Stay ConnectedThe Podcast @ DC puts cutting-edge research in conversation with the bureaucratic realities of government. We get in the weeds on how to put science into action. Topics are as diverse as the challenges our city government tackles.
The show is hosted by The Lab @ DC in the Office of the City Administrator for the District of Columbia.
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Using data to make organizations better places to work is an exciting new frontier in both data and social science. But data on its own is not automatically useful—and if not created, collected, generated, or evaluated with care, could even be harmful. In today’s episode, we will discuss the promise and perils of data-driven approaches to tracking and improving diversity, inclusivity, and the overall effectiveness of workplace anti-harassment programs. Our guests on this episode are Dr. Andrea Jones-Rooy, Director of Undergraduate Studies at the Center for Data Science at New York University, Zoe Cooper Thomas, the Deputy General Counsel for DCHR, and Luisa Ngyuen, the Equal Employment Opportunity Program Manager for the District Department of Transportation. Since we recorded this episode, Mayor Muriel Bowser appointed Dr. Amber Hewitt as the District's first Chief Equity Officer. You can read the press release (https://dc.gov/release/mayor-bowser-appoints-dr-amber-hewitt-district%E2%80%99s-first-chief-equity-officer) for more about her appointment. Transcript: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1C1z4uEHzrz_l8nDZCtpCNvA9fsTfiZeL/view?usp=sharing Music from filmmusic.io "Loopster" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) License: CC BY (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
On January 14, 2019, the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018, also called the Evidence Act, was signed into law by the President. This new law emphasizes collaboration and coordination among Federal agencies to advance data and evidence-building functions. It also mandates new federal evidence-building activities, open government data, and confidential information protection. The Evidence Act represents an important step forward in how Federal agencies approach evidence-based policymaking, something we here at The Lab @ DC work hard toward in the District every single day. To help us better understand this law and what DC could learn from the federal government’s new approach to evidence-building, in August 2019, we talked to Dr. Diana Epstein, the Evidence Team Lead at the Office of Management and Budget, or OMB, where Diana and her colleagues are working hard to start implementing the Evidence Act. We’re also joined by Jenny Reed, the Director of the DC Office of Budget and Performance Management, to talk about what DC is doing to promote evidence-based policymaking and where we may want to learn from the Evidence Act. We want to know what you think about The Podcast @ DC! Take our quick listener survey here: tinyurl.com/thepodcastatdc. Music from filmmusic.io "Loopster" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) License: CC BY (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Universal basic income (UBI), also referred to as a guaranteed minimum income, income guarantee, or unconditional cash transfer, involves regularly giving cash without conditions directly to everyone within a geographic or political territory on a long-term basis. The idea has become a widely discussed measure in policy circles around the world. Ioana Marinescu covers the evidence relevant to UBI's potential impact in the United States. Many studies did not find or found a very small effect on the likelihood that recipients stop working, work less, or earn less. The evidence does show that a UBI can improve health and educational outcomes and decrease criminality and drug & alcohol use, especially among the most disadvantaged youths. We want to know what you think about The Podcast @ DC! Take our quick listener survey here: tinyurl.com/thepodcastatdc. Transcript: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1X5c6GmfGz-4nYAJUbtwV5SBeFy8Ezd_g/view?usp=sharing Music from filmmusic.io "Loopster" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) License: CC BY (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
The 2020 Census is here. With growth in computing power, advances in mathematics, and easy access to large, public databases, how is the U.S. Census Bureau ensuring respondent privacy and confidentiality at every stage of the data lifecycle? Dr. John Abowd, Associate Director for Research and Methodology and Chief Scientist at the Census Bureau, joins us to talk about differential privacy and the new confidentiality protection system that will provide the foundation for safeguarding all the data of the 2020 Census. We want to know what you think about The Podcast @ DC! Take our quick listener survey here: tinyurl.com/thepodcastatdc. Music from filmmusic.io "Loopster" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) License: CC BY (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
As The Lab and the rest of the DC government respond to the COVID-19 public health emergency, we’re releasing a series of past podcasts from our archives. In this episode, former Lab Director, David Yokum, speaks with Benoy Jacob, Associate Professor in the School of Public Policy and Leadership at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, to explore the relationship between trust and civic engagement and what it means for the governance of the country.
