Results for America Statement on Bipartisan Every Child Achieves Act

RFA CEO AND CO-FOUNDER MICHELE JOLIN PRAISES BIPARTISANSHIP AND PROVISIONS THAT MAKE FEDERAL EDUCATION PROGRAMS MORE EVIDENCE-BASED

Today, following the U.S. Senate’s passage of S. 1177, the Every Child Achieves Act, a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), Results for America CEO and Co-Founder Michele Jolin issued the following statement praising lawmakers for taking bipartisan action to make federal education programs more evidence-based. The Senate passed S. 1177 by a bipartisan vote of 81-17.

“The Every Child Achieves Act includes several important provisions that would help build evidence about what works in education so policymakers can make better decisions and improve outcomes for our nation’s students,” said Michele Jolin, CEO and Co-Founder of Results for America. “These provisions buildon the growing bipartisan momentum for a Moneyball approach to governing and will help states and local school districts use data to get better results. We thank the Senators from both sides of the aisle who are helping to strengthen the impact of federal investment in education through better use of data, evidence and evaluation.”

Specifically, the legislation would take several steps to improve student outcomes through the use of data, evidence and evaluation including:

• Allowing the U.S. Department of Education to invest up to 0.5 percent of ESEA program funds (except ESEA Title I funds and other programs that already have evaluation set-asides) in program evaluations;
• Authorizing “Grants for Education Innovation and Research” to develop, implement, replicate, or scale up testing of evidence-based innovations to improve student outcomes; and
• Allowing states and local school districts to support Pay for Success initiatives with state and local drop-out prevention funds (Title I, Part D); local funds for school safety and health (Title IV, Part A); and state funds for coordinating and enhancing early childhood education (i.e., Early Learning Alignment and Improvement Grants);

Defining “evidence-based” within ESEA programs and calling on states and school districts to use their formula and competitive grant funds for “evidence-based” interventions.