Gov Innovator Podcast

The new federal education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), emphasizes the importance of evidence, including defining four levels of evidence-based practices. The law, however, leaves it to states to decide how much they want to build an evidence base and how much to nudge districts toward choosing more effective strategies. So what should […] The post How states can use “efficacy networks” to test strategies for school improvement: An interview with Tom Kane, Professor, Harvard Graduate School of Education – Episode #142 appeared first on Gov Innovator podcast.

“Many of the most important functions of state and local governments – from building and maintaining roads to housing the homeless – involve contracting for goods and services supplied by the private sector,” notes the Harvard Kennedy School’s Government Performance Lab in their primer, Results-Driven Contracting: An Overview. “Unfortunately, governments often treat procurement as a back office administrative […] The post Transforming the culture of procurement in state and local government: An interview with Jeffrey Liebman, Director, Harvard Kennedy School Government Performance Lab – Episode #141 appeared first on Gov Innovator podcast.

Almost all Federal agencies are lead by a Secretary and a Deputy Secretary. But in 2000, Congress created a new position at the State Department, the Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources — in other words, the chief operating officer. In doing so, the Department became the only federal Cabinet-level agency with two co-equal […] The post Insights from the only Federal department with two Deputy Secretaries: An interview with Heather Higginbottom, former Deputy Secretary for Management and Resources, U.S. Department of State – Episode #140 appeared first on Gov Innovator podcast.

How can Federal agencies successfully streamline their support services, such as HR and IT, to boost efficiency and improve results? We get insights from Jeffrey Neal (@JeffNealHR), a leading expert in human resources issues. He served for 33 years in the Federal government, including as the Chief Human Capital Officer for the 23,000-employee Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) from 2000 to […] The post Transforming support services in Federal agencies: An interview with Jeffrey Neal, Former Chief Human Capital Officer, Defense Logistics Agency and Department of Homeland Security – Episode #139 appeared first on Gov Innovator podcast.

What is the value of evidence and data for elected city leaders as well as how can those leaders create a results-focused culture within city government? We get insights from Michael Nutter who served for eight years at the Mayor of Philadelphia, from 2008 to January 2016. Under his leadership, Philadelphia became known as a leader in […] The post Creating a results-focused city government: An interview with Michael Nutter, former Mayor of Philadelphia – Episode #138 appeared first on Gov Innovator podcast.

Public leaders — whether they’re helping run a state agency, a school system, a hospital, a set of Head Start centers or any other organization — are likely to implement changes over time, whether it’s adjusting programs or adding new services. Maybe it’s a new curriculum for students in a school district or new intake procedure for patients in a hospital. Whatever the change, how […] The post Making rigorous program evaluation easier with RCT-YES software: An interview with Peter Schochet, Fellow, Mathematica Policy Research – Episode #137 appeared first on Gov Innovator podcast.

In 2010, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services launched a project to explore how programs could advance their goals, and address specific challenges, by applying insights from behavioral sciences, including behavioral economics. It is called the Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency (BIAS) project. Now, six years later, […] The post Lessons in applying behavioral insights to human services from the Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency (BIAS) project: An interview with Lashawn Richburg-Hayes and Nadine Deshausay, MDRC – Episode #136 appeared first on Gov Innovator podcast.

Programs and agencies in government often exist in silos, where the efforts of one aren’t necessarily connected with others and their data are not shared between them. That slows the process within government of learning what works, coordinating efforts, spurring social innovation, and continuous improvement. A growing number of states and localities, however, are developing Integrated […] The post How states and localities are improving the quality of education, health, and human services through integrated data systems: An interview with Dennis Culhane, Professor, University of Pennsylvania – Episode #135 appeared first on Gov Innovator podcast.

Federal programs produce a lot of data — known as administrative data — and those data can be very useful for program administrators and researchers to answer important questions about policy and practice. That is especially true when data from multiple programs or datasets are linked, producing a broader view of program performance that spans organizational silos. In […] The post Why broadening access to Federal administrative data is critical for improving government services and increasing taxpayer value: An interview with Maria Cancian, Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison – Episode #134 appeared first on Gov Innovator podcast.

How can public agencies can use rapid, low-cost experiments to test (and learn from) low-cost, light-touch interventions such as communications and outreach strategies? Also, how can agencies partner with academic researchers to run those experiments and what characteristics of those researcher-practitioner partnerships help make them successful? To get insights into all those topics, we are joined by Adam […] The post Test, learn and adapt – How public agencies can use researcher-practitioner partnerships to test low-cost, light-touch interventions: An interview with Adam Sacarny, Professor, Columbia University – Episode #133 appeared first on Gov Innovator podcast.

