New
Department:
Organizational
Leadership, Policy,
and Development
Effective July 1, 2009, a
new department has been created
that integrates the business and
marketing education, human
resource development and adult
education, and comprehensive
WHRE programs from the
Department of
Work and Human Resource
Education (WHRE) into the
department formerly known as
Educational Policy and
Administration (EdPA). The
name of this new department is
Organizational Leadership,
Policy, and Development (OLPD).
It will offer exciting
opportunities for collaboration
and interdisciplinary education
and research. Click
here for details. |
Evaluation Fellows Program (EFP)
REFORMING THE WAY WE REFORM: Learning Together With and From Educational
Leaders, Evaluators, Funders and Policy Makers
Developed at the University of Minnesota in 2007, the
Evaluation Fellows Program (EFP)
is a year-long, experiential program for 20 community
members and graduate students designed to bring together
educational leaders, evaluators, funders, and policy
makers/implementers to work collaboratively—learning from
experts and each other—as they examine the evaluation of
school reform efforts.
The EFP is unique in bringing together the particular
perspectives of each of the four categories of fellows to
collaboratively address the overlap of school reform and
program evaluation with the support of University of
Minnesota’s Children,
Youth and Family Consortium (CYFC) and the
evaluation studies
program in the Department of
Educational Policy and Administration.
Why Is this Program Important?
Since the 1960’s when educational reform became a way of
life in schools, multiple innovations have targeted various
elements—principals, teachers, systems, communities, and
standards, for example. Simultaneously, program evaluators
have worked to make sense of the outcomes of reform at the
individual, school, district, state, and federal levels. The
form of evaluation has varied. For example, the passage of
the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 and the
extensive testing that necessarily accompanies it have
radically affected the practice of school evaluation. Few
districts are currently able to support routine program
evaluation when their budgets are spent on standardized
testing to meet the law’s accountability requirements. In
addition, the consequences of NCLB have raised serious
questions concerning the purpose of our schools, appropriate
learning outcomes, and how to measure success. The answers
to these questions are critically important to the
development of sound public policy related to education
programming, accountability, funding, and reform.
The 2009-2010 EFP will explore the overlapping content of
two fields: program evaluation, and educational reform. Each
of these areas has its own best practices, and, unlike other
training experiences that focus on one or the other, the EFP
will explore their intersection. This is a powerful approach
because it will build on what research has taught us about
how to evaluate educational reform efforts in ways that will
facilitate sustained and sustaining change. Situating the
EFP in a research university, with access both to extensive
scholarship and to scholars conducting empirical research,
provides the fellows an all-too-rare opportunity to learn
from evidence-based best practices in a collaborative
atmosphere.
Program Outcomes
Broadly speaking, the EFP aims to:
- Build the capacity of individual leaders
in the education, evaluation, policy, and
funding sectors to assess the impact of
educational reform efforts.
- Advance the fields of education and
evaluation by generating and applying new
knowledge about the special evaluation
challenges inherent in attempting to
transform education.
- Apply participants’ new knowledge
of these evaluation issues to educational
reform and policy development.
Specifically, fellows will learn from and with each
other, faculty, researchers, and special guests, as they:
- Increase the capacity of
educational practitioner-fellows to document
and evaluate the effectiveness of
educational reform efforts.
- Increase the capacity of
evaluator-fellows to understand evaluation
issues unique to the evaluation of
educational reform efforts.
- Increase the capacity of
funder-fellows to support grantees in
documenting the outcomes of educational
reform efforts in ways that foster
organizational learning and improvement.
- Increase the capacity of
policy-maker-fellows in understanding the
appropriate use of evaluation in informing
policies relating to educational reform.
- Create new knowledge about how to
engage people in evaluating educational
reform efforts in ways that will advance
public dialogue, policy change, and
improvement.
Setting
Every other year a cohort of approximately 20 fellows,
typically from the Twin Cities metropolitan area, is
selected from not-for-profit organizations, agencies,
schools, evaluation organizations, funders, faith-based
organizations, University programs, policy entities, and
others. There are no fees whatsoever for program
participants or their organizations. During 2009-2010, all
funding will come from the
Children, Youth and
Family Consortium (CYFC) of the University of Minnesota.
Participation in the program is, however, dependent on the
willingness of the fellow and his/her organization to commit
to full participation and attendance at all EFP meetings.
The CYFC provides coordination and the organizational
capacity to sustain the program over time. The
evaluation studies
program provides evaluation content expertise and is
responsible for the EFP curriculum. The evaluation studies
program is also serving as EFP host during 2009-2010,
providing expertise relevant to the specific topic as well
as direction of the fellows.
An opening retreat will be held on October 25-26, 2009,
beginning at 5:00 p.m. on Sunday and ending at 4:00 p.m. on
Monday. The retreat will take place at a local conference
facility. Monthly sessions
(1:00-4:30 p.m.) will be held at centrally located
facilities in the Twin Cities on the following Thursdays:
November 19, December 17, January 14, April 15, May 13, and
June 10. Participants will also attend, free of charge, the
Minnesota Evaluation Studies
Institute (MESI), a three-day conference for evaluators
in Minnesota, held in the Twin Cities in February or March
(date not yet confirmed). Finally, a culminating session
will be held in fall 2010 (date to be determined).
Program Staff
Dr.
