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Program Evaluations OverviewProgram Evaluation provides evaluation services and reports for district programs and internal and external grants, as well as reports and analyses of major assessments and educational indicators for the district. Program Evaluation also provides extensive ad hoc information services for the Board and administration. Program Evaluation is comprised of three evaluation groups: Title I, Special Projects, and School Performance Initiatives. Title I Program Evaluation reports on projects funded by Title I legislation in compliance with both federal and state requirements. Special Projects and School Performance Initiatives provide evaluations and related services for grants and district programs not assigned to Title I. Please refer to the Quick Links below for evaluation reports by year. For additional information, contact: Karen Bembry, Ph.D. Michael Lucas, Ph.D. Vacant Program Evaluation: An Important Component For School SuccessSometimes program staff asks, “Why do we need an evaluation? We already give the state and federal governments all the information they ask for.” The short answer is that a well-done timely evaluation can be a magnificent planning tool. The point of most evaluations is not to determine if program staff is doing its job, but to determine what processes and procedures are achieving the desired outcomes in quantitatively measurable ways. It is not enough to say, “We believe that procedure XYZ is raising student performance because we did the procedure and scores rose.” In the world of cause and effect one of the most basic of rules is to show the connection between the supposed cause (or treatment) of an outcome and the actual outcome. The stronger the connection, then the better the likelihood that the treatment may be an actual true cause. A cause and effect model must have three things present to be statistically valid. First, both the “cause” and “effect” must vary together in some way. Second, the cause must precede the effect in time. Finally, the variations in the two variables must not have a common cause, that is, movement in both variables cannot be caused by a third variable. One frequently cited example of fallacious thinking concerning cause and effect involves storks and babies. In certain parts of the world, The Netherlands for example, one often finds that where there are more storks, there are more babies (per capita). The storks arrive at the onset of winter and establish nests in chimneys and farm outbuildings, and sometime later in the spring babies arrive, meeting the temporal requirement and the covariance requirement of cause and effect. The association is revealed as spurious when one examines the question further. Storks are more prevalent in rural areas and rural families tend to have more children than urban families for reasons completely unrelated to storks. Storks are more likely to nest near sparsely populated rural areas, such as farms, in winter because of warmth in barns and the presence of a reliable winter food supply. Babies are born in the spring in rural areas because of human behavior over the cold short winter days and long winter nights, not because of the behavior of storks. Thus the relationship between storks and babies is proven spurious. However if one only examines the relationship between the number of storks and the number of babies, one might be inclined to assume a relationship that does not exist. A good evaluation will examine those connections between supposed cause and effect in detail in an attempt to ferret out spurious connections or faulty logic. What may seem an obvious and desirable connection may turn out to be statistically unrelated. An evaluation might show that connections between variables do not work quite the way the program implementation plan assumed they did. Or perhaps the program did not actually get implemented according to plan. Conversely, a well done evaluation may confirm conventional wisdom about a relationship, thus validating the program’s paradigm in addition to confirming the implementation methodologies. Evaluations also sometimes produce unexpected information or reveal unintended consequences that may have an impact on the program’s outcomes. All of these findings can, and should, affect program plans for subsequent years. One need not wait for a final evaluation report to obtain actionable information from Evaluation and Accountability staff either. Indeed, final reports usually are issued too late in the year to help a program effectively plan for the coming year. One need only work with the assigned evaluator to develop effective and statistically relevant and valid measures for concepts and questions that program staff need answered. Such collaboration can produce important insights from processed data prior to the publication of the approved final report associated with a program. Astute program managers have learned that gathering data recommended by the project’s assigned evaluator, and then working with their evaluator to define ways to measure, assess and implement procedures designed to achieve program goals often becomes a mutually beneficial partnership. Quick LinksImportant: Most reports are published
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