Balancing Summative and Formative Evaluation: New Partnerships, New Evaluation Models

Source: Annenberg Foundation

Date: 2004

Abstract:
In 1996 the J. Paul Getty Trust and the Annenberg Foundation launched a joint effort to explore the impact of joining arts education reform with overall school reform. The effort brought together two powerful forces in educational change: one aimed at promoting the arts in schools, the other at changing the culture and improving the effectiveness of public education. This jointly supported, five-year effort came to be known as the Transforming Education Through the Arts Challenge, or TETAC. While the TETAC project’s national evaluation was originally designed to be more traditional in nature (i.e., summative), both the project and the national evaluation benefited from the more balanced summative-formative approach that evolved over the four-year evaluation effort. Based on these benefits, several lessons have been gleaned from the TETAC national evaluation effort that might assist others planning a more balanced approach to evaluation.

Link: Balancing Summative and Formative Evaluation: New Partnerships, New Evaluation Models

Keyword: Evaluation Partnership

Region: Northern America