In 1965, Robert Kennedy initiated federal evaluation policy with ESEA. His conception of political accountability was converted into a system of cost benefit analysis, which periodically justified funding curtailments. This systems approach, similar to Taylor's Scientific Management, is inadequate as the sole evaluation tool for federal programs.…

Evaluation is an act of persuasion directed to a specific audience concerning the solution of a problem. The process of evaluation is prescribed by the nature of knowledge--which is generally complex, always uncertain (in varying degrees), and not always propositional--and by the nature of logic, which is always selective. In the process of…