LFA launched an engagement with First 5 LA in March 2014 to develop its next strategic plan.  The plan is built on a robust foundation of data, analysis, consultation with the community and First 5 LA stakeholders, and deliberation among the Commission and staff. The strategies presented in the plan provide a road map for increasing First 5 LA's contribution to improving conditions for families, the communities they live in, and the systems that support them. Download the Strategic Plan

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Since 2011, LFA has partnered with the Marin Community Foundation (MCF) to evaluate MCF's Early School Success Initiative, an ambitious 5+ year investment to develop a preschool through third grade (PreK-3) model in Marin County, designed to bridge the divide between early learning and K-12.

As part of the evaluation, LFA developed a set of learning briefs, exploring in depth four key topics at the heart of Marin County's efforts to develop a PreK-3 model: professional development for teachers and administrators, building partnerships between PreK and K-12, family engagement, and kindergarten readiness. Each brief outlines a framework on the key components for effective implementation of efforts in that area, based on both existing literature and what has been shown to succeed in Marin. Download the individual briefs: Professional Development, Preschool Partnerships, Family Engagement, and Kindergarten Readiness.

The First 5 Sonoma County Commission funds an array of programs, services, and initiatives designed to achieve its Strategic Plan goals in the areas of health and healthy development, early childhood education, parent support and education, and school readiness. LFA has served as First 5 Sonoma County's local evaluator since 2004, helping First 5 staff and grantees to evaluate the impact of their programs and build capacity to conduct their own evaluation. 

The First 5 Sonoma County Annual Impact Report is a comprehensive summary of the impact of First 5’s efforts in the past fiscal year, incorporating findings from program- and systems-level evaluation data. This report provides an overview of populations served as a result of First 5 grant making, as well as the ways in which First 5 has contributed to capacity-building and direct outcomes for children and families in Sonoma County. Download the Executive Summary or the Full Report.

The Data Matters Framework outlines a set of critical components that schools must have in place to meaningfully engage in data reflection and learning. These are the building blocks for data use in schools - the capacities and structures that educators need to effectively use data to advance learning and practice. LFA developed the framework through our work with Marin Community Foundation’s Early School Success grant.

We offer this framework as a tool that educators can use to strengthen their data use practices. We also offer this as a tool for evaluators who are working with schools and looking for language that can support discussions with clients by illuminating what we mean - specifically and on the ground - when we talk about data use. Download the Framework. Learn more about this tool on our blog post here.

In designing an implementation evaluation for the Hawaiʻi Community Foundation’s middle school program, Connecting for Success (CFS), LFA looked to ideas from the school reform literature to build out the concept of strategic coherence, a concept that captures a particularly important aspect of implementation (one that our evaluation found to be among the most meaningful factors relating to the program’s success): School reforms are strategically coherent when they are logically consistent with other initiatives or programs, and with existing practices. When reforms cohere, the various policies and practices build on, complement, and reinforce one another; without coherence, the various policies and practices contradict one another and contribute to the fractured time and attention of school staff. Separate efforts may be based on conflicting strategies, and contradictory demands may be made of staff.

For those in the field who might want to explore the concept of strategic coherence as a critical aspect of high-quality program implementation, we offer a rubric that outlines the three dimensions of strategic coherence as well as a tool that includes items to measure these dimensions. Download the Rubric and Tool. Learn more about strategic coherence in our blog post here.

HIKI NŌ (the Hawaiian phrase for “Can Do”) is a PBS Hawai'i Learning Initiative that mentors middle and high school students throughout the state of Hawai'i as they learn about all aspects of broadcast journalism and create PBS-quality video stories about themselves and their communities. Under their teachers’ guidance, students from 90 public, private, and charter schools from across the Hawaiian Islands learn critical 21st century skills and share stories from their communities to Hawai'i and the world. PBS Hawaii engaged Learning for Action to conduct an evaluation to explore HIKI NŌ's impact on teacher instructional practice and activities, specifically looking at the extent to which the program helps teachers to meet Common Core requirements and helps students to build 21st Century skills. Findings from the evaluation highlight that HIKI NŌ is a unique program offering valuable opportunities for teacher professional development and student skill development which extend beyond the HIKI NŌ classroom.Download the Final Report.

