Education Week recently released the results regarding the status of schools’ ability to make adequate yearly progress (AYP) under the No Child Left Behind Act in the 2007-2008 school year. According to the data, nearly 30,000 schools in the United States failed to make AYP in the 2007-2008 school year. For states with comparable data for the 2006-2007 school year, the number of schools increased by 28 percent. Half those schools missed their achievement goals for two or more years, which places one in five of the nation’s public schools in some stage of the federally mandated process designed to improve student achievement. Furthermore, 3,559 schools (four percent of all schools rated for AYP) are facing more serious interventions under NCLB in the current school year, which is double the number from a year ago.

Under NCLB, a series of interventions to improve student performance begins to be mandated for schools that fail to make AYP in three consecutive years. The series starts with allowing students to transfer to another public school after three consecutive years failing to make AYP and progresses to making major changes in school staff or turning the schools into charter schools after five consecutive years failing to make AYP.

Critics state that these results were inevitable since the law’s requirement that all students are proficient in reading and math by the end of 2013-2014 school year is unrealistic. Supporters of the requirement were in favor of the requirement was necessary to spur many schools to take steps to improve and that the relatively modest number of schools subjected to the law’s sanctions suggests that schools are making those improvements.

Education Week notes that twenty-three states decided to set low achievement targets in the early years of NCLB, assuming they would be able to ramp up student achievement by the 2007-2008 school year. However, many of those states experienced sharp increases of schools failing to reach AYP in the 2007-2008 school year. This data strongly suggests state policy decisions can skew the results.

At the Improve Group, we have conducted evaluations in education regarding student achievement and behaviors. Our evaluations have uncovered interesting results that straight quantitative data cannot detect due to our comprehensive, mixed-methods approach that addresses socioeconomic and cultural factors as well as school quality factors. Future work in evaluating education policies should strongly consider these issues before making policy decisions.

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As a single parent I know how difficult it is to keep up with your child’s educational needs, and when you have more than one child, as I do, you multiply the difficulty factor. There is only one person to rely on to get the kids to and from school, to special events, to the library and to help them with their homework, etc. Single parents are usually working out of the home which adds another layer of responsibility and takes away from the time you wish you could spend with them helping them get ahead. I rely on a before and after school program to assist with the care and education of my youngest. My situation is shared by many, so I am sharing this funder who I have blogged about in a past Grant Gazing.

This week’s pick: Women Helping Others – The WHO Foundation is dedicated to:

• Encouraging women everywhere to help others through local community service.
• Supporting organizations dedicated to women, children and families in need.
• Supporting organizations dedicated to education and literacy.

One of the Foundation's funding categories is Education/Literacy grants to implement or expand literacy/education programs for low-income children and to support free after school organizations. To be eligible you must be a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in the United States and Puerto Rico and preferably have an operating budget of less than $3 million. $5,000 is the maximum grant request. Applications need to be in by March 17, 2009, 5PM central. To get more details on this grant click here.

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Whenever possible I am focusing my grant gazing towards opportunities that will fit into the core areas of the national stimulus funding. I am looking for projects and initiatives that will effect economic growth and development for our communities. Today I am highlighting funding that improves neighborhoods and shows the sense of commitment to others that is so crucial for promoting positive change.

This week’s pick: Bank of America continues its Neighborhood Excellence Initiative which targets critical needs in local communities and works with local community leaders to direct funding for greater impact on:
• education
• community development
• arts and culture, and
• health and human services

Those who are awarded this funding will receive $200,000 in support over 2 years. To apply for this grant initiative please see the Bank of America website. Funding is limited to specific markets.

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With just over one week left in my sabbatical, I am racing through as much reading as I can, and have been riveted by December's American Journal of Evaluation. It starts, as each volume does, with the guiding principles for evaluators. These six principles guide our work and the work of all evaluators. Several of the subsequent articles explore how the final guiding principle is dependent on each of the others.

The final guiding principle is Responsibility for General and Public Welfare. In her role running the Program Evaluation and Methodology Division of the Government Accountability office for fourteen years, Eleanor Chelimsky had the opportunity to reflect on clashes between evaluation and politics, and how evaluation must serve the public in the face of those clashes. The clashes she identifies might be ones that our readers would expect:

* Agencies, in the face of an evaluation imposed externally with the potential to put them at risk, withhold information, dispute methods and findings, or endeavor to suppress results
* Leaders request evaluations that answer questions designed to show a specific slant (her example is of receiving a list of 19 questions related to bovine growth hormones, which included the methods to use, people to talk to, and suggested answers to those questions)
* When an evaluation is concluded, the results are either uninteresting, too technical, or go against prevailing public opinion, and are never used to help improve programs or develop public policies

Chelimisky presents five suggestions to address these clashes. Several of these suggestions are incorporated into our work (or we've learned some hard lessons when we've failed to do these things) and I thought I'd share some of our own examples.

Suggestion 1: Expand the design phase to probe the values, stakeholders, methodological strengths and weaknesses, and potential credibility. We found that when we give our clients, and several of the people who will be interested in the study, the opportunity to help us explore these issues, we come away with a stronger evaluation design and greater buy-in from all of those involved.

Suggestion 2: Include public groups in the evaluation. When evaluations rely exclusively on available data and interviews with staff or experts, the data is unbalanced and potentially biased. What we emphasize in our evaluation design is first- hand knowledge of the questions we are asking; if the question involves experiences, knowledge, attitudes or beliefs of participants, than it is crucial that participants are the ones to give us answers.

