Making Evaluation Work: One School District's Experience

Abstract

Given the paucity of evaluation studies of gifted programs in the literature, this article shares the experiences of the Greenwich Public Schools in sponsoring an external evaluation of their K - 8 program for gifted and talented youngsters. The article explains the methodology used in the evaluation, discusses findings and recommendations, and describes how the results were translated into program improvement efforts. Also addressed are the evaluators' observations about lessons learned in the process of the evaluation; these lessons reflect on the utility of information gathered.