Designing and Utilizing a Data System for Program Evaluation and Continuous Improvement in a Program Serving One Large District: Lessons From the University of Illinois at Chicago

• In Event: Making Sense of Principal Preparation Program Evaluations

Abstract

The University of Illinois at Chicago’s (UICs) Ed.D. in Urban Education Leadership, one of only five leadership preparation program to be recognized as Exemplary by the University Council for Educational Administration, is designed to prepare and development early-career school leaders to transform student learning in high needs urban schools. Since its inception in 2003, this program has placed roughly 200 school leaders in the Chicago Public Schools. Over this period of time this program in conjunction with UIC’s Center for Urban Education Leadership, has worked to develop a data system and approaches for evaluating the program’s impact and for using such information to support continuous program improvement. UIC is regularly noted as one of just a few principal preparation programs in the US to have taken up the design and use of data systems to support ongoing program evaluation and continuous improvement.

This paper will begin by presenting UIC’s work to develop a data system and approaches for program evaluation and identifying key challenges that were faced and addressed throughout the design process. Next this paper will Identify a range of program impacts that are typically examined through this data system as well as some of the key analytic approaches used. Lastly, this paper will present various impact findings for UIC’s Ed.D. program and will reveal how such findings can and have be harnessed to inform program continuous improvement.

Author

• Shelby A. Cosner, University of Illinois at Chicago