Kansas State Personnel Development Grant (SPDG) Evaluation

The Kansas State Personnel Development Grant (SPDG) supports the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and practices necessary for implementation of the current KSDE statewide priorities and aligns with the State Board of Education’s goals and the IDEA Part B State Performance Plan. The evaluation of the SPDG must therefore support the state- and local-level implementation of the current KSDE statewide priorities and contribute to the continuous improvement of SPDG professional development through data-informed self-correcting feedback loops. To this end, the SPDG evaluation must be an ongoing, collaborative process that enhances the evaluation expertise of KSDE and its partners, as well as teachers, administrators, and LEA coaches that are charged with implementing evidence-based instructional practices that lead to improved academic and behavioral performance of students with disabilities.

The work of the SPDG evaluation is multi-faceted. Through collaboration with the KSDE Technical Assistance System Network’s (TASN) Coordination and Evaluation Project, data collection, analysis, and dissemination is aligned to support systems-wide decision-making. The OSEP Program Performance Measures guide the development and implementation of evaluation protocols regarding evidence-based professional development practices, implementation of SPDG-support practices over time, and follow-up activities that sustain the use of SPDG-support practices. Additionally, the SPDG evaluation is utilization-focused, adhering to the premise that evaluations should be judged by their utility and actual use. In other words, our approach to evaluation is more concerned about supplying decisionmakers with high-quality data to guide their actions toward systemic educational improvement and less concerned with evaluation for the sake of empirical knowledge only. It is our goal to assure that all stakeholders (students, parents, teachers, schools, districts, coaches, state administrators, etc.) understand, are committed to, and are involved in program evaluation.