    [House Hearing, 113 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                      EVALUATING EFFORTS TO HELP FAMILIES
                   SUPPORT THEIR CHILDREN AND ESCAPE POVERTY

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   before the

                        SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES

                                     of the

                          COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS
                         U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                        ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                                 JULY 17, 2013

                                   __________

                              Serial No. 113-HR06

                                   __________

             Printed for the use of the Committee on Ways and Means

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

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                          COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS

                         DAVE CAMP, Michigan, Chairman

    SAM JOHNSON, Texas                   SANDER M. LEVIN, Michigan
    KEVIN BRADY, Texas                   CHARLES B. RANGEL, New York
    PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin                 JIM McDERMOTT, Washington
    DEVIN NUNES, California              JOHN LEWIS, Georgia
    PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio              RICHARD E. NEAL, Massachusetts
    DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington        XAVIER BECERRA, California
    CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, Jr., Louisiana  LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas
    PETER J. ROSKAM, Illinois            MIKE THOMPSON, California
    JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania            JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut
    TOM PRICE, Georgia                   EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon
    VERN BUCHANAN, Florida               RON KIND, Wisconsin
    ADRIAN SMITH, Nebraska               BILL PASCRELL, Jr., New Jersey
    AARON SCHOCK, Illinois               JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
    LYNN JENKINS, Kansas                 ALLYSON SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania
    ERIK PAULSEN, Minnesota              DANNY DAVIS, Illinois
    KENNY MARCHANT, Texas                LINDA SANCHEZ, California
    DIANE BLACK, Tennessee
    TOM REED, New York
    TODD YOUNG, Indiana
    MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania
    TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas
    JIM RENACCI, Ohio

            Jennifer M. Safavian, Staff Director and General Counsel

                      Janice Mays, Minority Chief Counsel

                                     ______

                        SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES

                    DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington, Chairman

    TODD YOUNG, Indiana                  LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas
    MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania             JOHN LEWIS, Georgia
    TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas                JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
    JIM RENACCI, Ohio                    DANNY DAVIS, Illinois
    TOM REED, New York
    CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, Jr., Louisiana

                                C O N T E N T S

                                   __________

                                                                       Page

    Advisory of July 17, 2013 announcing the hearing.................     2

                                   WITNESSES

    Jon Baron, President, Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy,
      Testimony......................................................     6
    Kristen Cox, Executive Director, Utah Governor's Office of
      Management and Budget, Testimony...............................    17
    Steve Aos, Director, Washington State Institute for Public
      Policy, Testimony..............................................    25
    David B. Muhlhausen, Ph.D., Research Fellow, Empirical Policy
      Analysis, The Heritage Foundation, Testimony...................    33
    Tara Smith, Research Associate, Ray Marshall Center, Lyndon B.
      Johnson School of Public Affairs, The University of Texas,
      Testimony......................................................    44

                           SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

    Family Equality Council..........................................    71
    American Evaluation Association..................................    77
    Urban Institute..................................................    87
    Zero to Three....................................................    94
    Capital IDEA Board of Directors..................................   101
    PEW Charitable Trusts............................................   103
    Chautauqua Opportunities.........................................   106

     EVALUATING EFFORTS TO HELP FAMILIES SUPPORT THEIR CHILDREN AND ESCAPE
                                    POVERTY

                                  ----------

                            WEDNESDAY, JULY 17, 2013

                 U.S. House of Representatives,
                           Committee on Ways and Means,
                               Subcommittee on Human Resources,
                                                        Washington, DC.

        The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 4:06 p.m., in
    room 1100, Longworth House Office Building, the Honorable Dave
    Reichert [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
        [The advisory of the hearing follows:]

    HEARING ADVISORY

       Chairman Reichert Announces Hearing on Evaluating Efforts to Help
               Families Support their Children and Escape Poverty

    1100 Longworth House Office Building at 4:00 PM
    Washington, July 10, 2013

        Congressman Dave Reichert (R-WA), Chairman of the Subcommittee on
    Human Resources of the Committee on Ways and Means, today announced
    that the Subcommittee will hold a hearing titled, ``What Really Works:
    Evaluating Current Efforts to Help Families Support their Children and
    Escape Poverty.'' The hearing will review evidence about the
    effectiveness of programs designed to assist low-income families and
    individuals, how Congress can ensure these programs are evaluated
    effectively, and how funding can best be directed toward programs and
    services that have the greatest impact on reducing poverty. The hearing
    will take place at 4:00 pm on Wednesday, July 17, 2013, in Room 1100 of
    the Longworth House Office Building. This hearing is the second in a
    three-part series of hearings on welfare reform issues.

        In view of the limited time available to hear from witnesses, oral
    testimony at this hearing will be from invited witnesses only.
    Witnesses will include experts on the evaluation of social programs, as
    well as experts who use high-quality evaluations to inform public
    policy decisions. However, any individual or organization not scheduled
    for an oral appearance may submit a written statement for consideration
    by the Committee and for inclusion in the printed record of the
    hearing.

    BACKGROUND:

        The Federal Government spends hundreds of billions each year on
    more than 80 programs for families and individuals with low income.
    While each of these programs is intended to alleviate poverty and
    improve the lives of those who receive these benefits, few programs
    have been rigorously evaluated to determine if they actually achieve
    their goals. According to social policy experts writing about the
    evaluation of Federal social programs in 2010, ``[s]ince 1990, there
    have been 10 instances in which an entire Federal social program has
    been evaluated using the scientific `gold standard' method'' to
    determine whether the program really works, and ``nine of these
    evaluations found weak or no positive effects.''

        Research has shown that dozens of specific interventions have
    demonstrated positive results in addressing various social problems,
    including by reducing child maltreatment, improving educational
    achievement, and increasing employment and earnings. However, in some
    cases, high-quality evaluations have revealed that some programs
    previously believed to be effective actually had no impact. In other
    cases, social programs expected to improve the lives of low-income
    adults or children actually caused harm--meaning those who did not
    receive the service or benefit avoided the detrimental effects caused
    by the program because they did not participate. In addition, many
    Federal social programs have never been rigorously evaluated to
    determine whether they effectively address the problem they were
    created to solve, and evidence of effectiveness is not routinely used
    by Congress to address program deficiencies or redirect funding to more
    effective programs and policies.

        In announcing the hearing, Chairman Reichert stated, ``Americans
    have always been willing to help those in need. But when the American
    people are asked to fund programs to help those most in need, they
    should be assured that their tax dollars are really making a positive
    difference. Unfortunately, few of our Nation's social programs have
    been rigorously evaluated, and even fewer have shown that they are
    effective in addressing the problems they set out to solve. It is
    critical that we learn more about what works to help low-income
    families, that we ensure these programs are evaluated effectively, and
    that we focus taxpayer resources on those efforts that truly help
    families and children in need.''

    FOCUS OF THE HEARING:

        The hearing will review what we know about the effectiveness of
    current programs designed to assist low-income families and
    individuals, how Congress can ensure more social programs are
    rigorously evaluated to determine their impact, and how high-quality
    evidence can best be used to inform the design of social programs at
    the federal level.

    DETAILS FOR SUBMISSION OF WRITTEN COMMENTS:

        Please Note: Any person(s) and/or organization(s) wishing to submit
    for the hearing record must follow the appropriate link on the hearing
    page of the Committee website and complete the informational forms.
    From the Committee homepage, http://waysandmeans.house.gov, select
    ``Hearings.'' Select the hearing for which you would like to submit,
    and click on the link entitled, ``Please click here to submit a
    statement or letter for the record.'' Once you have followed the online
    instructions, submit all requested information. Attach your submission
    as a Word document, in compliance with the formatting requirements
    listed below, by Wednesday, July 31, 2013. Finally, please note that
    due to the change in House mail policy, the U.S. Capitol Police will
    refuse sealed-package deliveries to all House Office Buildings. For
    questions, or if you encounter technical problems, please call (202)
    225-1721 or (202) 225-3625.

    FORMATTING REQUIREMENTS:

        The Committee relies on electronic submissions for printing the
    official hearing record. As always, submissions will be included in the
    record according to the discretion of the Committee. The Committee will
    not alter the content of your submission, but we reserve the right to
    format it according to our guidelines. Any submission provided to the
    Committee by a witness, any supplementary materials submitted for the
    printed record, and any written comments in response to a request for
    written comments must conform to the guidelines listed below. Any
    submission or supplementary item not in compliance with these
    guidelines will not be printed, but will be maintained in the Committee
    files for review and use by the Committee.

        1. All submissions and supplementary materials must be provided in
    Word format and MUST NOT exceed a total of 10 pages, including
    attachments. Witnesses and submitters are advised that the Committee
    relies on electronic submissions for printing the official hearing
    record.

        2. Copies of whole documents submitted as exhibit material will not
    be accepted for printing. Instead, exhibit material should be
    referenced and quoted or paraphrased. All exhibit material not meeting
    these specifications will be maintained in the Committee files for
    review and use by the Committee.

        3. All submissions must include a list of all clients, persons,
    and/or organizations on whose behalf the witness appears. A
    supplemental sheet must accompany each submission listing the name,
    company, address, telephone, and fax numbers of each witness.

