 educational program evaluators were asked the question, "What do you think will be the relationship between the new collective bargaining law (SB160) and the operation and evaluation of A-127 (state and federally funded) education programs?" Working in small groups, participants accomplished the following: (1) They…

The evaluation strategies and results for Title I programs were compared and contrasted. Two systems of evaluation to examine the nature and effectiveness of Elementary Secondary Education Act (ESEA) Title I programs nationwide were implemented. The first involved sponsoring national studies, including the Study of the Sustaining Effects of…