California Postsecondary Education Commission's (CPEC's) Improving Teacher Quality State Grants Program (ITQ) awards $8 million annually to support university-based teacher professional development projects. The program is funded by the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. CPEC awards these grant funds through a competitive process involving…

This study examined the design, implementation, and instructional effectiveness of three of America's most widely disseminated comprehensive school reform programs (the Accelerated Schools Project, America's Choice, and Successful for All) over a four year period that encompassed the school years 2000-2001 through 2003-2004. The authors' goal in…

As part of MDRC's multisite Opening Doors demonstration, Chaffey College, a large community college in Southern California, ran two versions of a program that was designed to improve outcomes among students who are on probation. Both versions offered a "College Success" course, taught by a college counselor, which provided basic…

Life in the Community is an action research project with three objectives: (1) To work with four organisations from the third sector to improve the daytime opportunities for up to 40 people with higher support needs and help them to be more included in the life of a community; (2) To develop the capacity of organisations in the not-for-profit…

The National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST) at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) was contracted to undertake a three-year external evaluation of the Artful Learning program, an arts-based school improvement model developed from the work and philosophy of the late composer Leonard Bernstein.…

Environmental interpretation is a key tool for integrated management of tourism, with potential for greater use in managing visitor numbers, behavior and impacts, and enhancing experience. Evaluation is necessary to determine whether interpretation is achieving its goals. It is vital for park managers to know if their management is effective in…

In response to teacher shortages around the country, the number of virtual personnel preparation programs has grown dramatically over the past few years. Many of these programs have been created in order to assist in the preparation of special education professionals in a variety of specializations, including high incidence disabilities (e.g.,…

Only a handful of states address children with disabilities in their early child care quality rating systems. As a result, few states are evaluating the quality of inclusive programs and services. This problem is compounded by a lack of consensus on dimensions that define high quality inclusion and a need for additional measures of quality…

In recent years, there has been a revival of interest in financial incentives to encourage students to attend school and to improve their academic achievement, graduation rates, and other outcomes. Conditional cash transfer programs in developing countries, especially PROGRESA in Mexico, have found positive effects on attendance in large-scale…

When attempting to determine if an intervention has a causal impact, the "gold standard" of program evaluation is the randomized controlled trial (RCT). In education studies random assignment is rarely feasible at the student level, making RCTs harder to conduct. School-level assignment is more common but this often requires considerable resources…

The various assessment methods available to Political Science Departments each have their pros and cons. Standardized tests may be seen as an efficient and a less labor-intensive way to collect data on student-learning outcomes (SLOs), but these lack contextual information. Exit interviews and works collected from capstone courses may provide…

Cooperative Extension's role as a relevant provider of nonformal education is dependent upon its ability to improve and adjust in response to internal and external pressures. Periodically conducting needs assessments focused on the Extension organization can aid in Extension's efforts to deliver quality educational programs by pinpointing priority…

This paper examines pre-service teacher outcomes associated with service learning in domestic and international settings. One group of upper-division undergraduate level pre service teachers participated in supervised experiences in domestic settings. A second group of upper-division undergraduate level pre-service teachers participated in…

This comparative study examines the role of contextual features embedded in a dialogic environment in fostering literacy. The study, implemented by language arts teachers in a middle school setting, investigates the effectiveness of an instructional program designed to create a collaborative dialogic learning environment that imparts literacy. The…

Early childhood education in Kenya serves the critical purpose of preparing young children for primary education. Notwithstanding the associated benefits for society as a whole, the government of Kenya is involved minimally. Indeed, parents are responsible for planning, developing and managing different early childhood programs. Consequently,…