        The Committee seeks to make its facilities accessible to persons
    with disabilities. If you are in need of special accommodations, please
    call 202-225-1721 or 202-226-3411 TTD/TTY in advance of the event (four
    business days notice is requested). Questions with regard to special
    accommodation needs in general (including availability of Committee
    materials in alternative formats) may be directed to the Committee as
    noted above.

        Note: All Committee advisories and news releases are available
    online at http://www.waysandmeans.house.gov/.

        Chairman REICHERT. Good afternoon, the Committee will come
    to order. This is the second in our series of three hearings on
    welfare reform. In our first hearing, we learned that programs
    designed to help low-income families often don't do enough to
    help recipients go to work and get ahead. Today we will explore
    what we know about the effectiveness of such programs, how we
    can hold more programs accountable for their performance, and
    how we can ensure they provide real help so recipients can
    support their families and move up the economic ladder. Over
    one-third of American households receive low-income benefits
    today, and Federal spending alone on these programs equals
    $15,000 per individual below the poverty line each year. Yet
    few programs can show that they improve outcomes for those in
    need.
        What we will hear today is that in many cases, these
    programs are either untested or have not been proven to work.
    According to program evaluation experts, ``Since 1990, there
    have been 10 instances in which an entire Federal social
    program has been evaluated using the scientific gold standard
    method of randomly assigning individuals to a program or
    control group. Nine of the evaluations found weak or no
    positive effects.''
        In another example, a review of 13 rigorous studies on
    employment and training programs showed three-quarters of them
    had weak or no positive effects on those that they were
    supposed to be helping. All of this comes at a cost. The
    programs in question continued to spend literally billions of
    dollars every year without delivering the results promised to
    those in need.
        We know many social programs lack meaningful outcomes, but
    some programs go further and can even be harmful. For example,
    Scared Straight--which I am familiar with as a former sheriff--
    organized visits to prisons by juvenile delinquents with the
    goal of deterring them from future offending. However, instead
    of reducing crime, these programs actually increased the odds
    that participants will find themselves in trouble in the
    future. In fact, a comprehensive review of research by
    Washington State Institute for Public Policy estimated that
    every dollar spent on the program actually creates $76 in
    additional cost for taxpayers, crime victims, and the
    participants themselves because the youth who go through these
    programs are more likely to commit crimes in the future.
        This all suggests that more programs, including those in
    our jurisdiction, should be evaluated to ensure the families
    are receiving real help. Ultimately, Congress and the
    administration should fund what works so we can deliver better
    results to those in need. This is an issue that can and should
    be bipartisan as it is all about doing right by recipients and
    taxpayers alike.
        Last week the Obama administration hosted a full-day
    conference on funding what works, highlighting how the private
    sector is willing to work with government to ensure that
    programs are really making a difference. Especially given our
    current fiscal climate, it is important to ensure our resources
    are focused on efforts that have the greatest impact on those
    in need, and I am proud to say that my home State of Washington
    is a leader in this regard, as Steve Aos of the Washington
    State Institute for Public Policy will shortly tell us. We will
    also hear from experts from Utah and Texas, as well as national
    leaders, about what is being done and what more can be done to
    ensure that these programs are held accountable for producing
    real results. I look forward to all of your testimony today.
        Mr. Doggett, would you care to make an opening statement?
        Mr. DOGGETT. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thanks
    to all of our witnesses. I welcome this opportunity to discuss
    the programs and strategies that have proven to be most
    successful in helping our families escape poverty. Federal
    initiatives help raised 40 million Americans above the poverty
    line in 2011 under a comprehensive measure that counts all
    assistance known as the supplemental poverty measure.
        Taken as a whole, public policy is having an immense impact
    on the well-being of many of our least fortunate neighbors.
    This, however, still leaves the question of which specific
    approaches are most effective in achieving our objectives, and
    as we contemplate that question, I believe that the focus of
    this Subcommittee ought to be on the one program, the Temporary
    Assistance for Needy Families, that is within our jurisdiction.
    That ought to be our primary focus, especially since the TANF
    program is set to expire on September the 30th. We have very
    few legislative days prior to that time, with the Congress
    being out most of August and the beginning of September, and I
    would suggest we get about the work on that specific piece of
    legislation.
        I voted for the 1996 welfare reform law myself because I
    believe that helping people find a job is the best strategy to
    reducing poverty. But this premise hinges on two very important
    principles. First, assistance has to be available when jobs are
    scarce, as they have been until very recently; and, second, a
    real effort has to be made to help people find, maintain, and
    advance in employment. Any fair reading of the last decade of
    the TANF program finds it lacking on both counts. The
    percentage of poor single mothers who are working has been
    dropping almost consistently for the past 12 years, after
    having made significant progress in the mid and late nineties.
        Even more troubling, the percentage of poor mothers who are
    neither working nor receiving any assistance from TANF is more
    than twice as high as it was when TANF was established in 1996.
        Some of our colleagues often complain that our Federal
    programs are allowed to drift on autopilot. That seems to me to
    be accurate as it relates to TANF. This program is in real need
    of a significant reevaluation rather than this stop-start for
    brief periods approach that has been taken in recent years.
    Instead of working toward that goal, we spent most of the last
    year in this Subcommittee debating whether the administration
    was giving the States too much flexibility in the TANF program.
        For those who think that work requirements, stricter work
    requirements constitute a panacea on this issue, it is
    noteworthy that a number of States, including those that have
    Republican Governors, have complained that the current TANF
    work participation requirements really don't measure success.
    Rather than continue the same tired old arguments, our
    Committee can actively advance the debate on this issue by
    reviewing evidence on specific strategies that might help TANF
    recipients get and retain jobs. One promising approach is
    boosting both employment and earnings through sectoral training
    programs that target high-demand occupations and provide
    training and job search assistance to low-income individuals.
        Unlike some past training programs, these efforts are
    squarely aimed at preparing folks for job opportunities that
    exist in their communities. I look forward especially to having
    a native from Austin, Tara Smith, with the Ray Marshall Center
    at the University of Texas offer comments about the success
    that is reflected in Capital IDEA in Austin and Project QUEST
    in San Antonio that have shown real promise in helping people
    find not only jobs, but lasting careers. The Alamo Academies in
    San Antonio have taken this same successful sectoral employment
    approach and have partnered with high schools, community
    colleges, aerospace companies at Port San Antonio to provide
    specialized advanced manufacturing training.
        I have been out to meet with some of those students. They
    are impressive. They are high school students who complete the
    program and receive valuable credentials along with their high
    school diploma when graduating, and some are averaging a
    starting pay of over $30,000 out of school each year.
        Mr. Chairman, I look forward to a productive discussion
    about how these and other proven strategies might help us to
    improve outcomes for TANF recipients and other struggling
    Americans. Let's find a path forward toward our common goal of
    increasing employment and reducing poverty. Thank you very
    much.
        Chairman REICHERT. Thank you, Mr. Doggett. Without
    objection, each Member will have the opportunity to submit a
    written statement and have it included in the record at this
    point.
        I want to remind our witnesses, please, to limit their oral
    statements to 5 minutes. However, without objection, all of the
    written testimony will be made a part of the permanent record.
        On our panel this afternoon we will be hearing from Jon
    Baron, president, Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy; Kristen
    Cox, executive director, Utah's Governor's Office of Management
    and Budget; Steve Aos, director of Washington State Institute
    for Public Policy; David Muhlhausen, Ph.D. research fellow,
    Empirical Policy Analysis, The Heritage Foundation; and Tara
    Smith, research associate, Ray Marshall Center, Lyndon B.
    Johnson School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas.
        Welcome to all of you. Thank you for taking the time to be
    with us today. I will just let you know that you see three
    Members in front of you. Others are on the floor speaking on a
    bill, which I just came back from. That is why we started a
    little bit late. So we will have some other Members joining us
    here shortly.
        Mr. Baron, please proceed with your testimony.

