Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy

Go there!

The Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy has launched a new Web site. The Coalition is another of the several organizations that advocates employing evidence in making decisions about social policies, especially decisions about programs aimed at improving citizens’ outcomes.

The Coalition is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, whose mission is to increase government effectiveness through rigorous evidence about “what works.” Since our founding in 2001, our work with key Congressional and Executive Branch policymakers has helped advance important evidence-based reforms…. A recent independent assessment of our work found that the Coalition has been “instrumental in transforming a theoretical advocacy of evidence-based policy among certain [federal] agencies into an operational reality.”

Here are a few of the reports one can find at the site. Reports are usually brief and clearly written. To be sure, some will appeal to the one or two readers who are interested in research methods; others will appeal to the one or two readers who are interested in the actual practices. (Note that one or two of those readers to whom I’m referring may be in both classes; there could be as few as two or as many as four readers for TE.)

• Early Childhood Home Visitation: Effectiveness of a National Initiative Depends Critically on Adherence to Rigorous Evidence About “What Works”;
• Invest in Research-Proven Programs for Children and Youth: A Key to Preventing Educational Failure, Substance Abuse, Crime, Teen Pregnancy, and Other Social Problems that Damage the Lives of Millions of Americans;
• Hierarchy of Study Designs for Evaluating the Effectiveness of a STEM Education Project or Practice;
• When is it Possible to Conduct a Randomized Controlled Trial in Education at Reduced Cost, Using Existing Data Sources? A Brief Overview;
• Key Items to Get Right When Conducting a Randomized Controlled Trial in Education;
• Identifying and Implementing Educational Practices Supported By Rigorous Evidence: A User-Friendly Guide

Here’s the link. Also see the related site, Evidence-Based Programs. I’m on my way over to update links in my blogroll. One or as many as four readers may want to update bookmarks of their own.