As federal legislation increasingly reflects a view that education is a vehicle for implementing social policy, mandated program evaluation studies often focus on political questions in contrast to educational questions. This study is based on participant-observation data gathered during a two-year evaluation study of Virginia teacher education programs regarding the preparation of teachers to work effectively with minority group students. Political behaviors of the subjects influenced the evaluation design, the evaluation focus, and the quality of the data. Evaluation studies are not only to analyze and assess programs for internal use by the participants but also to inform external publics of the complexities of educational programs and processes. (Author)