This monograph focuses on educational evaluation and how it occurs within a specific setting--school districts' central administrative offices--examining the relationships between evaluation activities and district organizational features that impinge upon such activities. The various chapter authors worked with the Center for the Study of Evaluation (CSE) staff in conceptualizing a national survey of school district evaluation units and in analyzing the resultant data. Findings from the survey are summarized in the introduction. Organizational concepts discussed include "loose coupling,""institutional" versus "technical" organizations, and "organized anarchies." The following chapters are included in the monograph: "Evaluation Information and Decision Making in Organizations: Some Constraints on the Utilization of Evaluation Research" by Charles O'Reilly III; "Institutional Structure and Organizational Processes: The Role of Evaluation Units in Schools," by Lynne G. Zucker; "Role Conflict and Ambiguity Among School District Evaluation Unit Heads," by Oscar Grusky; and "School District Evaluation Units: Problems and Possibilities," by David W. O'Shea. A closing section discusses three of the common themes of the chapter arguments presented, that: (1) school districts are institutional organizations; (2) evaluation units have a weak position within districts; and (3) it is difficult to produce evaluative data of utility to within-district decision makers. (CM)