Federal Assistance for Staff Training (Project FAST).

A study was conducted to evalu"te the effectiveness of Federal Assistance for Staff Training, a project offering inservice education in a workshop format to 6,226 administrators, teachers, secretaries, custodians, and parent-teacher aides from Detroit public and parochial schools. Goals were (1) improving the competencies of staff in their dealings with underprivileged children and (2) facilitating development of materials designed to be applicable to the instruction of underprivileged children. Data were gathered by means of a locally developed Workshop Evaluation Form and the observations of evaluators from the Detroit Public Schools Research and Development Department who observed 36 workshop sessions. Limitations of the evaluation are that (1) only participator comment and observer report were used, (2) effects of the workshops upon children's attitudes, attainments, and interests were not studies, (3) in such a large project it is difficult to establish criteria applicable to all the types of workshops. It was found that participants strongly approved the project and believed its objectives were achieved. Also, Research Department observers reported favorably on all workshops, although they preferred participant oriented to lecture oriented workshops and multiple meeting to single meeting workshops. Eight recommendations evolved from the evaluation. (Author/SG)