Compulsory project-level involvement and the use of program-level evaluations: Evaluating the local systemic change for teacher enhancement program

In 1995, the National Science Foundation (NSF) contracted with principal investigator Iris Weiss and an evaluation team at Horizon Research, Inc. (HRI) to conduct a national evaluation of the Local Systemic Change for Teacher Enhancement program (LSC). HRI conducted the core evaluation under a $6.25 million contract with NSF. This program evaluation project, called the LSC core evaluation, had an overarching program-wide focus that included all 88 local LSC projects. The LSC core evaluation was a large, multisite program evaluation that included multiple data-collection and information-dissemination activities. Each local LSC project was required to have a project-level evaluator, to collect information by using predesigned data-collection instruments developed by HRI, and to report findings to the core evaluation on a regular basis. This case study describes the relationship between project-level involvement in the LSC core evaluation and the use of the core evaluation by project leaders and evaluators.