Educational R&D and the Case of Berkeley's Experimental Schools. Volume I: A Summative Evaluation of the Berkeley Experimental Schools Project. Volume II: The Life and Fate of Individual Alternative Schools in the Berkeley Experimental Schools Project. Final Report.

Summative and formative evaluation of the Berkeley Experimental Schools Project (BESP) are summarized in this two-volume document. In Volume I, the evaluators answer the specific evaluative questions posed by the National Institute of Education, the primary funding agency for the alternative schools project. Out of an initial 23 alternative schools, only two programs survived the five years of BESP. The evaluators conclude that this educational alternatives program failed to produce the "comprehensive change" in the Berkeley school district that it was supposed to produce. Although community involvement in the experimental schools project was fairly high at first, in the end the degree of involvement was no higher than in traditional public schools. The experimental schools also failed to achieve the "racial-economic-academic mix for students and staff" that they set out to achieve. In Volume II, the evaluators deal with the larger issues raised by the application of federal research and development to education. They conclude that a lack of coordination between the federal funding agency and the local Berkeley school district, including a difference in definition of educational change, led to what might be described as a $6 million misunderstanding. (Author/DS)