Project on Schooling and Children to Start Fellowship Program

The Harvard Project on Schooling and Children (HPSC) recently received $720,600 from the Spencer Foundation of Chicago for postdoctoral fellowships in evaluating programs for children. Carol H. Weiss, professor at the Graduate School of Education, and Joseph Newhouse, John D. MacArthur Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Medical School, will serve as principal investigators of the program.

The new program will invite recent doctoral graduates to Harvard for two years to join an interfaculty group, the Evaluation Task Force, that already is exploring how better to evaluate complicated educational and social programs for children. Applications will be solicited from candidates with special expertise in program evaluation who are graduates either of professional schools of education, public policy, or public health, or of disciplinary programs in the social sciences. The Spencer funds will support four fellows who plan careers in children's educational programming.

"These funds will enable us to address a serious gap in the public debates and individual beliefs about children's learning and well-being," said Weiss. "We need to improve methods of program evaluation in order to provide convincing evidence of what works, for whom, and how and why." Adds Newhouse, "The challenges of evaluating complex, cross sector programs for children are demanding, both substantively and methodologically."

Professor Richard Murnane, an educational economist at the Graduate School of Education, observed, "I have always been convinced of the importance and potential of a University-wide interdisciplinary group to tackle these most vexing problems of evaluation. As interventions for children increase in their complexity, it is clear we need commensurate advances in the theory and practice of program evaluation."

Fellows will attend all Evaluation Task Force meetings, assist, where appropriate, in teaching evaluation courses across the University, and participate in an interdisciplinary evaluation seminar led by Weiss. In addition, fellows will be matched with a faculty mentor. "Mentoring is crucial to the successful development of young scholars," observed Task Force member Frederick Mosteller, Roger I. Lee Professor of Mathematical Statistics Emeritus.

Evaluation Task Force

Convened in the fall of 1995 to take a fresh look at evaluating programs that support children's learning and well-being, the Evaluation Task Force brings together 12 faculty members from various Harvard schools. The Task Force began its work by reviewing existing evaluation courses and activities available at the University, and then moved into a consideration of existing challenges in program evaluation. Presentations by researchers and practitioners directly involved in program evaluation stimulated these conversations.

During 1996-97, the Task Force has continued its work with presentations on specific aspects of program evaluation. In addition, the Task Force has commissioned several papers to inform their work, and is in the process of completing a review of evaluation courses across the University. A guide to evaluation studies for students at Harvard will be published.

Program is Unique

According to several faculty familiar with the field, the postdoctoral fellowship program is unique. As Professor Richard Light of the Kennedy School of Government and the Harvard Graduate School of Education said, "I can't think of any similar effort anywhere else. This is an idea that will have long-term, positive benefits."

The program is unique in another sense as well: two of Harvard's Interfaculty Initiatives will collaborate on the project. Said Provost Albert Carnesale, who oversees the five Interfaculty Initiatives, "This is a great opportunity for cross-faculty work at Harvard. Professor Newhouse, faculty chairman of the Interfaculty Initiative on Health Policy, will join with the Schooling and Children initiative to develop this innovative training program. I am pleased that the Spencer Foundation award will enable us to bring to bear on this topic the expertise of two of the University's interfaculty efforts."

Said Katherine K. Merseth, executive director of HPSC, "If we don't substantially enhance evaluation methodologies, we are doomed to continue spending more and more money while understanding less and less about what helps children and why. The new interdisciplinary approaches developed by this program will enhance the power of our theories and policies to improve the learning and well-being of children."

The Harvard Project on Schooling and Children

The HPSC initiative, begun in the fall of 1993 under the leadership of President Neil L. Rudenstine, seeks to marshal the interdisciplinary resources of the entire University to enhance the learning of children and to strengthen the institutions crucial to that goal through several focused activities.

HPSC has engaged over 60 Harvard professors from the faculties of arts and sciences, business, divinity, education, government, medicine, and public health in its various initiatives. Besides the Evaluation Task Force and the new postdoctoral fellowship program, HPSC activities include Children's Studies at Harvard, an interdisciplinary effort recently awarded $1 million by the Carnegie Corp.; a faculty research seminar on the Ecology of Schooling; the Innovative Schools Initiative, which focuses on emerging innovations in school organization and management; and several collaborations between the University and local community organizations in support of children's health and learning.