Policymakers often hope that transit stations will spur real estate and economic development in surrounding neighborhoods, but the results of empirical research on transit-oriented development (TOD) is mixed. In Los Angeles, which has built a substantial intra-city rail network since 1990, most new stations were added to an already dense built environment, with auto-oriented zoning and established land use patterns. Through case studies of five LA Metro stations, Jenny Schuetz from the Brookings Institution assesses the relative importance of land markets, zoning, and other policy interventions in facilitating or constraining changes in development patterns after the stations opened. We want to know what you think about The Podcast @ DC! Take our quick listener survey here: tinyurl.com/thepodcastatdc. Transcript: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YLJSjZFgIGNeOLyLoqcaKc7yN_HNfTcb/view?usp=sharing Music from filmmusic.io "Loopster" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) License: CC BY (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Childhood is a very important time in a human’s personal and cognitive development. Unfortunately, early exposure to all sorts of traumatic events, including family violence, shootings, and community-wide disasters, is all too common for children. If the trauma goes undiagnosed and untreated, negative mental health conditions such as PTSD, anxiety, and depression can follow. On this episode of the Podcast, host Sam Quinney will be speaking with Dr. Lisa Jaycox, who founded a childhood trauma program called Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools, or CBITS. She is a Senior Social Scientist at the RAND Corporation, where her work has focused on stress, trauma, and evaluation of community interventions. Joining them for this conversation is Michelle Garcia, Director of DC’s Office of Victim Services and Justice Grants, which serves crime victims and improves the administration of justice for victims and offenders. We want to know what you think about The Podcast @ DC! Take our quick listener survey here: tinyurl.com/thepodcastatdc. Music from filmmusic.io "Loopster" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) License: CC BY (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Every year, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, requires jurisdictions to conduct a census and survey of persons experiencing homelessness. These surveys, called Point-in-Time counts, provide a snapshot of the demographic characteristics and population of adults and children experiencing homelessness on a given day each year. In January 2019, DC implemented a supplemental, more qualitative survey with its PIT Count — the PIT Plus — to understand what led to individuals’ experiences of homelessness and what could have prevented those experiences. On this episode of the Podcast @ DC, host Sam Quinney will be speaking with Tom Fredericksen and Elisabeth Young from The Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness, or TCP. TCP has conducted traditional PIT counts in the District since 2001, and spearheaded the effort to conduct the PIT Plus. You'll also hear from Hersh Gupta, a Data Scientist at the DC Department of Human Services and a Lab Fellow, who collaborated with TCP to analyze the results from this new survey. We want to know what you think about The Podcast @ DC! Take our quick listener survey here: tinyurl.com/thepodcastatdc. Music from filmmusic.io "Loopster" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) License: CC BY (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
What's the most important factor in a successful school? When we're renovating or building a new school, what do we care about the most? Most educators and parents will tell you it's student achievement. In 2018, DC Public Schools commissioned Perkins Eastman Research to study the effects of school modernization on student achievement. In this episode, Sam Quinney will talk with Heather Jauregui, Emily Chmielewski, and Sean O'Donnell from Perkins Eastman, who spearheaded the study, along with the Chief Operating Officer of DCPS Patrick Davis. They discuss what they learned about the potential impacts of school modernization on student performance. We want to know what you think about The Podcast @ DC! Take our quick listener survey here: tinyurl.com/thepodcastatdc. Music from filmmusic.io "Loopster" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) License: CC BY (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Exposure to cold is one reason that mortality in the United States peaks in winter, and a higher heating price increases exposure to cold by reducing heating use. It also raises energy bills, which could decrease spending on food, medicine, and other expenses that could improve health. On this episode of the Podcast, host Sam Quinney will speak with Seema Jayachandran, a Professor of Economics at Northwestern University, who led a study that looked at the effect of heating prices on winter mortality. Joining the conversation are Jennifer Kulp and Dawit Affa, energy efficiency experts from the DC Department of Energy and Environment (DOEE). We want to know what you think about The Podcast @ DC! Take our quick listener survey here: tinyurl.com/thepodcastatdc. Music from filmmusic.io "Loopster" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) License: CC BY (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
We’re doing something a little different on the podcast: we’ll be talking about our approach to figuring out what works for District residents. Each episode will explore a different step in how we’re trying to better serve the District: Listen. Design. Do something. Test. Decide. And Repeat. In this episode, Lab Fellow Anita Ravishankar, Data Scientist Vicky Mei, and visiting Data Scientist Rebecca Johnson will walk you through step 6 in our scientific approach to public service - Repeat. We want to know what you think about The Podcast @ DC! Take our quick listener survey here: tinyurl.com/thepodcastatdc. Music from filmmusic.io "Loopster" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) License: CC BY (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
We’re doing something a little different on the podcast: we’ll be talking about our approach to figuring out what works for District residents. Each episode will explore a different step in how we’re trying to better serve the District: Listen. Design. Do something. Test. Decide. And Repeat. In this episode, Senior Social Scientist Chrysanthi Hatzimasoura will walk you through step 5 in our scientific approach to public service - Decide. We want to know what you think about The Podcast @ DC! Take our quick listener survey here: tinyurl.com/thepodcastatdc. Music from filmmusic.io "Loopster" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) License: CC BY (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
