A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Measuring success

After you've designed and implemented your educational approaches, you and others will want to determine the success of your policies, programs and practices. Without careful planning and attention, you will not be able to measure whether and how your business education partnerships have made a difference. There are many different measures of the success of policies, programs and practices. These include: the level of satisfaction of the various stakeholder groups; whether the programs had the intended impact on recipients (that is, did they accomplish what they set out to do); and the outcomes achieved as a result of developing new programs and practices. Whereas measuring the impact will tell you whether short-term objectives have been reached, including outcomes in your evaluation plan will set longer term goals that can be measured in the future. Ideas to help you measure each of these indicators of success (satisfaction, impact, and outcomes) are presented below.

One important point to remember: it is much easier to decide what you want to evaluate before you begin your efforts. Think through how you will gather information about what you hope to achieve, so you can develop tools to collect data on your results. It is much harder and less effective to try and collect data after your program has begun.

Another important decision you must make is when to collect data. Some companies collect program information on an on-going basis while others periodically evaluate the outcomes of their educational approaches. Similarly, you will need to consider which company personnel and key stakeholders will participate in developing your evaluation plan. It is particularly important to work with your educational/school partners in designing your evaluation plan and measuring the impact of your educational efforts. However, all invested stakeholders should have input about what has been accomplished by the business education partnership. (See "Investing in Partnerships for Student Success" for more information on evaluating partnerships.)

Measuring satisfaction

One element of success is how satisfied internal and external stakeholders are with business education partnerships. Key stakeholders can include your company and employees; schools, including students and their families; and the community. The following table suggests some questions that you might want to ask:

Stakeholders	Questions
Parent employees	How did you learn about the educational initiative? Was it beneficial to you? Do you have any suggestions for improvement? Has the business education partnership had any impact on how you feel about your work or your employer?
Employees who have not participated, but may be interested	Do you know about the educational initiative? If so, why didn't you participate? Do you have any suggestions for changes that would allow you to participate?
School principals/teachers	What aspects of the approach seemed to work well? What were some of the problem areas? What could be done to improve the educational approach?
Targeted beneficiaries (employees, students, teachers)	How satisfied were you with the program, policy or collaboration? Did the approach achieve the desired outcome? What are the next steps?
Community partners	What procedures and processes seem to work well? What difficulties did you encounter? How could the approach be changed to better meet your needs? Has the partnership led to new relationships with additional businesses?

Another way to get information about the success of your educational approach is to measure the impact using the indicators identified during your planning process and through dialogue with your stakeholders. This critical activity must be conducted with the input of all stakeholders.

For example, if one of your business objectives was to improve the skills of workforce entrants, you should decide how you will answer questions such as:

• Have standardized test scores improved as a result of your educational efforts?

• Are more workforce entrants able to do their jobs without additional training?

• Are students taking more challenging math and science courses?

• Are you reviewing high school transcripts to send the message that school attendance and grades are important factors in hiring practices?

If one of your school goals was to reduce high school dropout rates and increase college admissions, your evaluation must answer questions such as:

• What do school records indicate at graduation?

• Are more students attending college?

• Have there been fewer dropouts this year (in comparison to last year), next year, in five years?

Here are some indicators that can measure the impact of your educational approaches.

Sample measurement approaches	Key questions
Utilization and involvement patterns	Are the targeted beneficiaries involved in the effort?
Business outcomes	Have these efforts contributed to business objectives? Have they added business value?
School outcomes	Have these efforts contributed to school objectives? Have they added value to the school's agenda and contributed to systemic educational change?
Unintended consequences	Are there any positive unexpected consequences from this effort such as recognition of your company as a leader in the educational arena? Are there any negative unexpected consequences from this effort such as resentment from supervisors who view education efforts as draining employee productivity?

It is important to remember that even if you don't accomplish your goals, you may get some ideas about how to proceed with future efforts. For this reason, it is helpful to assess different elements of your programs, practices and policies. Although some areas may not be successful, some project components may have achieved their goals.

When you develop a plan for evaluating the outcomes of business education partnerships, you may find that some outcomes will be easier to quantify than others. It is important to remember the business and school reasons for involvement and to identify the impact of educational approaches on business and school goals. Keep in mind the national priority areas. You may want to hire an external evaluator with experience in program evaluation to help you develop a successful plan to evaluate outcomes.

Sample Outcomes Since the Community Neighborhood Center programs began (Sunnyvale, California): student attendance has improved by 40 percent juvenile crime in the neighborhood has decreased 5 percent below the city average student learning outcomes have improved These outcomes and how they would be measured were identified before the opening of the Center. Program staff feel that the center may have contributed to these improvements.

You will want to determine whether you have achieved the outcomes that you just identified. Make sure that you collect the necessary data at the specified intervals. It is important to refer to your evaluation plan as a working document that guides your activities. Review it often to make sure that your programs, practices and policies are working to accomplish the goals established in your evaluation plan.

If at some juncture your evaluation plan indicates that you are not achieving your goals, make some adjustments that may move your efforts in the right direction. It is important to use your evaluation data to make ongoing adjustments, rather than wait until the project concludes to implement changes.

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