A Plan for the Evaluation and Continuous Improvement of Texas' Community and Technical Colleges: Report and Recommendations of the Task Force on Institutional Effectiveness to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

In May 1993, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board formed the Task Force on Institutional Effectiveness (TFIE) to develop a state-level evaluation and continuous improvement plan for community and technical college (CTC) workforce education and academic programs. This report presents the plan for utilizing data collected on CTC's in three main sections. Following an executive summary and recommendations, the first section describes the Task Force and its approach, indicating that it reviewed models of assessing institutional effectiveness and conducting state-level evaluations in four states. The second section describes the evaluation and continuous improvement plan, reviewing the purpose of state-level evaluation, operating definitions, TFIE assumptions in developing the plan, and the conceptual model for continuous improvement. This section also describes five critical success factors (i.e., commitment to college mission; access; achievement; quality; and effective use of resources) and performance factors for each. The third section focuses on the continuous improvement process, providing an implementation timeline, including the preparation of an annual data profile; a seven-step process for utilizing data, moving from CTC-generated data to state-level planning actions; and information on program rating and appeals processes. Extensive appendixes provide performance expectations for Texas CTC's; a description of powers and duties of the Coordinating Board; state-level goals for CTC's; a chart of performance measures by success factor; the 5-year on-site review process; and worksheets for generating profiles of access and achievement and institutional and program quality. (KP)