    STATEMENT OF JON BARON, PRESIDENT, COALITION FOR EVIDENCE-BASED
                                 POLICY

        Mr. BARON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Reichert,
    Ranking Member Doggett, and Congressman Davis, I appreciate the
    opportunity to testify before the Subcommittee on behalf of the
    nonpartisan, nonprofit Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy. My
    testimony will address how evidence-based program reforms can
    greatly increase the effectiveness of government social
    spending in improving people's lives.
        It is often assumed that the only way to increase
    government's impact on social problems such as poverty and
    educational failure is to spend more money, an assumption that
    conflicts with the current national interest in reducing the
    deficit. Largely overlooked, however, are clear examples from
    welfare and other areas where rigorous randomized trials, which
    as you mentioned, are widely considered the strongest method of
    evaluating program effectiveness, have identified program
    reforms that produced important improvements in people's lives
    while simultaneously reducing government spending.
        As an illustrative example in the eighties and nineties,
    government and foundations sponsored a large number of
    randomized trials of State and local welfare reforms. Three
    major reforms--two in California, one in Oregon--were found
    especially effective. They focused on moving welfare recipients
    quickly into the workforce through short-term job search,
    assistance, and training, and were found to produce gains in
    participants' employment and earnings of 20 to 50 percent
    sustained over several years.
        Importantly, they also produced net savings to the
    government in reduced welfare and food stamps of between $1700
    and $6,000 per person. These findings helped build the
    political consensus for the strong work requirements in the
    1996 Welfare Reform Act.
        A second example is in foster care where in the late
    nineties, HHS granted Illinois a waiver from Federal law to
    implement subsidized guardianship, which is an alternative to
    foster care in which the State pays a subsidy to the child's
    relative or foster parent to serve as their subsidized
    guardian, as their legal guardian.
        Illinois evaluated subsidized guardianship in a large
    randomized trial which, over a 9-year period, found that the
    program increased children's placement in a permanent home by 8
    percent, reduced their days in foster care by 16 percent, and
    produced net savings to the foster care system of about $2300
    per child. Based on those findings, CBO scored savings of $800
    million for Federal legislation that was enacted in 2008 to
    expand subsidized guardianship nationally. To identify enough
    of these reforms to generate broad-based improvement in
    government effectiveness will require strategic trial and
    error. In other words, rigorously testing many promising
    reforms to identify the few that are effective. The instances
    of effectiveness that I just described are exceptions that have
    emerged from testing a much larger pool.
        More generally, most innovations, typically 80 to 90
    percent, are found to produce weak or no positive effects when
    rigorously evaluated, a pattern that occurs not just in social
    spending, but in other fields where randomized trials are done,
    including medicine and business.
        In my testimony, I offer concrete suggestions for the
    Subcommittee's consideration to greatly accelerate the rate of
    program innovation and rigorous testing in social spending so
    as to grow the number of proven cost saving reforms like those
    I discussed. I suggest, for example, authorizing greater use of
    Federal waivers to stimulate State and local innovation and
    evidence building, which was a tool deployed with great success
    in welfare reform under both Republican and Democratic
    administrations. I also suggest steps this Subcommittee can
    take to facilitate greater use of low cost randomized control
    trials, such as the subsidized guardianship trial that I
    described earlier, which cost just $100,000 to conduct, yet
    identified an innovation that CBO scored as saving $800
    million. These suggestions are designed to catalyze evidence-
    driven improvements in a social spending system that, in many
    cases, has fallen well short of its intended goals.
        The American poverty rate, for example, now at 15 percent,
    has shown little change, whether by official or the
    supplemental measures, the National Academy measures since the
    seventies. In K-12 education, reading and math achievement of
    17-year-olds, who are the end product of our K-12 system, is
    virtually unchanged over the past 40 years according to
    official measures, even though there has been a 90 percent
    increase in public spending per student, adjusted for
    inflation, since that time. Evidence-based policy offers a
    demonstrated path to more effective, less expensive government.
    Thank you.
        Chairman REICHERT. Thank you, Mr. Baron.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Baron follows:]

      [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman REICHERT. Ms. Cox, please.

     STATEMENT OF KRISTEN COX, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, UTAH GOVERNOR'S
                    OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET

        Ms. COX. Thanks for having me here, Chairman and Ranking
    Member Doggett. It is an honor to be here. I am the executive
    director of the Governor's Office of Management and Budget, and
    prior to this position, I was the executive director of the
    Department of Work force Services. We oversaw the
    implementation and administration of over 90 different Federal
    programs, which included everything from TANF and food stamps
    to child care to housing, a plethora of services that impact
    low-income individuals. I come to this discussion with a real
    on-the-ground perspective in how you actually operationalize
    evidence-based practices and penetrate into the day-to-day work
    of our folks.
        Let me go through some of what we do and some things for
    you to think about. First of all, our goal in Utah is to
    improve the operations of all of our systems in Utah State
    government by 25 percent over the next 3-1/2 years, the
    remainder of Governor Herbert's administration. It is a bold
    initiative, but we think there is ample capacity in all of our
    systems to do better, and in social services, it really resides
    on integrating evidence-based practices into the day-to-day
    work of our employees, so they are spending more and more of
    their time doing what works, and less time doing the things
    that don't or are wrapped up in compliance initiatives, which
    is part of the Federal bureaucracy.
        A few things, just observations we have before we get into
    the evidence-based practices. One, there is significant goal
    disalignment against--across services that serve low-income
    individuals, so the ability to assess if a program has been
    successful or not is so dependent on the point and policy
    objective of the program that they are all over the place. For
    example, the Food Stamp Act 1964's intended policy objectives
    was twofold, to promote the agricultural economy, and to give
    nutritional sustenance to low-income individuals. With
    amendments, the ABAP program, employment and training services
    were offered, but really more as an eligibility criteria than a
    true strategy to move people to work. Add housing initiatives,
    TANF, Medicaid, across the board, the policy objectives are
    different, so when we really want to talk about the impact to
    low-income individuals, we need to be clear on what our
    intended purpose is, and we don't have that right now.
        Second piece of concern is the ability of measurement. We
    have too many contradictory and conflicting measures out there
    in the public service arena. As an administrator of 90
    different programs, trying to get clarity on how well I am
    doing is a challenge. We have created a very simple ratio,
    quality throughput divided by operating expense, which will
    baseline and drive all of our performance in State government
    in Utah. It is not so simple in the Federal navigation system
    of measurements, even in common core. In Utah, we were very
    aggressive about understanding how important evidence-based
    practices was. When I was executive director of Work force
    Services, we set up an evidence-based arm of our agency
    specifically to do randomized sampling, propensity scoring,
    everything we needed to know to analyze and assess TANF
    participation, job training, does it work or not, but what we
    found is what the national studies say on a very universal
    level aren't necessarily true for the unique demographics in
    Utah. Even within Utah, we saw variations from region to
    region.
        So while evidence-based practices at the national scale are
    important to help direct Federal policy, the States need the
    ability, flexibility, and resources to create that same ability
    at the local level to really fine-tune and penetrate those
    evidence-based practices into our system.
        The next piece is penetrating evidence-based practices into
    our operations. It is great to have theory, it is great to have
    tons of data, you can Google and you can find hundreds of
    social service evidence-based practice reports, but why aren't
    they penetrating our system? Part of it is our folks are so
    heavily focused on compliance activities that they don't have
    the time to step back and think about what should we be doing.
    It is not an excuse, but it is a reality for people.
    Operationalizing takes the ability to translate global goals
    into the day-to-day work of our employees, it requires that we
    have clear policy objectives for them, it really requires that
    we stop doing the stuff that doesn't work and start doing what
    does. My hope is for every new policy initiative Congress puts
    out, they eliminate another one. There is only 8 hours in a
    day, it is the employee's biggest constraint. If you want them
    to really spend 80 percent, 90 percent of the time that makes
    the biggest difference, then we have got to strip away the 70
    percent of the stuff that is junk.
        A few suggestions or hopes or recommendations. A lot of
    demonstration projects are going on at the national level.
    Fantastic. Push some of those resources to the State level so
    we can customize our own practices that we need to make it
    relevant for us. Align the policy objectives, which is simple.
    Not simple, but critical. Simplify the measures, as you said so
    well, give States more flexibility in the ability to innovate,
    hold us accountable, but give us the ability to be innovative.
    Thank you very much.
        Chairman REICHERT. Thank you, Ms. Cox.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Cox follows:]

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        Chairman REICHERT. Mr. Aos.

     STATEMENT OF STEVE AOS, DIRECTOR, WASHINGTON STATE INSTITUTE
                           FOR PUBLIC POLICY

        Mr. AOS. Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, my name is
    Steve Aos, and I am the director of the Washington State
    Institute for Public Policy. You asked me to come today and
    provide testimony on how the Washington State legislature,
    another legislative body, is using the Institute to try to
    reform public policies in the State of Washington, so I am
    going to give a little bit of an overview of the Institute and
    how the legislature uses it and then talk about some of the
    specific applications of the approach in Washington.
        The Institute was created 30 years ago in 1983. The
    legislature passed a joint resolution in that session and said
    we want to have an institute to help the legislative branch of
    government figure some things out. The key aspect of the
    Institute is that all of the assignments to us, including the
    ones I will talk about today, come to us because the
    legislature passes a study bill, goes through both Houses,
    passes both Houses, and is signed by the Governor. We don't
    respond to an individual Member's request, but a bill has to go
    through and pass for it to have a study undertaken. And in
    recent years what the legislature has been asking us to do, in
    about the last 15 years, is to find out what works and what
    doesn't work to achieve particular public policy outcomes. So
    we will get a direction that will say how can Washington public
    policy affect the crime rate in Washington State, or the rate
    of child abuse and neglect, or how can we get greater high
    school graduation levels in Washington State, and it will say
    to the Institute, tell us what works and what doesn't to
    achieve those outcomes.
        It is a nonpartisan group, an equal number of Republicans
    and Democrats are on our board of directors, and they are
    cochaired by one Republican and one Democrat at all times, so
    it was set up to be a nonpartisan group, and that is how we
    operate.
        What works and what doesn't work has been something that
    the legislature has been finding particularly attractive in
    learning how to do the numbers on the one hand and the
    legislative process has been learning how to use the numbers to
    actually craft budgets and policies in an increasing number of
    important areas. When we do this work, when we get that
    assignment to say what works, we are playing the role of the
    investment adviser, if you will. We make buy and sell decisions
    to our legislature, and we look all around the country and all
    around the world at all of the most rigorous evaluations on a
    given topic. We throw out evaluations that we think aren't
    rigorous enough to warrant any further consideration, and then
    we assess all that in a systematic way, and we do a cost-
    benefit analysis, and we come back to our legislature saying
    this thing looks like it is a winner, this thing is maybe iffy,
    and this thing looks like a loser in terms of benefit cost.
        You mentioned the Scared Straight program in your opening
    remarks. We have got lots of losers. We love to find losers
    because then if we are already funding those kinds of programs
    in Washington, they have become things that we can then cut in
    terms of programs that are ineffective. So that is the role
    that the legislature has had us do consistently over time. The
    hallmark of our work has been to take not only what works but
    actually to do a benefit-cost analysis of each of those of that
    effort.
        Crime policy has been the area where we have moved it the
    furthest, but we are moving ahead in K-12 education and child
    welfare and some of the topics that are directly before this
    Committee right now. We now actually can point to lower crime
    rates in the State of Washington and the reduced level of
    taxpayer spending in the State of Washington as a result of all
    that work and all the previous budgetary decisions that have
    been made from that work.
        The latest approach in Washington, passed unanimously in
    the last two sessions, has been to take the Institute's list of
    what works and what doesn't work and send a message to the
    executive agencies saying align everything that you do and tell
    us what approximates the Institute's list and what isn't on the
    Institute's list, and those reports will then come back to the
    legislature from the executive agencies in about five or six
    different areas of public policy. So this is the legislature's
    attempt to try to take the information we have been doing and
    actually craft budgets around it by giving the executive branch
    a time to respond, saying are you doing things that the
    Institute has found to work or not work.
        Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to give an overview today about
    how the legislature back in your home State has been using this
    information. By the way, it is 68 degrees back in your home
    State today, I just checked. I am happy to get back there in a
    few hours. It is real progress. Session by session, we get
    better and better at doing the work, the legislature gets used
    to asking the question and taking the information back, and it
    is a nonpartisan effort, that is the thing that is perhaps most
    encouraging. Thank you for allowing me to testify.
        Chairman REICHERT. Thank you. I think 68 is the humidity
    level here in DC. if I am not mistaken. At least.
        Thank you for your testimony, Mr. Aos.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Aos follows:]

