ABSTRACT
Given the very special situation in the Cities-in-Schools (CIS) and Push/Excel (Excel) programs, the stakeholder approach to evaluation has hardly received a fair test. In fact, some people argue that it was implemented with such a minimalist interpretation of its scope that its potential benefits inevitably went unrealized. So many other difficulties beset the evaluation — primarily as a result of the attempt to apply formal quantitative assessment to shifting (and, in the case of Push/Excel, inchoate) programs — that the stakeholder approach did not have much chance to affect the course of events. On the positive side, perhaps it engaged the attention of actors who might otherwise have ignored it entirely, particularly people at the local sites. On the negative side, it probably diverted a fair amount of evaluators’ time from strictly evaluative functions. But the turbulent nature of the programs and the mismatch with standard outcome evaluation procedures were probably the critical elements in both cases.
