This article addresses conflicting statements about the impact of accountability policies in which some argue that testing undermines good teaching, while others claim that it stimulates improvement. The authors begin with the assumption that it is important to explore implementers’ cognitive perspectives in order to understand a policy’s effects. Using a sensemaking perspective, they examine teachers’ responses to accountability in three high schools selected because they were deemed to have a strong teacher culture that supported quality education. The schools were located in states with diverse histories of accountability legislation, but in districts with well-established local accountability policies. Findings suggested that sensemaking activity occurred in all three schools and was associated with teachers’ interpretation of accountability policies and with their efforts to change classroom practice to be consistent with accountability policies. Active efforts by district-level administrators to mediate sensemaking affected teachers’ attitudes toward accountability policies and standards-driven reform.
Purpose: Extant reports on states'policy differences are mostly descriptive and largely ignore the pervasive role of political culture on their educational policy-making processes. This article examines the effect of policy culture on states' policy-making mechanisms. There is evidence that a state's political culture is a significant mediating influence on its educational policy making and leadership practices at the state, district, and local level. Data Collection and Analysis: We conducted an empirical, comparative case study of educational leadership and policy-making mechanisms in three states—Indiana, Nebraska, and Oregon. Those three states, chosen because of their similarities in size but differences in educational policy histories, were part of a larger leadership study of nine states. Within each state, researchers interviewed between 8 and 11 educational policymakers who represented a diverse array of positions and organizations. The interviews were 1 hr in length, conducted in a semistructured format, and revolved around their states' accountability and school leadership policies, key educational stakeholders, and levels of collaboration among those stakeholders. Findings: Each state in the study had very different means through which they pursued educational policies. Indiana had centralized decision-making structures that sought to promote leadership and accountability through policies that revolved around equity and efficiency. Oregon had a high level of participation and collaboration at all levels in the state's mostly decentralized but very open educational policy-making process that emphasized quality. Nebraska's policy culture, which was more independent and decentralized than Oregon's, was highly collaborative but had comparatively low levels of support for state-supported leadership and accountability initiatives. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that political culture is a mediating factor for states' responses to increasing demands for leadership and accountability initiatives; it is therefore necessary to account for the impact of each state's unique political culture when planning for and explaining results of these initiatives.
This section includes articles that focus on teaching of, and training in, evaluation. Articles may address evaluation teaching and training in diverse environments, including K through 12, corporate, government, nonprofit, or community settings, in addition to more traditional academic settings. Articles might also identify strategies and outcomes of teaching evaluation to community and agency members. A variety of formats are welcome, including case studies, interviews, and more traditional articles. Research on the teaching of evaluation is especially welcome. In general, manuscripts for this section should range from 5 to 20 pages in length, although shorter or longer papers will be considered. All manuscripts will be peer reviewed, with as timely a review process as we can achieve. If you have any questions or suggestions about topics you would like to see addressed in this section or would like to chat about an idea you are considering for submission, feel free to call Hallie Preskill, the section editor, at (909) Abstract: The field of program evaluation lacks interactive teaching tools. To address this pedagogical issue, the authors developed a collaborative learning technique called Program Evaluation: The Board Game. The authors present the game and its development in this practitioner-oriented article. The evaluation board game is an adaptable teaching tool designed to familiarize players with basic history, theories, approaches, and tasks associated with conducting program evaluations. The basis of the game design came from an evaluation skills taxonomy and a review of popular texts in the evaluation field. The authors piloted the game and administered a postgame survey to assess its effectiveness. Results of the survey provided specific information about how the game contributed to learning and led to significant modifications and improvements in the game. The authors' experience demonstrates that the board game can generate useful discussion about evaluation issues and teach foundational knowledge in the program evaluation field.
This paper evaluates the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Minority Student Fellows Program (Program). Initiated in 2010, the Program supports students from select Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic-Serving Institutions, and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions to attend TRB’s Annual Meeting and present a student-authored research paper. The Program is intended to increase involvement of those groups in TRB and the transportation profession. This evaluation considers the Program’s performance against stated and implicit goals using a survey of mentees; qualitative reflections by the Program manager, a mentor, and a mentee; and indirect outcome metrics. Conclusions are that the Program was successful in increasing exposure to TRB, contributing to the growth of fellows as transportation professionals, and encouraging ongoing TRB participation. With regard to operations, the Program achieved visibility and attracted external funding, which bodes well for its sustainability. Lessons learned include crafting appropriate rules for participation and finding the right balance between critique and support in the paper review process. There are opportunities to extend the mentoring experience with continued involvement of past fellows.
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