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        Chairman REICHERT. Thank you, Mr. Muhlhausen, for being
    here, and you are up for 5 minutes.

       STATEMENT OF DAVID B. MUHLHAUSEN, PH.D., RESEARCH FELLOW,
           EMPIRICAL POLICY ANALYSIS, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION

        Mr. MUHLHAUSEN. Thank you. My name is David Muhlhausen, I
    am a research fellow in empirical policy analysis in the Center
    for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foundation. I thank Chairman
    Reichert, Ranking Member Doggett, and the rest of the Committee
    for the opportunity to testify today on the need to evaluate
    Federal social programs. The views I express in this testimony
    are my own and should not be construed to represent any
    official position of The Heritage Foundation. My testimony is
    based on my recently published book, Do Federal Social Programs
    Work?
        My spoken testimony will focus on three points: First, the
    best method for assessing the effectiveness of Federal social
    programs is large-scale, multi-site experimental impact
    evaluations that use random assignment. Unfortunately, these
    scientific rigorous assessments are rarely done. From my count,
    only 20 large-scale multi-site experimental impact evaluations
    assessing the effectiveness of 21 Federal programs have been
    published since 1990.
        The consequence of so few Federal social programs being
    rigorously assessed means that Congress has no credible
    information on the performance of the majority of social
    programs. To solve this problem, Congress should specifically
    mandate the multi-site experimental evaluation of these
    programs. When Congress creates social programs, the funding
    activities are intended to be spread out across the Nation. For
    this reason, Federal social programs should be assessed for
    national effectiveness. While an individual program operating
    at a single site may undergo an experimental evaluation, the
    small scale single site evaluation would not inform Federal
    policymakers of the general effectiveness of the broader
    national program.
        The success of a single program that serves a particular
    jurisdiction or a population does not necessarily mean that the
    same program will achieve similar success in other
    jurisdictions or among different populations, thus small-scale
    evaluations are poor substitutes for large-scale multi-site
    evaluations. A multi-site experimental evaluation that uses the
    performance of a program operating in numerous and diverse
    settings will produce results that are more informative to
    policymakers.
        Second, the Federal Government does not have a good record
    of replicating successful social programs on a national scale.
    Policymakers and advocates often assume that a social program
    that is effective in one setting will automatically produce the
    same result in other settings. This is a faulty assumption. For
    example, for the Center for Employment Training replication,
    the Federal Government attempted to replicate the successful
    outcomes of a youth job training program in San Jose,
    California, in 12 locations throughout the United States. A
    multi-site experimental evaluation found that the Federal
    Government was unable to replicate the successful outcomes in
    these other settings. Just because an innovative program
    appears to have worked in one location does not mean that the
    program can be effectively implemented on a larger scale.
        Third, policymakers should be mindful that Federal social
    programs do occasionally produce harmful impacts on recipients.
    However, social program advocates too frequently ignore these
    findings. Nevertheless, Congress should be aware of these
    harmful impacts. Here are two examples. From the 3-year-old
    cohort of the Head Start Impact Study, kindergarten teachers
    report that the math abilities of children given access to Head
    Start were worse than similar children not given access to Head
    Start.
        Students participating in educational, after-school
    educational activities under the 21st century Learning Centers
    Program, were more likely to have disciplinary and behavioral
    problems such as getting suspended from school. Further, they
    were less likely to achieve at high levels in class and were
    less likely to put effort into English classes. With the
    Federal debt reaching staggering heights, the best method for
    assessing the effectiveness of social programs and making sure
    that money is spent wisely are large-scale multi-site
    experimental evaluations, yet to date, this method has been
    used in only a handful of Federal programs. Congress needs to
    reverse this trend of not rigorously evaluating Federal social
    programs. Thank you.
        Chairman REICHERT. Thank you, Mr. Muhlhausen.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Muhlhausen follows:]

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        Chairman REICHERT. Ms. Smith, you are recognized for 5
    minutes.

       STATEMENT OF TARA SMITH, RESEARCH ASSOCIATE, RAY MARSHALL
        CENTER, LYNDON B. JOHNSON SCHOOL OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, THE
                          UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS

        Ms. SMITH. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairman Reichert,
    Ranking Member Doggett, and Members of the committee. My name
    is Tara Smith, I am with the Ray Marshall Center for the Study
    of Human Resources at the University of Texas at Austin's LBJ
    School of Public Affairs. Thank you for inviting me today.
        This hearing's focus on families coincides with a growing
    body of research on two-generation programs designed to link
    services for children and parents so that families as a whole
    can build the human capital they need to succeed in school and
    the labor market. Today, I would like to share findings and
    lessons learned from evaluations of two such programs.
        Capital IDEA is a sectoral-based training program in
    Austin, Texas, that was built on a model pioneered by Project
    QUEST in San Antonio for employer-driven work force
    development. Capital IDEA provides training primarily in health
    care for low-income and disadvantaged adults. The evaluation
    tracks participants from 2003 forward and includes outcome,
    impact, and ROI analyses. CareerAdvance is a career pathways
    program in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which provides parents of Head
    Start and early Head Start students with training for health
    care occupations. This program launched in 2009, and the
    evaluation includes an implementation study as well as outcome
    and impact studies focused on parents and children.
        The impact evaluations for both programs use quasi-
    experimental research methods based on a carefully matched
    comparison group. There are five key points I would like to
    emphasize about these evaluations. First, rigorous quasi-
    experimental methods have been found to produce impact
    estimates similar to those found in random control trials.
    Quasi-experimental methods also address issues such as the
    localized nature of programs which limits the pool of
    prospective and eligible applicants needed to support a random
    control trial.
        Second, the use of administrative records and propensity
    score matching techniques helps to keep evaluation costs
    reasonable. In both evaluations State UI records provide
    consistent, comprehensive, and inexpensive data on employment
    and earnings. For Capital IDEA, the comparison group is drawn
    from individuals who receive job search assistance at a local
    one-stop career center and who closely resemble participants
    along 18 characteristics, including demographics and prior
    employment and earnings history. For CareerAdvance, the
    comparison group is drawn from other Head Start parents matched
    along multiple characteristics, including a documented interest
    in pursuing further education and training. The rigor of the
    comparison group matching design undergirds our confidence in
    the evaluation findings.
        Third, sectoral and career pathway models have demonstrated
    effectiveness in a number of industries and labor markets by
    connecting low-income and low-skilled adults with the training
    they need to enter higher paying careers. If you have my
    written testimony in front of you, the chart on page 3 shows
    our most recent findings from Capital IDEA. We find that on
    average the earnings of participants continue to grow over time
    while comparison group Members who receive only job search
    assistance or other basic work force services tend to have
    relatively flat earnings.
        My fourth point is that two-generation strategies which
    look to build on sectoral or career pathway programs by linking
    those adult education and work force training services with
    high quality educational opportunities for children show
    promise. Wrap-around and family support services including
    child care, transportation assistance, counseling, and other
    resources ensure that participants in both generations receive
    the help they need to achieve at a high level.
        In CareerAdvance this support can include a monthly
    financial incentive for performance and attendance to help
    offset the costs of participation and provide some financial
    stability for the family.
        Finally, because social programs rarely involve cookie
    cutter approaches, it is important to consider a broad base of
    evidence when evaluating program effectiveness. Implementation
    and process evaluations provide important context for
    understanding how programs operate and identifying which
    services may lead to better outcomes and impacts over time.
    This is particularly true for new and emerging programs and
    program replication efforts.
        In conclusion, strategies that focus on basic skills which
    provide counseling and other support services, which increase
    opportunities to earn and learn so that parents can support
    their families while in training and target skill development
    at high wage, high demand occupations in the local labor market
    all appear to have significant rigorous evaluation support and
    could be promoted in Federal programs.
        By investing in proven approaches and promising strategies,
    such as two-generation initiatives, and supporting a broad
    range of research and evaluation efforts on those investments,
    the Federal Government can play an integral role in building
    the knowledge base needed to expand and improve efforts to move
    families out of poverty. Thank you.
        Chairman REICHERT. Thank you, Ms. Smith.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Smith follows:]

