Recent efforts to improve K-12 educational outcomes have had mixed success. One possible reason is that many students entering kindergarten lack the basic skills to succeed in school. In 2007, with support from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, Hawai'i launched its P-3 (preschool through third-grade) initiative, the early childhood component of the…

This paper presents the U.S. Department of Education's Fiscal Year (FY) "2010 Annual Performance Report" (APR). This report provides detailed information on: (1) the status of strategic goals, and (2) the outcomes of the strategic performance measures identified in the Department's "FY 2007-2012 Strategic Plan" and updated previously in the "FY…

The School Planning, Evaluation, and Communication System (SPECS) is an overall design for districtwide program assessment and development. It is both a way of interrelating planning and evaluation of individual programs and a way of comparing the outcomes of all district programs with the district's community-defined educational goals. Component…

This document consists of the papers presented at a meeting of experts who examined and evaluated systems analysis and management technique applications to practical educational planning. The papers focus primarily on the integration of shortrun and longrun aspects of educational planning and the relationship between objectives and implementation.…

ECONOMIC ANALYSIS SHOULD BE APPLIED TO SCHOOL PLANNING TO PROVIDE A GENERAL FRAMEWORK WITHIN WHICH EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED IN THE MOST REASONABLE MANNER. SYSTEMS ANALYSIS METHODS INTEGRATE THE DIFFERING VALUES OF EDUCATORS INTO COMMON OBJECTIVES. SUCCESSFUL USE OF PROGRAM BUDGETING DEPENDS ON (1) PLANNING, STRUCTURAL DESIGN, AND…

This paper describes an effort to implement a cost-effectiveness program using systems analysis in an elementary school district, the Rio Linda Union School District in California. The systems design cycle employed has three phases, policy-making evaluation, and action-implementation. During the first phase, the general philosophy or mission of…

Systems in teaching and learning are discussed in depth to aid in relating educational theories to the art of teaching. Chapter 1, on individualization of instruction, discusses research in the learning process. Chapter 2, on systems and the systems approach, reviews the meaning of "system," systems analysis and synthesis, and the use of a systems…

A process for evaluating the effectiveness of educational organizations, with a focus on accountability, is described. An evaluation of 15 pilot-test school districts in the Arizona Career Ladder Project reveals the existence of a major discrepancy between meeting program requirements and achieving program success. A theoretical model of…

Under the present practices, the objectives and activities of socially oriented projects have rarely been specified with enough clarity and concreteness. Alternatives have been insufficiently presented for consideration by top management. In a number of cases, the future costs of present decisions have not been laid out systematically enough and…

The purpose of this module is to help educators learn how to break down a goal into its directly observable component parts. These parts of the goal can then be used as evaluative criteria for measuring accomplishment of the goal. The procedure is a new method for operationally defining goals and is a specific application of a general method…

This manual is basically designed as a self-instructional guide by which postsecondary vocational administrators and educators can conduct cost-effectiveness/benefit studies. (Cost-effectiveness/benefit analysis is an evaluation technique which can be used for assessing outcomes of existing and/or new programs in relation to their specified…

The Oregon Planning-Programming-Budgeting-Systems Institute, which was held August 19 through 30, 1968, was one of three such institutes financed by the U.S. Office of Education, Bureau of Vocational Education. It was designed to acquaint State level vocational education administrators with the potential and workings of planning, programming,…

This publication presents in summary form the development of the two end products of the Trenton Title III project: (1) an educational planning system called STEP (System for Tranton's Educational Planning) and (2) a new planning office, the Division of Research, Planning, and Evaluation. Included is the outline of the planning cycle, a discussion…