Cathy Jordan directs the
Children, Youth and
Family Consortium (CYFC), a multidisciplinary and
community-engaged center at the University of Minnesota that
aims to enhance the capacity of the University and of
Minnesota communities to use research to inform practice and
policy to improve the wellbeing of the children and families
in the state. CYFC currently focuses its work on educational
and health disparities, the gaps both in opportunities and
outcomes for children of color and children of economic
disadvantage compared to white and more financially secure
peers. A primary activity for CYFC is “policy education,”
supplying research-based information to policy makers in an
objective, nonpartisan manner, to encourage the use of
evidence in decision making. Dr. Jordan serves as the
co-director of the EFP program.
Dr. Jean A. King is a
professor within the
evaluation studies program in the
Educational Policy and
Administration Department of the
College of
Education and Human Development. The program offers a
unique opportunity for those seeking to inform the
decision-making process in a variety of fields including
education, social services, and health. Dr. King will serve
as the 2009-2010 EFP co-director. She is the founder of the
evaluation studies master's and doctoral degree and
certificate programs and is the director of graduate studies
of the University-wide program evaluation minor. Dr. King’s
area of expertise is educational practice, focusing on
evaluation use and processes of school change. The ultimate
goal of her work is evaluation capacity building, the
purposeful effort to build evaluation infrastructure and
skills into an organization.
Robert E. Tornberg, M.A., will coordinate the EFP for
2009-2010. For 35 years Bob served as Director of Education
and Head of School of Jewish schools in San Mateo, CA;
Kansas City, MO; Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Marblehead, MA;
and, St. Paul, MN. He is currently finishing coursework for
his Ph.D. in K-12 administration with a minor in evaluation
studies. His dissertation will focus on educational
philosophy. Bob has served as lead evaluator of an
evaluation of the Bell Museum of Natural History’s Touch and
See Room, and he is the author or editor of several books,
including The Jewish Educational Leader’s Handbook,
and a number of articles.
Other confirmed presenters include:
- Dr. Julie Kalnin, Coordinator of
Leadership in Education/lecturer,
Educational Policy and Administration,
U of
M;
- Dr.
Dick Nunneley, Coordinator of Graduate
Studies, Educational Policy and
Administration, U of M;
- Dr. Michael Quinn Patton,
nationally known organizational development
and evaluation consultant, author, and
teacher;
- Dr.
Karen Seashore, professor, Educational
Policy and Administration, U of M;
- Sally Wherry, Supervisor of High
School Initiatives, Minnesota Department of
Education; and
- Dr.
Jennifer York-Barr, professor,
Educational Policy and Administration, U of
M.
The Program
By working intensively with a group of fellows that
includes practitioners, evaluators, policy
makers/implementers, and funders, EFP 2009-2010 will create
a cross-group dialogue to increase the fellows’ capacity to
understand and analyze the meaning of educational reform in
their settings, which include both local contexts and the
state of Minnesota. Involvement with key school leaders in
the field will broaden EFP discussion to the national level
so that fellows will understand both larger educational
policy issues and the pragmatics of how to foster and
sustain school improvement processes. The program will focus
on two broad approaches that use evaluation as a lever for
long-term change: improving the evaluation of educational
reform activities, and using evaluation to actively improve
such reform efforts. Topics will include, among others, the
role and effects of standardized testing; the role of local,
state, and national accountability policies and programs;
the role of formative and developmental evaluation as
opposed to more top-down summative mandates; the challenges
of measuring the effects of race and class on achievement
and knowing what to do as a result; and the role of funders
and policy makers in supporting the meaningful evaluation of
educational reform efforts.
In addition to the retreat, monthly meetings and MESI,
the program includes:
- The opportunity to work on a
project of the fellow’s choosing, either
alone or with other fellows.
- Individualized technical
assistance from experts at the University
and in the community.
- Peer-selected and implemented
on-line and in-person learning opportunities
to enhance and reinforce the knowledge and
skills gained.
- A variety of educational and
resource materials.
- Formal presentation of the
fellows’ projects at appropriate venues in
the fall of 2010.
As an integral component of the EFP, fellows will develop
collaborative projects during the spring and summer to
generate materials and resources for use by others
interested in educational reform evaluation and the use of
the evaluation process and its results in policy decisions.
The final products generated through the fellows’ projects
will seek to increase the application of what is known about
the effective evaluation of educational reform. One of the
criteria for their success will be their ability to make a
difference in the field. Project possibilities include, but
are not limited, to the following:
- An action-oriented proposal (i.e., a
research-based plan that could be
implemented and its results disseminated);
- The development of a usable product for
dissemination about how to improve the
evaluation of educational reform;
- A publishable article of a
conceptual framing that can help others to
effectively evaluate educational reform
efforts;
- Plan for implementing an improved
evaluation/accountability system in an
organization.
In the fall of 2010, fellows will make formal
presentations of these projects (with appropriate
presentation materials and handouts) to one or more
interest-oriented or topic-specific groups, including school
practitioners, policy makers/legislators, and both
government and foundation funders. In addition, the fellows’
voices will be expected to join ongoing discussions in
Minnesota about how, for example, to best introduce
research-based practice, reduce the achievement gap, and
encourage the best teachers to remain in classrooms.
Contact Information
For additional information or to request an application
for the fellowship, please contact:
Bob Tornberg
E-mail:
tornb012@umn.edu
Phone: 781-858-5503
Revised July 2009
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