Assessment and evaluation have multiple purposes. First, they support continuous improvement. With data collected in formative and summative evaluations, leaders of professional learning systems have evidence to make improvements.

Second, they generate evidence to determine whether the system is working both to support effective professional learning planning, implementation, and evaluation and to improve educator effectiveness and student success.

In addition, an evaluation can inform resource investments. For a comprehensive professional learning system to work smoothly and to meet its many goals, all components of the system must be finely tuned and coherent.

Recommended steps for the evaluation of a comprehensive professional learning system include:

• Plan the evaluation;
• Establish the evaluation framework;
• Conduct the evaluation;
• Report the evaluation; and
• Evaluate the evaluation.

Included here are two tools, Guide to Evaluation and Professional Learning Organizing Checklist. The first tool summarizes these steps, outlines the questions, and serves as a planning guide for conducting an evaluation of a comprehensive evaluation system.

The second tool offers a guideline for conducting an evaluation of a comprehensive professional learning system. This checklist, which is adapted from Doing What Works, a U.S. Department of Education website devoted to providing research and evidence-supported practices, is a complement to the evaluation of specific professional learning programs contained in short- and long-term professional learning plans, not a replacement for those.

These tools are from Comprehensive Professional Learning System: A Workbook for States and Districts (Killion, 2013), which outlines eight steps for developing a comprehensive professional learning system. The eight steps are:

1. Launch the work.
2. Collect and examine data and research.
3. Establish vision, assumptions, purpose, definition, and goals.
4. Design system operations.
5. Revise or develop policies.
6. Plan short- and long-term professional learning.
7. Provide professional learning for full implementation.
8. Conduct ongoing assessment and evaluation.

For more information, visit www.learningforward.org/publications/implementing-common-core.