Why Is Program Evaluation Important in Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement?
Most school improvement plans contain multiple goals and dozens of strategies that the staff will implement in support of increased student achievement. Fewer plans, though, identify how the staff will determine if those strategies have been implemented as intended or have produced desired outcomes. This is where program evaluation proves useful by providing the feedback practitioners need to make those determinations. The results obtained from an evaluation can suggest ways to modify the implementation of a practice or uncover a need for more professional development to support its implementation. With programs that take longer to provide significant improvements, informal evaluation strategies can track initial changes in outcomes. Early feedback, especially indications of initial success, can help build support for a program and provide an early warning of potential problems so they can be addressed (Hansel & Cavell, n.d.). How Is It Done? Even when practitioners understand why prog
