John Flaherty

Overview

John Flaherty is an expert in program evaluation with over 30 years of experience. He has directed evaluations across a number of content and policy areas, ranging from large-scale national policy and program evaluations to local community-based projects and encompassing a variety of evaluation designs and approaches. He works closely with funders and program staff to support their use of data to inform practice.

Flaherty was an integral part of WestEd’s early research into the charter school movement in California and across the nation, serving as coeditor of the WestEd publication Freedom and Innovation in California’s Charter Schools in 1995. Since 2006, he has directed grant data collection and analysis for the U.S. Department of Education’s Charter School Programs (CSP) Data Collection, Risk Assessment, and Monitoring project.

Flaherty has worked with First 5 California, the California Department of Education, and the California Department of Social Services to evaluate a variety of early childhood and early learning programs designed to support high-quality learning experiences for children and their families.

Education

• MA in applied sociology, University of Massachusetts at Boston
• BA in sociology, University of Massachusetts at Boston

Select Publications

Flaherty, J., & Kriener-Althen, K. (2023). Evaluation of the 2021–2022 WestEd California Child Care and Development Fund Quality Projects: Year 2 summary of findings. WestEd. 

Almarez, M., Flaherty, J., Heredia, A., & Kriener-Althen, K. (2022). California Early Childhood Mentor Program evaluation study: Executive summary. WestEd. 

Flaherty, J., & Wendt, S. (2016). Evaluation of Nevada’s Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy Initiative: Year 5 (2015–16). WestEd. 

Flaherty, J., Sobolew-Shubin, S., Heredia, A., Chen-Gaddini, M., Klarin, B., & Finkelstein, N. (2014). Under construction: Benchmark assessments and Common Core Math implementation in grades K–8. WestEd.