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        Chairman REICHERT. And for your information, panelists, now
    is the question-and-answer phase, so I am sure the Members on
    the Committee would like to ask a few questions. I will start
    with Mr. Baron. In your testimony, you note the important
    groundwork laid for welfare reform when high quality
    experiments were conducted in the eighties and nineties to find
    the best way to help people move from welfare to work. In fact,
    this research helped shape the successful 1996 reforms which
    created TANF.
        Beyond TANF, however, the Subcommittee oversees other
    programs that haven't benefited from the type of
    experimentation and high quality evaluation that led to welfare
    reform. Given where we are now, in your opinion, what should we
    be focused on first? What would be our number one priority, and
    is this just the first thing we need to focus on and are there
    any other priorities that kind of fall off of that? I would be
    interested in hearing that.
        Mr. BARON. Thank you. One of the reasons why there is such
    a large body of strong, in many cases, replicated evidence from
    randomized trials in Welfare-to-Work is because the Federal
    Government had in place for many years, starting at the end of
    the Reagan administration through the first Bush
    administration, and then into the Clinton administration, a
    waiver evaluation policy, meaning the Federal Government said
    to the States, we will allow you to do your own welfare reform
    demonstrations. We, the Feds, will waive provisions of law and
    regulation to allow you to do those reforms if, and here was
    the quid pro quo, you do a rigorous evaluation, usually a
    randomized evaluation, to determine whether it works or not.
    That policy, that waiver evaluation policy resulted in more
    than 20 large-scale randomized control trials that contributed
    to the important body of knowledge, the evidence that helped
    inform the work-focused 1999 Welfare Reform Act.
        That kind of waiver-evaluation approach could be used in
    many other programs. The same general concept, it would have to
    be adapted, it could be used in unemployment insurance, in
    foster care, in SSI, and disability insurance, and other areas
    to allow State and local innovation, open the door fairly wide,
    coupled with a requirement for rigorous evaluation to determine
    which of those innovations really work and which do not.
        That is something that--and also importantly, as in
    welfare, with a requirement for cost neutrality, so that you
    are testing innovations that are designed to improve people's
    lives while not adding to the deficit or that are cost saving
    while also improving people's lives or not causing any harm.
        Chairman REICHERT. Appreciate that. Thank you.
        Ms. Cox, you describe how Utah has a specific division in
    the Department of Work force Services focused on building
    evidence about the effectiveness of programs. What did you find
    most difficult about measuring effectiveness? I am going to
    guess one of the things was the disalignment piece that you
    spoke about.
        Ms. COX. Uh-huh.
        Chairman REICHERT. How did you use this information to make
    decisions about which programs were managed and funded?
        Ms. COX. Well, you know, I have the same question I think
    you raised earlier, do job training programs work or not? I had
    heard a lot of the literature, just like you had, but we wanted
    to test it in Utah. So we did a really rigorous assessment
    longitudinal, we did the whole randomization, and looked at--
    this is just one of the studies, for example, in job training,
    did it make a difference or not. The bigger question was
    sometimes, and what the type of job services that were
    delivered and when.
        So we found, for example, unpaid internships really didn't
    work, paid internships didn't work in all parts of the State
    except for one place, so it was replicating why that worked. We
    found that occupational training tied to an employer did work.
        So there are things we found that did and didn't work, but
    the interesting thing we found, for example, is that when they
    completed the training was a big variable. We had too many
    people, 50 percent of our folks coming into the job training
    program, starting it, stopping halfway through or a third of
    the way through. The taxpayers lost the up front cost, and the
    person doesn't get the benefit, so it really forced us to look
    at new strategies on completion. Same thing with TANF
    participation. What things do people tend to participate in
    without us having to chase paperwork. They tended to be
    employment related and things that related to their lives and
    then which of those ended up helping them become self-
    sufficient and moving to jobs. We were able to more narrowly
    tailor what kind of participation activities we focus on. The
    challenges are, there is not a budget, there is not an
    appropriation in these Federal programs. Like I said, 80
    percent of our budget at Work force Services was Federal. It
    wasn't a set-aside amount of money saying, here, do evidence-
    based practices, it is something we had to kind of internally
    create and cobble together some funds for that to happen, and
    there is not an appropriation directly for that. That funding
    piece is a challenge because while we talk at this level, and
    you guys have to make those decisions because you have such a
    huge impact on the Nation, once you get into the operational
    level, people kind of may not take it as seriously, and there
    is not a requirement or mandate with some cases like this for
    that to really happen. As we go now, a look at all the other
    services in State government will be doing the same thing.
        Chairman REICHERT. Thank you for that answer. My time has
    expired, but I am going to ask Mr. Aos a quick question because
    I know he has to leave and catch an airplane here in a few
    minutes. Could what you do in Washington State be replicated at
    the Federal level, and what are some of the key challenges we
    might have to overcome here in the Capital to do so?
        Mr. AOS. Mr. Chairman, I have worked in the State capital
    of Washington for 36 years, so I know that place pretty well. I
    don't know this place very well, so I am not going to be the
    one to give you advice on can what be done in Washington State
    be transferred to Washington, DC. I think the principle is that
    it works so well in Washington State is that the request for
    this information is bipartisan. We rarely get a demand for a
    study that only comes from one party or the other. It is almost
    unanimous votes, that they want to find out what reduces crime
    or what gets more high school graduates.
        The other thing that we have done then is that the rigor
    with which we as the people that draw the information go
    through to assess the evidence fairly and to use return on
    investment analysis to rank options because you can find things
    that work that cost an awful lot more money than the benefits
    they derive, so it is that aspect.
        And, then, finally, I would just add that we use that
    evidence to cut programs in addition to add programs that work,
    and I think that that message that the legislature is using
    evidence to change budgeting up and down has resonated around
    and causes actions and responsiveness to the notion so that
    evidence-based doesn't mean just a code word for spend more
    money.
        Chairman REICHERT. Thank you for your answer. Mr. Doggett,
    you are recognized.
        Mr. DOGGETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Aos, I notice in
    your evaluation it looks like as far as child welfare is
    concerned that the Nurse Family Partnership, the visiting nurse
    program for low-income families, is way out on top as being the
    most cost-effective program.
        Mr. AOS. Yes, it is right near the top of our list. I think
    it is also a buy recommendation from Jon Baron's group as well.
        Mr. DOGGETT. Exactly. Thank you. I wanted to ask him also,
    what is it about this program that seems to have the most
    benefit?
        Mr. BARON. The program is very well designed in the
    following sense: It is for women who are poor, pregnant with
    their first child, and most of them are single. They are
    visited by a nurse, many of them--you know, they are pregnant
    with their first child, they are concerned about their health,
    so they are particularly receptive to advice from a nurse. The
    nurse teaches them basic parenting, nutrition, not to smoke or
    drink during pregnancy. If they are interested in practicing
    birth control, how to do it effectively. One of the reasons
    this program is on the top of Steve's list and the top of our
    top tier panel's list is that it has been evaluated in three
    different randomized control trials, in different cities,
    different ethnic groups, actually different decades.
        In all three cases, it was found to produce large
    improvements in life outcomes including, for example, a 40 to
    50 percent reduction in incidents of child abuse and neglect
    and hospitalization.
        Mr. DOGGETT. You are aware that the Federal funding for
    that program expires in little more than a year, the Federal
    Home Visiting Program. Do you favor its extension?
        Mr. BARON. Definitely. In many Federal social programs,
    evidence plays little role in how funds get allocated, whether
    they are formula programs or even most competitive grant
    programs. The evidence-based home visiting program is an
    important exception to that. Evidence, especially for the
    largest grants plays a central role in determining what gets
    funded.
        Mr. DOGGETT. Thank you very much.
        Ms. Smith, let me talk to you about another innovative
    program that you focused on with Capital IDEA and Project
    QUEST. This is not only about just securing any job that is
    there, but as you mentioned a career pathway so that a person
    has hopes of not only getting a job but getting a job that will
    help them support their family at a livable wage. As I
    understand the program, again, it is not just about how you
    have become a radiology technician or someone who works in
    semiconductors, but it is about getting some counseling to go
    along with that training to be sure that you are able to
    fulfill all the responsibilities. Can you elaborate a little on
    how those programs work?
        Ms. SMITH. Yes. The Capital IDEA model provides the
    occupational training as a connection with the associate degree
    program or community college program that builds that
    occupational skill, but they also work on building the soft
    skills that are important in the workplace and make someone a
    successful employee, and so through weekly sessions with a
    career coach, participants go through and talk about issues
    like time management, communication and interpersonal
    relationship skills, and work on building kind of some self-
    confidence that they can take into the workplace and make sure
    they are going to be a valuable employee.
        Mr. DOGGETT. And how might those programs interface with
    TANF? Is there the potential to assist more TANF recipients,
    but to help them achieve some of the same success that Capital
    IDEA and Project QUEST are already achieving?
        Ms. SMITH. Certainly. Actually both of those programs, as
    well as the Career Advance program in Tulsa, serve TANF
    recipients already. They are part of that low income and
    disadvantaged group that these programs are explicitly trying
    to move forward in the workplace.
        Mr. DOGGETT. Are there other recommendations that you have
