Evaluation of the Star Schools Projects [This report has been divided into a number of separate web pages for browser-loading ease. You may view (and select) the contents by section title from the Contents, or click on the "Next" button at the bottom of each page.] Recommendations Improving the Star Schools Program The Star Schools Program currently reaches over 140,000 students. For most, it provides access to educational opportunities available to their peers in other settings. Further, Star Schools project personnel are dedicated, hard-working professionals whoa re attentive to the details that make educational programs work. Their efforts could be strengthened through a few program modifications. In addition, Star Schools Program staff should consider some alternatives to current policies. Recommendation One Lengthen the funding period for Star Schools grants. Every project experienced problems with the two-year cycle, and these problems were worse for the most ambitious. Current funding discourages innovation and working with schools that have students with the greatest need for distance learning opportunities. Funding should be provided for at least three years, and probably five. With a three-year cycle, the first year could be spent in planning, program development, and equipping schools. Program delivery would constitute the next two years. A five-year cycle allows for field-testing of materials and approaches to delivering services. It also provides school-site personnel with sufficient time to implement new approaches. Recommendation Two Improve distance learning approaches to staff development. General staff development is perceived to be the weakest part of the Star Schools Program. Although numerous in-service events occur, there is little systematic information about their effectiveness, and site visits revealed few positive views about the general staff development sponsored by Star Schools projects. Current approaches to general staff development implicitly use a model of experts giving teachers information. Distance learning technologies allow all teachers to have access to expensive consultants and lower costs to each. At the same time, as now used, the technology facilitates imparting information to teachers as passive recipients. The effectiveness of staff development is likely to increase if projects provide intermediate support to participating schools and provide for more interaction among teachers and other school staff. Such support can come in the form of technical assistance, from distance learning providers can use the interactive aspects of the technologies to foster "learning communities." Computer networks may support teleconferencing and other approaches to staff development. Recommendation Three Strengthen requirements for the evaluation by grantees. This report relied heavily on project documents and information collected by grantees. There was little consistency in the data they collected, the activities they evaluated, and the questions they asked. At minimum grantees should be required to collect demographic data, including information about gender, ethnicity, educational disadvantage, and income, about students participating in Star Schools- sponsored activities. They also should collect student outcome information related to whole-course instruction . Despite the difficulties of ascribing educational effects to supplementary experiences, grantees should collect systematic information about participation and outcomes. Projects also should have information about the impact of their activities on schools and teachers, including the impact of their staff development activities. Pre-and post-test surveys of teachers and other school staff also should be included in comprehensive evaluations. Finally, current evaluation approaches for the most part ignore issues related to the quality of the content of curriculum and instruction, and those issues should be addressed in project evaluation. Although the current evaluation effort of Star Schools projects vary in quality, they include excellent examples of data collection on particular issues. Two projects, for example, have supplemented teacher survey with classroom observations. One approach to improving project evaluation s, then, would be to hold small group workshops for project evaluators during the Star Schools project directors meetings. The development of an affinity group will facilitate the exchange of ideas and provide an arena for OERI staff and evaluators to discuss ways of strengthening the evaluation effort. Recommendation Four Increase support at the school sites. Although school staff members praise Star Schools project staff members for their care and attention, they also request more help than is available. This is particularly true for activities aimed at educational reform, in which assistance in using the satellite dish is a minor concern compared to concerns with changing curriculum and instruction. Activities aimed at providing students with equal educational opportunities by providing whole-course instruction have less need for such support. Developing Distance Learning Programs The multiple goals of the Star Schools Programs emerged continuously during the first year of the evaluation. Project staff members were particularly concerned that the evaluators understand their goals and problems. Many, both in project headquarters and in schools, held an image of the "typical" distance learning program, which was whole-course instruction in areas such as foreign language or advanced science, that some schools are unable to offer to their students. While such courses comprise a large amount of Star Schools programming, supplemental instruction and activities aimed at contributing to the reform of education comprise an equally large portion. Further, most Star Schools grantees are involved in developing educational applications of emerging technologies. In sum the current Star Schools Program has at least three separate strands: improving equal educational opportunities, either by providing whole courses or by supplementing classroom instruction; contributing to the reform of American education; and demonstrating educational applications of emerging technologies. Congress should consider different approaches to each purpose. This section provides preliminary ideas about ways each might be approached. Improving Equal Educational Opportunities Distance learning activities that are designed to improve equal educational opportunities can be funded in two ways. First, projects or schools can receive seed money grants that allow them to modify facilities and purchase equipment to implement distance learning technologies. Seed money is particularly important for schools that serve low-income students because there is a relationship between the quality of the facilities and the income level of students. The second support for distance learning should be student-based. That is, schools should receive funding to support distance learning based on the needs of students. In rural areas, a measure of curriculum isolation can be derived from the size and geographic location of schools. It is more difficult to derive a formula for urban students, but viewing distance learning as an approach to supplementing instruction for educationally disadvantaged students provides one way of considering the problem Money also can be allocated for gifted, low-income students. In considering this alternative, Congress should engage in broad consultation in order to develop an equitable formula. Contributing to the Reform of American Education Distance learning and other applications of technology hold great promise for contributing to educational reform efforts. Exploiting that promise, however, requires that activities such as those sponsored by Star Schools be more closely tied to other reform efforts than currently is the case. Over the long term, both distance learning and educational reform will benefit from a close relationship. To facilitate the integration of distance learning technology into educational reform, OERI could fund special demonstration projects. Just as a demonstration of a statewide fiber-optics network currently is allowed by legislation, Congress could authorize OERI to provide grants to applicants demonstrating the contribution of distance learning to reform efforts. Such grants should include sufficient time to develop materials and delivery mechanisms and sufficient funds to provide support to teachers and other school- site personnel. Without specific authorization, such demonstration projects could become a priority area for funding within OERI grants programs. Demonstrating Educational Applications of Emerging Technology Rapid developments in communication technology provide a challenge to educators and an opportunity for the U.S. Department of Education to assume leadership. OERI should create a program that supports R&D regarding educational applications of emerging technology. This should be a long-term program that fosters experimentation with a variety of technologies and the integration of technological applications. It also should foster uses for student learning and motivation as well as staff development and the continuing professional development of teachers and administrators. The technology R&D program should be closely aligned with other OERI research and improvement efforts. While giving opportunities for educational technologists to experiment, it also should require field tests of particular applications that include assessments of utility and usability. Technological applications may change the ways schools operate, but their entry will be to schools as they are currently structured. Consequently, the R&D program should include research about integration of new approaches with current practice. Creating a long-term R&D program will increase attention to development activities and separate them from service activities. Current Star Schools grantees are rightfully uncomfortable about engaging in much experimentation while they are being judged in terms of their delivery of distance learning services. Separating the purposes into separate programs enables OERI to provide continuous leadership and ongoing service in technology.   Next