Why it Matters
Outcomes represent a program’s impact. They answer the question: “What difference did this program make for participants?”
Benefits of Defining Desired Outcomes
Improves the ability to clearly communicate the program's purpose, intended impact, and objectives, ensuring resources are directed toward specific, measurable goals.
Enables internal staff and external providers to focus strategically on the program activities that will help them achieve the desired outcomes.
Increases communication, transparency, and trust with internal staff, external providers and other stakeholders by creating a shared understanding of what is expected and how success will be measured.
Distributes funds more purposefully, efficiently, and effectively.
Creates a framework for evaluating the effectiveness of funded programs by establishing specific, measurable targets. An evaluation framework makes it possible to assess what works and what doesn’t and creates opportunities for learning and improvement formatively (i.e., via ongoing evaluation for improvement) and summatively (i.e., final evaluation to measure program effectiveness).
Increases the likelihood of investing in relationships with implementation partners that prioritize the same outcomes.
Opens the door to outcomes-based contracting.
Outcomes should:
Measuring Priority Outcomes: Specificity and Transparency
Outcomes are a significant source of information about whether and to what degree a program has achieved its goals.
For this reason, LEA leaders, external providers and other stakeholders need a shared understanding of how priority outcomes will be measured. LEA leaders should be specific and transparent about:
The types of data that can be used to measure performance on outcomes (e.g., if measuring student proficiency, what assessment(s) can be used).
The threshold that needs to be passed in order for an outcome to be ‘met’ (e.g., if measuring student proficiency, what counts as proficient).
The frequency with which progress towards achieving outcomes will be measured (e.g., monthly, quarterly).
Any leading indicators that the LEA will measure as a part of understanding progress towards achieving a priority outcome. Leading indicators are early signs that predict future outcomes (e.g., attendance is a leading indicator for student academic outcomes).
Logic Models
A logic model is a tool that LEAs can use to visually represent the relationship between an education program’s resources, planned activities and intended short-, medium-, and long-term outcomes and outputs.