by
Stecher, Brian M.
Call Number
352.35 22
Publication Date
2010
Summary
Performance-based accountability systems (PBASs), which link incentives to measured performance as a means of improving services to the public, have gained popularity. While PBASs can vary widely across sectors, they share three main components: goals, incentives, and measures. Research suggests that PBASs influence provider behaviors, but little is known about PBAS effectiveness at achieving their performance goals or about government and agency experiences. This document summarizes a study that examined nine PBASs in five sectors: child care, education, health care, public health emergency preparedness, and transportation. In the right circumstances, a PBAS can be an effective strategy for improving service delivery. Optimum circumstances include having a widely shared goal, unambiguous observable measures, meaningful incentives for those with control over the relevant inputs and processes, few competing interests, and adequate resources to design, implement, and operate the PBAS. However, these conditions are rarely fully realized, so it is difficult to design and implement PBASs that are uniformly effective. PBASs represent a promising policy option for improving the quality of service-delivery activities in many contexts. The evidence supports continued experimentation with and adoption of this approach in appropriate circumstances. Even so, PBAS design and its prospects for success depend on the context in which it will operate. Also, ongoing system evaluation and monitoring are integral components of a PBAS; they inform refinements that improve system functioning over time.
Format:
Electronic Resources
Relevance:
0.9306
by
McCombs, Jennifer Sloan, 1970-
Call Number
371.8 22
Publication Date
2010
Summary
High-quality out-of-school-time (OST) programs have a positive effect on youth development, but many cities have found it difficult to address the challenges of expanding and improving the quality of programs offered to underserved and high-need students. In response, The Wallace Foundation sponsored an initiative to help five cities increase collaboration, access, quality, information sharing, and sustainability in their OST systems. In many cities that provide financial support for OST, funding is funneled through a variety of youth-serving agencies that lack basic information about the programs they fund. The second in this three-volume series describes how the grantees and three other cities used management information systems to collect and use data on OST programs, including enrollment, attendance, and student outcomes. Cities' use of management information systems to collect and report data on OST programs is relatively new, so the experiences of the case-study cities offer valuable lessons for the field. For example, management information systems are capable of supporting OST system improvement but require careful planning, the use of data from these systems can lead to additional funding and support, the customization of web-based systems encourages their use, providing high-quality training to providers increases the use of the systems, and many providers are overburdened by requirements to use multiple management information systems, so eliminating redundancies and coordinating data requirements can ensure more efficient program provision and reporting.
Format:
Electronic Resources
Relevance:
0.0516
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by
Augustine, Catherine H., 1968-
Call Number
371.200973 22
Publication Date
2009
Summary
Improving the nation's public schools is one of the highest priorities of federal, state, and local government in America. Recent research has shown that the quality of the principal is, among school-based factors, second only to the quality of the teacher in contributing to what students learn in the classroom. New programs to develop school leaders who can exercise vigilance over instruction and support effective teaching practices are not likely to succeed, however, if they are inconsistent with other state and district policies affecting school leadership. The Wallace Foundation, which focuses its grantmaking in education primarily on school leadership, has posited that well-coordinated policies and initiatives to develop leadership standards, provide high-quality training, and improve the conditions that affect principals' work will increase their ability to improve instruction in their schools. This study documents the actions taken by the Foundation's grantees to create a more cohesive set of policies and initiatives to improve instructional leadership in schools; describes how states and districts have worked together to forge such policies and initiatives around school leadership; and examines the hypothesis that more-cohesive systems do in fact improve school leadership. The study found that it is possible to build more-cohesive leadership systems and that such efforts appear to be a promising approach to developing school leaders engaged in improving instruction. Although the study did not find evidence that the full underlying theory behind this initiative is sound, it did find a correlation between improved conditions for principals and their engagement in instructional practices.
Format:
Electronic Resources
Relevance:
0.5168
by
Stecher, Brian M.
Call Number
379.158 22
Publication Date
2004
Summary
The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is a performance-based accountability system built around student test results. The accountability system comprises explicit educational goals, assessments for measuring the attainment of goals and judging success, and consequences (rewards or sanctions). But the mechanisms through which the system is intended to work are not well understood. The authors examined five accountability models: two from the manufacturing sector (the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Program and the Toyota Production System (TPS)), a performance incentive model used in the evaluation of job training programs for the poor, accountability in the legal sector, accountability in health care as shown by clinical practice guidelines, use of statistical risk-adjustment methods, and the public reporting of health performance measures. Although education faces unique challenges, the authors conclude that educators can learn much from these other sectors. The Baldrige, TPS, and the clinical practice guidelines suggest the importance of focused institutional self-assessment, understanding school and district operations as a production process, being able to develop and apply a knowledge base about effective practice, and empowering participants in the process to contribute to improvement efforts. The job training and risk-adjustment models and the legal and health care accountability models provide specific guidance on how to enhance system-wide accountability in education by broadening performance measures; making sure performance goals are fair to all students and schools; developing standards of practice in promising areas; and encouraging professional accountability.
Format:
Electronic Resources
Relevance:
0.7756
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