Research and Policy

Last week laid out a fascinating story on how research and policy influence one another.

In my earlier posts, I referenced the Policy Brief on Youth Mentoring and the Department of Education Evaluation Report on their School Mentoring grant program. These are two great examples of how research can influence policy, and they both hit the scene in the same week. In the case of the Policy brief, we had a group of scholars wishing to provide the new federal administration a summary of the current research on youth mentoring. With the Evaluation Report, we had a federal agency releasing its assessment of the efficacy of its own grant program.

It will be interesting to trace these two pieces of work and how they unfold in the world of policy-making. Unfortunately, the Evaluation Report got a lot more play last week since President Obama made a point of saying he was cutting the DOE mentoring program in his budget announcement. At least he chose his words carefully and only referred to "this ineffective mentoring program" instead of making a broader claim that mentoring is ineffective. His word choice also seemed to indicate that the program was duplicating efforts elsewhere. I just hope that people don't read his remarks and conclude that mentoring doesn't work, which seems quite possible in our culture of the sound-bite.

I guess I can't fault Obama for making the cut, in the end. He was been fairly clear throughout the campaign that he was going to cut programs that didn't work. And here a report comes out that says a federal program isn't having an impact. So he basically has no choice other than to cut the program. What's maybe not fair is the fact that very few federal programs are subjected to such scrutiny, particularly at such a young stage of development.

Indeed, if I were to criticize anyone, it would be the Department of Education for rolling out such a large scale program without performing some better evaluation up front. They laid out so much money with so little guidance and so little knowledge of how their program was going to have the intended impact. And if they wanted to evaluate the program right now, it seems like the fairer thing to do would be to evaluate which programs are working the best, and then outlining best practices for their grantees. Once these best practices have been laid out and grantees are abiding by them, maybe then it would be appropriate to have such a large-scale evaluation on outcomes. As one colleague put it, this is probably one of the best cases of going to scale before working out all of the bugs.

I've perused the report, but I'm looking forward to giving it a closer read this week. It'll be the topic of discussion for our first NLC Mentoring Programs Research Committee meeting this Thursday. I'm excited we're getting the committee started and it seems like good timing with such a hot topic to discuss.

It's hard to imagine that finals are coming up next week. I've never been on a quarter system before and I've learned how quickly the time can pass. It must be a stressful environment for teachers to have to plow through the information at such a pace. At least it's efficient, I guess.

I'm happy to report that we've finalized Celia's preschool arrangements, finally. We had been looking for a few more days to round out her schedule in addition to the two days we had at a co-op preschool. But we never found anything that fit well. This weekend, we landed a spot at Shining Star Waldorf School. It's four days a week, so we had to part ways with the co-op. We felt a little guilty, since the school was just getting started. But there was really no one Celia's age there, and most of the class was two years younger. She really needs some peer interaction right now. So she started at Shining Star on Monday and loved it. She'll be there four mornings a week.

It's interesting learning about the Waldorf philosophy. I like the emphasis on nature and imaginative play. I'm looking forward to reading more about it. I also like the concept of teaching students how to be inquisitive self-directed learners. There are several other girls her age, so that's nice (even though the one child she said she liked was the outgoing boy child). We've figured out that I will commute with her on the bus each morning and ride my bike from her school to mine. Jessica will drive over at 1 pm to pick here up. I've really enjoyed the bus commute. It's nice to have half an hour each day alone with Celia with plenty of opportunity for conversation. The first day, we left her bag at one of the bus stops. We had to get off our second bus and go back to the stop. Luckily her bag was still there and we made it to school on time.

So we're feeling more and more settled in here. This weekend, we took our first excursion and explored the Columbia Gorge. Celia hiked all the way to the top of Multnomah Falls (albeit a little whining was involved...and a few bribes with breath mints). We also went to a tap dance recital a block from our house on Saturday. Performers from all over the region came together and danced to recorded music and also a live jazz band. I never knew you could improvise tap with a band. My favorite part was watching the lead dance "trade fours" with each member of the band. The show was a great reminder of all of the cultural opportunities around us here. I made a new commitment to immersing myself and the family in as much culture as we can while we're here. You can't see a tap dancing jam session in Alaska!