Abstract As useful as they are, the American Evaluation Association Guiding Principles fail to appreciate the precarious position of the evaluator who speaks truth to power, and their near total focus on elaborating further responsibilities for the evaluator may increase the evaluator's vulnerability to partisan attack.

Abstract This chapter reviews the qualities of existing assessments and their role in the past in evaluating students, programs, and reform efforts, and discusses the shifts in that role with the emergence of new forms of assessment.

Abstract Randomized experiments often fail for entirely avoidable reasons. Drawing on examples from the NIAAA Cooperative Agreement program and related literature, the authors present some tools and opportunities for using randomized designs more judiciously.

Abstract This chapter describes the development and the results of two major surveys on Chicago school reform.

Abstract The effort to restructure the Chicago public schools is examined as it is played out in fourteen representative schools. While systemwide structural change is impressive and resources have been redirected to the school level, the authors argue that schools must now focus on pragmatic planning for instructional change.

Abstract The set of theses listed here addresses the consequences of the transdisciplinary view for popular views of program evaluation.

Abstract This chapter addresses a major problem of practical methodology—the problem of bias control and the pervasive threat of general positive bias.

Abstract Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Education declined significantly in the early 1980s. But a search for alternative management strategies and evaluation techniques has allowed the function to survive and prosper.