Lynn Mahoney

OPRE's Research and Evaluation Conference on Self-Sufficiency (#RECS2024) kicks off today! Looking forward to attending in-person after a few years of virtual RECS. On Thursday morning at 10, I'll be joining Owen Schochet, Daniel Litwok and Lauren Deutsch Stanton to present as part of a panel on "Estimating How Contextual Changes Affect Program Impacts: Lessons from Conducting RCTs During the COVID-19 Pandemic." We will discuss empirical methods to investigate the extent to which large contextual changes (like a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic) within well-designed RCTs might influence the impact estimates derived from those studies. How should we interpret data that are collected within these changed contexts? Can we responsibly draw conclusions about program efficacy beyond these contexts? Join us to learn more.

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Join us on Thursday, May 16, at 1pm EST for a webinar spotlighting our latest research on Black single mother community college students. You don't want to miss this insightful discussion!

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In the latest installment of the series, "Dataism and Capitalism", the latest article for The AfroDiscourse invites us to grapple with a profound question underlying the structures shaping our modern world - the erosion of trust. The author's analysis traces how both the capitalist economic system and the dataist worldview share a common root in human distrust. He argues that capitalism, at its core, is founded on a "profound distrust of other persons", leading to a prioritization of individual interest over genuine interpersonal bonds. This, in turn, has parallels in the dataist reduction of the world to manipulable, quantifiable information. The essay presents several controversial claims. For instance, the author suggests that money itself possesses an "inner logic" that encourages the worship of wealth over higher values. He also contends that the essence of things, as understood in classical philosophy, is being replaced by fragmented, digitized "data" devoid of intrinsic purpose. These ideas challenge prevailing assumptions about the nature of our economic and knowledge systems. Read the article here:

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Have you heard about the proposed framework related to March-In rights and the Bayh-Dole act? Here's a brief overview video if you are interested: https://lnkd.in/gkwHccCY

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Public health + state policy friends - this webinar will have really valuable information about addressing the opioid crisis through public education. The Ad Council's work has impacted public health crises from drunk driving to seat belt safety, and can do it again for the opioid epidemic. Register below!

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Looking back on the last year since @Data Quality Campaign introduced our vision to transform state data systems, it’s clear that leaders see the importance of this work. We’ve seen states making changes to move toward our vision’s state and federal policy recommendations—and know we will see more of those changes in the future. While this progress is promising, now isn’t the time to slow down. More hard work is ahead. But together we can improve access to data and provide stakeholders with the information they need to achieve better education and workforce outcomes across the board. Let's do this!

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Affluent families have long turned to tutoring to help their kids. The number of private tutoring centers—charging an average of $300 a month and out of the financial reach of many families—more than tripled between 1997 and 2016, from roughly 3,000 to nearly 10,000. But in the wake of the pandemic, thousands of public schools have used federal Covid-response monies to introduce high-quality tutoring into their school days, offering long-struggling students an academic lifeline and much-needed mentors. Political leaders in red states and blue are taking note of the encouraging results. Could the nascent tutoring movement could be the foundation of a new, bipartisan campaign to improve the nation’s struggling public schools? My FutureEd colleague Liz Cohen and I explore that question in a new analysis in The Washington Monthly. #tutoring #educationreform #FutureEd #studentachievement https://lnkd.in/efUJbY-a

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Policy alert: New Title IX regulations have been released! These will help millions of parents persist in college. Read our new blog post and check out resources from Jessica Lee and her team! And thanks to Kimberly Salazar for sharing her lived expertise!

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If you read half as much as I do, here is your fall shopping list

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How do we motivate people to vote? In our (Hannah Waldfogel and Andrea Dittmann) new paper in PNAS, we find that reframing voting as a duty to *others* predicts political interest and engagement. Read here: https://lnkd.in/gbyJQUgW

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Now out at PNAS!: Our new paper on how we can reframe messages around voting to boost voter turnout. 📈 In the US, we often see messages encouraging people to vote to "make their voice heard" or "exercise their individual rights." 🗣 However, we find that this is NOT the type of messaging that is most motivating to potential voters. Instead, we find that reframing voting as a way to "work together with others" is a more reliable way to boost people's interest in voting. 👪 With the 2024 election less than 6 months away, it's really gratifying to see this live online now. 💡 And by far the best part of this whole thing is working with Hannah Waldfogel & Hannah Birnbaum. A true dream team! 💯 Check out the paper here: https://lnkd.in/e5TD4Ue8

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Elites, subalterns, and Muslims understand secularism from their respective vantage points. Considering the wide debate my recent piece on Subaltern Secularism generated, we have republished this 2019 piece that discussed this question. How the principles of secularism and social justice, both components of progressive politics, interacted in electoral politics could be understood in terms of the intense competition among caste-based interests groups for political power over the decades. In The Hindu today

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Relatively local election campaigns -- from municipal/county level to state assembly or congressional districts -- often lack research support to better understand their voters' preferences (using surveys), how to boost turnout (using a mix of qualitative and survey/experimental methods), and how to iterate on grassroots mobilization strategies in often low-turnout, low information elections. I am exploring ways to make this research support affordable for a wider range of candidates and would be interested in learning more about what is most top of mind from campaign staff and candidates who may benefit from research insights.

