Expect More at ExpectMore?

The Department of Education's blog provided a link to the Office of Management and Budget's expectmore.gov. Ideally this site is supposed to provide federal taxpayers easy to understand assessments of federal program effectiveness.



Clicking through, I was not very impressed and a little uncomfortable.
Many of the education programs were not provided a rating at all. Where
a rating was provided, there was not an adequate explaination of why
the rating was either good or bad. Apparently, it is based on a 25 question survey.
The questions are relevant but not sufficient. Most of the questions
focus on whether the program self-evaluates and whether those
evaluations are tied to manager accountability. The problem is, of
course, important policy decisions will be made based on this
inadequate assessment. How can one compare NASA's Mars Program, the
National Park's glacier preservation, Agriculture's rural housing, and
Ed's vocational education with merely 25 questions? This is a clear
example of effeciency outstripping intelligence.



Here is a couple of examples. NCES was rated as "effective." Perkins Grants and Vocational Education were rated as  "ineffective." See if you feel comfortable with these classifications.



Perhaps we should be expecting a little more from expectmore.gov.