It's All About Outcomes and Evidence
December 11, 2012
Winners for the Race To The Top District Competition have been decided. In late November, the U.S. Department of Education announced the 61 finalists in the competition. These finalists, selected from the 372 applications received by the Department, represented more than 200 school districts across rural and non-rural areas, and in both Race To The Top states and non-Race To The Top states. From the finalists, 16 applicants have won and will be awarded between $10 million and $40 million, depending on the number of students they plan to serve. The winners represent 55 school districts across 11 states and the District of Columbia.
Now the hard work begins. Districts will work to implement the innovative, evidence-based plans that won them federal support. They will be expected to show real progress in closing achievement gaps and transforming the learning environment for students.
In fact, outcomes and evidence will be a central focus across-the-board for FY 2014. Last May, the Acting Director of the Office of Management (OMB) issued a memo to the heads of Executive Departments and Agencies on the use of evidence and evaluation in the 2014 budget. The memo directed Agencies to demonstrate the use of evidence throughout their FY 2014 budget submissions, and to include a separate section on agencies' most innovative uses of evidence and evaluation. This directive could mean new evaluations, or expansions of current evaluations, in federal programs. Given the fiscal climate and tight budgets, we may also see a focus on evaluations that include measurement of costs and costs per outcome.
The OMB Memo also specifically called for infusing evidence into grant-making. Grant-making agencies must demonstrate that, between FY 2013 and FY 2014, they are increasing the use of evidence in formula and competitive programs. The memo outlines some specific ways to accomplish this directive. For example, OMB suggests that formula funds can be conditioned on the adoption of evidence-based practices. In another example, OMB suggests that competitive programs can assign points to applicants based on their integration of evidence-based practices into formula streams.
It's also possible that more agencies could model programs after the U.S. Department of Education's Investing in Innovation (i3) program. This program creates tiers of funding. Programs with the strongest evidence are eligible for the most funding. Another initiative mentioned in the memo was the Departments of Justice and Labor's "pay for success" approach. In this approach, funders pay providers for their services upfront and are only reimbursed by the federal government if certain outcomes are met. Agencies are also encouraged to think about using incentives or prizes to spur innovation and positive outcomes.
The Administration and agencies won't be the only ones looking at evidence-based, outcome-focused policies. Stations can expect that House and Senate appropriators and authorizers will also be moving in this direction. Anecdotes aren't enough anymore. Data will be key to success in the future. If a program scores high on an evaluation, it will have a better chance of receiving funding, and if a grantee can demonstrate successful outcomes, then it will be competitive.
As stations think about which grants to apply for in FY 2014, they should know the specific goals and objectives of the grant. match program goals and objectives with grant goals and objectives. Once stations have identified potential funding streams, analyze the outcome data required for each grant and make sure that the data collected for the program is part of the initial design.
