Program Evaluation for K-12 and Education-Focused Initiatives
Overview
Effective program evaluation helps schools and organizations understand what is working, why it’s working, and how to strengthen implementation over time. Our evaluations are designed to illuminate both outcomes and the lived experiences of participants, providing leaders with clear, actionable insights that support continuous improvement. Whether the program is based in a school, district, nonprofit, or national organization, we tailor our approach to the unique goals and context of each initiative.
Purpose
Program evaluation clarifies the alignment between a program’s goals, activities, and impact. A strong evaluation:
identifies strengths and areas for refinement
captures participant experiences and perspectives
examines implementation patterns and dosage
reveals how well the program aligns with its theory of action
provides data to guide improvement and scaling decisions
strengthens communication with participating groups
The goal is to ensure that leaders have the information they need to make informed, strategic decisions to support long-term program success.
Approach
Our evaluation approach is both rigorous and deeply contextualized. We begin by grounding ourselves in the program’s purpose, history, and environment to ensure that every question we ask is relevant, meaningful, and useful.
Understanding the Context and Goals
Every evaluation begins with a grounding process to understand the program’s purpose, history, and desired outcomes. We learn how the initiative is being implemented, what leaders hope to understand, and what decisions the evaluation will support. This ensures that the design is rooted in the program’s real environment, not assumptions.
Designing a Meaningful Evaluation Framework
We work with program leaders to clarify the theory of action, articulate key evaluation questions, and choose the design that will best address them. This may involve refining a logic model, selecting mixed-methods approaches, or identifying meaningful indicators of implementation and impact. The design is always utilization-focused so findings directly support programmatic decision-making.
Collecting, Analyzing, and Making Meaning of the Evidence
Data collection is tailored to the program and may include surveys, interviews, focus groups, observations, or analysis of participation patterns. We then synthesize the evidence to highlight patterns, strengths, challenges, and opportunities. Collaborative interpretation sessions help leaders understand what the findings mean for next steps, refinement, or strategic planning.
WEG Experience and Relevance
This approach reflects WEG’s extensive experience evaluating K-12 initiatives of varying scales and designs across a wide range of partners and organizational contexts. Prior evaluation work has included collaborations with:
state education agencies
districts
schools
national nonprofits
university-based education programs; and
large-scale federally funded initiatives such as the Regional Comprehensive Center program and National Professional Development and National Science Foundation grant recipients.
Across these projects, evaluation activities have included mixed-methods data collection, survey design, interview and focus group facilitation, logic model development, theory of action mapping, implementation analysis, and creation of reporting tools to support program refinement and strategic decision-making.
Impact
High quality program evaluation helps leaders see their work more clearly. By examining implementation and participant experience side by side, the process highlights what is working well, where challenges are emerging, and how the program fits within broader research and trends. Leaders often describe gaining clarity about the conditions that support success and the areas where adjustments could strengthen outcomes. The evaluation becomes a practical tool for refining design, improving communication with faculty or boards, and planning for future phases of implementation. Ultimately, it supports thoughtful, mission-aligned decisions grounded in evidence rather than intuition alone..
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