The idea that any policy has even a tiny possibility of not working is of course anathema to the politicians. That is why we get saddled with such nonsense as the Dangerous Dogs Act. They will spout endlessly about evaluations, about research but it is all a front.
It is one of the most characteristic aspects of the present situation that specific reforms are advocated as though they were certain to be successful. For this reason, knowing outcomes has immediate political implications. Given the inherent difficulty of making significant improvements by the means usually provided and given the discrepancy between promise and possibility, most administrators wisely prefer to limit the evaluations to "those the outcomes of which they can control, particularly insofar as published outcomes or press releases are concerned. Ambiguity, lack of truly comparable comparison bases, and lack of concrete evidence all work to increase the administrator's control over what gets said, or at least to reduce the bite of criticism in the case of actual failure. There is safety under the cloak of ignorance. Over and above this tie-in of advocacy and administration, there is another source of vulnerability in that the facts relevant to experimental program evaluation are also available to argue the general efficiency and honesty of administrators. The public availability of such facts reduces the privacy and security of at least some administrators.
Donald
T Campbell “Reforms as experiments” 1969 (pdf file 409k)
