Programme Evaluation

It's seldom that I see educational programmes properly evaluated. In many schools, programmes that are touted as cutting-edge, large-scale, innovative, holistic (etc) are left to run at enormous expense without rigorous evaluation. It all comes down to a sort of epistemological problem. The problem is: How do you know that the programme actually works to produce the effects you claim?

In most cases, the claim is supported indirectly:

• Someone else said it works somewhere else, so it must work here too.
• Our results are good, so it works.
• The relevant literature is...
• The students we get are poor, and they get better.
• The teachers are good.
• We do better than other schools using other programmes.

... and so on. But any student of the theory of knowledge (or equivalent) can easily see the loopholes in these varieties of 'supporting evidence'. The fact is that most such programmes are theoretical constructs designed to squeeze funds out of overburdened budgets.

Is there a way out? Yes, there is. But it requires more spine than some people have.