ABSTRACT
Norman Gold, senior research associate, was responsible for drafting the Request for Proposal (RFP) for the evaluation competition. The RFP noted that the evaluation had a variety of potential audiences—parents, teachers, community members, policy makers and evaluators—and that the evaluation contractor would consult with panels representative of the different "user" groups. American Institutes for Research staff members had been involved in several overseas projects funded by the Agency for International Development and considered themselves to be experts in the "problems of disadvantages." The evaluation design eventually received qualified approval from the national PUSH/Excel staff, the federal staff, and the Technical Advisory Panel. The transformation in how the PUSH/Excel program was perceived through this evaluation framework had a subtle but profound influence on the evaluation. By employing a construct like "investment," the evaluators made the motivation for improvement seem primarily economic.
