Evaluation as a free-standing discipline arose out of the ashes of World War II, a time of optimism, when government turned to the academy to guide public policy. The evaluation pioneers shared a bracing vision: a search for truth in the public interest. Seventy years later the glitter has faded, and disenchantment has taken hold. Evaluation, a quintessential public good, has become a market good, and eminent evaluation thinkers are asking the same questions about evaluation that they have been routinely asking of others—with sobering results. Yet, countervailing currents and turbulent streams lie just below the surface. Once a tipping point is reached, a new wave of evaluation diffusion will begin to curl. What might it look like?

中文翻译：

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从幻灭到重生

作为一门独立学科的评估从二战的灰烬中诞生，这是一个乐观的时代，当时政府转向学院指导公共政策。评估先驱们分享了一个令人振奋的愿景：为公共利益寻求真相。七十年后，闪光已经消退，幻灭感已经扎根。评估，一种典型的公共产品，已经成为一种市场产品，著名的评估思想家提出了他们经常向其他人提出的关于评估的同样问题——结果发人深省。然而，逆流和湍流就在地表之下。一旦达到临界点，新一轮的评估扩散将开始卷曲。它可能是什么样子？