program evaluation -for elementary and secondary education

Assignment readings added for week #2 8-3-10

Here is the additional readings assignment. I hope you first read the assigned chapters in Rossi and then negotiate through the following.

Go to www.gasb.org and click on “Other Information”

Then select SEA Reporting and read the brief intro.

Follow by clicking on SEA Reporting Project in the left column.

Review the History of SEA Reporting Initiatives.

Click on “Research Reports” in the right column

Then from this page first click on Overview and read.

Back up to the previous page and then click on Service Areas and read through the information casually.

The complete reports for the service areas are now available on-line and I would strongly suggest you look in depth at the service area closest to your employment.

Understand this project has been a monumental undertaking that focuses on sound and legitimate performance measurement criteria. The Governmental Accounting Standards Board has had this project as a goal since GASB was founded in 1987. The problem I first looked at was how they had intended to add this information as a part of the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) with the endorsement of the Government Finance Officers’ Association (GFOA).

The CAFR is the final audited report for a state or local government entity. My research found that all too often these reports are not completed and available on an average of more than a calendar year after the end of the Fiscal Year (FY) for which the audit was made. That means information going into the official record and for public information would be more than a year old when made available.

Another serious issue is the complexity of the audited comprehensive annual financial reports, well beyond the understanding of all but a narrow group of government accountants and finance professionals. Yet the information is intended for the general public.

I first started my PhD dissertation looking at how to incorporate the SEA project into a usable report for the public and was stonewalled by the GFOA when I suggested the CAFR needed to be in plain English for the public. So I then stepped back and looked at the CAFR and its uses, distribution, and understandability.

The point is that the SEA Project intends to do what our course is about. That is to develop sound and legitimate performance measurement criteria to be used in Program Evaluation.

I believe an understanding of the SEA Reporting Project will put you far ahead of where Rossi is heading. It may help you frame a better perspective on how all of this fits together.