What are effective practices in data use among school teams engaging in a preschool through third grade initiative? What structures and systems must be in place to support effective data use? These are key questions driving a study of data use implementation among schools participating in the Marin Community Foundation's Early School Success Initiative. In collaboration with MCF and the Marin County Office of Education, LFA explored these questions through extensive literature review, conversations with data use stakeholders, and observation of data meetings in action at each of the participating schools. The culminating findings include a framework outlining the critical components and structures that support effective data use in schools, a detailed summary of each of the critical components, and specific examples where we see these promising practices taking shape at schools in the Early School Success Initiative. Download the Report

Global Glimpse works to inspire a new generation of young Americans to become responsible global citizens. Global Glimpse engaged LFA to evaluate their current program performance, and to strengthen their internal evaluation systems and capacity with an eye for scalability as Global Glimpse grows. LFA revised Global Glimpse’s theory of change to align better with the program’s outcome goals, and revised and administered surveys of multiple program stakeholder groups to assess the program’s alignment with the framework. LFA improved Global Glimpse’s evaluation capacity by transferring the revised surveys to Global Glimpse for future internal administration, and improved Global Glimpse’s ability to align future evaluation results with their theory of change. LFA developed an evaluation report of the program’s 2015 results, with a focus on providing context about the successes and areas for improvement for the organization’s internal use. Global Glimpse used the newly available theory of change outcomes and these evaluation data to create their 2015 Impact Report. Download the Evaluation Report or Global Glimpse’s Internal Impact Report.

The Working to Institutionalize Sex Ed (WISE) Initiative provides much needed support to institutionalize sex education in public schools across 12 key states. As the national evaluator for the WISE Initiative, LFA has provided ongoing guidance to a multi-funder collaborative led by the Grove Foundation and supported by the Ford Foundation, David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Oak Hill Fund, and additional funders. One product of the evaluation is the creation of the WISE Toolkit, an iterative, dynamic approach to implementing sex education. The WISE Toolkit emerged from the experience of the organizations participating in WISE and was captured, analyzed, and written by LFA. See the Online Toolkit

Since 2011, LFA has partnered with the Marin Community Foundation (MCF) to evaluate MCF's Early School Success Initiative, an ambitious 5+ year investment to develop a preschool through third grade (PreK-3) model in Marin County, designed to bridge the divide between early learning and K-12.

As part of the evaluation, LFA developed a set of learning briefs, exploring in depth four key topics at the heart of Marin County's efforts to develop a PreK-3 model: professional development for teachers and administrators, building partnerships between PreK and K-12, family engagement, and kindergarten readiness. Each brief outlines a framework on the key components for effective implementation of efforts in that area, based on both existing literature and what has been shown to succeed in Marin. Download the individual briefs: Professional Development, Preschool Partnerships, Family Engagement, and Kindergarten Readiness.

LFA and the Center for Venture Philanthropy developed this benchmarking tool to help organizational leaders and staff assess and reflect on their practices relative to standards of excellence in environmental education. Download the Tool

With support from the S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation, LFA developed the Better Results Toolkit in partnership with a set of San Francisco Bay Area environmental education organizations that participated in a three-year capacity-building initiative called LEAPS (Leadership and Evaluation for Program Success). The toolkit guides organizations through the process of putting strong data-driven learning practices in place.

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LFA collaborated with the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) to develop a national survey of community colleges (the survey was funded by The Atlantic Philanthropies). This survey was designed to assess the progress of community colleges in offering programming for students 50 and older. Of those that responded (204 out of all 1,174 community colleges nationwide), 84% reported having such programs (either in academics and enrichment, workforce training and career development, or volunteering). However, most colleges simply take existing offerings and market them to this demographic. Colleges still have a long way to go in truly customizing programming to this important age group. Download the Full Report or the Executive Summary

From 2007-2015, LFA worked with the Plus 50 Initiative at the American Association of Community Colleges. The Plus 50 Initiative designed a new program that community colleges can implement to support students 50 and older to complete a college credential and advance their careers. LFA and Plus 50 developed a program manual that community colleges can use to replicate a Plus 50 program on their own campus. The manual guides colleges through five phases of program design and implementation: readiness, needs assessment, program development, implementation planning, and continuous improvement. Download the Manual