Sun Associates partners with current and potential U.S. Department of Education Teaching American History (TAH) projects in the capacity of External Program Evaluator. We bring a strong background in program evaluation combined with expertise (both academic and classroom-based) in U.S. History to our TAH evaluation and project development work. Most importantly, we are not simply evaluators, but we are historians and history teachers. This combination of skills and knowledge has proven to be a significant asset to the TAH projects with which we currently work.

Partnering to Clarify and Improve Project Outcomes

As Evaluator, Sun Associates undertakes responsibility for monitoring and assessing our projects’ progress toward meeting their program goals. We accomplish this work through a process that centers around a rigorous formative program evaluation methodology.  Our work starts with facilitating the creation of a project logic map as well as a set of unique benchmarks and performance indicators.  This necessary groundwork is intended to help our TAH projects clarify their goals.  This clarity then affords project with the ability to understand the relationship between various project components and the ultimate/desired outcome of improving students’ knowledge of traditional American History.

Formative and On-Going Data

Our TAH evaluation work is intensive and involves a considerable amount of formative, on-going, contact with the project and its participants throughout the project year.  We do not believe that it is possible to effectively evaluate a project – much less provide truly useful formative guidance – without actually being present to gather data at professional development activities, project oversight meetings, and in the classrooms of participating teachers.  We base much of our evaluation on actually observing the implementation of participant knowledge.  Our teacher/evaluators are teachers of American History.  We know what good history teaching and learning looks like.  We base our evaluation in large part on that knowledge.

The results of a Sun Associates TAH evaluation have pay-off even before the first annual report is filed.  We work with projects from the proposal-development stage to clarify goals, align activities to goals, and to develop a customized and methodologically sound evaluation process that will support the project throughout its three years of work.  Once a project is funded, we actively participate as a partner to guide the development and implementation of the project’s program of work.  While we are always independent in our opinions and views, we are never isolated from the project.  We believe that evaluation is an active and engaged aspect an effective TAH project, and we work to make that belief a reality.

Our Projects

To date, Sun Associates has served as External Evaluator for 14 different TAH projects

• Essex LINCs - Beverly (MA) Public Schools and Salem State College
• History Connected - Reading (MA) Public Schools
• Imagination, Invention, and Innovation - Billerica (MA) Public Schools
• The Idea of Freedom - The Education Cooperative (TEC)
• Pathways to American History - Fitchburg (MA) Public Schools and Fitchburg State College
• Writing History - New Bedford (MA) Public Schools and Bristol Community College
• American Promises - Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association and Frontier Regional School District
• The Story of America - Fitchburg (MA) Public Schools and Fitchburg State College
• Leadership in America - Andover (MA) Public Schools and University of Massachusetts at Lowell
• American Promises - Westfield (MA) Public Schools and Westfield State College
• Pursuing Justice - Public Schools of Brookline (MA)
• Making Freedom - Burlington (MA) Public Schools
• Emerging America - Hampshire Educational Collaborative
• Encounters and Exchanges in US History – Reading (MA) Public Schools

In support of these projects, Sun Associates provided assistance in creating the original proposal and has subsequently conducted ongoing and formative evaluation of project work/outcomes.

More Information

Download a presentation from the 2008 New England Regional TAH meeting, discussing the four functions of program evaluation within a TAH project initative.

Download a presentation explaining our approach to designing TAH project evalautions and project logic maps

For more information as to how Sun Associates can assist you in developing your TAH proposal, please email us or phone 978-251-1600 extension 204.

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