The Role of Federal Agencies in Creating and Administering Evidence-Based Policies

Abstract

The success of federal agencies in creating and using evidence-based policies hinges on (1) their commitment to include routine use of evidence—including research and program evaluations—in program design and funding decisions and (2) their capacity to adapt their operating practices accordingly. The recent push toward using evidence more deliberately in government meant that federal agencies needed to quickly improve the accessibility of existing evidence. They also had to foster internal capacity to fairly judge its quality and applicability; build capacity and support for routinely using evidence within program and policy offices to support policy development and monitoring; and create a consensus within agencies around sensible ways to categorize, rate, and apply evidence. Common evidence standards, open access to evidence review platforms, and mandates for embedding rigorous evaluations into funded programs are among the most influential tools agencies have used in this new era of evidence-based policymaking.

The evolution of systematic evidence reviews: Past and future developments and their implications for policy analysis

“…Systematic evidence review efforts were often mobilized to support these initiatives, either by validating the rigor of evidence used to support grant applications, by serving as a resource for applicants, or using established evidence standards to support the evaluation of these grants after awards. As the selection of evidence‐based interventions continues to be codified into federal and state policy, so will the trend toward evidence‐based grant making to test whether interventions with past supporting evidence can be scaled up to new settings (Maynard, 2018).…”

Oktatási intervenció – értékes, de ritka jószág

“…Egy újabb törvény (Every Student Succeeds Act, 2015) előírja, hogy az államok, körzetek és iskolák bizonyítékokon alapuló beavatkozásokat hajtsanak végre, amikor szövetségi forrásokat használnak fel a középiskolai oktatásra (Grant et al, 2017). Természetesen az említett elvárásokhoz pénzügyi források is rendelkezésre állnak; az Egyesült Államokban a bizonyítékokon alapuló politika szövetségi, állami és helyi szinten összességében több milliárd dollárnyi kiadást érint (Lester, 2018;Maynard, 2018;Overholser, 2018). Az Egyesült Államok példája, valamint Pontoppidan és munkatársai (2018) Dánia, Norvégia és Svédország kapcsán végzett -korábban ismertetett -kutatása egyaránt arra hívják fel a figyelmet, hogy egy adott ország értékeléspolitikai környezete jelentősen befolyásolhatja, elősegítheti vagy gátolhatja a beavatkozások arányát az oktatás területén belül.…”

Racial Inequality, Neighborhood Effects, and Moving to Opportunity

“…First, they help us to think about the contribution of social experiments to evidence-based policy. Randomized experiments are a powerful tool in the effort to base policy on evaluation and continuous learning (List and Czibor, 2019;Maynard, 2018). Part of having high standards of evidence is acknowledging when we do not have strong or unambiguous evidence (Manski, 2013).…”