Rational fantasies

This is a case study of how (and why) the National Institute of Education used program evaluation and systematic planning, both orchestrated by guidelines and rules, for managing the implementation of one broad-aim educational innovation. The story has two main themes. The minor theme concerns uncertainty—about the goals of the innovation, how to develop them, and, indeed, NIE's survival. The major theme concerns NIE's attempt to use rational management strategies—evaluation and long-range planning—to reduce the uncertainties. It was hoped that guidelines would shape the developers' evaluation and planning efforts to produce information which would satisfy a variety of audiences—NIE top managers, Congress, oversight bureaus, the academic community. The case study will show that this use of rationality and control to direct the innovation's implementation produced a number of problems. These included invalid information, unsurfaced conflict, information which the development agencies could not share with NIE, and an unrealistic notion at NIE about what was happening in the field. Rather than producing more accurate information for managerial decision-making, then, the guidelines produced information that was far from the truth. This in turn made the development and implementation of the innovation more confused, and rather than reducing uncertainty, increased it all around.