Outcomes Measurement in Deaf Education

Sponsored by PEPNet 2.0 and National Summit on Deaf Education

Saturday March 3, 2011
St. Louis Union Station
St. Louis, Missouri

Outcomes, or performance-based measures, are used to determine the impact of services. In this time of increasing accountability and budget scrutiny it is more critical than ever that service providers are able to describe and quantify the benefits of the services they perform. Outcome measures may also be indicators of the value-added benefit that result from the services provided.

Outcomes Measurement in Deaf Education is a pre-conference meeting hosted by PEPNet 2.0 on March 3, 2012 in St. Louis, Missouri prior to the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) annual meeting. This full-day working meeting continues the work of the National Summit on Deaf Education in addressing state capacity building and systems change as students progress through their educational programs. The purpose of this session is to expand the National Agenda Goals in Deaf Education by beginning to develop outcomes statements and performance measures, including benchmarks, for selected goals. The work accomplished at this kick-off session will be continued through committee assignments using wiki and other internet collaboration tools. Pennsylvania's Agenda expanded the National Agenda into goals, outcomes and activities; and more recently, Minnesota has developed a statewide plan that adds performance measures. These two states along with the EHDI plan that describes national goals, program objectives and performance measures will provide examples and a starting place for the work that will be conducted. When completed, the expanded National Agenda will be a best practices template for states to collect and report data on performance measurements. Ideally there would be an entity that could collect and report state data to begin to develop a national database.

Who Should Participate?

The involvement of representatives from agencies and institutions that represent the diverse needs of students who are deaf and hard of hearing is critical to effecting systems change and the development of relevant outcomes. The Summit is dedicated to creating opportunities for vested parties to work together for information gathering, planning within states, and problem solving.

To effectively plan, we strongly encourage the participation of key leaders and stakeholders who represent a variety of perspectives. We recommend representation from:

• Parents
• State Departments of Education
• State (or other) Special Schools and Programs for the Deaf
• Early childhood deaf education
• Local or regional deaf education programs
• Higher education representatives
• Others who have a vested interest and potential influence in improving educational outcomes for children and youth who are deaf or hard of hearing.

PEPNet 2.0's Role

PEPNet 2.0 hosts annual activities that are designed to build effective networks among educational institutions, state agencies, and organizations to enhance their capacity to establish and implement strategies to address identified needs of postsecondary institutions in the State related to enrolling, retaining, instructing, and graduating students who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Registration Information

Registration information is now available on the EHDI 2012 annual meeting website at http://ehdimeeting.org/Reg.cfm

Registration Fees:

$100 per person for professionals
$25 per person for parents

Questions?

For additional information, please contact Marcia Kolvitz at marcia.kolvitz@pepnet.org.

Proposed Agenda

Saturday March 3, 2012

8:30 - 9:15
General session - all participants
Overview of goals of session and outcomes development process activities

9:30- 12:00
8 working groups to develop outcomes statements according to the 8 NA goals

12:00 - 12:45
Lunch

12:45 - 1:15
"Walk About" for groups to review and offer feedback to the work of each group.

1:15 - 3:45
Working groups continue

4:00 - 5:00
General session - all participants

Report back to the group and summarize info. Start to outline "next steps" for ongoing discussion using web-based discussion tools.