“Giving While Living”: Chuck Feeney’s Philanthropic Legacy

(Image credit: Crime Stoppers of Houston)

By Thomas Hanna, communications manager
 

Community safety and criminal justice reform are inherently linked. It isn’t about being tough or crime – or soft on crime. It is about following the research, AV Executive Vice President of Criminal Justice Research Jennifer Doleac says in a new podcast episode.  

What’s Happening: This week, Jennifer Doleac appeared on The Balanced Voice, a podcast produced by Crime Stoppers of Houston. During a robust discussion with the hosts, Crime Stoppers of Houston CEO Rania Mankarious and Director Jennifer Hohman, Doleac discussed the role and state of evidence for policies aimed at building community safety and tackling mass incarceration.  

Why it Matters: For decades, Crime Stoppers of Houston focused on a basic mission of advocating for victims and helping law enforcement solve crimes. That changed in 2020 with the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Since then, Crime Stoppers of Houston has endeavored to take a broader and more holistic look at the criminal justice system. Doleac contributed to these efforts, demonstrating how research and evidence have a way of cutting through partisan and ideological political divides. 

What’s Next: Research and evidence alone are not enough to solve the big problems permeating the US criminal justice system. That research must be translated into policy change in order to improve community and individual safety and well-being, Doleac explained.  

Read a summary of the podcast here>

By Evan Mintz, director of communications  
 

Regulators and policymakers have a duty to protect students — and taxpayers — from the harms inflicted when higher education institutions suddenly close their doors, write Kelly McManus, vice president of higher education of Arnold Ventures, and Daniel Zibel, vice president, chief counsel, and cofounder of Student Defense, in a Houston Chronicle op-ed.  

What’s Happening: Last month, the Art Institute announced with little warning that it was shutting down eight campuses across the United States. This news follows a “long and sordid history” that includes an historic settlement for illegal recruiting practices and numerous lawsuits for fraud.  

Why It Matters: Sudden campus closures can derail students’ educational trajectories. “In recent years, 43% of students impacted by college closures never graduate,” McManus and Zibel write. “Their time and money go wasted. The promise of education as a step up the economic ladder goes unfulfilled.”   

What’s Next: The op-ed calls on accrediting agencies to take seriously the responsibility of intervening when the risk of a college’s closure becomes real, and urges regulators to ensure colleges pay the price — literally — when they allow an irresponsible closure to happen.  

Read more on the op-ed here>

Criminal Justice
 

NJ.com covers a new report from New Jersey’s Office of the Corrections Ombudsperson which finds that many incarcerated people spend as much as 23 hours a day in isolation, despite a 2019 law that banned solitary confinement in most cases.

WLIX 10 reports on a growing campaign in Michigan to end life without parole for children.  

Health Care

As part of the Health Affairs Forefront series on accountable care, the CEOs of Community Catalyst, Families USA, and the National Partnership for Women and Families call for a transition to value-based care, which they say has the potential to advance key consumer priorities like affordability, effective care coordination, and providing personalized, patient-centered care.  

AV grantee The Century Foundation published a brief that explains how high provider prices exacerbate pre-existing affordability challenges within LGBT+ communities – and offers some policy solutions. 

Senate Health Committee Chair Bernie Sanders published a report hammering nonprofit hospitals for receiving more than $28 billion in tax breaks in 2020 while failing to provide sufficient affordable care for low-income Americans, The Hill reports. 

STAT News quotes Mark E. Miller, AV executive vice president of health care, in its coverage how states are creating Prescription Drug Affordability Boards to help ensure critical pharmaceutical drugs are affordable for residents.  

Public Finance
 

Matthew Yglesias advocates that now is the time for a fiscal commission in Slow Boring – a move championed by AV grantees such as the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the Progressive Policy Institute, the Bipartisan Policy Center, and the National Taxpayers Union Foundation. 

Richard Rubin writes about the IRS’s struggles to claw back improper Employee Retention Credit payments for The Wall Street Journal. 

In TaxNotes, Andrew Velarde writes about new information gleaned from financial disclosures by the petitioners in the high-stakes Supreme Court case, Moore v. United States. 

Higher Education

The Washington Post reports on early trouble in the return to student loan repayments, including borrowers’ struggles navigating inaccurate payment amounts with the servicers. 

Infrastructure

Going green will require a lot of copper for electrification and other infrastructure, but producers warn there aren’t enough mines to meet future demand, the Financial Times reports.  

Democracy

The dysfunction we’re seeing in Congress could be addressed with ranked-choice voting in partisan primaries, rather than in general elections, argues Yuval Levin, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, in a New York Times op-ed. (gift link)  

Congressional redistricting in Illinois illustrates how partisan gerrymandering guts the political center and strengthens the extremes, according to the Washington Post. (gift link) 

AV Director of Communications Evan Mintz argues in The Bulwark that Congress needs to look at the Texas model of electing a bipartisan, coalition speaker.  

We’re watching season 2 of the PBS six-part documentary "Power Trip: The Story of Energy,” which tracks the past, present, and future of energy – including interviews with ClearPath CEO Rich Powell.  

Politico’s Pulse Check podcast covers how Congress is taking on site-neutral billing and facility fees – and gives a shoutout to Arnold Ventures as we work protect patients, employers, and taxpayers from unfair billing practices.  

This gymnastics move was once called impossible, now they call it Biles. As in Simone Biles. 

Following a lengthy day, this cranky 4-year old is all of us.

The Higher Education and Evidence-Based Policy teams have created a request for proposals for rigorous impact evaluations of programs and practices (“interventions”) to promote college success in the United States.

The Criminal Justice and Evidence-Based Policy teams at Arnold Ventures are teaming up to learn more about what works in criminal justice reform in an ongoing request for proposals for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that will test programs and practices. There is no deadline for submissions.

The Evidence-Based Policy team invites grant applications to conduct randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of social programs in any area of U.S. policy. Details are here.

View our RFPs here>