We’re doing something a little different on the podcast: we’ll be talking about our approach to figuring out what works for District residents. Each episode will explore a different step in how we’re trying to better serve the District: Listen. Design. Do something. Test. Decide. And Repeat. In this episode, Lab Director Sam Quinney will walk you through step 4 in our scientific approach to public service - Test. We want to know what you think about The Podcast @ DC! Take our quick listener survey here: tinyurl.com/thepodcastatdc. Music from filmmusic.io "Loopster" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) License: CC BY (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
We’re doing something a little different on the podcast: we’ll be talking about our approach to figuring out what works for District residents. Each episode will explore a different step in how we’re trying to better serve the District: Listen. Design. Do something. Test. Decide. And Repeat. In this episode, Senior Operations Analyst Karissa Minnich and Operations Analyst Nellie Moore will walk you through step 3 in our scientific approach to public service - Do Something. We want to know what you think about The Podcast @ DC! Take our quick listener survey here: tinyurl.com/thepodcastatdc. Music from filmmusic.io "Loopster" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) License: CC BY (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
We’re doing something a little different on the podcast: we’ll be talking about our approach to figuring out what works for District residents. Each episode will explore a different step in how we’re trying to better serve the District: Listen. Design. Do something. Test. Decide. And Repeat. In this episode, Lab Director Sam Quinney and Deputy Director Katie Gan will walk you through step 2 in our scientific approach to public service - Design. We want to know what you think about The Podcast @ DC! Take our quick listener survey here: tinyurl.com/thepodcastatdc. Music from filmmusic.io "Loopster" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) License: CC BY (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Over the next six episodes, we’re doing something a little different on the podcast: we’ll be talking about our approach to figuring out what works for District residents. Each episode will explore a different step in how we’re trying to better serve the District: Listen. Design. Do something. Test. Decide. And Repeat. In this episode, Lab Director Sam Quinney and Senior Operations Analyst Karissa Minnich will walk you through step 1 in our scientific approach to public service - Listen. We want to know what you think about The Podcast @ DC! Take our quick listener survey here: tinyurl.com/thepodcastatdc. Music from filmmusic.io "Loopster" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) License: CC BY (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
What were some of the early steps DC took to involve data in decisionmaking? How did those efforts eventually spawn The Lab @ DC? On this episode, we’re going to talk to Kevin Donahue, who has been at the heart of these efforts in both DC and the federal government. He is the District’s Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice, as well as the Deputy City Administrator. In both roles, he brings an analytical approach that utilizes data and evidence to deliver tangible results to the residents of the District of Columbia. We want to know what you think about The Podcast @ DC! Take our quick listener survey here: tinyurl.com/thepodcastatdc. Music from filmmusic.io "Loopster" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) License: CC BY (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
As DC grows, the limited availability of affordable housing makes living in the District difficult, or even impossible, for many families. In response to residents’ concerns over the stock and affordability of large units in the District of Columbia, the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, or DMPED, conducted the DC Housing Survey. They wanted to understand more about residents' experiences with housing and moving in particular. What motivates households of all sizes to move or stay where they are, both now and in the future? And what do these reasons mean for the availability of family-sized units and, more generally, residential stability across DC? Today on the Podcast @ DC, we’ll be talking to Yari Greaney, a Program Analyst on the Economic Intelligence Team at the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development. She led the DC Housing Survey in partnership with The Lab @ DC, and she manages inter-agency affordable housing data to improve the District’s understanding of housing production and planning. If you have feedback or a question for us about this project, record yourself and email your question or comment to thepodcast@dc.gov. We'll listen to every submission, and answer yours on a future episode of the Podcast. We want to know what you think about The Podcast @ DC! Take our quick listener survey here: tinyurl.com/thepodcastatdc. Music from filmmusic.io "Loopster" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) License: CC BY (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
In 2008, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, launched the Family Options Study, a bold and rigorous assessment of the impact of various housing interventions for homeless families. This study used a rigorous evaluation design to examine what interventions (including long-term rent subsidies, short-term rent subsidies, and transitional housing) work best to reduce homelessness for families in the United States. In this episode, we’ve invited Michelle Wood, Danny Gubits, and Sam Dastrup, who led this study at Abt Associates. Their research in applied social science focuses on housing, homelessness, and economic self-sufficiency. Music from filmmusic.io "Loopster" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) License: CC BY (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
