1999 Pre-Conference Evaluation Report

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National Charter School Conference
Conference Evaluation Report
1999

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Pre-Conference Evaluation Report

At the U.S. Department of Education’s National Charter School Conference (March, 1999), participants who were involved in the pre-conference activities were asked to complete a pre-conference evaluation form. This data collection instrument asked respondents to give their affiliation, rate the pre-conference activities overall, and answer several yes/no questions regarding the pre-conference.

This report summarizes the 67 pre-conference evaluation forms that were submitted by pre-conference participants.

Summary of Findings

Thirty-nine percent of the pre-conference participants were affiliated with administration and 30 percent were affiliated with a school. Ten percent were either a professional association official or a technical assistance provider.
Eighty-one percent of the pre-conference participants gave the pre-conference activities a positive rating of either excellent or very good.
The questions with the highest percentage of responses of YES were "Do you feel that the program was well organized?" (87 percent) and "Will you be able to apply lessons from the program in your school or job?" (81 percent).
The pre-conference activity that received the highest rating was Academic Accountability. The activity that received the lowest rating was Role of Evaluation for Charter Entities.

Affiliation
The participants were asked to identify their affiliation from among 11 choices.

Thirty-nine percent of the pre-conference participants were affiliated with administration and 30 percent were affiliated with a school. Ten percent were either a professional association official or a technical assistance provider. (See Figure PC-1 and Table PC-1)

Four forms had more than one affiliation marked on the form. All affiliations marked by the respondents are shown in Table PC-1. This results in a total figure in that table that exceeds the total number of completed forms.

Table PC-1 Respondent Affiliation
Overall Affiliation	Affiliation marked on form	Number of Respondents	Percent of Respondents
School (21)	School Developer	3	4.3%
	School Founder	8	11.6
	Principal	4	5.8
	Teacher	4	5.8
	Other School Staff	2	2.9
Professional/Technical (7)	Professional association official	2	2.9
Professional/Technical (7)	Technical assistance provider	5	7.2
Administration (27)	Local district administrator	8	11.6
	State administrator	17	24.6
	Federal administrator	2	2.9
Other (15)	Other	15	20.3
	Total	70	100.0%

Overall Pre-Conference Ratings

Participants completing the pre-conference evaluation form were asked to rate the pre-conference activities (from Excellent to Poor (or N/A)). This item was completed on all of the 67 data collection forms. Overall, 81 percent of the pre-conference participants gave the pre-conference activities a rating of either excellent or very good. (Table PC-2)

Table PC-2 Overall Pre-Conference Ratings
	Exclnt	V. good	Good	Fair	Poor	NA	# Resp.	% VG or Exclnt	% Fair or Poor
OVERALL PRE-CONFERENCE EVALUATION	21	33	10	3	0	0	67	81%	4%

Answering Questions about the Pre-Conference

The pre-conference participants were asked to answer six questions to which they were able to answer yes, somewhat, or no. (See Table PC-3)

Table PC-3 Questions about the Pre-Conference
	Yes	Somewhat	No	NA	# Resp.	% YES
Did the pre-conference activities meet your expectations?	50	14	1	2	67	75%
Would you recommend this program to colleagues?	53	11	1	2	67	79%
Will you be able to apply lessons from the program in your school or job?	54	9	0	4	67	81%
Do you feel the program was well organized?	58	5	0	4	67	87%
Are you interested in staying in touch with pre-conference presenters and attendees?	53	10	0	4	67	79%
Were the pre-conference breakout sessions useful to you?	52	11	1	3	67	78%

The questions with the highest percentage of responses of YES were "Do you feel the program was well organized?" (87 percent) and "Will you be able to apply lessons from the program in your school or job?" (81 percent). All of the other questions received over 75 percent YES responses. (See Figure PC-2)

Feedback on Pre-Conference Activities

Pre-conference participants were asked to rank-order the three pre-conference breakout sessions that were most valuable to them. This item was completed on 45 of the submitted forms.

The pre-conference activity that received the highest rating was Academic Accountability. The activity that received the lowest rating was Role of Evaluation for Charter Entities. (See Table PC-4).

