Selected Projects
Our work centers on culturally responsive program evaluation within education and community systems and the communities they serve. The featured projects on this page showcase our work with federal and state agencies, school districts, and community organizations and initiatives.
Children's Hospital of Wisconsin
Evaluations of three projects: one with MPS (the Whole School, Whole Child, Whole Community school health model) and two with DPI (Mission Healthy Kids and the Act Now! bullying prevention program).
Northside Early Childhood Zone
Evaluation of a collective impact initiative in Madison to support families with children from birth to age 4 through overlapping social services, public health and education resources.
Odyssey Junior
Program evaluation of the UW-Madison Odyssey Project's youth program, which supports children in self-discovery, self-expression, and literacy. The evaluation focused on identifying impacts of the program in its initial years of implementation. The team also worked with Odyssey Junior staff to build their internal evaluation capacity.
Shalom Curriculum Project
Partnership with Coalition for Jewish Learning to draft, test, and revise early childhood educational curriculum materials on themes of Jewish music and the historical significance and beauty of diversity in the Jewish community.
United Way of Dane County Tutoring Programs
External mixed-methods evaluation support, capacity building, technical assistance, and grant writing support for tutoring programs funded through AmeriCorps that provide academic and social-emotional support to Dane County students both during the school day and after school.
United Way of Greater Milwaukee and Waukesha County Community Schools
External evaluation of the Milwaukee Community School Partnership, which includes developing a community evaluation team as part of a sustainable evaluation model.
Watertown Early Childhood Zone
Assistance to the Greater Watertown Community Health Foundation in developing indicators to monitor child well-being in Dodge and Jefferson counties, in conjunction with two school districts (Watertown and Dodgeland) and the two county health departments.
Madison Metropolitan School District and Boys and Girls Club of Dane County AVID/TOPS Program
Impact evaluation of AVID/TOPS, a partnership between MMSD and the BGCDC to reduce achievement gaps in middle school and high school, achievement, and, most importantly, in postsecondary enrollment and completion.
Madison Metropolitan School District Community Schools
Long-time partnership providing technical assistance and evaluation support for multiple offices and initiatives in Madison Metropolitan School District, including writing and conducting both formative and summative evaluation plans.
Kenosha Unified School District Elementary Math Program Review
Evaluation and assessment of the district's math program across the district's 25 elementary schools, including curriculum, instructional practices and support, leadership, professional development, family engagement, equity, and inclusion.
Milwaukee Charter Schools Evaluation
Evaluation of Milwaukee Public Schools’ charter schools for the Milwaukee School Board. The evaluation includes charter leader perceptions, school performance, and comparisons to other authorizers at the local, state, and national levels.
Milwaukee Public Schools Advanced Academic Programs
Mixed-methods evaluations of two U.S. Department of Education grants that provide professional development to elementary school teachers in identifying and instructing advanced learners from traditionally underrepresented populations using inquiry-based and culturally responsive practices.
Milwaukee Public Schools Partnership Schools
Evaluation of a multi-faceted intervention in four low-performing and high-needs MPS schools involving several key supports: additional academic interventionists, social-emotional learning teachers and programming, expanded in-school tutoring and afterschool programming (provided by the Boys & Girls Club), and within-classroom direct instructional support provided by City Year.
One City Schools
Five-year project examining One City Schools' principles, implementation, and goals that will help show whether One City Schools' model of early childhood education can close educational and health gaps. Key evaluation areas include staff training, parent and community engagement, and student academic outcomes.
Sparta School District
Evaluation of two Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) academic intervention grants received by the Sparta Area School District, which is eligible for these grants due to its significant share of military-affiliated students.
Academic and Career Planning
Longitudinal (5+ years), mixed methods evaluation of Academic and Career Planning (ACP), services required for all Wisconsin students in grades 6-12.
