"Invest in what works."

It seems simple: The public and private resources available to invest in reducing achievement gaps in education, teenage pregnancy rates, child poverty and any other cause are limited. Therefore, funding should be channeled to programs that are proven to be effective.

The new Every Student Succeeds Act could direct billions in federal funds to invest in what works. How we define "what works" will determine if we are ultimately successful.

This shift to evidence-based education policy follows a pattern set by federal programs such as the Social Innovation Fund and the Investing in Innovation Fund, and supported by private philanthropies such as the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation and The Wallace Foundation (both of which have supported evaluations of my organization). Such programs have funded a host of rigorous evaluations, including randomized controlled trials, of social interventions and uncovered valuable insight into the not only if interventions work, but more importantly, why and how they work.....

.....The ability to adapt quickly -- to continuously improve and to stay one step ahead when it comes to innovation and learning -- is one of the most important characteristics of effective nonprofits. The nonprofit I work for, BELL (Building Educated Leaders for Life), has been fortunate to possess strong evidence of impact for its summer learning model. That evidence comes from two random assignment evaluations that looked at the academic impact of our summer learning model; one conducted by the Urban Institute that focused on elementary school students, the second by MDRC focused on middle school students and published findings earlier this year.

Such evaluation results - and other evidence from the field - are a compass, not a map. The quality of our programs and the consistent, positive outcomes achieved by our scholars is more a reflection of continuous improvement in our delivery models rather than the result of a single study at one point in time. Research helps us and our school partners navigate toward our North Star rather than prescribing our every step.....

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