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Session Title: Building Local Evaluation Capacity in K-12 Settings

Multipaper Session 721 to be held in Schaefer Room on Saturday, November 10, 9:35 AM to 10:20 AM

Sponsored by the Organizational Learning and Evaluation Capacity Building TIG and the Pre-K - 12 Educational Evaluation TIG

Chair(s):

Katherine payday loan  Ryan payday loan ,  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,  k-ryan6@uiuc.edu

Discussant(s):

Rita payday loan  O'Sullivan payday loan ,  University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill,  ritao@email.unc.edu

The Need for Evaluation Capacity Building in After-school Programs: Results From the Michigan Evaluation of 21st Century Community Learning Centers Presenter(s): Laurie payday loan  Van Egeren payday loan ,  Michigan State University,  vanegere@msu.edu Beth payday loan  Prince payday loan ,  Michigan State University,  princeem@msu.edu Megan payday loan  Platte payday loan ,  Michigan State University,  plattmet@msu.edu Celeste Sturdevant payday loan  Reed payday loan ,  Michigan State University,  csreed@msu.edu Laura payday loan  Bates payday loan ,  Michigan State University,  bateslau@msu.edu Abstract: The Michigan 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) after-school program requires sites to both work with a local evaluator and participate in a state evaluation. However, sites' ability to collaborate with their local evaluators effectively varies, with implications for their potential to improve program quality. This paper uses the results of the Michigan 21st CCLC state evaluation of 36 grantees and 187 sites to examine: (a) characteristics of sites (e.g., type of organization, site size) and evaluators (e.g., internal or external) associated with differences in administrator attitudes toward evaluation and perceptions of how to use evaluation results; (b) relations between administrators' and staff attitudes about evaluation; and (c) administrators' perceptions of the utility of a standardized but individualized annual reporting process conducted by the state evaluators designed to build capacity for program improvement, particularly in sites who receive less benefit from working with a local evaluator.

Making Some Headway: An Internal Evaluation Branch's Efforts to Build Evaluation Capacity in an Urban School District Presenter(s): Eric payday loan  Barela payday loan ,  Los Angeles Unified School District,  eric.barela@lausd.net Abstract: This paper is a chronicle of an internal evaluation branch's efforts to build internal evaluation capacity in a Southern California urban school district. Prior to 2007, internal evaluators within this school district did little to facilitate evaluation use because stakeholders were not held accountable for implementing findings. Due to personnel, policy, and operational changes at both the branch and district levels, decision makers began to pay more attention to internal evaluation findings and evaluators began to work with stakeholders to ensure that findings were used in appropriate ways. The branch- and district-level processes that led to the change were documented by a participant-observer using an embedded case study framework. The lessons learned from this ongoing process can be helpful for both decision makers trying to find the usefulness of evaluation findings and the internal evaluator trying to build evaluation capacity.