Proof of Impact: Do your Program Investments Make a Difference?
Every year, school districts spend thousands on professional development and other strategies and initiatives for their administrators and teachers. With the wide variety of purchase options, districts have many choices about where to spend their money. Logic dictates that the money be spent on programs and initiatives that work, those that are the most successful in terms of increasing teacher and student learning, performance, perceptions, and attitudes. Surprisingly, considering the amount of money districts spend on teacher training, professional development, and programs, there are virtually no evaluations proving if initiatives worked or even which undertakings were most effective for achieving goals. In what programs or initiatives has YOUR educational organization invested and never known for sure if or how well they worked?
The School Improvement Network provides Proof of Impact to remedy this problem. We offer an evaluation service that measures the impact of any professional development program or other initiative or strategy to help districts and educators make wise choices about their programs, strategies, offerings and initiatives.
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Proof of Impact is a custom service with each evaluation designed to fit the needs of the specific school system. Examples of what evaluations can be designed to prove include:
Impact on Educators: This can include data quantifying the difference a program or initiative made for teachers or other participants. Impact is quantified in terms of knowledge gained, changes in attitudes, and degrees of implementation in classrooms or among educators. It can also quantify the effectiveness of the program or implementation from the teacher perspective, and whether it has impacted classroom patterns, curricula or students.Impact on Students: This can include data quantifying how much a professional development program for a teacher or other educator impacted their students from the student perspective. These data include gains in knowledge and learning as quantified through standardized test scores and other objective measures of achievement and academic success. Along with scores, the program�s influence on student perceptions and attitudes about school, education, learning, and value for the subject area affected, as well as their capabilities, self-concept, and attitudes can be measured.
Implementation Success: Professional development is worth little if the principles and strategies are never implemented in the classroom, or are implemented half-heartedly or grudgingly. Proof of Impact provides interim measures and progress monitoring, so that schools can see where they are in the implementation process. Levels of teacher buy-in and classroom use of the strategies and techniques can also be assessed.
Proving impact involves many different factors within the evaluation design. The Proof of Impact service provides complete and accurate evaluations because the evaluation team considers a variety of factors. These factors may include:
Acquisitions of Knowledge and Attitudes and Perceptions: School is not only about gaining knowledge. Best programs and teacher training initiatives result in more positive attitudes and perceptions about school, learning and self, as well as increased academic achievement. Proof of Impact can include data on how undertakings have effected both the acquisition of knowledge as well as attitudes and perceptions about education, self-concept, subject areas, and other valuable goals.In proving impact, our evaluation team can provide pre, mid, and post-implementation viewpoints. The pre-evaluation provides a baseline, allowing schools to see from where they are starting. The mid-evaluations ensure that programs are on track, enabling adjustment or re-emphasis as needed. Finally, the post-evaluation shows what progress was made and the ends reached. The post-evaluation includes a full report and analysis, often with a PowerPoint presentation. The report and analysis are powerful tools for proving to stakeholders that the investment was impactful, and for guiding subsequent decisions. Districts can see if their current programs or initiatives are working well enough to be worth the cost or if a different approach is needed. The PowerPoint can provide an excellent resource for convincing boards, leaders, schools, and parents that purchasing programs was indeed a quality investment, as well as for guiding planning for future undertakings.Showing Growth or Change: Proof of Impact measures change and growth, as well as the final outcome and mastery. By designing an evaluation that measures growth, districts may choose to have a baseline to see how much change a program, strategy or initiative caused.
Contrasting Groups: Proof of Impact designs often include the ability to measure comparative impact on different groups of students or educators, such as participants versus non-participants. By measuring these different groups, districts have a clear way of knowing the effectiveness of a specific program or initiative, or the comparative effects of optional approaches.
Summary
A well-designed evaluation provides Proof of Impact that is compelling and enlightening and that substantiates the gains attributable to the program, strategies and techniques implemented. This published and often-referenced graphic illustrates how the complex data from a well-designed evaluation can be readily distilled into a summary document for discussion and planning, and for celebrating success.
Without Proof of Impact, educators have no evidence that their PD expenditures were investments or wastes. Without evaluation there is no validation of either the PD program implemented or the decision making that led to its purchase.
Proof of Impact = Proof of Investment
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The Proof of Impact Team
Our Team Leaders are Valerie Lewis and Steve Shaha. They are seasoned experts in measurement, assessment and program evaluation with a proven record of excellence.Valerie Lewis has over fifteen years of experience in education, from teaching to leading and managing multi-million dollar grant projects. She successfully coordinated and implemented School-to-Career and Tech Prep programs in the state of Utah and served as the project manager, lead investigator, and coordinator of the U.S. Department of Education grant project, Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to use Technology. She has seven peer-reviewed publications in print, all related to evaluation and the validation of impact.
Steve Shaha holds doctorates in Research Methods and Applied Statistics and in Business Administration. Steve is a leader in the field of measurement and program evaluation, specializing in helping educational and learning organizations maximize their concrete ability to achieve substantive goals and progress. Dr. Shaha has over 200 publications and presentations and two books in print. He has worked with the educational departments of six foreign nations, at the U.S. Federal level, for 11 States, and countless schools, districts and vendors, as well as over 200 non-educational institutions. Among the highlights in his educationally-related career, Steve worked at the Center for the Study of Evaluation in the 1980s, at the RAND Corporation, and in the collaborative authorship of the Education-specific criteria for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.
Steve and Valerie specialize in the design of custom evaluations for your educational organization. They will leverage their collaborative model to personally involve key educators from within your organization to create or customize what is best for you. They will guide every aspect of the process, from the design and implementation of the evaluation to the analysis, and leave a legacy of buy-in, high-impact data and internal expertise. Our evaluation experts are available for both onsite and telephone consulting.
Stop Wasting Your Educational Money
Stop spending money and time on unproven strategies, initiatives or professional development programs. Stop getting talked into empty promises by vendors that claim to be "research-based" but cannot prove impact in YOUR educational setting. Marketing materials do not guarantee success for you, your teachers OR your students.By investing in Proof of Impact you can KNOW if your resources are being invested or wasted. Proof of Impact is a powerful decision-making approach to help you do what is best for your educators and students. Contact the School Improvement Network today to find out how you can start implementing accountability in your professional development decisions.