Evaluating Progress

In this section, you will...

Evaluate!

Every three months, compare the current state of your program with the goals you have established.

• If your goals have been met and your program is stable, maintain your PR program and contacts with decision makers.
• If your program still has problems, analyze which techniques worked best, fine-tune your strategy for further action, and keep at it.

Checking Up

Most people have a physical examination each year or so. Your initial examination of the strengths and weaknesses of your program was a bit like a physical exam for your school music program. You found out something about the state of your program's health, and you may have found that you needed to do something about it.

If you have "prescribed" a course of treatment for your school music program, your checkup schedule should be accelerated to four examinations a year. This will allow you to see if the treatment is on-track and achieving the progress you expect and need. Periodic analysis of your campaign's success may even motivate you to set more ambitious objectives!

• If you find, on your first review, that you haven't made much progress toward your long-range goals, don't be discouraged. Protecting an embattled music education program or improving a satisfactory one needs patience and persistence. You need only ensure that whatever progress you have made is in the right direction.

Take this opportunity to reexamine your long-range goals, refining them if necessary. Bring everyone in your advocacy group up-to-date on your plans for future action.

• Your efforts may have resulted in some short-term progress. Ask each member of your advocacy group to report on the strategies he or she has tried (and their success!), the contacts he or she has made, the information he or she has received, and the ideas he or she has developed.

Reporting Your Progress

Every three months, copy the following chart, and complete it to evaluate your progress.

Music Education Advocacy Group
Report

DATE:________________	CONTACT:______________________

				(address)________________________

				 ________________________________ 

				(telephone)______________________

Summary of short-term goals:

_______________________________________________________________ 

_______________________________________________________________ 

_______________________________________________________________ 

_______________________________________________________________

Strategies used:
					very	    somewhat    not
					successful  successful  successful

1. 	______________________________	_____	    _____	_____

2. 	______________________________	_____	    _____	_____

3. 	______________________________	_____	    _____	_____

4. 	______________________________	_____	    _____	_____

5. 	______________________________	_____	    _____	_____

Contacts made:						comments

1.	____________________________	____________________________

2.	____________________________	____________________________

3.	____________________________	____________________________

4.	____________________________	____________________________

5.	____________________________	____________________________

6.	____________________________	____________________________

7.	____________________________	____________________________

8.	____________________________	____________________________

9.	____________________________	____________________________

10.	____________________________	____________________________



Information received:


Ideas developed: