Ongoing program evaluation is examined as an evolutionary process in which the form of evaluation changes in response to the questions to be addressed. As programs evolve over time, so should the evaluation designs. The concept is illustrated with two examples from a large school district in Florida. (Author/CM)

Discusses potential sources of self-selection bias in quasi-experimental evaluations of whole-school reform and considers how individual school-level data might be used to provide valid impact estimates. Develops an instrumental variable strategy that can be used to improve on common value-added estimators when only post-treatment measures are…

Introduces an new approach for measuring the impact of whole school reforms. The approach, based on "short" interrupted time-series analysis, is explained, its statistical procedures are outlined, and how it was used in the evaluation of a major whole-school reform, Accelerated Schools is described (H. Bloom and others, 2001). (SLD)

Conducted a 2-year longitudinal study of the efforts of one school district to link site-based collaborative evaluation with formal, centralized program evaluation for its 17 middle schools. Participants formed a research team with a university. Analysis of plans at the end of the evaluation cycle shows that collaborative evaluation is creating a…

An evaluation plan using eight methods and triangulation of findings has been effective in evaluating the "Using Computer Visualization in Teaching Secondary Mathematics (Viz-Math)" project. Viz-Math enhanced the understanding and teaching practices of the 10 junior high and middle school and 34 senior high school teachers studied. (SLD)