- NEW 11/25/09 Coalition initiative to identify social programs backed by “Top Tier” evidence is influencing legislation/policy; GAO report confirms its adherence to rigorous standards. We’re pleased to report that findings from the Coalition’s Top Tier Evidence initiative have had an important influence on recent legislation and policy, including new federal initiatives to scale up evidence-based home visitation and teen pregnancy prevention programs. Furthermore, a new GAO assessment confirms the initiative’s adherence to rigorous standards and overall transparency. We’ve prepared a one page summary of these new developments, including a link to the GAO report and the latest Top Tier findings.
- NEW 11/25/09 An independent assessment of the Coalition’s work has positive findings, and valuable suggestions for the future. Under our grant agreement with the William T. Grant Foundation, we engaged an independent investigator to conduct not-for-attribution interviews with policy officials and analysts familiar with our work, and to prepare an assessment for submission directly to the Foundation. The assessment report, linked here, found that “Over the past five years [2004-2009], the Coalition has successfully influenced legislative language, increased funding for evidence-based evaluations and programs, helped shape OMB’s Program Assessment Rating Tool, and raised the level of debate in the policy process regarding standards of evidence.” The report also contains a number of excellent suggestions for the future, which we are studying carefully.
- 10/13/09 OMB Director Peter Orszag announces a major new government-wide initiative to advance rigorous evaluations of program impact (posted here). The Coalition strongly supports this initiative, which advances many of the concepts that we have promoted through our work with OMB and agencies over the past several years.
- 8/12/09 Newly-enacted Congressional funding bill calls for rigorous evaluation of World Bank projects, through language developed with our input. Specifically, the FY09 Supplemental Appropriations Act states that “The Secretary of the Treasury shall seek to ensure that multilateral development banks [i.e., the World Bank and the four Regional Development Banks] rigorously evaluate the development impact of selected bank projects, programs, and financing operations, and emphasize use of random assignment in conducting such evaluations, where appropriate and to the extent feasible” (Public Law 111-32, June 24, 2009).
- 6/12/09 OMB Director Peter Orszag has written an excellent summary of the Obama Administration’s commitment to evidence-based policy, citing the Coalition – posted here. (The word “smarter” in his second paragraph links to the Coalition’s website.)
- 6/3/09 President’s FY10 budget includes a number of evidence-based reforms for which the Coalition provided key input. Highlights include: (i) $124 million for a major new evidence-based home visitation program for low-income mothers and pregnant women; (ii) $110 million for a new evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention program; (iii) sizeable increases in funding for rigorous — including randomized — research and evaluation at the Departments of Labor and Education, and the Corporation for National and Community Service. These budget proposals await Congressional action.
- 6/3/09 Our work with OMB and Congress in FY08 and 09 helped create a new $13.5 million evidence-based home visitation program at HHS. The Congressional language establishing this program sets a high evidentiary standard, developed with our input: HHS “shall ensure that States use the funds to support models that have been shown in well-designed randomized controlled trials to produce sizeable, sustained effects on important child outcomes such as reductions in child abuse and neglect.”
- Rigorous Evidence: Key To Progress Against World Poverty? In October 2008, the Coalition hosted a policy forum in collaboration with the Millennium Challenge Corporation, established by Congress in 2004 as a major new vehicle for international development assistance. Click to view the event’s background/agenda and transcript.
- The Second Chance Act – which per our input contains a 2% set-aside for rigorous evaluations of strategies to facilitate prisoner re-entry into the community – was signed into law on April 9, 2008 (Public Law 110-199). Specifically, the Act contains a provision that we helped develop to set aside 2% of program funds for evaluations that “include, to the maximum extent feasible, random assignment … and generate evidence on which reentry approaches and strategies are most effective.”
- We’ve conducted a number of workshops on evidence-based reform for OMB, federal agencies, and other stakeholders, which have been very well received – based on feedback forms, requests for return engagements, and other measures. The workshops provide participants with practical, cost-effective strategies to advance such reforms in their programs or policy areas. Our most recent workshop for OMB was attended by over 60 OMB officials and staff.
- In 2007, the Congressionally-established Academic Competitiveness Council, to which the Coalition was a main advisor on evaluation, issued an important report calling for evidence-based reforms in federal math and science education programs. The Council, led by the Secretary of Education and comprised of top officials from 13 federal agencies, issued a report that includes, as a main element, the Coalition’s Hierarchy of Study Designs (see full report, with the Hierarchy on p. 14).
- The Coalition manages one of the leading websites on evidence-based programs — Social Programs that Work (www.evidencebasedprograms.org) which provides policymakers and practitioners with clear, actionable information on ‘what works’ in social policy, based on evaluations that meet the highest level of scientific rigor.
- The Coalition operates an Evidence-Based Policy “Help Desk” for OMB and the federal agencies (www.evidencebasedpolicy.org) providing clear, practical resources that OMB and the agencies can use to advance (i) rigorous evaluation and (ii) the effective use of rigorous evidence to improve program performance.