Obtaining accurate, comprehensive data for vocational education has been one of the more elusive objectives of federal policy. Given the long history of unsuccessful attempts to improve the quality and scope of data on vocational education, it is important to understand the lessons of the past before embarking on a new data collection effort…

The 1987-1988 Project SPIRIT programs were evaluated for effectiveness from the points of view of the participants, both parents and children. An initiative of the Congress of National Black Churches that was begun in the summer of 1986, Project SPIRIT aims to nurture children's strength, perseverance, imagination, responsibility, integrity, and…

This report, along with its supplemental volumes, assesses the welfare system and its successes and failures, describes the frustrations felt by the poor in the United States, and proposes a basic change in public assistance policy. America's state and federal governments spend more than $150 billion a year on programs to alleviate poverty, yet…

This report provides an overview of the current welfare system. The number and size of federal public assistance programs have increased during the past 25 years, with particular growth in noncash benefit programs, which now constitute about three-quarters of all means-tested assistance. From mid-1983 to mid-1984, more than 52.5 million Americans…

Evaluation of freshman English programs is a process involving recursive steps, such as planning which elements to review, securing resources to carry out the review, actually reviewing the planned elements, and providing written reports to decision-makers. The four elements of an educational program--contexts, input, process, and product--cohere…

This report examines parent-involvement programs that focus on Hispanic families and the methods that have been used to evaluate these programs. The survey involved 10 Hispanic parent-involvement programs named by various state education agency directors as being significant. Particular attention was given to whether or not the programs were…

This report describes a project undertaken at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) between January 1, 1982 and March 31, 1984, which was designed to increase the use in program assessment and in program improvement of information derived from measures of: (1) student achievement in general education; (2) student achievement in the major…

In its final year of a 2-year funding cycle, the Cooperative Work-Study Program for Bilingual Students offered bilingual instruction, career exploration programs, and supportive services to approximately 220 students in grades 9 through 12 at a high school in Bronx, New York. Almost all students were Hispanic and most were non-native born and of…

This paper describes various kinds of inservice teacher education sponsored by the Maryland State Department of Education and explores the factors influencing impact on participants in terms of use of knowledge or skills presented. Data were collected by observation, interviews, and questionnaires. A cross-case synthesis of 10 individual case…

The reading program developed at Niagara University in New York has undergone a number of changes in response to long term evaluation. In the early 1970s, the only program evaluation tools used were pretests and posttests. These were misleading, as they measured only short term gains, not retention after completion of the course. Based on ideas…

The internal consistency of the Self Assessment Instrument of Chapter 1 Program Quality (SAICPQ) was studied. This instrument is widely used to assess the implementation of exemplary practices in compensatory education. The SAICPQ is a self-report questionnaire consisting of 13 subscales representing correlates of achievement in studies of…

This report, the fifth in a series of studies of South Carolina's vocational education system, summarizes the results of a recent mail survey of more than 1,200 employers throughout the state regarding their perceptions of and experiences with vocational education, its graduates, and entry-level workers. Some of the results of the survey were as…

California's K-6 Early Intervention Project was established in 1986 under the authority of California Assembly Bill 1535, Pilot Project on Hyperactivity, to provide a system of early identification and assistance to children in kindergarten through grade 6 whose behavior problems interfere with learning. This report contains evaluation findings…

Designed specifically for state and local managers and supervisors who plan, direct, and operate child support enforcement programs, this workbook provides a four-part, step-by-step process for identifying needed information and methods of using the information to operate an effective program. The process consists of: (1) determining what…

This paper proposes a set of procedures for self-evaluation by practicing school psychologists and includes specific directions for development and improvement of their functioning. The evaluability assessment, a preparation for self-evaluation, is explained and suggested as a starting point. Included is a table which outlines the evaluability…