Evaluating All Educational Strategies

How can I evaluate and improve all of my schools' educational strategies?

Overview
-
What are all of my educational strategies?
-
How do I conduct high-quality educational strategy evaluations?
-
Who should I work with to evaluate educational strategies?

What are educational strategies?
Educational strategies are any things you do to improve educational outcomes. Examples include:
-
Professional development for staff.
-
Instructional practice coaching.
-
Curricula by grade and subject.
-
Educational practices.
-
Educational policies.
-
Educational products & services.
-
Educational programs & initiatives.
-
Other things that may improve educational outcomes.

Why is it important to evaluate educational strategies?
Evaluation leads to better educational strategies. Better educational strategies lead to better educational outcomes. This includes better:
-
Standardized test scores.
-
Attendance & engagement.
-
Graduation rates.
-
Student behavior.
-
College & career outcomes.
-
School culture & climate.
-
Parent satisfaction.
-
Teacher satisfaction & retention.
-
Other outcomes.

How do I avoid educational strategy evaluation mistakes & problems?
Do NOT rely too heavily on any of the following.
-
Your intuitions and hunches.
-
Studies shared by sales representatives regarding their products & services.
-
Quick, data dashboard analyses by people who are NOT trained in educational research.
-
The assumption that staff buy-in & implementation will happen without significant effort.
-
One-size-fits-all approaches that claim to work for every school and situation.

How do I conduct high quality educational strategy evaluations?
-
Use your intuition, but support your intuition with data whenever possible (or when people have different intuitions).
-
Have an objective third party help you evaluate & improve current and potential new educational strategies.
-
Use a team of evaluators with expertise in all relevant program evaluation and data use areas.
-
Allocate appropriate resources to evaluating & improving educational strategies and staff buy-in & implementation.
-
Avoid cookie cutter approaches that may not work for (or may not be implemented well by) all of your unique schools.

Who should I work with to conduct educational strategy evaluations?
-
We suggest working with Sprelp - Program Evaluation and Data Help for Schools.
-
Sprelp staff have training from Yale University and other top universities.
-
Sprelp staff have decades of experience helping Chicago Public Schools and other districts.
-
Sprelp staff have won awards for their program evaluation and data use work.
-
Sprelp staff have been invited to speak at the AASA National Conference on Education.
-
Sprelp staff can help you evaluate and improve educational strategies now (and not have regrets later).
Schedule a Brief Meeting!
Get your questions answered and learn quick & easy ways to start.