Evaluation of the Community Education Program. A Description and Assessment of Projects Funded by the Community Education Program

摘要

Community education, while not a recent phenomenon, was given new impetus by the Community Schools Act of 1974. This act provided funding for institutions of higher learning (IHE's) to help them train community workers, for State educational agencies (SEA's) to help them coordinate and establish community program, and for local education agencies (LEA's) for specific projects. The LEA evaluation project mailed questionnaires to 93 local projects funded in fiscal year 1976 and interviewed participants, community workers, and project personnel during 20 onsite visits, A combination of questionnaires to all project directors and selected onsite visits were used for the IHE and SEA evaluations. Findings show that the IHE's conducted a variety of training activities ranging from workshops for local educators to special courses for educational specialists, and those who received the training rated it highly. The SEA project enabled 11 States to establish community education offices, 10 increased staff size, 10 increased geographic area served, and 14 increased the number of people served. SEA's also established new projects and worked with school systems to make facilities available after school hours. The LEA's offered a variety of educational, recreational, and cultural activities and also helped publicize other community services. Local principals and teachers felt LEA'S also increased school - community cooperation. Most grants were for 1 year. Many of the activities continued beyond the year with local funding.