In 2019, the Texas legislature passed a historic education finance bill that included an initiative to add up to 30 days to the school-year calendar. One way districts can do this is to offer a voluntary summer learning program. In 2020, the American Institutes for Research, with support from The Wallace Foundation, launched the six-year Texas…

Community-engaged scholars, practitioners, and community partners often find the language of community engagement challenging. Words like "participate," "collaborate," "partner," or "engage" fail to convey who in a community-university partnership has voice and authority in decision-making and responsibility…

The Big Lift is a collective impact initiative extending from preschool to third grade in San Mateo County, California. The collective impact effort consists of people and organizations from various sectors uniting to tackle a single, complicated societal problem -- in this case, third grade reading achievement. The initiative is a partnership of…

Randomized controlled trials are the gold standard in research but may not fully explain or predict outcome variations in community-based interventions. Demonstrating efficacy of externally driven programs in well-controlled environments may not translate to community-based implementation where resources and priorities vary. A bottom-up evaluation…

Making Connections was the Annie E. Casey Foundation's signature place-based, community-change initiative of the 2000s. It sought to build on previous work and launch an effort focused firmly on the framework of family strengthening. The Foundation started Making Connections in 22 places, focusing eventually on first 10, then seven sites. It…

While a number of excellent campus climate planning resources are available, this guide attempts to fill a gap by providing an abundance of "how-to" information. The goal of the guide is to assist climate action planning teams at schools that are well versed in campus climate issues and well along in the CAP (Climate Action Planning) process as…

The guide provides some basic strategies and tools for monitoring residential settings--both institutions and community residences--for the quality of services provided to persons with developmental disabilities. An introductory chapter explains the purpose and layout of the document. Chapter II describes how to find and understand public…

The Judicial Evaluation Method (JEM) is useful for aiding decision-making bodies to formulate policies. Broad public participation in complex issues is provided by JEM. (The conceptualization, policy formulation stages, and participant roles are identified; and the model is applied in two case studies). (MH)

A fictional Rhode Island community is used to describe the Local Planning and Assessment Process (LPAP), including technical assistance, and to discuss some of the drawbacks involved in planning and implementing program evaluation and development. The hypothetical situation is based on real experiences of several communities which have used LPAP.…

Four major component areas of the Hazard (Kentucky) Educational Region were sampled using questionnaires, tests, and interviews in an effort to assess the effects of a regional career education program. The community component, randomly selected to achieve a five percent representative sample, was examined for major variables associated with the…

The concept of needs and educational assessment is a blending of community participation and evaluation. There are four primary steps in this concept: goal definition, program assessment, needs identification, and decision making. This document offers a guideline model aimed at a simple, economical method of needs and educational assessment. It…

The four 1991 issues of the newsletter "Development Communication Report" are primarily concerned with the use of communication technologies in developing countries to educate the people. Evaluation is the theme of the first issue, which contains the following articles: "Evaluating Communication Programs: Means and Ends,""Making a Splash: How…

In response to the recognition and needs of displaced homemakers as a distinct population, this model is presented as an outgrowth of Project New Start, a displaced homemakers center sponsored by the Chicago Community Colleges. Introductory sections include an abstract of the final project report, rationale and background of the project with focus…

The results of a more than two-year operation of a new kind of day care service known as the Day Care Neighbor Service are presented and evaluated. This service makes it possible to intervene at the neighborhood level where families privately and without benefit of a social agency make day care arrangements with neighborhood "sitters" or…

The Rural Texas Domestic Violence Health Professionals Education Program (RTDVHPEP) was designed as an initial and circumscribed effort in the establishment of a comprehensive network of services for Texas victims of rural domestic violence. Immediate goals of RTDVHPEP were to provide rural health care professionals with knowledge and skills to…