Table PC-4 Most Valuable Pre-Conference Sessions
	First Choice	Second Choice	Third Choice	Overall Ranking*
Charter Solicitation, Application, Selection	6	7	7	39
Academic Accountability	10	15	3	63
Fiscal and Operational Accountability	8	6	10	46
Intervention Strategies	10	5	3	43
Role of Evaluation for Charter Entities	3	3	5	20
Federal Funding and Charter Schools	8	3	2	32
* The overall ranking was calculated in the following manner: Three points were assigned for each first choice, two for second, and one for each third. The overall ranking is the sum of these points.

Open-Ended Responses

Thirty-one of the pre-conference participants added open-ended comments to the end of the form. These responses ranged from compliments (e.g., conference organization, specific presenters, format, lunch), requests for more information (e.g., helps/tips, more handouts, info on legal challenges, fiscal accountability), and complaints (e.g., presenters were repetitive, not enough depth, info not relevant to my state, lunch was too light). The full text of the open-ended responses can be found in Table PC-5.

Table PC-5

Verbatim Open-Ended Responses

I found Ed Kirby to be particularly articulate and honest in speaking to the challenges for charter schools.

Great job with organization, planning and workshop selection.

The most valuable part was talking to people from other states. I would have liked to have more local school districts charter and some of the helps/tips and suggestions.

Would have liked a little more info from presenters. It appeared that in a desire to be interactive - panelists were too limited in time. Frequently, audience questions are specific and not always of general interest.

It does not appear that as much thought went into the lunch sessions as the formal break-outs. Good pre-conference overall. It wasn’t clear if it was an unstructured networking opportunity (which would have been great) or a structured session (like the break-outs). The mix didn't work during the state/regional chartering agency lunch session.

Presenters appeared in multiple sessions. Became too repetitive. No time in lunch session to discuss "critical issues."

I would like to see more evaluation info on assessing non-easily measured items.

Actual handouts rather than so many anecdotal reflections would have been appreciated. Themes seemed to overlap; accountability and evaluation. Enjoyed the lunch interaction.

I liked that the break out sessions were repeated so that if there were two I wanted to attend at the same time I could attend later.

I'm sorry I was unable to attend the session on fiscal accountability. I think that I would have benefited from it.

Q & A sessions tend to be more useful then "canned" presentations.

Put together an excellent opportunity for us to learn, network, and grow professionally. Thanks

I would like to see a presentation on legal challenges facing charter schools and/or chartering entities to help us avoid litigation on this issue.

Many of the issues addressed were already familiar to me. They did not go into great depth.

More materials from in the field. Templates of overall as steps from A - Z

It is critical that this type of conference is an annual event. The networking is critical to the survival of charter school initiators/operators.

Great day - gave me a good perspective.

Vary participants more. This was a great day.

Where was AZ. Dept of Ed

Very helpful. Hope future conferences include this charter - authority component. Please do facilitated authority discussion via website.

Very helpful - Hope the rest of the conference is this dynamic - Great start - especially for a Sunday!

Same pre-conference activities relied mainly on questions and answer periods that did not necessarily pertain to areas relevant to my state.

We didn't talk about governance issues in fiscal accountability – Yikes!

This was great. A perfect role for USDOE to help authorizers plan and work together and improve practice.

This conference was well organized and provided good information. The key was having top quality knowledgeable presenters. It's a shame the USDOE didn't force state authorizers to attend. For example, New Jersey Dept. of Ed did not attend.

SEA regional meetings.

Academic Accountability was weak, could have been stronger. Lunch was a bit light for the big guys. Bigger water glasses. Good Start!

How do authorizers evaluate a charter applicants’ curriculum/educational plan? Use of specialist/expert in curriculum on board? (May have been answered in charter solicitation session).

Please inform/provide when breakfast service, afternoon coffee breaks will not include food. Many conference participants attended without eating breakfast, believing it was offered.

Very timely. School district officials are in dire need of information (and procedures) regarding their role in this "chartering" movement.

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