It’s common sense that governments want to use their resources effectively by investing in programs and policies that have their intended effects. But studying programs and policies as implemented in the real world can be challenging. Each method we could use comes with upsides and downsides. So how can we generate evidence to learn about a program or a policy and whether it's effective within government? And how do we know which method is right? These are the questions that we here at The Lab @ DC are constantly thinking about—how we can fit those into the normal functions of government and the need for decisions about programs and policies. In this episode, we’ll be talking with Dr. Liz Stuart about study designs that can be used to learn about the effects of programs and policies that provide a balance of rigor and relevance. Liz is a Professor of Mental Health, Biostatistics, and Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her research focuses on propensity score matching—a tricky sounding technique that Liz will explain in more detail—and methods to improve the generalizability of randomized evaluations. Music from filmmusic.io "Loopster" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) License: CC BY (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Followers of The Lab @ DC may be familiar with one of our first projects, which was a collaboration with DC’s Metropolitan Police Department — MPD for short — to evaluate the impact of wearing a body-worn camera on many outcomes. Among those were our best existing measures of police-community relations — namely, complaints of police misconduct and the rate at which officers use physical force in interacting with a community member. In case you forgot, here's a reminder of the results: we found across those outcomes and others almost no measurable effect of using a body-worn camera in DC. Now, MPD still uses Body Worn Cameras, but we as a District think of them more as a vital source of public record for high profile events, and less as a tool to improve police-community relations as a result of that evaluation. So, if we still believe there is room for improvement police-community relations in DC, the logical question is what’s next? To MPD’s credit, they've tried something new, and importantly, they chose to evaluate it in the most rigorous possible way. Here's a little bit about this new project: We know that police officers and residents often have different expectations about policing, and they inform how they interact with one another. Acknowledging this difference and its role in shaping overall police-community relations, MPD sought to equip officers with detailed knowledge of the community. So, working with history professors from the University of the District of Columbia, MPD developed a new training program to be delivered to all personnel. The training includes rigorous classroom instruction on the history of the District as well as a tour of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. This special live episode of the Podcast @ DC was recorded in the spring of 2019. You will hear a panel discussion from the team that assembled this new program, including the professors from UDC, MPD’s training team, officers who participated in the program, and Lab fellow Anita Ravishankar who all worked together to ensure that the training was effective. You'll also hear from members of the community who want to know how this training might improve their lives as DC residents. Panel moderator: Heather Foster Panelists: Mr. Marvin (Ben) Haiman Commander Ralph Ennis Dr. Sharita Thompson Dr. Bernard Demczuk Officer Melvin Evans Sergeant Ilah Wiggins Anita Ravishankar Music from https://filmmusic.io "Loopster" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com) License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
In 2001, the District government instituted its own version of the federal government’s Earned Income Tax Credit, also called the EITC. It's intended to assist low- to moderate-income working families with children. In a recent expansion of DC’s credit in 2015, the District offered access to working families without children and expanded eligibility criteria overall, so that it included more families. How does this tax credit compare to federal assistance programs like SNAP or TANF? Does the credit do what it intends to? How can we evaluate how well it’s working? To learn more about this, the Lab's Interim Director Sam Quinney will have a discussion with Dr. Bradley Hardy, an associate professor of Public Administration and Policy at American University, and a nonresident senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution. He has worked with other policy experts to research the EITC, labor economics, income volatility, and poverty. Music from https://filmmusic.io "Loopster" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com) License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
On July 20, 2017, Mayor Muriel Bowser launched The Lab @ DC within the Office of the City Administrator. Supported by Arnold Ventures philanthropy, The Lab is a bold effort to include a team of scientists in the inner workings of DC Government. When we first developed The Lab @ DC, we did so with an idea in mind—what we scientists would call a hypothesis—about how DC government could work better for you. This bonus podcast is brought to you in celebration of the two year anniversary of The Lab @ DC. We’re celebrating with an open letter to our DC neighbors. Read the Director's letter here: https://medium.com/@the.lab/the-lab-is-turning-two-8bc7af4f14b1 Stay updated on our work: https://thelab.dc.gov/get-involved.html
Deadlines. The word itself probably makes you a little anxious. And when the deadline is something like renewing your eligibility for social assistance, deadlines are high stakes. So what can we do to help people meet them? Are there bottlenecks we can lessen, or behavioral interventions we can introduce? This episode is extra special for The Lab @ DC, because we're talking about one of our own projects. We have been investigating this very question with our colleagues at the DC Department of Human Services. Podcast Host David Yokum is joined by Lab Senior Social Scientist Katie Gan, and Chief of Strategic Planning and Project Management at DC's Department of Human Services Steph Bloch, both of whom led this project.
In February 2018, DC welcomed its 700,000th resident, putting the city’s population at its highest its since the mid-1970’s. But with a growing population comes a growing concern around the District’s ability to provide affordable and inclusive housing. Does the city have enough homes? Are they varied enough to accomodate singles, couples, and families? What will make the city financially accessible for native and new Washingtonians?
Earlier this summer, our team had the opportunity to join the Association for Psychological Science’s annual conference in San Francisco. And while we were there, we got to talk to a few psychologists about the application of their research. In our final episode of the series is a discussion on perception and attention with Daniel Simons, Professor of Psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Music From the Free Music Archive: "The Grass is Always Greener" by Pure Grease.
