The School Improvement Program (SIP) is a project which involves over half of California's public elementary and secondary schools and which emphasizes cooperative planning by schools and communities to improve education. The improvement planning process in each school is undertaken by a School Site Council (SCC), composed of the principal, and…

Thirty specific standards developed as guiding principles to maintain the utility, feasibility, propriety and accuracy of evaluations in educational programs, projects and materials are presented. Utility Standards include Audience Identification, Evaluator Credibility, Information Scope and Selection, Valuational Interpretation, Report Clarity,…

Some evaluations have concluded that diversion programs for juvenile offenders (programs intended as community-based alternatives to formal justice dispositions) reduce recidivism only among youths with the least serious offense histories. To investigate the relationship of offense history to program effectiveness, three diversion programs were…

Efforts by the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the Federal Government to eliminate racial discrimination through policies that guarantee civil rights, increase minority opportunity, and reduce social class inequality have only been partially successful. Infrequent coordination among the three branches and lack of total commitment…

A primary school drug abuse prevention program was evaluated. The program consisted of 2 years of Magic Circle on the Human Development Program (designed to positively influence students' social and emotional development via a teacher-led discussion of a particular topic) and 1 year of Jigsaw (a structured peer teaching method in which students…

Reality Therapy was adopted as the major treatment modality to be used by the staff to work with the youth at the Maine Youth Center (MYC). A time-series design, which included the administration of the Correctional Institutions Environment Scale, was used to evaluate the influence of Reality Therapy on the perceptions of staff and youth at the…

As part of its plans to recruit Hispanic personnel who speak English as a second language, the U.S. Navy will have to provide English language training as well as technical training to prepare these personnel for fleet duty. A cost/benefit analysis was conducted of three English language training programs: the English Technical Language School…

A study was undertaken to improve the quality of student follow-up data submitted by the California community colleges in compliance with federal Vocational Education Data System (VEDS) reporting requirements. The objectives of the study were to conduct a follow-up of vocational education students from 14 community colleges, standardizing data…

The second of two related pamphlets, this guide describes how to design an outcome study and outlines procedures for collecting outcome data. After an introduction that delineates the purpose of the two-part series, the pamphlet is divided into four major sections. The first section explains how to select a cost-outcome analysis. The next three…

An educational program developed for adults as part of a larger resettlement operation for Cuban refugees seeking asylum in the United States and based at Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania is described and evaluated. Evaluative measures indicated that the program was more successful than anticipated, with substantial upward movement through tested…

A training program in computer educationtTested in 89 secondary schools focused on the use of computers as tools in all subject areas. Each school received enough computers and software from IBM to equip a full computer laboratory. The schools were organized into local networks in eight regions and received training and continuing support in these…

An evaluation is presented of two inservice courses on computer science designed to help teachers achieve computer literacy. Positive changes in teachers' attitudes toward computers were noted as well as gains in functional knowledge and computer literacy. There was little or no change in teachers' priorities for computer use, program expansion,…

Questionnaires were submitted to students in all but two of the secondary schools in London (Ontario) to discover why students who are either taking or not taking physical and health education (P.H.E.) courses made these decisions and their opinions on P.H.E. Students answered some personal questions and some questions about their prior experience…

Following a discussion of various methods of evaluating the effectiveness of developmental programs, this paper presents a research design for the evaluation of a developmental math program. First, the paper examines the objectives and benefits of conducting formative and summative program evaluations. The paper then identifies the single group…

The nineteenth annual summary of activities provided through Chapter 1 of the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act and its Title I predecessor, this report includes statistics for fiscal 1984, participation trends, instructional impact, expenditure and staffing patterns, parent involvement, and five-year trends. After a brief discussion of…