Reckoning With Evaluation‘s Roots
In this blog series, we’ll explore the core elements of ALAE: Align, Learn, Adapt, and Embody. Each of these interconnected principles serves as a guide for driving transformation and navigating complexity with clarity and purpose.
In our previous post introducing ALAE, we listed the evaluation roots that we drew from. These were choiceful. We learn from and are inspired by some aspects of evaluation and reject others. In this post, we’d like to briefly explore the history of evaluation, examining its evolution and the critical need to address its past and present shortcomings.
Philanthropists and activists began calling for reforms in everything from public health to prisons by the 1800s and began gathering and sharing evidence to support their claims. By the early 1900s, testing and standardization became part of evaluation, and universities started offering classes in field studies. By 1940, Ralph Tyler connected outcomes, behavior, and effectiveness in education. In 1965, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act required evaluation, and soon every Federal grant required some evaluation component. By the 1970s, evaluation was recognized as an independent profession.
But…for most of that time, evaluation assumed that everyone should look and act more like the philanthropists, activists, and evaluators implementing the evaluations, who tended to be white men with wealth, education, and access to power. Evaluation was often used to help people who looked and acted like them — and as a weapon against people who didn’t. Two examples of evaluation used as a weapon are the Native American boarding school movement, which forcibly removed Indigenous children from their homes and cultures, and the Moynihan Report, which concluded that the root of poverty among African Americans was single mothers. In both cases, evaluation was misused to justify oppressive policies, perpetuate harmful stereotypes, reinforce systemic inequities, and hurt people. The effects of these reports are present and palpable today. These examples highlight how evaluation can cause profound harm rather than fostering understanding and equity.
Unfortunately, the use of evaluation as a weapon is still in practice today. When evaluators come into a community that has historically been hurt by evaluation, it’s likely that members of that community still see and feel the effects. The people who hire evaluators frequently hold most of the power in that it is they who decide what evaluation questions are asked and how they are answered. Too often, the questions and answers serve powerful people at the expense of less powerful people.
Our approach attempts to disrupt that power structure. Our unique combination of development, arts, cultural, and principles-informed methodologies requires constant investigation — in relationship with the community or group involved — about what questions should be asked. What counts as data? And whose values guide our work?
The bottom line: If a structure or system creates a barrier for people and their communities, ALAE seeks to address that barrier. If a structure or system creates an opportunity, ALAE seeks to utilize or promote it.
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