On the Evidence MATHEMATICA

In March, when the Biden administration released its budget request for fiscal year 2025, it not only offered a blueprint for the president’s policymaking agenda—it also provided the latest indication of how the White House and federal agencies are going beyond evidence generation to use evidence as a guide in making program investments that can improve Americans’ lives. For this episode of Mathematica’s On the Evidence podcast, Nichole Dunn, the vice president of federal policy at Results for America, joins the show to discuss evidence-based policy in the president’s budget as well as larger trends in federal and state funding of evidence-based initiatives and programs.

On the episode, Dunn speaks with Mike Burns, senior director of communications and public affairs at Mathematica, about American Rescue Plan spending, the growth of evidence clearinghouses, the increasing level of federal investment in program evaluation, the implications of the presidential election for federal investment in evidence-based policy, the implementation of the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act, the recent formation of the bipartisan Congressional What Works Caucus, the Congressional Evidence-Based Policymaking Resolution, and the potential for evidence-based policy to bypass partisan gridlock in Washington.

A full transcript of the conversation is available at mathematica.org/blogs/evidence-based-policy-in-president-bidens-2025-budget

Read an op-ed by Michele Jolin, the chief executive officer and co-founder of Results for America, about how bipartisan elected leaders and career civil servants across the country who have been quietly transforming how governments invest taxpayer dollars to achieve better results: https://www.minnpost.com/community-voices/2024/03/from-minnesota-to-washington-d-c-a-better-way-to-deliver-results/

Read the research brief by Mathematica for Results for America, which shows how city governments with a history of prioritizing data-driven practices were more likely to use federal relief funds from the American Rescue Plan (ARP) to deepen their commitment to results-driven governance—with the goal of improving outcomes for residents through effective programs: https://mathematica.org/publications/unlocking-the-power-of-city-data

Watch a recording from the January 2024 virtual event hosted by Results for America to discuss the federal government’s progress in using evidence and data to get better results, which featured the release of a new report by Harvard University Professor Christina Ciocca Eller on federal evidence-based policymaking efforts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMYwG6P-1zI

Read the 2023 Invest in What Works State Standard of Excellence from Results for America, which showcases 194 efforts across 46 states to build and use evidence and data to improve residents’ lives: https://results4america.org/tools/2023-invest-in-what-works-state-standard-of-excellence/

Explore the ARP Data and Evidence Dashboard from Mathematica and Results for America, which highlights how state and local government leaders are investing one-time federal pandemic relief and economic recovery funds and using data and evidence to get better results: https://results4america.org/tools/arp-dashboard/

The latest episode of On the Evidence features Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. On the episode, Zandi speaks with Paul Decker, Mathematica’s president and chief executive officer, about comprehensive immigration reform, artificial intelligence, labor shortages, remote work, the merits of pursuing a nonacademic career in economic research, and how Zandi seeks to influence politically charged policy debates with data and credibility. Zandi is the author of two books related to the Great Recession and hosts the Inside Economics podcast.

A video version of the episode as well as a full transcript is available at https://mathematica.org/blogs/mark-zandi-chief-economist-of-moodys-analytics-on-data-driven-decisions-in-public-policy

Listen to the Inside Economics podcast that Zandi hosts along with Cris deRitis and Marisa DiNatale for Moody’s Analytics: https://www.moodys.com/web/en/us/about/insights/podcasts/moodys-talks-inside-economics.html

Read Paul Decker’s blog about how Mathematica used evidence to guide the company’s approach to reopening in-person offices after the COVID-19 pandemic: https://www.mathematica.org/blogs/letting-evidence-guide-decisions-about-reopening-offices

Read an op-ed co-authored by Paul Decker for the website RealClearPolicy, which proposes comprehensive immigration reform and other solutions to address current labor shortages: https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2023/04/25/without_immigration_reform_americas_labor_shortage_is_here_to_stay_895672.html

The latest episode of On the Evidence features an interview with Mathematica’s Ngan MacDonald about the applications of artificial intelligence (AI) for improving health care through data analytics. MacDonald recently joined Mathematica as the company’s director of health data innovations, where she leads a team of data scientists that help public and private health organizations use their data to deliver meaningful and effective insights. In addition to her role at Mathematica, MacDonald is also the chief of data operations for the Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine at Northwestern University.

