Performance measurement has emerged as a management tool that, accompanied by advances in technology and data analysis, has allowed public officials to control public policy at multiple levels of government. In the United States, the federal government has used performance measurement as part of an accountability strategy that enables Congress and…

The federal role in higher education has grown over the past two decades, and now a new administration has the opportunity to strengthen policies that support students and their colleges and universities. To help inform these decisions, the Urban Institute convened a bipartisan group of scholars and policy advisers to write a series of memos…

More than a decade ago, Michael Lewis penned the influential book "Moneyball." An examination of how Oakland Athletics General Manager Billy Beane used data to make his franchise competitive with wealthier baseball teams, the book struck a chord. Beane's strategy of making decisions based on data had a powerful and positive impact on the…

Congress first called for the Advisory Committee on Head Start Research and Evaluation (the "Committee") in its 1998 reauthorization of the Head Start program, with a requirement that the Secretary of Health and Human Services convene a panel of experts to inform the Department about the design of a newly required national evaluation of…

Examines budgetary cutbacks in federal data systems. Concludes that (1) justifications for cutbacks are unconvincing; (2) cutbacks have affected data availability and quality severely; (3) the feasibility of the idea that major data users should collect their own information is dubious; and (4) special evaluation studies cannot substitute for…

There is a growing disillusion with social science evaluation and the role it has played in the conduct of massive social programs. In retrospect, it appears that the social science evaluations of the past decade were undertaken with impossibly high ambitions and relied upon restrictive assumptions concerning the functions that evaluation serves…

Six papers discuss the increasing role of federal Offices of Inspectors General (OIGs) in program evaluation. This issue presents an overview of such inspections, case studies from three federal agencies, and a review of questions and concerns about inspections by OIGs. (SLD)

Poses additional complexities for the evaluation of government programs by the formation of partnerships with the private sector. Challenges include differing partner objectives, information deficiencies, variances in partner contributions and outcome effects, and difficulties in estimating benefits and costs. Discusses strategies to aid…

Program evaluation as a methodology is discussed, and its application to government export promotion programs is examined. Because the variety of approaches to export program evaluation, resulting data are often of limited usefulness. A programmatic approach to program evaluation is proposed. (TJH)

The problem of measuring impacts of employment and training programs when workers not receiving services are affected by the program is explored, using a reemployment bonus program as an example. The conventional measures of bonus impacts may significantly overestimate the net impact of the bonus offer. (SLD)

At the request of Congressman Charles B. Rangel, the General Accounting Office (GAO) conducted an investigation of federal efforts in drug abuse prevention and education activities, focusing on: (1) how the federal government provides leadership and coordination; (2) the federal agencies involved in drug abuse prevention and education activities;…

Special revenue sharing is a tool that can allow almost unlimited state flexibility in social service interventions, while primarily confining the federal role to the specification and measurement of national social service objectives. Goal specification and measurement procedures are crucial to the special revenue-sharing idea. Federally…

Assesses the effectiveness of federal housing-related policies in the 1960's and early 1970's, discussing in detail the "trickle-down" process that dominates American urban development and the periods in which housing had first a low priority, and then a high priority. (JM)

Analysis of changes in federal education policy in the 1960s, based on archival research and other sources, suggests a reinterpretation of the causes of the success or failure of the new federal programs. A review of the literature on these "Great Society" educational policies finds that most authors feel the policies sprang from a…

One component of the Emergency School Aid Act (ESAA) is the Nonprofit Organization Program (NPO), under which local groups funded for this purpose carry out a program designed to support the development or implementation of a public school desegregation plan. The purpose of this study is to assess the effectiveness of NPO groups compared with…