Though program evaluation has been an important focus of higher education for the last 20 years, traditional evaluation models have been ineffective for on-going programs, particularly those where the outcomes are multifaceted or undefined. Over the last five years, several alternative viewpoints on program evaluation have been suggested which…

The purpose of this report was to document implementation of the Grambling State University's (GSU) successful teacher training model and the university's project to provide technical assistance and dissemination services to Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) institutions and to non-FIPSE institutions requesting such…

Four problems underlying the delivery of technical assistance in Elementary Secondary Education Act (ESEA) Title I evaluation are discussed: (1) the dual missions of facilitating the implementation of the Title I Evaluation and Reporting System and of facilitating the local use of evaluation information frequently require tradeoffs between…

The Configurational Theory of Innovation Diffusion, Planned Change, and Development, or the CLER model, can be an effective tool for planning change events such as those involved in developing or improving a vocational education program. The C in the CLER model stands for configurations and configurational relationships among and between the…

The Neighborhood Jobs Initiative (NJI) began in 1998 in five cities (Chicago, Fort Worth, Hartford, New York, and Washington, D.C.) in 1998. The NJI targets high-poverty urban neighborhoods, attempting to connect residents to employment opportunities nearby and in the urban periphery by providing training, supporting interpersonal networks, and…

This report describes how the Richmond County, North Carolina, Tech Prep demonstration project developed a model program with the following objectives: (1) market the Richmond Tech Prep model in every state; (2) disseminate information to at least 3,000 new persons from other states; (3) maintain assistance to previous adopters; (4) provide…

Program improvement activities can be classified into four categories based on the source of the impetus and the locus of the change agent: systematic, symbolic, opportunistic, and pragmatic. This paper (1) describes the various approaches to implementing Chapter 1 program improvement activities at the state and local district levels in 13 western…

A study to evaluate Career Guidance Centers (CGCs) in Illinois resulted in both objective evaluation and in the provision of technical assistance for the regional centers. An epiphenomenon of the study activity was the development of a model for the evaluation of pilot site (exemplary) projects with the potential of its being transported to…

These Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration (CSRD) state action plans were initially developed in 1998 for the central regional states, which include Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming. They detail the states' specific technical assistance needs, as well as the services to be provided by Mid-Continent…

Following a brief history of the Title I Evaluation and Reporting System (TIERS) and the development of the RMC models and technical assistance centers, plans are described for activities to increase the usefulness of the evaluation data for local decision making. Three major kinds of activities are explained: projects developed by an Evaluation…

Technical assistance provided to loan guarantee agencies by Touche Ross and Co. under contract to the U.S. Office of Education (OE) is described. Objectives of the report are: to summarize the work performed and the results of each of the projects that were conducted; to describe certain prototype systems that were developed for the guarantee…