Using performance measurement systems for assessing the merit and worth ofreforms

One highly touted use of performance measurement systems is to assess the m erit and worth of reforms. Tn this study, the effect of the League of Profe ssional Schools, a democratic reform initiative in Georgia, was evaluated u sing performance measures from the state's educational performance measurem ent system. The findings indicate that the League, in combination with an a ntecedent condition, motivated leadership, produced more widespread partici pation in staff development than other schools. In addition, schools that w ere relatively successful in implementing the tenets of the program exhibit ed modestly improved levels of student achievement over similar schools. Ho wever, the League schools did not outperform schools involved in another sc hool reform that was instituted with the same antecedent condition-motivate d leadership. Although both reforms were associated with modestly better st udent performance, the League seemed to trigger more teacher involvement in school governance than did the alternative reform. There is, however, no e vidence that the antecedent condition, motivated leadership, was not suffic ient by itself to cause the higher levels of student performance. Analysis of the performance measurement data allowed the merit of the League to be a ssessed against several different performance standards. Although the perfo rmance of the League's schools was positive relative to several of these pe rformance standards, in the end it was impossible to use performance measur es to show that the League was a necessary component of the causal package that resulted in improved performance.