There are good reasons why people are skeptical of evaluation. Let's face it; we have all seen evaluation used poorly. Take elementary school evaluation. The purpose of formally testing students was to see how students were doing compared to other students or how students were doing in comparison to achieving a certain level of performance. This information was supposed to provide useful feedback to the school on what could be done better to teach students.
What has been the result of formalized evaluation? Teachers feel pressured into focusing on test preparation instead of teaching their students. They feel the need to maximize test performance, when all they want to be doing is helping students to learn and grow. Thus the tail (test) is wagging the dog (the classroom experience.)
Some may feel that all evaluation ends up like this, creating more harm than good. This possible negative impact of evaluation has long been known and even has a name: Campbell's Law or Behavioral Drift. High quality evaluators actively make sure that this is NOT the result of evaluation. High quality analysts, like those at Illumin Analytics, know how to select the right measures, design data collection efforts, analyze the data, and how to guide the use of that information in a way that helps organizations understand where they are currently while illuminating the path forward. This is true regardless if the topic being evaluated is Full Service Community Schools, DEIA efforts, Reducing Recidivism, or the Evidence Act.
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