To Evaluate an Arts Program

In a day when all expenditures in education are being challenged, all curricula are being evaluated. For better or worse, arts-in-education programs are among those being evaluated. There are different ways to evaluate programs and no one way is the right way. I prefer to think of ways that evaluation can perform a service and be useful to specific persons. For an evaluation to be useful, the evaluator should know the interests and language of his audiences. During an evaluation study, a substantial amount of time may be spent learning about the information needs of the persons for whom the evaluation is being done. The evaluator should have a good sense of whom he is working for and their concerns. Some highly recommended evaluation procedures do not yield a full description, or view, of the merits and shortcomings of the program being evaluated. Some procedures ignore pervasive questions that should be raised whenever arts-in-education programs are evaluated: