As a necessary preliminary for this issue on Illinois' experience with school-university partnerships to provide teacher development opportunities, this article provides a review of the literature relevant to such programs. As the evaluation and assessment have changed over the years since the Eisenhower grants period, the author explains the thoughtful and purposive ways in which the assessment of Illinois' programs have evolved. These changes touch the structures, processes, meta-evaluation, and capacity for evaluation. Illinois Board of Higher Education grants policies now reflect the results of these evolved evaluation methods. The author includes details of research methods and protocols, research questions, and the theory of change that informs all these methods. (Contains 1 table.)