AEA Colleagues,
The AEA Board of
Directors and the Evaluation Policy Task Force (EPTF) invite AEA members to
comment on An Evaluation Roadmap for a
More Effective Government.
On February 2, 2009, Debra Rog, 2009 AEA President,
William Trochim, 2008 AEA President; and Leslie Cooksy, 2010 AEA President sent
the Evaluation Roadmap to Peter
Orszag, President Obama's newly appointed Director of the United States Office
of Management and Budget (OMB). The Roadmap
proposed a major initiative to improve oversight and accountability of Federal
programs by systematically embracing program evaluation as an essential
function of government.
The document was prepared at a critical time. The EPTF
had been developing the Roadmap when
OMB staff asked for just such advice. The EPTF rapidly finished it and
delivered it as OMB officials were formulating key features of the incoming
administration's management agenda. Since then, the Roadmap has been circulated
widely in government and professional evaluation circles, where it has been
well received.
The door of opportunity for giving advice was literally
only several days long-typical in the world of policy making. As a result, the
EPTF did not have the opportunity to seek input from AEA members. The Board and
the EPTF wish to do so now that we have time to improve it.
We are interested in framing the Roadmap as a
foundational document of the AEA to guide evaluation policy development work well
into the future. At the request of the Board, the EPTF has revised the version
that was sent to OMB by eliminating references to the Obama and Bush
Administrations in order to make it clearly nonpartisan. We have also refined
the writing style with the help of a professional editor. Based on your input,
the EPTF will make additional appropriate changes to the Roadmap and send it to
the Board for its consideration and, ultimately, approval.
The EPTF will consider but may not be able to
incorporate all the comments that AEA members offer. Some comments may be
useful for other evaluation policy documents to be issued in the future and we
are anxious to receive your input.
Please sign in to the AEA website, review the Roadmap available there, and
provide your feedback on or before Friday, May 21, using the link below.
Your username:
Your password:
Site link for comments:
http://www.eval.org/roadmapvetting.asp
Thank you for helping us to refine and improve this
important document.
Sincerely yours,
Patrick
Patrick G. Grasso
Chair, AEA Evaluation Policy Task Force