Earlier this summer, our team had the opportunity to join the Association for Psychological Science’s annual conference in San Francisco. And while we were there, we got to talk to a few psychologists about the application of their research. Next up in our three-part series is a discussion on organizational psychology with Dorothy Carter, Assistant Professor of Organizational Psychology at the University of Georgia. Music From the Free Music Archive: "The Grass is Always Greener" by Pure Grease.
Earlier this summer, our team had the opportunity to join the Association for Psychological Science’s annual conference in San Francisco. And while we were there, we got to talk to a few psychologists about the application of their research. First up in our three-part series is a discussion on memory with Lynn Nadel, Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Cognitive Science at the University of Arizona. Music From the Free Music Archive: "The Grass is Always Greener" by Pure Grease.
Monumental in scope and vividly detailed, Chocolate City: A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation's Capital tells the tumultuous, four-century story of race and democracy in our nation's capital. In this live recoding of The Podcast @ DC, we're joined by the book's authors - Chris Myers Asch and Derek Musgrove - for a conversation on Washington's history as a battleground for issues of slavery, segregation, civil rights, the drug war, and gentrification. Music From the Free Music Archive: "The Grass is Always Greener" by Pure Grease.
If you live in a city experiencing rapid urbanization, you know it's hard to agree on how to inclusively utilize important urban goods. What practical tools and governance forms can residents and policymakers rely on to come to a satisfactory agreement? We’re joined by Sheila Foster, Professor of Law and Public Policy at Georgetown University, to talk about the Co-Cities project that investigates new forms of collaborative city-making. Music From the Free Music Archive: "The Grass is Always Greener" by Pure Grease.
High-quality child care is hard enough to find… let alone pay for it. What can be done to improve the quality, supply, and affordability of this care? We’re joined by Taryn Morrissey of American University to talk about those critical first thousand days of life and what governments can be doing to support their youngest residents. Music From the Free Music Archive: "The Grass is Always Greener" by Pure Grease.
Principals sit at the nerve center of our public schools. They lay the foundation for teachers so that students can excel. But when principals leave, that foundation is shaken – sometimes a lot. We’re joined by Abe Teklesslassie from The George Washington University to talk about principal mobility and how school districts can address it. Music From the Free Music Archive: "The Grass is Always Greener" by Pure Grease.
Traffic. We've all been stuck in our fair share. Across the world, policy makers are constantly proposing solutions to improve the efficency of our roadways and transit systems. But what about when a shock occurs? Can our transportation system handle the emergency? We talk with Igor Linkov and Maksim Kitsak of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and our own Chief Resilience Officer for the District of Columbia, Kevin Bush. Music From the Free Music Archive: "The Grass is Always Greener" by Pure Grease.
What does a City Administrator do? And more specifically, what does DC's City Administrator do? In this first-ever, live recoding of The Podcast @ DC, Lab Director David Yokum and City Administrator Rashad Young sit down for a conversation. Music From the Free Music Archive: "The Grass is Always Greener" by Pure Grease.
Across the United States, police officers are being given a new arsenal of big data tools and with this wealth of information, a promise of smarter and more fair law enforcement. But, it raises some pretty big questions about privacy, security, and equity. We talk with Andrew Ferguson, author of the new book, The Rise of Big Data Policing: Surveillance, Race, and the Future of Law Enforcement. Music From the Free Music Archive: "The Grass is Always Greener" by Pure Grease.
Where does our garbage go? Why do people litter? What do plastic bags have to do with the Anacostia? This Earth Day, we're pushing beyond the recycling conversation with the Mayor's new Office of the Clean City. Music From the Free Music Archive: "The Grass is Always Greener" by Pure Grease.
With growing tension between civilians and police, how should we prepare officers to serve their communities? We talk with Georgetown University and the Metropolitian Police Department about how they're starting a dialogue with officers. Music From the Free Music Archive: "The Grass is Always Greener" by Pure Grease.
Nationally, black males are 15% less likely to graduate high school then their white counterparts. That’s a loss of a generation. We talk with Principal Williams of Ron Brown High School and Dr. Warren of Michigan State University about restorative approaches to closing this gap in DC and beyond. Music From the Free Music Archive: "The Grass is Always Greener" by Pure Grease.
The foundation of criminal justice is legislation - the criminal code. And the District’s is more than a 100 years old. We talk with Criminal Code Reform Commission Executive Director, Richard Schmechel, about how he and his team are modernizing DC's code for the 21st century. Music From the Free Music Archive: "The Grass is Always Greener" by Pure Grease and "Pine Apple Rag" by Scott Joplin
By most measures civic engagement is declining in America. One explanation for this, is that increased economic inequality has eroded our ‘trust in others.’ Lab Director, David Yokum, speaks with Benoy Jacob, Associate Professor in the School of Public Policy and Leadership at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, to explore the relationship between trust and civic engagement and what it means for the governance of the country.