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🚨 New 50-State Comparison alert!!! 🚨 An old favorite haha. Here's the newest version of our 50-SC on Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems that Claus and I put together! This one has some additional insights on research agendas guiding data systems, staffing, governance, and more. Check it out!

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LEVEL UP YOUR NONPROFIT MANAGEMENT SKILLS! Fall 2024 semester of the Nonprofit Management Certificate course at Sonoma State University is now open for enrollment. Join live on Wednesday evenings, Sept. 11-Nov. 13, 2024. Fast-paced live-streamed course on fundamental concepts, best practices & hands-on skills-building, taught by diverse instructors and enriched by students’ experiences. Topics include: * Nonprofit Program Development * Legal Issues * Finance & Accounting * Fundraising (I teach the session on grantwriting) * Board Governance * Leadership -- & more! When you complete the course, you receive a Certificate of Nonprofit Management. https://lnkd.in/ggdECCGv Students rave about the course: * I was offered a higher starting salary after I told the hiring manager I’d just completed this course. * Thank you for leading an inspirational program for nonprofit leaders. It elevated my understanding of working in a nonprofit organization. * Having different instructors each week is refreshing and potent. * Great class for the fundamentals of nonprofit management.

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In my latest Substack post, I wrote about Pullman Porters, the abuse they endured, and the advances they made in organized labor, the Great Migration, and the Civil Rights Movement. https://lnkd.in/gh6ETt9K

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Race-conscious affirmative action supported the polite fiction that selective institutions were making steady, albeit incremental, progress toward greater parity. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s ban on race-conscious admissions, the pursuit of diversity and equity in higher education is increasingly under threat. While access to higher education has improved overall for historically underrepresented students, the quality of that opportunity remains uneven, particularly along the lines of race/ethnicity and class. Race-conscious affirmative action brought about a modicum of racial and ethnic diversity to selective colleges, and by extension to our social and economic institutions. Yet we still failed to increase representation at selective institutions to reflect the growing percentage of underrepresented minority students who are of college age. In its absence, what hope do we have for progress? The American postsecondary system tends to provide the highest-quality education to those who need it least: the wealthiest students who attended well-resourced high schools that smooth the transition into the most-selective colleges. The unfortunate consequence is that higher education is doing exactly the opposite of what it is meant to do in a truly meritocratic society. Instead of serving as an engine of opportunity for the students who need it most it cements into place our tiered and inequitable K–12 education system. A system whose promise of being the 'Great Equalizer'  has failed disproportionately large numbers of low-income, Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, and American Indian/Alaska Native students. Progress is hard to see. Even when it was legal for race/ethnicity to be considered in the admissions process, selective colleges failed collectively to enroll student bodies who adequately reflected the demographics of the country as a whole. Creating a more just society in a post–affirmative action landscape will require directly addressing systemic inequalities and their consequences across the education system. Read more in “Progress Interrupted: Evaluating a Decade of Demographic Change at Selective and Open-Access Institutions Prior to the End of Race-Conscious Affirmative Action,” a new report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce team: https://bit.ly/3JoPdvi

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My new Issue Brief for the Policy Center, co-authored with Director of Policy Dr. Debra Shushan, is available now: "Israel, Hezbollah, and the Potential for Full-Scale War" The tempo and intensity of attacks between Israel and Hezbollah has increased in the past several weeks, prompting some analysts to warn that full-scale war is “becoming inevitable.” #Hezbollah upped the ante since Israel and Iran traded attacks in mid-April and again after Israel began its military operation in #Rafah, including the announcement of a general mobilization. Despite the shared interest in de-escalation, extremists on both sides are demanding war. The longer the current hostilities continue, ample opportunities for miscalculation could lead to full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah, which could produce catastrophic consequences for Israel, Lebanon, and the broader region – and for US national interests. Issue Brief No. 25 provides an overview of the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, assesses the current state of hostilities, analyzes the prospects and consequences of all-out war, and outlines next steps for the Biden Administration. Read it here: https://lnkd.in/e7dpXRNm

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