Underutilization of evaluation findings relative to the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) legislation may not stem primarily from factors usually identified in the literature (e.g., methodological reasons) but may be superseded by a more potent factor such as the prominence of the policy or program on the national agenda. Viewed from an evaluator's perspective, strategies to increase use of evalation findings and barriers which may prevent such use are seen as having methodological or organizational roots. However, the slow but identifiable shift from decategorized to more categorized employment and training programs can be traced through a series of strong federal administrative initiatives that have altered the balance of power between federal, state, and local government delivery of employment and training activities. CETA, then, must be viewed as more than a training program. It is a part of national economic policy, and as such, responds to some of the ideas in good currency (e.g., high unemployment) which are then politically subsumed under its rubric. Therefore, by looking at programs in relation to (1) their place on the national agenda and (2) the ideas in good currency to which they relate, evaluators could more clearly focus evaluation questions in order to meet the needs of decision makers. Other types of evaluation activity, such as economic and other outcome factors, will also have a better chance of having an impact on policy making because they more directly adress ideas in good currency. (MEK)