Suggestion 3: Lean heavily on negotiation to encourage all stakeholders to participate in the evaluation. Chelimisky encountered adversarial situations in which agencies withheld information. Although we rarely encounter the hostility she describes, we do meet people who are reluctant or fearful. Rather than negotiation, we more frequently use education - helping people understand how they can use the results and how findings will be shared. However, we do try to help stakeholders feel that there is something "in it for me" - that they will have their own questions answered, access to data, or an opportunity to respond to results.

Suggestion 4: Never stop thinking about credibility - evaluation must be technically competent and objective. Credibility is gained by matching methods to the evaluation questions, honesty in reporting both results and the confidence that readers can have in results, and by abstaining from advocacy of one issue or another.

Suggestion 5: Develop a dissemination strategy. This is one area where, at the Improve Group, we continue to learn. In one of our very first evaluations, of the statewide charter school system, the mixed results were never released to the public. The guiding principles hadn't been developed yet, and with relative inexperience we didn't feel comfortable engaging the evaluation's sponsors in a discussion about the public benefit of the results. With more experience, we are better prepared to refer to the guiding principles and help our clients feel comfortable and empowered sharing findings, even when results are mixed. Unlike evaluators at a public agency, however, we are usually contractually unable to release results, and rely on our clients (with assistance) to disseminate findings.

Do you have thoughts about the role of evaluation in fulfilling a public purpose? I'd love to hear them!

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According to a recently released progress report, states must still achieve significant progress in collecting data before they have the kinds of data systems that will help drive student improvement. While states have achieved significant progress in building longitudinal data systems (recorded data over time) over the past three years, any momentum built up through that progress could be halted through anticipated budget cuts is this deteriorating economic environment.

The report was released by the Data Quality Campaign, a 3-year old national effort funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to catalyze states to build high-quality, accessible, longitudinal data systems that can track student information and achievement from early-childhood education through college. The campaign identified 10 key components to accomplish this task, from having student identifiers to track academic progress to keeping track of each course a student completed. The campaign created the key components to answer the following policy questions:

1. Which schools produce the strongest academic growth for their students?
2. What achievement levels in middle school indicate that a student is on track to succeed in rigorous courses in high school?
3. What is each school's graduation rate, according to the 2005 National Governor's Association graduation compact?
4. What high school performance indicators (e.g., enrollment in rigorous courses or performance on state tests) are the best predictors of students' success in college or the workplace?
5. What percentage of high school graduates who go on to college take remedial courses?
6. Which teacher preparation programs produce the graduates whose students have the strongest academic growth?

Multiple components need to be collected to analyze thoroughly a certain policy question. For example, all but two states match test records for individual students; there is much progress that needs to be made on monitoring the elements of academic growth (question 1). A measurement of the progress needed is that only 21 states have a teacher-identifier system that can match student achievement with specific teachers, a metric needed to measure progress over time.

A main reason why more states have not been able to collect all the data elements is a lack of financial and logistical resources and political challenges of various interest groups. For example, unions have voiced concerned that the data could be used against them or help determine their salaries. As budgets conditions deteriorate, state data directors will be challenged to continue to make progress in collecting data that fulfills the key components of the Data Quality Campaign and answer key policy questions. This developing need looks like an opportunity for evaluators to develop new tools and strategic planning that schools can use to be able to collect and record data efficiently and accurately for analysis that will present beneficial contributions to policy analysis.

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We have started a new year, and here at the Improve Group we are trying to start things off right. To see what I mean take a look at Liz Freeman’s New Year’s Changes on the Inside Groove blog. I have made it one of my personal pledges to be sure to pick up more trash on the streets than I have in the past. I want my sons to always see that example and learn to be good stewards of the land. This next unusual Grant Gazing is another organization’s way to motivate us into positive action by offering a prize. I hope you will all go for it and get creative out there.

This Week’s Pick: Just Do One is an advocacy organization motivating people to personal action to make the world a more livable place for everyone. To promote this “green” mission their group is offering a fun and helpful video contest where individual applicants can record themselves presenting a sustainable living action that they are doing. You can use a camcorder, digital camera or even your phone to record your entry and you many enter multiple times. All videos should be less than 3 minutes.

The winning tip or action will receive a $5,000 cash prize. You must be 13 or older to enter and your video needs to be submitted by midnight, March 1, 2009. To learn more or to upload your video entry, go to www.JustDoOne.org.

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With the new year I thought I would go for a new look on Grant Gazing. Hope you like my friendly computer.

I found this next funding possibility fascinating and timely. Most of us have seen images of video messages sent from soldiers overseas or classrooms taught from remote places via the internet. Much of this is made possible by adapting new uses to wireless communications. In keeping pace with the current obsession with wireless applications here is a unique opportunity for those who are on the cutting-edge of using technology to assist in social issues.

This Week’s Pick: Vodaphone is a mobile telecommunications business serving a global community. Their company has established the Vodaphone Americas Foundation (VAF) offering a variety of grants to help strengthen families and support children around the world.

Their newest grant offering is their Wireless Innovation Challenge which is open to projects from universities and nonprofit organizations based in the United States.

Applications are accepted through February 2, 2009 and you must complete an eligibility questionnaire as the first step in the process. $100,000 up to $300,000 awards will be granted to applicants applying a multi-disciplinary approach to global issues using wireless related technology.

For this and other grants offered by VAF, visit the website.

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