Proof That Public-Private Partnerships Work

When she was 3, Hope Obi's family immigrated from Nigeria. Now 25, she says growing up in a Bronx apartment with five siblings "was not a paradise." But at a deeper level, she knew why they were all striving: "Everyone wants to have a better opportunity."
 

What's Happening: Now, Obi has made that opportunity for herself — with the help of one of the few evidence-based college completion programs in the country. As a freshly minted graduate of Lehman College, the budding film and music producer credits the Accelerate, Complete, and Engage (ACE) program with mentorship and a big boost of confidence to get her over the finish line. "I feel like I'm able to pursue what I really wanted to do."
 

What's Next: In part 2 of our Transforming Higher Education series, we look at how one of the rare proven college completion programs can truly change lives. The Biden administration's proposed $62 billion College Completion Fund could do that at scale.

 

Read the story >
 

Related: Read part 1 of our series profiling students whose lives have been transformed by evidence-based college completion programs: “From Dropout to Dreams, With an Assist”

 

Related: Third Way highlights three “evidence repositories” that the government can look to when scaling programs for the $62 billion College Completion Fund.

By Evan Mintz, Communications Manager

 

Stephen Hanlon likes to say that the United States doesn’t have a criminal justice system — we have a criminal processing system. The longtime lawyer and advocate for a robust public defense has conducted studies in state after state that reveal how public defenders are overburdened and overworked in a way that undermines the Constitution, rule of law, legal ethics and justice itself. 

 

What’s Going Wrong: Lawyers are only supposed to handle a certain number of cases. This maximum caseload is intended to guarantee that clients receive effective assistance of counsel. In 1973, the National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards set the limit at 150 undifferentiated felonies and 400 misdemeanors per year. But Hanlon’s research has found that public defenders carry anywhere from 200-400 felonies and up to 1,000 misdemeanors. 

 

"We now know as a result of these studies that we’ve done in eight states that with rare exception we have a systemically unconstitutional and unethical criminal justice system,” Hanlon said. “And that has had, for the last 50 years, devastating consequences, principally on Black and brown populations but also on millions of other Americans.”

 

What’s Next: Hanlon is working on a meta study that will incorporate past research and input from public defenders, private attorneys, and others across the criminal justice system to create new standards for public defenders. And in Congress, the EQUAL Defense Act will help support improvements to public defense systems, including more funding, better standards, and improved data collection. 

 

"We’re going to have reliable, 21st-century data and analytics to determine how many people we can competently represent,” Hanlon said. "I think it’s a very exciting plan for the future, not just for public defense, but to reform what is now our criminal processing system and turn it into a criminal justice system."

 

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“Very short” college training programs — those that typically require less than 600 hours and offer technical certificates in professions like cosmetology and truck driving — escape scrutiny about their return on investment. Yet they are eligible for federal student loans, and there are proposals that could expand that access to Pell Grants.
 

Why it Matters: A new Brookings Institution report finds that earning potential for graduates of these programs is shockingly low. Findings like this show the risks of further opening up Pell Grants and juicing funding for unaccountable and even detrimental programs. Federal policymakers should respond. 
 

Dive Deeper: We sat down with George Washington University Professor Stephanie Cellini, the author of the report, to discuss how she crunched the data and the bottom, very human, line: "I'm worried that students will invest their time, invest their resources, and take on debt" and get no future earnings benefit.
 

Read the story >

Criminal Justice

• "Something has to be done": For the first time in decades, the CDC director is speaking out forcefully about gun violence in America, calling it a "serious public health threat," CNN reports.
   
• We’re celebrating news that voting rights have been restored to an estimated 55,000 North Carolinians on parole or probation for a felony. It’s the biggest expansion of voting rights in North Carolina since the 1960s, Daryl Atkinson of Forward Justice tells The News & Observer.
  
  Dive Deeper: We wrote about how North Carolina’s voter disenfranchisement law is deeply rooted in the state’s racist history. 
   
• A Pennsylvania panel upends what’s known as “prison gerrymandering” with a ruling that people incarcerated in state prisons will be counted in their home legislative districts rather than corrections facilities, “a major policy change that will benefit communities of color,” Spotlight PA reports.
   
• A federal monitor is sounding the alarm on “unreasonably high” levels of violence and deteriorating conditions at Rikers Island jail, The New York Times reports. 
  
  Dive Deeper: A report from the Center for Court Innovation provides New York City leaders with a roadmap on how to effectively close the notorious jail.
   
• Corporations pledged billions to fight racial injustice after the death of George Floyd. A Washington Post analysis of where those commitments went “reveals the limits of their power to remedy structural problems.”
   
• Hear directly from formerly incarcerated people on what it’s like to re-enter society after prison in this Buzzfeed photo essay. "I’m carrying two stigmas simultaneously. You feel like you have to show your best self coming home, wear these masks. You can’t show the trauma. That becomes more emotionally distressing." 
   
• Washington City Paper takes a nuanced look at whether Twitter feeds Like DC REALTIME NEWS, which reports on every shooting in the city, are helpful or harmful to the public’s understanding of violent crime.
   
• Graphic body camera footage that shows a Louisiana State Police trooper pummeling a Black motorist 18 times with a flashlight was kept hidden for more than two years, The Associated Press reports. “The American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana said the video was further impetus for federal authorities to conduct a so-called ‘pattern and practice’ investigation of the state police.”
   
