Doescher, Ian, author

Fogle, Ben, 1973- author

Fleet, Katherine, author

Thompson, Lisa (Lisa Anne), 1973- author

Johnson, Maureen, 1973- author

Liggett, Kim, author

Gemeinhart, Dan, author

Benjamin, Ali, author

Lai, Remy, author, artist

King, A. S. (Amy Sarig), 1970- author

Ruby, Laura, author

Mills, Allison, author

Polak, Monique, author

Lord, Emery, author

Jocelyn, Marthe, author

Troïanowski, Johan, author, illustrator

Barnhill, Kelly Regan, author

Burks, James (James R.), author, illustrator

Bass, Karen, 1962- author

Becker, Helaine, 1961- author

The employment rate among people with disabilities has consistently been low. People with disabilities face many barriers to securing competitive, integrated employment, such as lack of access to transportation, difficulty finding a job, and needs for workplace accommodations. Mathematica is evaluating the SourceAmerica Pathways to Careers program, a customized employment service model designed to help people with intellectual or developmental disabilities or autism obtain competitive integrated employment that matches their skills, interests, strengths, and abilities. This webinar featured a panel of experts who will discuss how Pathways promotes competitive integrated employment, give an employer’s perspective on partnering with Pathways and hiring its participants, present interim evaluation outcomes, and report on SourceAmerica’s plans to expand the customized employment service model.

Through the Parents and Children Together evaluation, Mathematica researchers are contributing to the evidence base regarding approaches to increase positive father involvement in children’s lives. At a forum on December 7, researchers, program administrators, and program participants shared their experiences and what they learned.

Child welfare agencies regularly make crucial program decisions that can impact the health and well-being of children and families across the country. Agency leaders and line staff alike can benefit from current, high quality data and evidence to inform their decisions. However, systemic challenges at play in the realm of child welfare—including, for example, short deadlines, limited resources, and high staff turnover—can make it difficult for program leaders to draw on relevant research and encourage a culture of evidence. At the same time, research evidence can be difficult to access or interpret, or it may not fully address the needs of practitioners and other decision makers.

Finding and interpreting relevant evidence can be a frustrating experience for many policymakers.

In 1968, Mathematica led the nation’s first major social research experiment, helping to spur a revolution in the application of social science to public policies and programs. For more than four decades, social scientists have revised and refined those methods, but the gold standard for research remained much the same.

Fifty years after President Lyndon Johnson launched his “Great Society” agenda, where do we stand when it comes to providing services, as well as economic and social mobility, to those in need? Between 1964 and 1968, President Johnson launched and implemented a huge range of social programs known as the “Great Society” agenda. Fast-forward fifty years, the form and efficacy of these programs are being questioned at every level of government. On October 2, Mathematica partnered with Government Executive and Route 50 to explore the future of these social programs and look at ideas for reform that are being tested across our nation, as well as the data behind them.

In a special super session at APPAM’s 40th Fall Research Conference, APPAM president-elect Matt Stagner joined a roundtable discussion with industry CEOs who are working to apply insights from our modern data revolution to social science questions and challenges that have spanned generations. Abt Associates CEO Kathleen Flanagan, Impaq International CEO Avi Benus, Mathematica CEO Paul Decker, MDRC president Gordon Berlin, and Urban Institute President Sarah Rosen Wartell shared the most important lessons from their work to advance evidence-based policy, as well as the critical challenges and emerging trends in policy analysis and program improvement.

The current earnings rules for Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) specify that, after using available work incentives, DI beneficiaries are not owed a DI benefit check if they earn more than a certain threshold. The Benefit Offset National Demonstration (BOND) tested a design intended to encourage DI beneficiaries to work by replacing the so-called cash cliff with a ramp—a $1 reduction in benefits for every $2 of additional earnings. BOND simultaneously tested the new rules with two groups: a nationally representative sample of DI beneficiaries and a group of recruited and informed volunteers—those thought to be most likely to earn more than the earnings threshold. Results from the five-year evaluation of BOND are now available for both groups.

There is increased awareness and urgency within the research community to ensure that evaluation and assessment practices are sensitive to the cultures of people who are most impacted by those practices. Driven by changing demographics and the increasing complexity of problems that researchers and communities seek to address, new efforts are underway to develop research practices that better account for the unique perspectives and needs of the communities being studied. But there is hardly consensus on what culturally responsive research actually means or, more broadly, what implications such approaches could have on evidence-based policies and programs.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 changed several aspects of the law concerning access to health insurance that were particularly salient for people with disabilities. These changes included removing limits on preexisting conditions, extending parent’s health insurance coverage of young adults until the age of 26, expanding Medicaid to more adults with low incomes, and making it easier to obtain affordable coverage outside the traditional employer-sponsored benefit system.

A key challenge for policymakers is creating a pipeline of principals who are prepared to serve as instructional leaders. Districts often use the assistant principal position as a training ground for new principals. Yet little is known about how to design and implement on-the-job training opportunities that prepare assistant principals to serve as principals.

International development programs are designed to make lasting and positive improvements in the health, education, and income of disadvantaged people around the world.

Mathematica brought together leaders from a variety of sectors to discuss the challenges of becoming data driven and offer action-oriented, accessible advice on how organizations can take their first steps, or their next steps, to progress together.

Interested in learning how to build more evidence into philanthropic practice? Join Mathematica, The Wallace Foundation, and the Afterschool Alliance for a Grantmakers for Education webinar.

Mathematica is seeking innovative ideas on how to help youth who receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) improve their employment outcomes as they transition to adulthood.

The March 2020 issue of Health Affairs, “The Affordable Care Act Turns 10,” offers must-read analyses of the ACA.

Mathematica will launch a groundbreaking new quality measurement observation tool, now available to the early childhood community (including program administrators, professional development providers, researchers, and others) during a webinar.

The spread of COVID-19 has caused schools and districts across the country to shutter their doors. States, districts, and schools must suddenly and unexpectedly grapple with the new reality of providing a quality education to every student remotely.

With school buildings closed by COVID-19, schools and districts across the country are rapidly (and sometimes frantically) transitioning to remote learning.

This webinar will review the research on the home and parenting characteristics that support young children’s learning.