The Importance of Evaluation

I am feeling gratified. Our near yearlong efforts to acquire funding from Z. Smith Reynolds for an evaluation study of TLA has finally paid off. Julie Crain, Vice President of Programs at Wake Education Partnership and Board of Advisor member, received preliminary notification Tuesday that the two-year grant was in the bag. Many of you have sent congratulatory messages to me and for those I am grateful.

As with any complex effort, our proposal was created as a team. I got the ball rolling and was soon joined by then TLA Director of Learning, Fran Riddick; TLA Training Consultant, Dawnelle Hyland; outside evaluator, Sally Bond; and, of course, Julie Crain. ZSR staff also weighed in with some suggested revisions. Thanks to all who contributed.

So why is program evaluation important? Simply stated, we want to improve. This requires us knowing the extent to which TLA participants are impacted by what we do and, assuming that they are, how those impacts are effected. In other words, what's working, what's not, and why. A secondary reason is that potential funders want to be sure they are backing a winner. You should want to know it too. A third reason is that, if positive impacts are demonstrated, TLA may provide a model for how others can create a regional solution to building systemic leadership capacity in individual districts.

There is one thing that worries me a little bit. TLA is by design and desire a "with and through" organization; consequently much of what it does and how it does it is up to people in the districts it serves. That means that there is no singular leadership development solution to measure. What happens in reality is that people are exposed to a little bit of this and a little bit of that. It all adds up to something but the extent to which any one thing can be extricated from another thing is nearly impossible.

I am sure that there are those who may think that conducting a valid evaluation of TLA will be like trying to extract a drop of chocolate syrup from a glass of white milk. (Thank you, Michael Evans, for the metaphor.) They may be right but that is no excuse for our not trying. Of one thing I am certain. We will be a more focused, more effective, more collaborative organization for our having been studied by an outside evaluator. No doubt the evaluator will want to interview you at some future point. I hope you're reading the blog!