Why Goal Monitoring Evaluation?

Boards that want to have the strongest impact on improving student outcomes will demonstrate a very strong alignment between the vision and values they speak and the goals and guardrails they act on. The more alignment there is between saying and doing, the more likely it is that the school board’s actions will create the context for improvements in student outcomes. The less alignment there is, the more likely it is that the school board’s behavior is unintentionally harming the school system’s chances of improving student outcomes.

Alignment between saying and doing can be measured by evaluating the quality of the goal monitoring conversation. This is the benefit of a time use evaluation: to reveal the extent to which there is alignment between what the school board says and what the school board does as a means of helping school boards see a path toward improving student outcomes.

Using the Goal Monitoring Evaluation

The Goal Monitoring Evaluation Form, when complete, is intended to provide school boards with concrete, measurable information about the alignment or non-alignment of their sayings and doings. This is not about identifying rights and wrongs, goods and bads, or any other moralistic judgment about how the school board has chosen to invest its time; it’s simply actionable information for the school board’s use.

Our coaching to school boards is that school boards that are intensely focused on improving student outcomes will aim to invest at least 50% of their minutes together as a board each month into monitoring progress toward their goals. The quality of that monitoring conversation is determined by how aligned the questions asked are with the Effective Goal Monitoring criteria: is it Strategy-focused, Measure-focused, Ask-oriented, Results-focused, and Time-bound (SMART).

Click below to go to the Effective Goal Monitoring spreadsheet, go to File and download your own copy, then follow the directions in the first tab of the spreadsheet.

Begin Goal Monitoring Evaluation