    that we should consider as we are renewing and reauthorizing
    the TANF program to assure that more economically disadvantaged
    people actually move into living wage jobs?
        Ms. SMITH. Yes, I think reconsidering the work requirements
    to allow individuals to engage in that longer term intensive
    skill development that has been shown to lead to higher paying
    careers that actually move people out of poverty would be an
    important change to consider. The emphasis on work first with a
    very short term emphasis on job achieving skills hasn't been
    shown to be effective in the same way that building an
    occupational credential that employers value has.
        Mr. DOGGETT. And, Ms. Cox, isn't that also the finding of
    an analysis in Utah that was made last year, that work first is
    not necessarily as important as the training activities?
        Ms. COX. Actually, I don't think it is either/or. I think
    it is short-term occupational training that is connected to an
    employer, so I think it is bridging both of those worlds. We
    know that connection to the labor force over time is an
    important indicator based on what we saw, and I can't speak for
    other States, but for long-term--after 4 years there were
    retained earnings and increased earnings.
        So there is a balance. For men, for example, their
    struggles seem to be a little bit different. There is not a lot
    of men in TANF, but our population has gone from 6 percent to
    13 percent. Men in TANF often have criminal background issues.
    Sometimes they need to get attached to the labor market quickly
    so they can reengage. Most of our TANF recipients get off--70
    percent are off between 2 and 9 months--so this long-term thing
    isn't as critical as maybe for the folks in the 30 percent who
    don't have a high school diploma.
        So I am always really cautious of this one-size-fits-all
    and the need to really let States give us the policy
    objectives, the goal of the outcome. Do the evidence-based
    practices at the national level, but States need to customize
    it for their unique demographics.
        Mr. DOGGETT. Thank you all.
        Chairman REICHERT. Thank you, Mr. Doggett. Mr. Renacci, you
    are recognized.
        Mr. RENACCI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the
    witnesses for testifying today. In my home State of Ohio, an
    estimated 1.8 million Ohioans are living below the poverty
    line. Poverty in my home State of Ohio has increased by
    approximately 58 percent over the last decade despite a
    stagnant population and a whole host of Federal programs
    created to end the cycle of poverty. So I am glad that we are
    here today to discuss policies that work because, frankly, the
    people of Ohio and the Nation cannot continue on this path. We
    must find ways to address our struggling economy, improve our
    education system and work force training programs, and connect
    individuals to temporary resources they need to succeed.
        With that in mind, and I would like to start with you
    first, Ms. Cox, what should the Federal Government's role be in
    social welfare? And to add on to that, should the Federal
    Government incentivize States to focus on outcome-based
    programs and should funding to States be tied to performance? I
    know you talked a lot about your State and maybe funding toward
    the State.
        Ms. COX. Well, again, you know, our goal is, even within
    the State of Utah, 25 percent improvement over the next 3\1/2\
    years, and some State agencies are saying that is impossible,
    but when we get into the guts of the systems we are seeing
    there is a lot of capacity there. Having said that, I am all
    for outcomes and results. It is taxpayer dollars, and we need
    to be accountable. My preference is that we are held
    accountable and then given the flexibility to design the
    solutions that work. We spend a significant amount of time and
    energy on demonstration projects at the national level and
    pilot projects, and we at the State just need the flexibility.
    We have people at our doorstep today. I don't have 5 years to
    do a demonstration project. You guys can and give me what I
    need. I need the outcomes and the flexibility to get the
    results today for the people standing on my doorstep.
        So we need that, and then we also really need to emphasize
    with States that they, too, need to be held accountable for
    results, and in many cases, they need to pay more attention to
    evidence-based practices and not just do what feels good.
        Mr. RENACCI. So, in general, you believe that States should
    be given the dollars but there should potentially be incentives
    tied to those outcomes, and it should be outcome based?
        Ms. COX. I would be open--the devil is in the details, or
    God, depending on which way you say it, so it would depend on
    the program and how it was specifically designed, but it is
    something I wouldn't be scared of.
        Mr. RENACCI. Anyone else want to take a stab at that, what
    the Federal Government's role should be? Mr. Baron?
        Mr. BARON. Yes, I think one of the challenges here with
    holding States accountable and so on is that at this point we,
    meaning the country really, and researchers and policy
    officials really don't have a whole lot of strong evidence,
    replicated evidence, as David referred to, about what works. A
    lot of times. So there is not----
        Mr. RENACCI. But if, in Ohio, we have approximately 58
    percent over the last decade has increased, you know, something
    is not working.
        Mr. BARON. Yes. The system is not working, meaning over
    time, and it is true nationally, even since the early
    seventies, the poverty rate across the United States by various
    measures has not changed a whole lot, despite a whole lot of
    innovation, a whole lot of things going on. What is lacking, I
    would suggest, are interventions like the Nurse Family
    Partnership we discussed before, where the strong evidence that
    has been replicated across different sites that they work. So
    as a first step doing the kind of innovation and coupled with
    evaluation designed to grow the number of proven programs might
    be paramount. In the few cases where there are proven
    approaches like the Nurse Family Partnership, just try to scale
    those up more widely.
        Mr. RENACCI. Let me change the pace to outcome because I
    know as a small businessowner before I got here, I set programs
    up and then I looked at the outcomes and decided if they
    weren't working we would change those programs. So we have
    programs that aren't working. What are some of the consequences
    of leaving in place government programs that do not work? I
    mean, why are we leaving these in here? Are you saying that we
    don't have the outcomes yet? I mean, there are certain things
    that aren't working. What are some of the consequences of
    leaving those programs still intact? Mr. Muhlhausen.
        Mr. MUHLHAUSEN. Well, one of the consequences is that we
    waste billions of dollars and we leave people with no hope, and
    so I think we need to--when we look at programs, especially
    programs that are trying to lift people out of poverty, are the
    comprehensive effect of various programs, are they trapping
    people in poverty? So if someone who is receiving TANF
    benefits, food stamps, and also a housing subsidy, if they get
    a job and increase their earnings so they get a chance to work
    more hours, will their income increase cause them to lose their
    housing subsidy? In that case, that is an incentive not to gain
    the additional experience, not to gain the additional income
    through your own labors. So in some sense, the combined effect
    of our entire welfare system can create a trap for individuals.
        Mr. RENACCI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
        Chairman REICHERT. Mr. Davis.
        Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to
    thank all of the witnesses for coming.
        I know that the Ranking Member has raised a question
    relative to the home visiting program, the nurse visiting in
    program. And I couldn't help but smile because I recall that
    when we were working on the Affordable Care Act that one of the
    provisions that I supported very strongly, and actually secured
    a woman to come and testify from the Near North Health Corp.
    which is a community health center in Chicago. And I run into
    her quite frequently. And I always tell her whenever I do that
    she was very instrumental in helping us to include that program
    in the Affordable Care Act. And so I was very pleased to hear
    your analysis and the impact of it.
        Let me ask, when programs like that, for whatever the
    reason, are not reauthorized, are not refunded, does that take
    away or detract from progress that is being made relative to
    not only moving people out of poverty, but also in helping them
    improve the health status of people and communities that they
    benefit?
        Mr. BARON. Congressman, funding of the Nurse Family
    Partnership, which incidentally was launched as a pilot program
    under the Bush administration--proposed by the Bush
    administration, and then scaled up by the Obama
    administration--that funding, there is strong replicated
    evidence that it improves people's lives. So defunding it
    presumably would do the opposite. But I would also note that
    the detail is in the specific type of home visiting program.
        The Nurse Family Partnership has been shown effective, but
    there are many other types of home visiting programs that have
    been shown not to work. There was a Federally sponsored
    evaluation, the Comprehensive Child Development Program at HHS
    in the nineties, which was a paraprofessional home visiting
    program. There was a large randomized demonstration that found
    no impacts.
        So one of the unique things about the program that was
    enacted is that it had a high evidence standard so that
    specific home visiting models, like the Nurse Family
    Partnership, received priority for funding. That is unique in
    Federal social spending.
        Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much. I really appreciate that
    kind of work, having been engaged not only in health care but
    also in aspects of dealing with poverty and poverty-stricken
    people and communities for a long period of time. I just find
    that to be incredible work.
        Dr. Muhlhausen, let me ask you, if I could--I go through
    the list of different kinds of programs. And I just looked at
    Supporting Healthy Marriages. Do you have any revelations on
    the impact of a program like that, or that specific program?
        Mr. MUHLHAUSEN. Well, there are two programs, Building
    Strong Families and Supporting Healthy Marriages. And I think
    the goal is noble. But both of these evaluations show that both
    programs failed to affect the rate of marriage. So that,
    considered that in that sense, the program is a failure. In the
    case of the Building Strong Families case, the program actually
    had some negative impacts. But you have to balance that
    between, if you look at the site-by-site analysis, on the local
    level in some cities, the program had consistent negative
    effects; but in Oklahoma, while it didn't boost marriage, it
    actually found some positive impacts on the marital
    relationships of individuals participating.
        So you have to learn what happened in Oklahoma but
    systematically, when you look at the entire program, there is
    not much success.
        Mr. DAVIS. And I think that is so unfortunate because I
    think that marriage does play a significant role in the
    ultimate organization and development of our society. And many
    of my friends and many people that I interact with don't have
    much faith in it, I believe. Thank you very much.
