Why Evaluate

Do you know what your students and their families need?

What do students know and how do they feel about learning and about school and getting an education?

Where are your students and their families in the other aspects of their lives beyond knowledge?

How can you find student's real needs and real attitudes?

How can you assess how well you are helping students to grow?

Are students learning math, language arts, science?

Are they growing in social skills?

Do they see a reason for using what they learn in school?

How do you know for sure?

Are you running a nationally distributed program like Gear Up or AVID? Is it working?

Schools often buy a program or learn about a new technique and then try to implement it. But are they actually doing what the program developers intended and in the way intended?

Are students with this new or different approach learning more than they would have otherwise?

Are they changing their ideas about why they are in school?

Are they taking home what they learn and applying it to their lives?

If they have not learned, what can you do to change? If they are learning, are they practicing what they learn? What do you need to do to make your teaching more effective?

The answer to some of these questions involves knowing how to design a good research study. Simply asking a few students or teachers what they need will not give a true picture of the needs of the school or community. Similarly, a survey of a few students willing to complete the questions will not give you a clear picture of the student body.

Knowledge of scientific research principals is needed to get accurate answers.

Community Empowerment Research has the scientific training and experience to give you those answers.