Government Evaluation

LAWG Week: Valerie Caracelli on AEA’s Conference Theme

This post comes to you from Valerie Caracelli, Senior Social Science Analyst at the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). I’m serving with David Bernstein as co-chair of the Local Arrangements Working Group (LAWG) for the 2013 American Evaluation Association Conference in Washington, D.C. October 14-19. Lessons Learned—Do federal managers use performance information? The conference theme, …

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LAWG Week: Andy Blum on Improving Evaluation at the United States Institute of Peace

I am Andy Blum, Vice President for Program Management and Evaluation at the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP), an independent organization that helps communities around the world, prevent, manage or recover from violent conflict.  I recently spoke at a brown bag for the Washington Evaluators about the process of improving my organization’s learning and evaluation processes …

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LAWG Week: Jennifer Hamilton on When to Drink the RCT Cool Aid

Welcome to the Evaluation 2013 Conference Local Arrangements Working Group (LAWG) week on aea365.Howdy!  My name is Jennifer Hamilton, and I am a Senior Study Director at Westat and a Board member of the Eastern Evaluation Research Society, an AEA affiliate. I am also a statistician and methodologist, who sometimes tweets about evaluation, in addition …

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Cultural Competence Week: Melanie Hwalek on the Adoption of the AEA Public Statement on Cultural Competence in Evaluation – Moving From Policy to Practice and Practice to Policy

I am Melanie Hwalek, CEO of SPEC Associates and a member of AEA’s Cultural Competence Statement Dissemination Core Workgroup. My focus within the Workgroup is to help identify ways to disseminate the Statement and integrate its contents into evaluation policy. AEA’s Think Tank: Adoption of the AEA Public Statement on Cultural Competence in Evaluation: Moving …

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DOVP Week: David J. Bernstein on Applying Universal Design Principles to an Evaluation Involving Individuals with Significant Disabilities

I am David J. Bernstein, and I am a Senior Study Director with Westat, an employee-owned research and evaluation company in Rockville, Maryland. I was an inaugural member of AEA, and was the founder and first Chair of the Government Evaluation Topical Interest Group. Westat was hired by the U.S. Department of Education’s Rehabilitation Services …

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PD CoP Week: Donna Campell on Evaluating Professional Development: Guskey Level 3 – Organizational Support and Learning

I’m Donna Campbell, Director of Professional Development Capacity Building at the Arizona Department of Education (ADE). The Professional Development Leadership Academy (PDLA) is a three-year long curriculum of training and back-home application for school and district teams based on the Learning Forward Professional Learning Standards, derived from research. Lesson Learned: Legislation supports evaluation. I’ve learned …

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Regan Grandy on Newly Amended FERPA Regulation Helps Educational Evaluation

I’m Regan Grandy, and I’ve worked as an evaluator for Spectrum Research Evaluation and Development for six years. My work is primarily evaluating U.S. Department of Education-funded grant projects with school districts across the nation. Lessons Learned – Like some of you, I’ve found it difficult, at times, gaining access to extant data from school …

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DVR Week: Rakesh Mohan and Margaret Campbell on Making Evaluation Reports Reader Friendly

Greetings from Boise, the city of trees! We are Rakesh Mohan (director) and Margaret Campbell (administrative coordinator) of Idaho’s legislative Office of Performance Evaluations (OPE). Margaret reviews drafts of our reports from a nonevaluator’s perspective, as well as copyedits and desktop publishes each report. In this post, we share our thoughts on the importance of …

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Gary Huang on Improper Payment Studies

Hi, I’m Gary Huang, a Technical Director and Fellow at ICF Macro, Inc. in Calverton, Maryland. My colleagues, Sophia Zanakos, Erika Gordon, Gary McQuown, Rich Mantovani, and I are presenting at AEA’s upcoming conference on improper payment (IP) studies. We conduct research and evaluation relating to benefit eligibility and payment errors under rubric of IP. …

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Rakesh Mohan and Maureen Brewer on Successfully Navigating Through the Political Maze

Greetings from beautiful Boise!  We are Rakesh Mohan and Maureen Brewer from the Idaho legislature’s Office of Performance Evaluations. Our post complements previous posts by Dawn Smart (8-30-11) and Tessie Catsambas (9-18-11). Last year, we were asked to evaluate the governance of EMS agencies in Idaho because there were concerns about the duplication of and …

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