        Chairman REICHERT. Thank you, Mr. Davis. Mr. Reed.
        Mr. REED. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to our
    witnesses.
        Ms. Cox, I wanted to start with you and move to a couple of
    other people on the panel. I am very interested in us starting
    our conversation as we go down this path of TANF reform and
    other reforms as to coming to a common understanding as to what
    the definition of ``it works'' is. And I want to have a clear
    understanding from the panel as to--especially you, Ms. Cox--
    out in the field, on the frontline, in the States. How is it
    presently defined to be ``a success'' under these programs? I
    have heard things such as getting people out of poverty. It is
    as easy as defining people who get the benefits, who actually
    receive a check. So I just want to get clarification from you
    on that. And then if you have any guidance or recommendations
    as to what is a good working definition of defining success.
        Ms. COX. It is a really great question, because we talk
    about it in such broad terms, self-sufficiency and moving
    people out of poverty. But what do we mean by that? TANF--in
    Utah, is 50 percent of poverty level. Food stamps has a
    different eligibility criteria. Medicaid now we know with the
    ACA reform is going to take you to up 130 percent plus. So at
    what point does the Federal Government mean ``out of poverty''
    because there are so many different contradictory definitions
    of what that means. In Utah, again, with over 90-plus programs
    for TANF, our definition for quality is throughput divided by
    operating expense so we can get a quality cost per case. It is
    the number of positive closures we have, the percentage of
    those that are placement and employment, right? Because
    sometimes it is so easy for a State to say, oh, they got
    married, they got Social Security. We want to focus on
    employment because we know in the long term, that 4 or 5, 6
    years down the road, that gives them a better chance at self-
    sufficiency divided by those costs. We can hit that. That is
    step one. But if our entire caseload of people who are on low-
    income services--our TANF caseload is a drop in the bucket. We
    spent a lot of time on TANF. But in our State, it is 6,000 to
    10,000 of cases--that is not individuals--and our entire
    caseload is more like 200,000.
        So the broader question is what is the policy objective for
    Medicaid, for food stamps, for child care? Because if we don't
    drive those policy objectives, TANF isn't going to move the
    whole system. TANF has been a success. We know in the last 16
    years, caseloads have declined almost by 50 percent. We can
    continue to improve it. We know that. I can get people off of
    TANF. But moving them off food stamps and Medicaid into true
    self-sufficiency, that is a much broader public policy agenda
    that has yet to be defined. So for us, it is benefit. Their
    case is closed. They are off benefits. And they have a job.
    That is the ideal scenario for us.
        Mr. REED. That is the ideal. Okay. Mr. Muhlhausen.
        Mr. MUHLHAUSEN. I think one thing we need to think about is
    policy significance versus statistical significance. We like to
    come here, and especially me, we like to talk about statistical
    significance, a particular program, boost the wages up let's
    say a head of the household by $1,000 every year. This finding
    was statistically significant. Well, what is the policy
    significance of that? That additional $1,000, does it
    necessarily raise that family above, say, the poverty level?
        So sometimes these programs we are talking about are
    actually--while they do have a positive impact, and I can say
    statistically significant, meaning we believe the results
    actually occurred and were reliable. But sometimes the size of
    the effect is actually not that meaningful as far as changing
    the individual's life. So I think we need to think about not
    only statistical significance, but also policy significance. Is
    a program, let's say, moving somebody above the poverty
    threshold? And are they on a trajectory where they are not
    going to be dependent on receiving future government services?
        Mr. REED. Go ahead, Ms. Smith. Please.
        Ms. SMITH. I think a standard way of looking at whether you
    are making a difference for families is, are they in stable
    employment with rising earnings? That is what lifts families
    out of poverty. And it has been shown to have a really positive
    impact on the children of those families as well. They do
    better when they have that sort of financial security.
        Mr. REED. I am getting--because I am running out of time
    and I don't mean to cut you off.
        I am getting consensus from the panel that having a simple
    definition of, we are going to have x number of dollars or x
    number of benefits in the hands of a recipient, is probably not
    the best definitional program or definition of success. Am I
    misinterpreting anything anyone is saying there? With all the
    nods of the head, it sounds like there is agreement there. So I
    appreciate that because a lot of times, I have conversations
    with Members up here and they are just as simple as, Well, if
    we get x number of dollars in the hands of a recipient, that is
    a win. That is a success. And clearly it is much broader than
    that. My intention in doing the work here is to improve lives,
    not just give benefits to people. So I appreciate that. With
    that, I yield back.
        Chairman REICHERT. Thank you. Mr. Kelly.
        Mr. KELLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, thank you all
    for being here.
        One of the things I am trying to understand--and it is not
    for a lack of investment, is it, on the part of the government?
    I am looking at the investment that we make each year. And if
    the numbers I am hearing are right, it is about $600 billion a
    year that goes into trying to lift people out of poverty or
    support the most vulnerable in our society. That is a lot of
    money. But I think our concern is, what is the return on that
    investment? What are investing these dollars in? And the idea
    was to lift people out of whatever conditions they were in.
        So, Ms. Cox, I heard you say that part of the problem is,
    sometimes there is a negative incentive because once you get
    out of one level, then you go into another. And all of a
    sudden, it is like, well, this doesn't work in my best
    interest.
        So best practices, are you able to share those with each
    other? I know there are a lot of programs. Your State is doing
    some things that maybe other States should do.
        Do you have the ability to communicate back and forth?
        Ms. COX. Yes. There are associations and forums. But you
    know, when you are in the trenches--and especially during the
    recession, our caseloads increased by 63 percent. So we were
    just treading water to get through that and get people back to
    work and contain costs. We were able actually to reduce our
    costs by 33 percent while our caseloads increased by 63 percent
    and improve our timeliness. But it is really difficult. It is
    nice to have the luxury, with all due respect, to analyze this
    stuff for 4 or 5 years. But that isn't a reality when you are
    on the ground.
        So we need people--these brilliant people here to inform
    us, to educate us. We are committed to evidence-based practices
    in Utah. It is the only way we will hit our 25 percent
    improvement in some of our agencies. But sometimes we need
    States just to be able to innovate to get to the clear results.
    Because if we don't have time to do the evidence-based
    practice, and we are not allowed to innovate, we are stagnant,
    and we can never make progress. So that is the bind States are
    in. We need evidence-based practices. But when it is not there,
    we need the flexibility to innovate to get the results for you
    guys and for the taxpayers.
        Mr. KELLY. And you mentioned innovation. My friend David
    Bradley has talked to me many times. He is with the National
    Community Action Foundation. And he talks about the ability to
    look at innovation, to look at the performance data, and then
    also local control of these dollars. And again, I have a friend
    in Sharon, Pennsylvania, by the name of Ron Errett who runs a
    program up there. It is the Community Action Partnership of
    Mercer County. So I have seen locally in the district that I
    represent a lot of programs that work really well. And I think
    we have got to be careful that we don't paint everybody with
    the same brush and say, we are wasting this money. Nothing is
    going the right way. I don't think that is true. And we
    referenced the Nurse Family Partnership, how much that has
    worked.
        But it does come down to, how do we get that? How do we get
    the innovation message out? How do we share those practices?
    Mr. Baron, you made some comments about that when you talked
    about the ability. And the results speak for themselves. When
    you see something good, how do you get that out? Because I have
    got to tell you, in my district, I was able to look up and down
    northwestern Pennsylvania. The poverty level is probably
    somewhere between 25 and 30 percent. Not really mattering what
    town you go into, big cities, little towns, it is about the
    same. This poverty thing is something that is really troubling
    that we spend all this money, but we haven't gotten any results
    and we don't see that happen. I know part of it is the economy
    not bouncing back. And maybe we are spending a lot of time
    criticizing programs and not coming up with leadership programs
    or strategies that lifts everybody.
        Ms. COX. Can I make one more point on that just to be kind
    of bossy?
        Mr. KELLY. Sure.
        Ms. COX. There are associations, administrators, that are
    always connecting and going to conferences and talking about
    best practices. But part of the challenge is, we have the
    evidence-based practice. But if you were to look and do our
    mapping and look at an employee's time. They have 8 hours a
    day. And let's say we even know what the evidence-based
    practice is. We know that they should be doing X, Y, Z every
    day with their customers to get the impact. If you were to map
    out how much time they actually spend doing that, in some
    cases, you will find 10, 20, 30, 40 percent of their time is
    actually spent on the evidence-based practice. The rest of the
    time it is spent on compliance, recording, paperwork, a lot of
    other stuff. So can you imagine the capacity to impact low-
    income individuals? If we could just double the time on the
    ground in your operations and in your systems design of what
    people do----
        Mr. KELLY. I am going to agree with you because I have got
    to tell you. I run a private business. We do the same thing
    with our business trying to be in compliance. If I could just
    do what we are designed to do every day and not worry about
    being in compliance with the Feds, the local, and the State, we
    would probably get a lot more done. Mr. Baron you were going to
    say something?
        Mr. BARON. Yes. One of the challenges in sort of
    identifying and sharing best practices, things that really work
    is that a lot of programs, almost every program claims to be
    evidence-based and backed by strong evidence and effective. And
    the truth is, while some of them are, when most programs--even
    those that are backed by pretty good evidence--are subjected to
    a definitive evaluation, many of the promising findings are not
    reproduced. Sometimes they are. So you do have some examples of
    effectiveness, but many times they are not.
