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Not sure how many see this except for the SEPA community. I find it
interesting and innovative that the government maybe adopting the idea of
gathering evidence for tier programs. Though a critique of this is it
drives policy to easily measured outcomes and ignores evidence of those
outcomes that are or difficult to measure.

Martin

On Thu, Aug 8, 2013 at 11:18 AM, Beck, Tony L. (NIH/OD) [E] <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>  Dear SEPA Colleagues****
>
> ** **
>
> On July 26 the OMB released a memo about the government’s evidence and
> innovation agenda<http://fcw.com/blogs/lectern/2013/08/~/link.aspx?_id=8AC1FF8D8369436CA5004B3CAC9E18D1&_z=z>
> .****
>
> ** **
>
> M-13-17, *Next Steps in the Evidence and Innovation Agenda*<http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=SUBJECT%3A%20Next%20Steps%20in%20the%20Evidence%20and%20Innovation%20Agenda&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CCoQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.whitehouse.gov%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fomb%2Fmemoranda%2F2013%2Fm-13-17.pdf&ei=yrUDUtCMFNev4AOY6YHQBQ&usg=AFQjCNHXZwj_mIRmCzla3RydkC4pJPKMsQ>
> ****
>
> www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/memoranda/.../m-13-17.pdf ****
>
> Jul 26, 2013 - *SUBJECT*: *Next Steps in the Evidence and Innovation
> Agenda*. Executive Summary. The President recently asked his Cabinet to
> carry out an *...*****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> This blog post puts the policy in perspective ****
>
> http://fcw.com/blogs/lectern/2013/08/evidence-memo.aspx****
>
> ** **
>
> *The**Lectern*****
>
> By Steve Kelman****
>
> *Blog archive* <http://fcw.com/Blogs/Lectern/List/Blog-List.aspx> ****
>
> OMB's evidence memo deserves praise****
>
> *Regardless of whether the "evidence agenda" in the White House is
> well-known, this memo is good news, in two respects. First, evidence is a
> good thing to help us make decisions. This statement is not necessarily as
> uncontroversial as it might sound. In political debates, Republicans have
> often been averse to evidence about phenomena in the natural world (climate
> change or evolution), while Democrats have often been averse to evidence
> about government programs, out of a worry that gathering evidence might
> show a lack of impact. *
>
> *There is a second piece of good news in the memo as well. Traditionally,
> those promoting the use of evidence in government have often insisted
> somewhat dogmatically on what are often very expensive, long-duration,
> hard-to-execute randomized controlled trials to test the impact of
> government programs. (In such a trial, program results for people who are
> randomly assigned to receive a certain government intervention are compared
> with those who do not. In another form, people who planned to participate
> but didn't are compared with those who planned to participate and did.) *
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>



-- 
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Martin Weiss, PhD
Senior Scientist
New York Hall of Science
mweiss at nyscience.org
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desk 718 595 9516

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