For long-time residents of Washington, DC’s Shaw/U Street, the neighborhood has become almost unrecognizable in recent years. Where the city’s most infamous open-air drug market once stood, a farmers’ market now sells grass-fed beef and homemade duck egg ravioli. American University Associate Professor, Derek Hyra discusses his new book - Race, Class, and Politics in the Cappuccino City - an in-depth ethnography of this gilded ghetto.
Elementary school students in the U.S. spend less than 25 percent of their waking hours in school over the course of a year. Coupled with the large influence of outside-of-school factors in shaping children's educational trajectories, researchers and policymakers alike are exploring and testing innovative interventions that leverage time, settings, and connections beyond the traditional school day to improve educational outcomes. Dr. Gibbs and The Lab's Sam Quinney discuss findings from the latest research on engaging and informing parents, extending the school day, and coordinating across different social-service systems, and discuss new ideas on the forefront of expanding our education policy tools with a particular focus on early childhood. About our guest: Chloe Gibbs is an assistant professor of economics at the University of Notre Dame where she is also a faculty affiliate of the Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities and the Institute for Educational Initiatives. Professor Gibbs is interested in measuring the effects, both intended and unintended, of policies and programs targeted at disadvantaged children and families. Her recent research includes analyzing the impact of full-day kindergarten participation on cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes, exploring the “fade out” of early childhood intervention effects, and investigating the intergenerational transmission of Head Start effects. Her research has been cited by Education Week, TIME, The Washington Post, and the President’s Council of Economic Advisors, and her work is currently supported by funding from the National Academy of Education, Spencer Foundation, Russell Sage Foundation, and the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. She completed her Ph.D. at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy.
Despite our intentions, why do we so often fail to act in our own best interest? Why do we promise to skip the chocolate cake, only to find ourselves drooling our way into temptation when the dessert tray rolls around? Why do we overvalue things that we’ve worked to put together? What are the forces that influence our behavior? Director Yokum and our guest, Dan Ariely, discuss some of the challenges and underlying benefits of irrationalities in our day-to-day life. About our guest: Dan Ariely, James B. Duke Professor of Psychology & Behavioral Economics at Duke University, is dedicated to answering these questions and others in order to help people live more sensible – if not rational – lives. He is a founding member of the Center for Advanced Hindsight, co-creator of the film documentary (Dis)Honesty: The Truth About Lies, and a three-time New York Times bestselling author. His books include Predictably Irrational, The Upside of Irrationality, The Honest Truth About Dishonesty, Irrationally Yours, and Payoff. In 2013 Bloomberg recognized Dan as one of Top 50 Most Influential thinkers. He also has a bi-weekly advice column in the Wall Street Journal called “Ask Ariely.” Dan can be found at www.danariely.com.
About our guest: Donald P. Green is J. W. Burgess Professor of Political Science at Columbia University. Professor Green is the author of four books and more than one hundred scholarly articles spanning a wide array of topics: voting behavior, partisanship, campaign finance, hate crime, and research methods. Much of his current work uses field experimentation to study the ways in which political campaigns mobilize and persuade voters. With Alan Gerber, he conducted the first large-scale randomized field experiment on the effects of voter mobilization tactics on voter turnout and the development of long-term voting habits. With Alan Gerber, he co-authored a textbook on this research method titled Field Experiments: Design, Analysis, and Interpretation (W.W. Norton, 2012). Prior to joining the faculty at Columbia University, Professor Green taught at Yale University (1989-2011), where he was A. Whitney Griswold Professor of Political Science and served five terms as Director of Yale’s Institution for Social and Policy Studies. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003 and has received numerous awards, among them the Heinz I. Eulau Award for best article published in the American Political Science Review. He co-founded the Experimental Research section of the American Political Science Association and served as its first president.
How does pro- and anti-social behavior spread among individuals and groups? What is the role of social coherence among peers in affecting it? Is the combination of punishment and norms always helpful in improving compliance and what are the potential downsides? Dr. Dimant and Director Yokum discuss these questions. About our guest: Eugen Dimant is a postdoctoral researcher in the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Program and the Behavioral Ethics Lab at the University of Pennsylvania as well as an external fellow of the Centre for Decision Research & Experimental Economics (CeDEx) at the University of Nottingham. Prior to this, Eugen was a Lab Fellow at Harvard University's Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics (under Lawrence Lessig), as well as a visiting researcher at George Mason University's, Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science(Invitation: Dan Houser) and the Center and Laboratory for Behavioral Operations and Economics (LBOE) at the University of Texas at Dallas.
Crime and violence have enormous social costs. These costs are disproportionately borne by economically disadvantaged groups. Finding promising ways to reduce crime at reasonable cost is therefore an important policy goal. While great progress has been made over the past several decades in medicine and public health to find ways to reduce the incidence of most leading causes of death, the nation's homicide rate is about the same as it was in 1950. Dr. Guryan and Director Yokum discuss some strategies that show promising results include programs based on cognitive behavioral therapy that help youths to stop and think for a moment before acting. About our guest: Economist Jonathan Guryan is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He also serves as a co-director of the Urban Education Lab, an editor of the Journal of Labor Economics, and a research consultant for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. His research has received support from the Smith Richardson Foundation, W. T. Grant Foundation, National Science Foundation, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and Institute for Education Sciences in the U.S. Department of Education. In 2009, he received the John T. Dunlop Outstanding Scholar Award from the Labor and Employment Relations Association. Before joining Northwestern, he was on the faculty of the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.
How do we encourage state and local governments and partners to develop and use a portfolio of evidence? What might that portfolio contain? What are recurring challenges and potential remedies to address the challenges. Dr. Newcomer will address these questions and discuss the current environment for evidence-informed-government. Kathryn Newcomer is the Director of the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration at the George Washington University where she teaches graduate level courses on public and nonprofit program evaluation, and research design. She is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, and currently serves on the Comptroller General’s Educators’ Advisory Panel. She served as an elected member of the Board of Directors of the American Evaluation Association (AEA) (2012-2015), and began service as AEA president on January 1, 2017. She routinely conducts research and training for federal and local government agencies and nonprofit organizations on performance measurement and program evaluation, and has designed and conducted evaluations for many U.S. federal agencies and dozens of nonprofit organizations. Dr. Newcomer has published five books, including The Handbook of Practical Program Evaluation (4th edition 2015) and Transformational Leadership: Leading Change in Public and Nonprofit Agencies (June 2008), and edited a volume of New Directions for Public Program Evaluation, Using Performance Measurement to Improve Public and Nonprofit Programs (1997). She has also published over 60 articles in journals including the Public Administration Review and the American Journal of Evaluation. She served as President of the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA) for 2006-2007. She has received two Fulbright awards, one for Taiwan (1993) and one for Egypt (2001-04). She has lectured on performance measurement and program evaluation in Ukraine, China, Australia, Brazil, Italy, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Poland, Costa Rica, Egypt, Taiwan, Colombia, Honduras, Canada, Nicaragua, and the UK. The Lunch @ DC hosts leaders in their field to foster thinking and discussion with D.C. government leaders and the community on a wide range of topics related to evidence and experimentation in government. It’s a time to listen, discuss, and socialize!
The U.S. Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking developed a strategy for increasing the availability and use of data in order to build evidence about government programs, while protecting privacy and confidentiality. During the course of the bipartisan Commission’s work, members studied how data, research, and evaluation are currently used to build evidence, and how to strengthen the Federal government’s evidence-building capacity. Commissioners applied a diverse range of professional and research expertise to specifically consider strategies for enhancing and better integrating existing data infrastructure in the U.S. to support policy research and evaluation, and opportunities to improve practices for monitoring and assessing outcomes of government programs. This discussion will highlight the findings and final recommendations the Commission presented to the President and the Congress in September 2017. Nick Hart is the director of BPC’s Evidence-Based Policymaking Initiative. Prior to joining BPC, he worked in the federal government for nearly a decade, most recently as the policy and research director for the U.S. Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking. In that capacity, he oversaw the commission’s policy and research support team and led the drafting process for “The Promise of Evidence-Based Policymaking,” the commission’s final report and recommendations presented to the Congress and the president in September 2017. Hart has worked on a wide range of issues including social security, disability, anti-poverty, environmental, energy, economic development, and criminal justice policies. He worked at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as a senior analyst and special assistant, where he contributed to writing executive branch budget proposals and encouraged increased capacity for evidence-based practices across government. He also served as OMB’s representative on the White House steering committee for President Barack Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper Task Force. Hart has spoken widely about the history of evidence building efforts in the United States, and the need for organizational capacity to generate and use evidence to inform policymaking. He is an expert in evaluation, statistical, and evidence-based policy. He is currently the president of Washington Evaluators, a DC-based professional organization for program evaluators. He also serves on the Board of the Eastern Evaluation Research Society and on the American Evaluation Association’s Evaluation Policy Task Force. Hart earned a doctorate from The George Washington University’s Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration, specializing in program evaluation. He also holds a Master of Science degree in Environmental Science and Master of Public Affairs degree from Indiana University, and a Bachelor of Science degree from Truman State University. The Lunch @ DC hosts leaders in their field to foster thinking and discussion with D.C. government leaders and the community on a wide range of topics related to evidence and experimentation in government. It’s a time to listen, discuss, and socialize!
