Thank you much for the excellent comments, Tessie. You are absolutely correct about the ethical mindset. The American Evaluation Association’s Guiding Principles, the Joint Committee Standards for Program Evaluation, and the Generally Accepted Government Auditing Standards serve as sideboards for me and my staff. In addition, personally for me, Mahatma Gandhi’s life serves as a great source of courage and ideas. Also, having mentors is very useful in navigating through tough ethical situations. Over the years anytime I was in a tough situation, I have sought guidance from four evaluators and two political leaders/policymakers – I consider them my mentors.
Because we are an oversight agency of the Idaho State Legislature and our mission is to promote confidence and accountability in state government, we define the public as all people of the state. Of course, certain groups of our state’s population will have more stake in a particular evaluation than others.
We post our reports on the internet, use press releases, conduct open public meetings with advance notice to the press, and promote our work on social media – I believe this covers a large portion of the public. PDF readers allow the blind to listen. When we worked on correctional issues, we sent reports to each correctional library for inmates to review. And of course, we always have a few hardcopy reports available for distribution. A few years back, we did a study on Idaho’s School for the Deaf and Blind. For that study, we hired a translator to translate our surveys and other material for Spanish speaking people and help with the focus groups. We also published that evaluation report in braille.
I hope my answers are helpful. Best wishes and Namaste.