Author Archives: Patrick Lester

AFSCME, Progressive Groups Criticize Pay for Success

One of the nation’s largest public sector unions, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), released a report on December 9 criticizing pay-for-success and social impact bonds. The report also listed a number of smaller progressive organizations … Continue reading

Posted in Social Impact Bonds / Pay for Success

Partisan Turn on Welfare Reform May Jeopardize Evidence Provisions

In what was billed as his first major policy speech since assuming leadership of the House, Speaker Paul Ryan on December 3 announced that welfare reform would be one of the chamber’s top priorities in the coming year and that … Continue reading

Posted in Children and Families

K-12 Education Bill Advances Evidence-based Policy, Replaces i3

Evidence-based policy will soon receive a significant boost from a major K-12 education bill that is nearing the finish line.  This week the Senate is expected to pass a major rewrite of the Bush era No Child Left Behind Act, … Continue reading

Posted in Education

Early Pay for Success Results Prompt Debate over the Meaning of ‘Success’

An experiment in performance-based financing for government services, called pay for success, has raised questions about what should count as success after mixed results were announced at two demonstration sites in July and October. The sites — one in Rikers … Continue reading

Posted in Social Impact Bonds / Pay for Success

The Other Pay for Success: The Promise and Peril of Paying for Outcomes

Social impact bonds and pay-for-success are often viewed as synonymous. They shouldn’t be. There is another version of pay-for-success that has been around much longer, is far more widespread, and may be the future of social impact bonds. Outcomes-based funding … Continue reading

Posted in Social Impact Bonds / Pay for Success

Report: Social Innovation Fund’s Early Results Are Promising

The Social Innovation Fund, an Obama administration initiative that funds promising community-based programs and subjects them to rigorous evaluations to determine their impact, has produced five project evaluations with positive, evidence-based findings, according to a report released today by the … Continue reading

Posted in Social Innovation Fund

Senate Committee Passes Evidence Commission Bill, Congress Proposes Defunding i3 and SIF

By voice vote, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee today passed legislation (S. 991) that would create a bipartisan commission to recommend how Congress and the administration should expand the use of data to evaluate federal programs and … Continue reading

Posted in Education, Evidence, Social Innovation Fund

Driving Results in Cities Could Influence Federal Performance Efforts

Federal efforts to increase the use of data in performance management and evaluation may soon cross paths with a parallel effort at the city level. What Works Cities, a new $42 million, three-year initiative launched by Bloomberg Philanthropies in April, … Continue reading

Posted in Government Performance

House Panel Approves Evidence-based Policymaking Commission Bill

The House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform today approved a bill (H.R. 1831) introduced by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) that would establish a bipartisan commission to make recommendations to Congress and the president on how best to expand the … Continue reading

Posted in Evidence