November 3, 2017Article

Education Week: House Oversight Committee Moves Bill to Promote Evidence-Based Policymaking

by Sara D. Sparks

Federal/ Economic/ 2017/

The House committee on government oversight voted Thursday to move forward with a bill to promote better use of federal data, research, and evaluations in making policy, following on recommendations from the bipartisan Commission for Evidence-Based Policymaking, a Congressional panel tasked with identifying ways to improve federal data collection and use.

The last attempt to push a bipartisan bill on research and data in education policy—the Education Sciences Reform Act—stalled out over and over in the last several years, but the broader “Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2017” has some heavy hitters behind it that make it likelier to move. The House version was introduced by Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and co-sponsored by House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., and Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas. Its sister bill in the upper chamber was introduced by Sen. Patty Murray, D.-Wash. and co-sponsored by Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii.