Publications on School-Based Partnerships and Services

This two-guide set for evaluators and others interested in evaluation grew out of a National Science Foundation funded effort to improve cross project evaluations. Guide 1, Designing a Cross-Project Evaluation, focuses on evaluation design including identification and operationalization of program goals, building of logic models, and selection of indicators and appropriate measures for these indicators. Guide 2, Collecting and Using Data in Cross-Project Evaluation, lays out multiple issues involved in data collection, strengths and weaknesses of different data collection formats, and methods for ensuring data quality, confidentiality, and the protection of human subjects.

Panelists discussed academic achievement gaps and segregation, poverty and the accumulation of risk factors, and programs designed to alleviate these conditions. Listen to the podcast.

[Riverside Press Enterprise] Jane Hannaway, director of the Education Policy Center, believes the United States can achieve a top-notch public education system. What can we do to catch up and excel? At the top of the list: We have to reach directly into the classroom to improve teacher quality.

[First Tuesdays Transcript] As U.S. schools face the challenge of preparing students to participate in an increasingly global economy, many students' poor performance on mathematics and science tests compared with their counterparts abroad is getting attention. A promising development in district-level school reforms has been the use of research to inform solutions to educational problems. Panelists at this forum looked at how research applies to school districts.

Both the United States and England initiated ambitious standards-based education reform to eliminate large gaps between their highest and lowest achievers. England appears to be ahead, having started in 1988 with a national curriculum, tests, and performance tables. The United States' No Child Left Behind Act began rewriting state rules in 2002 with more incentives and punitive measures aimed at school performance. Viewing the contrasts as opportunity, educators and policymakers from each side of the Atlantic gathered in Philadelphia in mid-October for the second half of a dialogue on urban education. This policy brief offers highlights from their discussions.