ABSTRACT
Over the last 20 years, accountability has grown to be a central force in public policy. Driven by political concerns, uncertain funding, and pressure to resolve difficult social problems, the demand for publicly funded programs to demonstrate that their services lead to positive outcomes for their clients has increased steadily. At the federal level, demands for accountability led in 1993 to the passage of the Government Performance and Results Act, the first accountability legislation that required federal agencies to develop a set of performance measures to judge whether they were meeting their legislative mandates. Many states passed similar legislation for their education, welfare, and job training programs, often mandating that programs demonstrate successful client and programmatic outcomes, or risk financial sanctions or complete loss of funding.
