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The Harvard Family Research Project separated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education to become the Global Family Research Project as of January 1, 2017. It is no longer affiliated with Harvard University.
Deborah Johnson illustrates how storytelling can help uncover powerful impacts with two case studies from the Boys and Girls Club.
Elisabeth Jacobs discusses mixed-methods research in a policy context, highlighting the demonstration program Moving to Opportunity.
Many lessons have been learned during the past decade of community building; this issue of The Evaluation Exchange explores many of these lessons and their implications. Articles by experienced and insightful authors discuss a number of critical issues now surfacing in this field, including innovations in community-building evaluation, the role of cultural competency in community-based research and evaluation, and how evaluators and funders can better build on the evaluation and learning approaches that community-based organizations already use to improve their work.
Free. 20 Pages.
Xavier de Souza Briggs, founder of the Art and Science of Community Problem-Solving Project at Harvard University, discusses the limitations and possibilities of using evaluation to improve community building.
Stephen Bagnato, Robert Grom, and Leon Haynes describe an evaluation design that provides scientific rigor in a community setting.
Marielle Bohan-Baker describes the instructive and collaborative approach to planning and evaluation of six community partners in Long Beach, California.
At two public schools in the Texas borderlands, a faith-based organization and a school–community partnership come together to improve parental engagement.
Free. Available online only.
This course will focus on the role of community organizing in fostering school change. We will examine the large range of ways community groups and schools are promoting the active engagement of participants to improve education. Within that context, we will examine efforts to foster collaborations among and between a wide array of stakeholders in education, including community organizations, school personnel, school system administration, unions, the business community, faith institutions, civil rights organizations, and youth. We will also examine the role of political organizing in addressing structural inequalities in education in America, and consider that ways that education organizing strengthens broader community building efforts.
Free. Available online only.
This class has an experimental design. It has been planned in collaboration with the leaders from the Boston Public Schools (BPS) in general and Brighton High School faculty and Garfield Elementary School faculty in particular. In this class we will endeavor not only to understand specific social contexts of education, but also to play a proactive role in improving communication between two schools and the communities they serve.
Free. Available online only.
Students who are currently working or preparing to work in the fields of education and human services will be engaged through interactive learning experiences to understand the development of partnerships with schools to reach, engage, and support families. The model for community success includes building partnerships and providing supports and opportunities that promote active and positive working relationships. The discussions, assignments, and in-class activities will provide students with a vision and practical knowledge of what effective partnerships look like and how to strategize ways of tapping into community resources.
Free. Available online only.
This Snapshot examines the range and scope of activities being implemented in current out-of-school time programs to set a context for understanding the links between program activities and positive outcomes for youth.
Free. 4 Pages.
This Snapshot provides an overview of what the quasi-experimental and experimental evaluations in the HFRP's OST Database reveal about the impact of out-of-school time programs on an array of academic, prevention, and youth development outcomes. It also includes a resource list of other out-of-school time evaluation reviews and related evaluation information.
Hard copy out of stock. Available online only.
This paper examines how communication campaigns with different purposes (individual behavior change and policy change) have been evaluated. It offers a discussion of theories of change that can guide evaluation planning, along with five case studies of completed campaign evaluations. Each case study includes lessons from the evaluation and the paper finishes with a set of cross-case-study lessons gleaned from these evaluations and others.
Free. Available online only.
This brief offers expert commentary on the implications of the first-year report of the national evaluation of the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program for future evaluation and research. It includes a methodological critique of that study, written by Deborah Vandell.
Free. 8 Pages.
Education reform policies place new emphasis on educational technology. Katherine McMillan Culp and Margaret Honey from the Center for Children and Technology have learned the importance of research rigor and local validity in their evaluations of educational technology.
E. Kinney Zalesne reveals how College Summit since its inception has used evaluation techniques that correspond to the different stages of the program’s development.
Marjorie Weschler of SRI and Jane David of the Bay Area Research Group describe the importance of flexibility and feedback in conducting formative evaluation.
This section features an annotated list of papers, organizations, initiatives, and other resources related to the issue's theme of Evaluating Education Reform.
An introduction to the issue on Evaluating Education Reform by HFRP's Founder & Director, Heather B. Weiss, Ed.D.
M. Elena Lopez and Holly Kreider of HFRP present a framework of authentic parent participation in school reform and its implications for evaluation.
Lois-ellin Datta of Datta Analysis points to the importance of studying control and comparison group experiences when conducting experimental studies.
María Elena Torre and Michelle Fine describe the process and potential of participatory action research with youth researchers to investigate race, ethnicity, class, and opportunity gaps in education.
Megan Beckett, Sandy Berry, and Kristin Leuschner of RAND Corporation describe a framework approach for transforming research findings into a practical tool for policymakers, parents, and practitioners.
Wendy Puriefoy is President of Public Education Network (PEN). She spoke with HFRP about standards-based reform, its evaluation, communicating about it to the public, and the No Child Left Behind Act.
Based on their research with community-organizing groups, Eva Gold and Elaine Simon from Research for Action and Chris Brown from the Cross City Campaign for Urban School Reform describe four strategies for building public accountability for education.