Evaluative Inquiry: Using Evaluation to Promote Student Success

The author provides educators with a process schools can use to systematically investigate programmes and initiatives to determine their value. She emphasizes analysis and synthesis of information (rather than data collection) and places the inquiry process in the hands of teachers rather than outsiders. The author uses examples drawn from her 20 years of experiences as a school evaluator and builds on current theories about evaluation, systemic change, and how people learn. everly A. Parsons is Executive Director of InSites in Colorado. InSites, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, assists education and social service systems through research, evaluation, and planning. She focuses on the evaluation and planning of systemic change. Her evaluation work has involved initiatives to restructure and reculture preschool through university education systems as well as bring about reform in specific content areas (mathematics, science, humanities, arts, and world languages). She has provided evaluation services to the National Staff Development Council, the NEA Foundation for the Improvement of Education, the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, and numerous other foundations and organizations and has worked on projects in Japan, China, and South Africa, as well as throughout the United States. During her 10-year affiliation with the Denver-based Education Commission of the States (a national interstate compact assisting governors, legislators, and state education and business leaders to improve education through leadership and policy), she led ECS’s comprehensive effort to bring about fundamental changes in the education system at school, district, state, and university levels in partnership with the Coalition of Essential Schools. In her earlier years at ECS she served as Director of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Much of her early knowledge and skills in assessment, evaluation, and research were honed at the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory in Portland, Oregon, where she served as Director of the Assessment and Measurement Program and while with the Shannon County School District, serving the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. She has published and led seminars on systems change issues and has spoken extensively about them to practitioners and policymakers. She has been on the board of the National Council on Measurement in Education and co-chair of the Cluster/Multi-Site Evaluation Topical Interest Group of the American Evaluation Association. Her doctorate in educational research and evaluation is from the University of Colorado. Foreword by Grant Wiggins Preface Acknowledgments About the Author 1. Introduction: Getting Your Bearings Part 1: Quality 2. Positioning the Quality-Focused Evaluative Inquiry 3. Planning the Quality Evaluative Inquiry 4. Collection of Implementation and Outcome Data 5. Analyzing and Synthesizing the Data 6. Communicating Results of a Quality Inquiry Part 2: Sustainability 7. Positioning the Sustainability Inquiry 8. Planning the Sustainability Inquiry 9. Data Collection and Analysis in the Sustainability Inquiry Design 10. Synthesizing and Communicating Results From a Sustainability Inquiry Part 3: Cultivation 11. Positioning the Cultivation Evaluative Inquiry 12. Planning the Cultivation Inquiry 13. Cultivation Inquiry Data Collection, Analysis, Synthesis, and Communication of Results 14. Conclusion: Enriching and Continuing the Evaluative Inquiry Process Afterword: Change Matters by Michael Fullan References Name Index Subject Index