A program evaluation judges the quality and success of the program.

The primary question to be answered in any program evaluation is, How well is the program working in relation to goals and expectations for the students? With a school mathematics program, the question is, How well does it achieve the vision of the Curriculum, Evaluation, Teaching, and Assessment Standards? The term program is used here to refer to any significant unit of instruction. Examples of programs include a thematic unit involving ratio and proportion, a course involving precalculus mathematics, all the mathematics courses at a middle school, a district’s mathematics curriculum, and the implementation of a state mathematics framework across schools and districts.

The Assessment Standards represent criteria with which to judge the quality of mathematics assessments, whether in a full program evaluation or as assessment components within a program. Evaluating the assessment components of a program involves making judgments about how well they provide information for such educational purposes as monitoring students’ progress, supporting teachers’ instructional decisions, and evaluating students’ achievement–topics discussed elsewhere in this document. The discussion in this section deals with the use of assessments as a source of information for evaluating programs.

A program evaluation uses student performance data with other evidence to judge the quality and success of the program. Information on students’ achievement produced through assessment may be used for making decisions about continuing a program or for making modifications in an ongoing program. Many questions about such programs can be answered by directly assessing students’ knowledge of mathematics as they progress through the program