Each year over 1400 women experiencing homelessness and hardship in DC will use the housing and support programs of N Street Village. Lab Director, David Yokum, and N Street Village Executive Director, Schroeder Stribling, address the measurement of N Street Village's service delivery impact and the definition of success, the particular role of health and mental health issues, and the operation of vital public-private partnerships. About our guest: Ms. Schroeder Stribling has been at N Street Village since 2003. She initially came as the Director of Programs, after which she became the Deputy Executive Director and the Executive Director in 2010. In 2006, Schroeder was first appointed to the DC Interagency Council on Homelessness (ICH). She presently serves as the Chair of the Board of the Center for Nonprofit Advancement, and is on the Boards of the National Capital Breast Care Center and MedArt Center for Integrative Medicine at GW. Schroeder received a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from Wellesley College, a Masters in Social Work from Smith School for Social Work, and a certificate in Nonprofit Management from Georgetown University.
In the past few years a new way of changing people's behavior has been discovered: Helping them to revise the stories they tell about themselves and their social environment. Dr. Wilson describes this "story-editing" technique and give several examples of how it has been used to address a variety of personal and societal problems, such as improving educational outcomes, reducing child abuse, lowering the rate of teenage pregnancies, improving inter-group relations, and increasing environmentally-friendly behaviors. Timothy D. Wilson is Sherrell J. Aston Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia. He has published over 100 articles in scholarly journals and edited books, primarily on the topics of self-knowledge, unconscious processing, and the applications of social psychology to addressing social problems. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the Russell Sage Foundation. Wilson was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009. In 2002 Wilson published Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious (Harvard University Press). The New York Times Magazine listed the book as containing one of the best 100 ideas of 2002. In 2011 he published, Redirect: The Surprising New Science of Psychological Change (Little, Brown). The author Malcolm Gladwell said, “There are few academics who write with as much grace and wisdom as Timothy Wilson. I thought his last book Strangers to Ourselves was a masterpiece. Redirect is more than its equal."
Lab Director David Yokum and Executive Director of the Center for Open Science, Brian Nosek, discuss how the core principles of research are not part of daily practice, and they offer some ideas of how we might make them. ****************************** About our guest: Brian Nosek is co-Founder and Executive Director of the Center for Open Science that operates the Open Science Framework. COS is enabling open and reproducible research practices worldwide. Brian is also a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Virginia. He received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 2002. He co-founded Project Implicit, a multi-university collaboration for research and education investigating implicit cognition--thoughts and feelings that occur outside of awareness or control. Brian investigates the gap between values and practices, such as when behavior is influenced by factors other than one's intentions and goals. Research applications of this interest include implicit bias, decision-making, attitudes, ideology, morality, innovation, barriers to change, open science, and reproducibility. In 2015, he was named one of Nature's 10 and to the Chronicle for Higher Education Influence list.
Despite spending billions of dollars fighting poverty in America, we know very little about the effectiveness of programs that target those most in need. There is a growing effort to measure the impact of these programs so that we can do more to help the disadvantaged. Understanding what works at the local level is key to this effort. This talk will discuss ways that local providers can measure the impact of their programs, and how this evidence will change the way we fight poverty in America. Professor James X. Sullivan is the Rev. Thomas J. McDonagh, C.S.C. Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Notre Dame. He has been a visiting scholar at the National Poverty Center at University of Michigan and a visiting professor at the University of Chicago. His research examines the effectiveness of anti-poverty programs at the national, state, and local level. He also studies the consumption, saving, and borrowing behavior of poor households, as well as poverty and inequality measurement. He has published numerous journal articles and book chapters, and his work has been covered by major media outlets including CNN, the Washington Post, Forbes, Fox News, Barron’s, Bloomberg News, Slate, the Atlantic Monthly, the Wall St. Journal, the Chicago Tribune, National Public Radio, and others. Sullivan currently serves as Director of the Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO), a research center he co-founded in 2012 that works with service providers and policymakers to identify evidence-based solutions to poverty in America. LEO evaluates program effectiveness using randomized controlled trial experiments and quasi-experimental methods. In 2015 he testified at a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee hearing on evidence-based policy. Sullivan received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Notre Dame and his Ph.D. in economics from Northwestern University.
Lab Director, David Yokum, and best-selling author Amanda Ripley discuss how intuition is a busted compass when it comes to education. We just can't trust our gut when it comes to judging a school, a policy reform or a teacher. Why is our intuition so useless in this arena? And what can we do about it? About our guest: Amanda Ripley is a writer and a senior fellow at the Emerson Collective. She is the author, most recently, of The Smartest Kids in the World--and How They Got That Way, a New York Times bestseller. Her first book, The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes--and Why, was published in 15 countries and turned into a PBS documentary. In her books and magazine writing, Amanda explores the gap between public policy and human behavior. For Time and The Atlantic, she has written cover stories on the primacy of sports in American high schools, the college of the future and the science of motivating children. She has visited schools on four continents and interviewed hundreds of kids, teachers and parents. Amanda's work has also appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Politico, the Wall Street Journal and the Times of London. To discuss her writing, Amanda has appeared on ABC, NBC, CNN, FOX News and NPR.
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