Technical Assistance with Evaluations of U.S. Department of Education Grant Programs

Contractors: Westat; Compass Consulting Group

Background/Research Questions

The Government Performance Results Act of 1993 requires Federal departments and agencies to clearly describe the goals and objectives of their programs, identify resources and actions needed to accomplish goals and objectives, develop a means of measuring progress made, and report regularly on achievement. The goals of the Act include improving program effectiveness by promoting a focus on results, service quality, and customer satisfaction and improving congressional decision making by providing objective information on achieving statutory objectives, and on the relative effectiveness and efficiency of Federal programs and spending. The Data Quality Initiative is designed to improve the Department's program performance data and reporting and thus is an important mechanism for supporting the goals of the Act.

Across the U.S. Department of Education, there is significant variation in the quality of information about program outcomes and impacts. Some programs either have recently been evaluated or are currently being evaluated using a rigorous research methodology. Other Department programs collect simple outcomes data from grantees that may be of uneven quality and make it difficult to assess program performance. Some Department programs, often the smallest programs, currently have no information on program outcomes or impacts.

The goal of the current contract is to promote and improve the quality of data on outcomes and impacts of Department grant programs. Westat is providing technical assistance to Department program offices and their grantees on a number of activities to achieve this goal.

Activities:

Westat is conducting technical assistance activities for Department program offices, including:

• Review of grantee evaluation plans and reports
• Development of annual performance reporting forms
• Analysis of grantee annual performance data

Westat is conducting technical assistance activities for Department grantees, including:

• Development of guidance on project performance data collection and reporting
• Provision of workshops on evaluation issues

Cost/Duration: $4,892,290 over 5 years (September 2006–September 2011)

Current Status:

Technical assistance is being provided to approximately 30 Department grant programs.