Meta-Evaluation Initiative Triumphantly Validates Need for Future Meta-Evaluations
Breakthrough in Circular Reasoning
The Department of Administrative Excellence announced this week that its groundbreaking Preliminary Assessment of Assessment Readiness Program (PAARP) has exceeded all expectations by definitively proving what everyone already suspected: that before launching any pilot program, the government must first pilot a program to pilot the pilot program.
"The results speak for themselves," declared Deputy Assistant Secretary of Preparatory Initiatives Margaret Thornfield, brandishing a 847-page report that reportedly took three months just to bind. "We now have empirical evidence that our evidence-gathering capabilities are capable of gathering evidence about our capability to gather evidence."
The PAARP initiative, launched in September 2022 with the modest goal of determining whether the department possessed sufficient departmental capacity to assess its own assessment capabilities, has delivered what officials are calling "a masterclass in methodological methodology."
The Science of Studying Studies
According to the comprehensive final report, titled "Preliminary Findings Regarding the Preliminary Nature of Preliminary Assessments: A Preliminary Review," the two-year investigation involved 47 focus groups, 23 stakeholder engagement sessions, and one particularly intensive three-day retreat in Scottsdale where participants evaluated the effectiveness of their evaluation techniques.
"What we discovered," explained Dr. Harrison Pembroke, Senior Director of Evaluative Evaluation, "is that you simply cannot evaluate an evaluation without first evaluating your ability to evaluate evaluations. It's basic science."
The report's executive summary, itself requiring a 34-page appendix to explain its key findings, concludes that the department is "cautiously optimistic" about its "preliminary readiness" to begin the "initial phases" of considering whether to proceed with the actual pilot program that inspired this entire endeavor.
Stakeholder Enthusiasm Reaches Measured Heights
Contractor Synergistic Solutions Inc., which was awarded the original $8.3 million contract through what officials describe as "a remarkably efficient 18-month bidding process," has expressed measured satisfaction with the measured results.
"This meta-pilot represents a quantum leap forward in our understanding of how to take quantum leaps forward," said Synergistic Solutions CEO Bradley Maximizer during a press conference held in the department's newly renovated Conference Room B, which was specifically upgraded to handle the increased conferencing demands generated by PAARP.
Maximizer noted that his firm's proprietary "Assessment Assessment Assessment" methodology had proven particularly valuable in identifying the seventeen distinct categories of pre-assessment activities that must be completed before any assessment can be assessed as ready for assessment.
Expert Analysis Confirms Expert Need for More Analysis
The Washington Institute for Policy Policy, an independent think tank that specializes in thinking about policy thinking, released its own analysis of the PAARP findings, concluding that the government's approach represents "best practices in identifying best practices for identifying best practices."
"What impresses us most," said Institute Director Dr. Clarissa Benchwright, "is how thoroughly they've documented the thoroughness of their documentation process. This is exactly the kind of rigorous rigor that rigorous institutions should rigorously pursue."
The Institute's 200-page response to the 847-page PAARP report recommends the immediate establishment of a Secondary Assessment of Assessment Readiness Program (SAARP) to validate PAARP's assessment of the department's readiness to assess things.
Implementation Timeline Carefully Optimized for Maximum Carefulness
Deputy Assistant Secretary Thornfield announced that the department plans to spend the next six months carefully reviewing the careful recommendations for proceeding carefully with the next phase of careful preparation.
"We refuse to rush into anything as important as not rushing into things," Thornfield explained. "That's why we're taking the necessary time to determine how much time we'll need to determine how much time this will take."
The follow-up feasibility study, tentatively titled "Post-Preliminary Assessment of Pre-Assessment Assessment Assessments," has already been awarded to Synergistic Solutions Inc., whose winning bid of $12.4 million was praised by procurement officials as "competitively competitive within our competitive competitiveness parameters."
Future Horizons Stretch Promisingly Into Tomorrow's Yesterday
Looking ahead, department officials express confidence that the lessons learned from learning how to learn about learning will prove invaluable in their ongoing efforts to learn more about learning.
"We're not just assessing assessments anymore," noted Dr. Pembroke. "We're pioneering the assessment of assessment assessments, which opens up entirely new frontiers in assessment assessment."
The original pilot program that sparked this two-year journey to evaluate readiness for evaluation—a modest initiative to test whether the department's filing system could handle alphabetical organization—remains in the planning stages, pending completion of the assessment of the assessment of the assessment readiness assessment.
Critics who suggest this represents government inefficiency have clearly failed to grasp the sophisticated elegance of a system so perfectly designed that it has successfully avoided the messy complications of actually accomplishing anything.