Utah is one of the top states in the U.S. in terms of evidence-based policymaking and budgeting. In particular, with efforts by the Utah State Legislature and the administration of Governor Gary Herbert, Utah has created a variety of agency-specific and cross-agency tools to incorporate evidence into policy and funding decisions. That includes: A requirement from the Governor’s budget office that agencies seeking new […] The post How Utah became a leader in evidence-based policymaking: An interview with Kristen Cox, Director, Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget, and Jonathan Ball, Director, Utah Fiscal Analysts Office – Episode #132 appeared first on Gov Innovator podcast.

Over the past several years, the State of Mississippi has taken important steps to use evidence in order to get better results from state spending and, in turn, achieve better outcomes for the people of Mississippi. That includes defining tiers of evidence to focus funding on what works; creating comprehensive program inventories that categorize the level of evidence relating […] The post How the State of Mississippi uses evidence-based budgeting to increase return on investment and improve program outcomes: An interview with Toby Barker, Mississippi State Representative – Episode #131 appeared first on Gov Innovator podcast.

The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) is dedicated to breaking the link between family income and educational achievement. To do that, it has a unique strategy: increasing the supply of high-quality evidence about what works in order to enable better decisions by teachers and school leaders. Launched in 2011 with a founding grant of £125 million from the […] The post How the UK’s Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) is building rigorous evidence about how to close education achievement gaps: An interview with Sir Kevan Collins, Chief Executive, EEF – Episode #130 appeared first on Gov Innovator podcast.

If you think about what the Federal government does, grant making may not be the first thing you think of. Even so, billions of dollars flow from the Federal level to states, localities and nonprofits in the form of grants. How can the Federal government encourage more evidence-based policy and innovation through the grant making process? We […] The post Transforming Federal grant programs from compliance driven to results focused: An interview with Robert Gordon, former Acting Deputy Director, White House Office of Management and Budget – Episode #129 appeared first on Gov Innovator podcast.

An important and underused opportunity for public agencies to improve their results and tackle critical challenges is researcher-practitioner partnerships. When researchers and government executives team up, public agencies can get credible answers to important operational and strategic questions. That can include insights from empirical analyses as well as from field experiments. To get insights into what it takes to […] The post Creating successful researcher-practitioner partnerships at the Federal level: An interview with Dayanand Manoli, Professor, University of Texas at Austin – Episode #128 appeared first on Gov Innovator podcast.

How can the United States raise job quality and skills for American workers through more effective education and workforce development within states? In particular: How can we fix the misalignment between the skills of Americans without college degrees and the workforce needs of well-paying industries that do not necessarily require a college degree? And how can […] The post Raising job quality and skills for American workers through more effective education and workforce development within states: An interview with Harry Holzer, Professor, Georgetown University – Episode #127 appeared first on Gov Innovator podcast.

How can communities better address young people’s physical and emotional health needs? A growing trend is the use of school-based health centers. The goal is to provide convenient, accessible, and comprehensive health care services to students from pre-k through high school by having a health provider — or sometimes an interdisciplinary health provider team — […] The post Using school-based health centers to address the health needs of low-income youth: An interview with Olga Acosta Price, Professor, The George Washington University – Episode #126 appeared first on Gov Innovator podcast.

The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) is probably best known for overseeing the AmeriCorps program. The program provides grants to nonprofits and local governments to address community needs in education, public safety, health and the environment.  The money pays to support AmeriCorps members and their activities, whether it’s tutoring in an elementary school or […] The post How one Federal agency, the Corporation for National and Community Service, strengthened the role of evidence in a key grant program, AmeriCorps: An interview with Diana Epstein and Carla Ganiel, CNCS – Episode #125 appeared first on Gov Innovator podcast.

Bob Behn of the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) is one of the leading thinkers on the subjects of public management and leadership. He has argued that public agencies are unlikely to produce better results simply by creating rules, requirements or performance systems. A more effective approach, he notes, is to help managers learn better leadership practices. In […] The post Twelve “better practices” that can help public leaders tackle key organizational challenges and boost results: An interview with Bob Behn, Professor, Harvard Kennedy School – Episode #124 appeared first on Gov Innovator podcast.

When schools or school districts implement district wide reform initiatives, how can they accurately determine if those reform efforts are having the positive effects that school leaders had hoped? How, in other words, can they move beyond anecdotes or simple trend data and rigorously evaluate their district wide reform initiatives? The Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) […] The post How school districts can use rigorous program evaluation to test new education reforms: An interview with Matthew Lenard, Director, Data Strategy and Analytics, Wake County Public Schools – Episode #123 appeared first on Gov Innovator podcast.