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The Challenge of Secondary School Reform: When Evaluation Improves Practice
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| Presenter(s):
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| Cathleen Armstead, University of Miami, carmstead@miami.edu
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| Ann G Bessell, University of Miami, agbessell@miami.edu
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| Sabrina Sembiante, University of Miami, s.sembiante@umiami.edu
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| Abstract:
Evaluation of secondary school reform is critical within the context of strict accountability for schools and dwindling resources. Evaluation often becomes part of the process of improving schools and evaluators face the challenges of building capacity and changing minds with school personnel who have competing agendas and multiple demands. This session discusses how evaluation can change minds utilizing Howard Gardiner’s model of the seven levers: reason, research, resonance, re-description, resources and rewards, real world events and resistance. Our experience with providing a logic model of school reform, followed by a presentation of school data that resonates with school personnel was central to the evaluation success. We learned to address resources and rewards, and real world events to enhance the utilization of our findings. This session, based on evaluation data coupled with interviews of school personnel, describes multiple pathways in which an evaluation can change minds and improve practice.
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Evaluation for Learning and Accountability?
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| Presenter(s):
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| Katherine Ryan, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, k-ryan6@illinois.edu
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| Tysza Gandha, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, tgandha2@illinois.edu
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| Abstract:
Historically, evaluation for learning (formative) and evaluation for accountability (summative) were conceptualized as functional alternatives or a dichotomy (e.g., Scriven, 1991). In contemporary times of externally-driven accountability, evaluators who are committed to supporting organizational learning and evaluation capacity building are increasingly being called to "engage in dialogue with those representing demands for accountability" (Dahler-Larsen, 2009). Building on previous work on internal and external evaluation (Dahler-Larsen, 2009; Nevo, 2006), we propose an evaluation approach (in the education domain) that addresses both audit and learning purposes to present one such ‘dialogue.’ We discuss the implications of engaging evaluation for learning and evaluation for accountability on evaluation quality, and critically consider whether this is a potentially-productive response to accountability pressures so that evaluation can continue to serve multiple purposes in a democratic society.
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