        Steve Aos' organization, the Washington State Institute,
    does a valuable service by trying to distill what is really
    backed by strong evidence from others that are not. But there
    are some instances. There was a program that the reemployment
    and eligibility assessment program at the Department of Labor
    which has been shown very effective in a four-State randomized
    control trial with large effects on employment outcomes and
    reductions in spending.
        Mr. KELLY. Thank you.
        Chairman REICHERT. Thank you. Mr. Crowley.
        Mr. CROWLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
    yielding me the time.
        I think we are all good stewards. I think we all want to be
    good stewards of our taxpayer dollars and certainly we want to
    put money where we think it best works for the American people.
        Mr. Baron, I just want to follow up my comments of Mr.
    Doggett as well as Mr. Davis as it pertains to the Nurse Family
    Partnership is the kind of program that has been proven to get
    results. As you know, I know--I am not so sure my colleagues
    know--that the program started in my home State of New York--in
    fact, in Elmira, in my good friend, Mr. Reed's district. And I
    have long followed the very impressive work that they have been
    involved in replicating this model and achieving very
    significant positive outcomes. Reductions in child abuse and
    neglect, better educational outcomes for children, and greater
    likelihood of economic stability for the mother, these are just
    some of the results that actually save the government money in
    the long term.
        Mr. Baron, do you think that is correct, that it has an
    effect in terms of saving taxpayer dollars in the long run?
        Mr. BARON. In this case, I think the answer is yes,
    especially with the Nurse Family Partnership. One of the trials
    that was done in Memphis, Tennessee, measured not only the
    impacts you are describing, like child hospitalizations and
    educational outcomes for the children, it also measured
    participants' use of government assistance--Medicaid, food
    stamps, welfare over a 12-year period. And this was not a
    projection. They measured use of government assistance in the
    treatment versus control group. So this was a credible finding.
    And it found that the program produced savings that more than
    offset the cost of the program.
        Mr. CROWLEY. Mr. Baron, would you also agree that programs
    like this particular one are an example of the importance of
    looking at successes not just in the short term, but in the
    greater awards to our society down the road? And not just
    immediate.
        Mr. BARON. Yes. Because some of the effects are longer
    term. Some of the effects were short term. There were immediate
    effects on reductions in child maltreatment and
    hospitalizations. But there were also longer term.
        Mr. CROWLEY. So leading to a much longer and productive
    life for the child in the long term.
        Mr. BARON. That is correct. But a slight nuance on that is
    that some programs--especially in work force development--they
    produce short-term effects, which dissipate over time. And so
    for those kinds of programs, it is important not only to
    measure the short-term effects which are sometimes large, but
    whether it produces sustained effects on the amount of----
        Mr. CROWLEY. I appreciate your comments.
        Better access to health care coverage, nutrition programs
    in early childhood, we believe leads to greater health and
    reduced medical costs later in life. And that is what we are
    talking about at this point in time as it pertains to the Nurse
    Family Partnership.
        Strong education, mentoring, and family supportive programs
    reduce incidents of criminal activity and school dropout rates
    as well. I think too often, we have a tendency and I think is a
    willingness to cut a program for ideological purposes not
    because it is what is in the best interest of our country. We
    see it in the Affordable Care Act. We have seen it in the farm
    bill nutrition programs. We have seen it as well in the social
    services block grants and others. It seems like the lesson here
    today is that we need to carefully invest in the programs that
    work and really put a lot of thought and study into our
    budgeting process.
        So I would think the budget approach we have recently seen
    with policies, like sequestration, is the exact opposite of
    what we ought to be doing. Blunt across-the-board cuts and not
    replacing them with a thoughtful plan that grows the economy
    certainly doesn't fit with the evidence-based approach that
    seems to be the recommendation of the witnesses here today. I
    would hope that my colleagues not just on this Committee but on
    the Budget and Appropriations Committees as well and every
    other Committee draw lessons from this hearing. And I look
    forward to more a constructive conversation and hearings like
    this in the future.
        With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
        Chairman REICHERT. I can assure my good friend that I am
    very interested in evidence-based results as an old time cop.
    So with 33 years in that field, I am looking for evidence. Mr.
    Young.
        Mr. YOUNG. I want to thank the chairman for holding this
    hearing on what really works. I think it is incredibly
    important. It may be mundane to some people. It may be boring
    to others. Metrics and data and all these other things. But let
    me begin by defining the challenge and perhaps identifying the
    opportunity or opportunities as I see them here. My interest in
    this topic actually emerged the second I found out I was going
    to get on this committee. I suspected it wasn't unlikely I was
    going to be on the Human Resources Subcommittee, and that is a
    good thing. We deal on this committee with what some regard as
    unsolvable social pathologies. And I sort of refused to believe
    that.
        So I know a number of pilot programs over the years have
    taken place across our 50 States. So I directed Members,
    associates on our team to try and identify the results of those
    different pilot programs and find some central repository where
    we could find out what really works and under what
    circumstances. It was incredibly tedious work; and frankly,
    there was no such repository. There was not a navigable Web
    site. There wasn't a particular organization that seemed to
    have answers about what really works and what data you could
    look at and what works under different circumstances.
        I found this frustrating as a policymaker. And I think at
    the State level, local level, not for profits, academics, think
    tankers, and so on, could all benefit from more clarity here
    and a more robust collection of data.
        What are we left with without this sort of repository of
    accessible data? Well, we make policy based on ideology, on
    politics, on analogy, sometimes anecdotes, the news of the day;
    but we don't really make decisions based on the hard data. So I
    started doing a bit of reading. I discovered that in 1988,
    under the AFDC Reform Act of that year--not often talked
    about--there was a requirement that data be collected on the
    recipient population of AFDC. That data years later--oftentimes
    it does take years for this information to be teased out--that
    data established the intellectual groundwork for a bipartisan
    reform of the AFDC program, now the TANF program.
        We need to make similar efforts in other areas. We need to
    do more evidence-based policymaking.
        Mr. Baron, thank you. It is so great to see you here today.
    You are really a gift to this conversation. I thank everyone
    else as well. And we have convened a group of people to discuss
    this topic. It is my hope that we can come up with a more
    systematic way of collecting data in a number of different
    areas and promulgate and disseminate that data to others for
    the purpose of research and also for the purpose of evaluation
    so that when innovation occurs at the State level, we will know
    if, in fact, it is working and then share. It is an iterative
    process. Share what is learned with others. And that will
    enable us to do very creative things, like social impact funds,
    pay for performance, pay for success in some of these social
    areas, the same sort of thing we do in, say, the transportation
    sector, performance-based contracting.
        Mr. Baron, you said Congress could take steps in your
    statement toward what I have envisioned, I believe, by
    authorizing and encouraging agencies to allow greater research
    access to administrative data with appropriate privacy
    protections so as to facilitate low-cost rigorous evaluation.
        I have two questions for you. First, what data is the
    Federal Government failing to collect that we ought to be
    collecting about beneficiaries of government programs? And
    second--and I see my time is running down, so you can submit
    this in writing. But second, I did want to get it on the
    record, what data is already being collected by the Federal
    Government, such as receipt of government assistance,
    employment status, earning status that we should release to the
    public for research purposes so it is not just our bureaucrats
    who are armed with all the information.
        Mr. BARON. I would like to submit a response in writing.
    But also a very quick answer to the second part of your
    question. This Subcommittee took a major step forward, we
    believe. We were very supportive of the subcommittee's action
    to increase researcher access with appropriate privacy
    protections to the National Directory of New Hires, the NDNH
    data, which has, at the Federal level, the employment and
    earnings records. You can use it to measure employment and
    earning records--earning outcomes for participants in any
    study. It should be more widely available. It would reduce the
    cost of some of these rigorous studies by a factor of 10 or
    more.
        Mr. YOUNG. Thank you.
        Mr. REICHERT. Thank you, Mr. Young. Thank you to all of the
    witnesses for being here today and taking the time to be with
    us. And we have finished this almost in record time, just in
    time for votes. I thank the Members for being here too. We look
    forward to working with you and reaching out to you and asking
    you questions, more questions that will come, I am sure, as we
    struggle with trying to find solutions here that are evidence-
    based, where we hold programs accountable, make sure that we
    are really helping those people who need the help and ensure
    that they are moving up that economic ladder as we all hope
    that they do.
        So if Members have additional questions for the witnesses,
    they will submit them to you in writing. And we would
    appreciate receiving your responses for the record within 2
    weeks. The Committee stands adjourned. Thank you.
        [Whereupon, at 5:30 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

        [Submissions for the Record follow:]

                            Family Equality Council

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                        American Evaluation Association

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                                Urban Institute
    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                                 Zero to Three
    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                        Capital IDEA Board of Directors
    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                             PEW Charitable Trusts
    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                            Chautauqua Opportunities
    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]