Achievement Gap Reduction
Multi-year, mixed methods evaluation of state legislation that provides reduced class sizes, 1-to-1 tutoring, and instructional coaching in grades K-3 at schools with significant populations of low-income students. WEC is evaluating AGR's impacts on academic outcomes and analyzing educator perspectives on the program's benefits.
Educator Development and Support
Technical assistance and program evaluation support for the design and implementation of the state Educator Effectiveness System, including mentoring and induction efforts, Title II professional learning, teacher leadership, teacher and leader evaluation guides, the state principal evaluation rubric, the Working on the Work professional learning series, and training module development. Findings inform changes to the System and the development of local and statewide supports.
Farm to School
Multi-year evaluation of a program that seeks to improve student nutrition through educational activities, connections to local farms, and promoting local foods, examining the impacts on student attitudes and knowledge about healthy food.
High Quality Instructional Materials and Professional Learning
Partnership with DPI to learn about the use of high quality instructional materials in English Language Arts (ELA), Mathematics and Science.
Nita M. Lowey 21st Century Community Learning Centers Evaluation
Evaluation of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction's 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) grant program to provide evaluation services and support in measuring and reporting state progress towards goals and objectives and technical assistance efforts for 21st CCLC sites.
Pathways
Study determining considerations and conditions for continuing and scaling up Wisconsin's State-Endorsed Regional Career Pathways system, based on Wisconsin's 3-year pilot project for which WEC also completed an initial needs analysis to help the state acquire funding.
Serve Wisconsin AmeriCorps
Technical assistance, training, and capacity-building for Serve Wisconsin (the state commission for AmeriCorps), AmeriCorps applicants, and grantees related to culturally responsive evaluation, evidence, and logic modeling.
SNAP-Ed Collective Action Initiative
Technical assistance and consultation to to state and local SNAP-Ed partners around building evaluation and project management capacity of SNAP-Ed projects statewide.
State Longitudinal Data Systems
Partnership with DPI and others at UW focused on improving access to and use of data for educational decisionmaking, building and improving tools for educators, and providing direct evaluation support to various DPI projects and district initiatives.
Statewide System of Supports
Evaluation of DPI’s support for districts and schools identified as in need of improvement under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).
Wisconsin Minnesota Comprehensive Center for Region 10 (WMCC10)
Advancing the use of evidence-based practices to improve the academic achievement of elementary and secondary school students in the two-state region. The WMCC10 team has extensive experience working with the Wisconsin Department of Instruction (DPI), Minnesota Department of Education (MDE), regional education support organizations, professional associations, and school districts to translate research into practical applications.
Wisconsin School Mental Health Literacy
Partnership with DPI to understand mental health literacy across schools and districts across four focus areas: mental health knowledge, mental health promotion, providing mental health supports, and mental health beliefs/stigma.
Clinical Faculty Development Mentorship Program
Evaluation of the first year of a mentor training program for experienced clinical faculty within the Department of Medicine at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, which indicates the program enhances the professional lives and faculty vitality of mentors.
College Possible Milwaukee
Partnership for an external, quantitative evaluation of a college preparatory program's impacts on postsecondary enrollment and persistence among two cohorts of students, continuing work begun by the Wisconsin HOPE Lab.
EMMET Makerspace
External evaluation of a grant from the National Science Foundation to Northcentral Technical College and UW-Madison that focuses on a mobile makerspace in central Wisconsin.
Galaxy Scouts Comic Book Series
Partnership with the UW-Madison Astronomy Department to develop the Galaxy Scouts comic books series and related outreach programs to promote youth excitement about, and engagement with, science.
Innovations at the Nexus of Food, Energy, and Water Systems
Partnership with Kansas State University to develop a pilot certificate program that trains graduate students to employ interdisciplinary approaches to solve rural resource resilience challenges with food, energy, and water resource use.
Preparing Graduate Students for Community Engagement
Conducting research and evaluation activities to study and shape a STEM Public Service program for graduate students who want to integrate their scientific work with public interests.
