GEAR UP Kentucky participating in national GEAR UP College and Career Readiness Evaluation Consortium

GEAR UP Kentucky is one of twelve GEAR UP stat projects participating in the newly formed GEAR UP College and Career Readiness Evaluation Consortium. Through this effort, GEAR UP projects across the nation will collaborate to adopt common standards, indicators, data elements, diagnostics, and data collection and reporting methods.

The purpose of the Consortium is to foster collaboration among its members; demonstrate the impact of GEAR UP across local, state, and national levels of implementation;  and build a culture of evidenced-based assessment and decision-making. Collecting and reporting this level of broad-reaching data about program effectiveness will strengthen both the evaluation and the practice of GEAR UP as a whole.

As of January 2012, the following state GEAR UP projects comprise the Consortium:  Arizona, Idaho, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin,  and Wyoming. The Consortium will operate as a learning network, committed to long-term participation and a continuous improvement process to define, measure, and report on the value-added impact of GEAR UP.

Yvonne Lovell, Executive Director of GEAR UP Kentucky, serves on the Executive Committee for the CCREC. Mark Wiljanen, GUK Program Evaluator and Senior Research Associate, serves as a member of the Consortium’s Research and Evaluation Committee.

The Consortium is supported through a partnership with ACT, Inc., which will serve as the lead research and evaluation partner to collect, analyze, and evaluate data and provide technical expertise. Additionally, NCCEP is serving as the managing partner for the Consortium to provide logistical and operational support.