On the episode, MacDonald discusses the potential benefits of AI in health care, the equity implications of training AI on incomplete health care data, and what AI could mean for Mathematica’s work in data analytics.

A full transcript of the interview is available at https://mathematica.org/blogs/improving-health-equity-through-ai-and-data-innovation

A new episode of Mathematica’s On the Evidence podcast explores the idea that a more comprehensive approach to evaluation, including study of a program’s design and implementation, maximizes a program’s chances of success. The episode draws from a convening in January at Mathematica’s D.C. office at which experts from the federal government, philanthropy, academia, and research organizations discussed insights from the Oxford Handbook on Program Design and Implementation Evaluation, edited by Mathematica’s Anu Rangarajan.

The episode features Rangarajan as well as seven other speakers who expand upon the idea that a more comprehensive approach to evaluation could provide more useful information about whether a program is working, and if not, how it could be tweaked to work. The following speakers also appear in the episode:

- Michael Woolcock, lead social scientist, Development Research Group, World Bank
- Paul Decker, president and chief executive officer, Mathematica
- Emilie Bagby, director, international education, Mathematica
- Alix Zwane, chief executive officer, Global Innovation Fund
- Melissa Chiappetta, senior education advisor, Latin America and the Caribbean, U.S. Agency for International Development
- Douglas J. Besharov, professor, University of Maryland School of Public Policy
- Michelle Sager, managing director for strategic issues, U.S. Government Accountability Office

A transcript of the episode is available at https://mathematica.org/blogs/improving-the-impact-of-social-programs-through-better-evaluation

Learn more about Mathematica Global, the new name and identity of Mathematica’s international unit: https://www.mathematica.org/blogs/mathematica-global-brings-hindsight-insight-and-foresight

Watch the full video recording from the January convening about improving the impact of social programs through a comprehensive approach to design and evaluation: https://www.mathematica.org/events/improving-the-impact-of-social-programs-through-a-comprehensive-approach-to-design-and-evaluation

Listen to a previous episode of Mathematica’s On the Evidence podcast that features two of the speakers from the January event, Emilie Bagby and Melissa Chiappetta, discussing how the U.S. Agency for International Development and the International Rescue Committee are building on an evidence review from Mathematica to help local education leaders implement effective programs and policies in northern Central America that will reduce local violence and crime: https://www.mathematica.org/blogs/developing-education-programs-to-prevent-violence-and-crime-in-latin-america-and-the-caribbean

The COVID-19 pandemic is no longer a public health emergency, but its harmful effects on the U.S. education system still linger. Nationwide standardized test scores show that average student achievement in core subjects, such as math and reading, remains below pre-pandemic levels. Over the past four years, a growing number of schools have used temporary federal pandemic relief funds to implement high-dosage tutoring, an evidence-based strategy shown to increase student learning. Education agencies have less than a year to use their remaining funds, underscoring the need for other effective tutoring approaches that can serve more students at a lower cost.

The latest episode of Mathematica’s On the Evidence podcast explores promising evidence from evaluations Mathematica conducted for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation of eight tutoring programs that piloted a variety of tutoring approaches, such as virtual and group tutoring. These programs enrolled diverse groups of students in grades 4 through 10 during the 2021–2022 school year.

Our guests for this episode are Brandi Garza of the Corpus Christi Independent School District, Hasan Ali of Air Tutors, and Gregory Chojnacki of Mathematica.

A full transcript of the episode is available at mathematica.org/blogs/how-virtual-and-group-tutoring-could-address-learning-loss

On the five-year anniversary of Mathematica’s On the Evidence podcast, we’re proud to feature an interview with Robert Santos, the director of the U.S. Census Bureau. Santos, the first Latino and the second person of color to lead the agency, joined Mathematica in January for a wide-ranging conversation that covered the following topics:
• changing Latinx/Hispanic population trends in the United States
• how people of Latinx/Hispanic heritage can advance in the field of public policy research
• how the Census Bureau strives to establish trust with survey respondents through culturally relevant and community-based participatory research methods
• how the Census Bureau uses artificial intelligence in its work

A full transcript of the episode is available at https://www.mathematica.org/blogs/census-bureau-director-robert-santos-culturally-relevant-methods-in-public-policy-research