Evidence-Based Policy and Practice in the United States April 5, 2016 Wellington, New Zealand Ron Haskins Cabot Family Chair & Co-Director, Center on Children & Families The Brookings Institution Washington, DC

2 Peter Rossi’s Iron Law of Evaluation (1987) “The expected value of any net impact assessment of any large scale social program is zero.”

3 Peter Rossi’s Law: An Update Preschool education (especially Boston pre-K) Nurse-Family Partnership Carrera Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Program Career Academies KIPP schools Community and family-based programs for delinquents Community college interventions Small Schools of Choice Triple P System Success for All Transitional Care Model

4 The Fundamental Components of Evidence-Based Policy Good ideas for social interventions tested by trial and error learning High quality program evaluations; randomized controlled trials Replication of program evaluations Literature reviews (meta-analyses) Clearinghouses Government and private organizations that fund evaluation research Congressional and administrative agencies that conduct policy reviews and recommend policies based on evidence Established procedures for transmitting results of policy reviews to government legislative and administrative agencies Legislative and executive agencies that focus spending on evidence- based programs

5 Growth of Evidence-Based Culture in U.S. Obama’s evidence-based initiatives; 1,400 local projects Clearinghouses with details on evidence-based programs Ryan-Murray Evidence-Based Policymaking Commission Growth of model programs with rigorous evaluations OMB emphasizes evaluation by agencies Chief of evaluation in executive agencies Social and Behavioral Sciences Team in White House Growth of Pay for Success programs Results First (Pew and MacArthur; Clearinghouse) Lobbying groups (Results for America) Foundation support: Pew; MacArthur; Grant; Arnold; Annie E. Casey; Casey Family Programs; Edna McConnell Clark; Gates; others

6 Nine Clearinghouses Crime Solutions (U.S. Department of Justice) What Works Clearinghouse (U.S. Department of Education) What Works in Reentry Clearinghouse (Coalition of State Governments) California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare (State of California) Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy (social programs; Coalition) Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices (substance abuse and mental health; SAMPHSA) Promising Practices Network (children & families; RAND) Results First Clearinghouse Database (integration of 8 clearinghouses; Pew Trusts)

7 Principles and Procedures of Behavioral Economics Principles of behavioral economics:  Cognitive resources limited; can be overwhelmed  Attention is finite  Exercising restraint depletes stock of self-control Behavioral Diagnosis and Design Process:  Define  Diagnose  Design  Test Examples (from White House Behavioral and Social Sciences Team):  Summer Melt  Service Members Savings Enrollment  Delinquent Debt Repayment

8 Pay for Success What Is It? Method of financing government programs that requires program evaluation More than 50 projects worldwide (especially US & UK) Components:  Government agency to define outcomes  Intermediary organization  Service agency (often nonprofit)  Investors  Evaluator Advantages:  Increases funding options for government  Shifts risk from taxpayers to funders  Based on outcomes and measurement  Encourages development and use of evidence-based program Examples: Rikers Island; Salt Lake City Pre-K Challenges:  Measuring outcomes, costs, and savings  Judging where to place the bet  Distributing cost among government agencies

9 Pay for Success, cont. Examples:  Adolescent Behavioral Learning Experience (Rikers Island, NY)  Utah High Quality Preschool Program Challenges:  Measuring outcomes, costs, savings  Judging where to place the bet  Distributing costs among agencies and society

10 Results First: What Is It? Initiative of Pew and MacArthur Foundations Washington State Institute for Public Policy as Model Looking for a few good states with top quality, influential budget or legislative agency willing to commit Goal: Use evidence to fix or end bad programs and initiate good programs

11 Conducting Results First Procedure Select a social policy area (e.g., child protection, preschool, teen pregnancy) Create an inventory of current state programs Review which state programs work Compare to model programs (Clearinghouse Data Base) Conduct benefit-cost analysis to compare programs’ return on investment Use evidence to inform policy decisions

12 Obama Tiered Initiatives

13 Two Parts of Obama Evidence-Based Strategy Federal Agencies (PART) Federal Grants

14 Obama Evidence-Based Strategy for Grant Making Spend most federal grant dollars on evidence- based programs Spend some grant dollars on innovative programs Continuous evaluation

15 How to Identify Evidence-Based Programs Federal agencies specify a list of programs that are evidence-based Require applicants to site the evidence that supports the program they propose to implement

16 Overview of Six Evidence-Based Initiatives Evidence-based initiativeInitial fundingAdministering agencyDate of first awards Teen Pregnancy Prevention (TPP)* $110 millionHHSSeptember 2010 Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting* $1.5 billionHHSJuly 2010 Investing in Innovation (i3) $650 millionDepartment of EducationAugust 2010 Social Innovation Fund (SIF) $50 millionCorporation for National and Community Service July 2010 Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) $2 billionDepartment of LaborSeptember 2011 Workforce Innovation Fund (WIF) $125 millionDepartment of LaborJune 2012 *HHS identified evidence-based programs

17 Obama Evidence-Based Initiatives: Number of Local Projects InitiativeNumber of projects Teen Pregnancy 102 Home Visiting 774 Investing in Innovation 117 Social Innovation Fund 221 Workforce Innovation Fund 26 TAACCCT 185 Total1,425

18 Why the Obama Evidence-Based Initiative Worked Stellar leadership Relentless focus on using evidence Clever and persistent legislative strategies Competitive (not formula) grants Decent review panels

19 Obama Initiatives: Issues Role of RCTs When a program fails, what’s next Innovation vs. evidence Implementation Do we have good model programs?