Study of the Mount Diablo Unified School District - Mt. Diablo Unified ...

Introduction and Peer District Comparisonsof programmatic evaluation tasks and activities with cost analysis tasks and activities,thereby yielding a more comprehensive analysis of the true efficiency, effectiveness, andcosts associated with special education services. MGT utilizes quantitative and qualitativedata analysis to evaluate the strengths of special education services and delivery models, toanalyze MDUSD services, and to identify areas in need of improvement. Our methodologyis based on our extensive experience conducting similar studies throughout the country.The MGT review team used various types of instruments for collecting data and informationnecessary to complete the special education study, including:• Peer District Comparison/Benchmarking. The practice of benchmarking is oftenused to make comparisons between and among school districts. Benchmarkingrefers to the use of commonly held organizational characteristics in making concretestatistical or descriptive comparisons of organizational systems and processes. It isalso a performance measurement tool used in conjunction with improvementinitiatives to measure comparative operating performance and identify bestpractices. With this in mind, MGT performed a benchmarking comparison ofMDUSD to provide a common foundation from which to compare systems andprocesses within the school district with those of other, similar districts. MGT andMDUSD jointly selected the peer districts based on factors such as studentenrollment, student achievement, and student‐to‐staff ratios.• Stakeholder Survey Instruments. The instruments created to survey administrators,special education teachers, general education teachers, support staff, and parentswere developed from a comprehensive list of evaluation questions we havedeveloped through our experience with similar specialized studies. We jointlyselected items appropriate for specific surveys for each group of stakeholders. Thestakeholder surveys were tailored so that the opinions of multiple stakeholdergroups could be compared in the analysis of the results. The purpose of the surveyswas to provide information on indicators of program quality and cost effectiveness.Complete survey results are included in Appendix A. MGT uses a statistical formulato establish the survey response rate in order to declare the survey results are“representative” of the population surveyed. In instances when the target returnrate is not achieved, the results may still be used as indicators of stakeholderperceptions. In the case of MDUSD, response rates for general education teachersexceeded the standard; all other survey groups were below the standard, as shownin Exhibit 1‐1.MGT of America, Inc. Page 1‐2