State and local education agencies increasingly have to spend a larger percentage of their time collecting, aggregating, and reporting information to federal agencies. This report suggests that the federal evaluation strategy to describe program implementation as well as impact is usually ill considered, inappropriate and of questionable utility. In some major programs more data are requested than is possible to supply; they are often asked for on an annual basis even though it is not analyzed annually; information demands are made in the absence of a plan for its use either for policy, program improvement or other analyses; and lack of coordination among federal agency staff requires duplication of effort and a further depletion of its time and fiscal resources. Finally, with few exceptions, federal evaluation efforts are unrealistic and inappropriate because of a tendency to avoid using the experience and expertise of local and state evaluation colleagues, an over-reliance on test scores, and a regretable habit of pretending that categorically funded programs exist in isolation from each other and other important variables. As a result, federal evaluation requirements are viewed as a burden to be completed, not an opportunity for gaining a better understanding of a project. (Author/BW)