The future role and importance of educational evaluation are analyzed in terms of the Educational Consolidation and Improvement Act (1981), a block grant whose provisions minimize planning, reporting, evaluation and accountability requirements to ensure that national goals are met. The background in federal and state evaluation programs is discussed, including the Title I Evaluation and Reporting System (TIERS). The rationale for block grant programs, the advantages and disadvantages, and the basic forms of evaluation and accountability in the law are presented. Within the impact and future directions of evaluation, concern is whether the lack of specificity in block grant legislation is not a deliberate attempt to divest federal funding for education when authorization ends in 1987. Five tenets are presented for a block grant evaluation framework advocated by the Council of Chief State School Offices to ensure that a common core of evaluative data will be available at state and national levels. (Author/CM)