We like evidence-based policy. Programme evaluation should be embedded into policy design, and policies that don’t work should be abandoned.
But what happens when people like programs that don’t work? Here’s Real Clear Politics on Head Start.
The perfect case study is Head Start, the oldest federal preschool program. The Head Start Impact Study — a state-of-the-art, multi-site experimental evaluation set in motion by a law Bill Clinton signed in 1998 — came with a price tag of $28 million. Rationally, lawmakers should not have paid for that study unless they expected the results to affect their support for the program. If the Impact Study shows Head Start is effective, they should want to increase funding and look for ways to expand the program’s reach. If Head Start is not proven effective, lawmakers should presumably want to eliminate the program, or at least decrease support and redirect some of the funding…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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