• In her first one-on-one interview as New York governor, Kathy Hochul suggests the state’s bail reform law is not being implemented “the way it was intended.” “I support bail reform, support it strongly, because we’ve had an unjust system. Same crime, two people. One’s rich, one’s poor. One’s going to jail, one is staying at home. I’ve said for years how un-American that is.”
   
• Why suspending driver’s licenses is an inefficient way to recoup unpaid fines and fees, via Route Fifty.
   
• The EQUAL Act is endorsed by law enforcement leaders, who believe the law would be good for public safety and also help build trust between law enforcement and communities, write Inimai Chettiar and Mark Holden in Newsweek.

Health

• The New York Times reveals why hospitals are fighting to keep secret the rates they negotiate with private payers: Patients face wildly different prices and unfavorable rates for the same services, and in some cases it’s better to pretend you have no insurance at all. It's like we've been saying... 
   
• To pave the way for more biosimilars in the market, policymakers may consider strengthening oversight of frivolous patent lawsuits and strengthening antitrust enforcement, according to a new analysis in Health Affairs.
   
• In emergency rooms across the country, providing patients with medications like buprenorphine for opioid use and connecting them to follow-up care is not standard practice, but a growing number of health professionals are trying to change that, Kaiser Health News reports.
   
• We are thrilled to hear North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper has signed into law a bill that allows pharmacists to prescribe birth control over the counter. 
  
  Dive Deeper: More states are allowing pharmacist-prescribed contraceptives, which research shows are safe and close the gap in access for young and uninsured women. This year, Manatt Health released a playbook for state leaders with strategies to promote and implement the practice. 

Also...

• FairVote CEO Rob Richie writes in Newsweek that a recent runoff election in Texas illustrates the need for ranked-choice voting, which would have fostered more voter representation in the outcome. “... It's such a useful tool in getting more voters to participate and to determine the winner who best combines wide and deep support.” 
  
  Related: Tribal leaders in Alaska said the use of ranked-choice voting there could increase participation among Indigenous voters, Indian Country Today reports.
   
• Failures, abuse, and corruption in our organ donation system are killing Americans — disproportionately patients of color. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois has a message for organ procurement organizations looking to delay new oversight rules: “We will not tolerate those who take advantage of taxpayers by procuring sports tickets and lavish trips for themselves rather than needed organs for transplant patients.”
   
• This piece in The Atlantic has been circulating among parents I know, and for good reason — it’s an understatement to say we relate: “Parents are not okay. We’re not even at a breaking point anymore. We’re broken.”

“This country teaches you to forget. We are supposed to forget. That is America — if it doesn’t run on anything it runs on forgetting. You forget what happened to you. Move on, that is the past, right? You walk it off. But we must remember.” — Phillip Agnew, co-founder of the Dream Defenders and Black Men Build, in “Eyes on the Prize: Hallowed Ground”

 

The new HBOMax documentary “Eyes on the Prize: Hallowed Ground” makes sure that we remember. It’s a companion piece to “Eyes on the Prize,” the venerated 14-part PBS series produced by Blackside and Henry Hampton (also streaming on HBOMax), which recorded the story of the civil rights movement through the eyes of “the ordinary men and women whose extraordinary actions” made it possible. In this iteration, past and present are woven together like a memory quilt embroidered with names and faces: “universal child” Emmett Till; Trayvon Martin; Medgar Evers; Michael Brown; Breonna Taylor; George Floyd; and “the names we all didn’t get to know.” Also included are the many unseen contributors to the movement: “We think about the ways in which Black women put our bodies on the line, our health on the line, and our safety on the line for the rights and dignity that everyone benefits from, but yet we’re the last ones to reap the reward,” says Ashlee Marie Preston, founder of You Are Essential. The film juxtaposes artful cinematography and scenes from the original with footage and voices from today that cut instantly and deeply to the point. It is broken into sections. “Rememory'' acknowledges that the movement never took a hiatus. “Ancestral rage” examines the unjust killing of Michael Brown, the Black community’s mourning, and the extreme police reaction to that display of grief: “Black mourning out loud was a threat, and they reacted as though it was a threat ... I just remember thinking, ‘This is violence. You killed somebody, and then you get to come in and tell us how to mourn what you did?’” says Kayla Reed, executive director of Action St. Louis. “Power” reimagines power no longer hidden and traded in private spaces but put in the hands of communities, where resources can be used to promote public safety rather than feed the carceral system. The end of the film addresses other questions — What defines a sacred space? What do you dream? What is healing? — before ultimately asking its subjects: What is the prize? Like its inspiration, this film should be required viewing for all Americans. 

Evidence-Based Policing: AV Vice President of Criminal Justice Walter Katz is speaking at this weekend’s American Society of Evidence-Based Policing 2021 conference. Register and learn more about the event here, and find the full agenda here.

 

RCT Training Opportunity: Register by Sept. 1 for discounted access to J-PAL North America’s Research Staff Training, a four-week virtual course that will run from Oct. 18 to Nov. 12.  It’s designed for research staff working on randomized controlled trials and provides an opportunity for participants to develop practical skills necessary for their work, refine technical skills, and meet other research staff working on RCTs around the world. Register here. 

• Ten members of the all-female Afghan robotics team are now safely out of Afghanistan. “Ultimately the girls 'rescued' themselves. If it were not for their hard work and courage to pursue an education, which brought them in contact with the world, they would still be trapped. We need to continue to support them and others like them,” Elizabeth Schaeffer Brown of the Digital Citizen Fund, which helped coordinate their escape, tells NBC News. Now they’ve been inundated with college scholarship offers.
   
• I had a habit of dating drummers in my youth (though I married a banjo player). My son is a drummer (he plays darbuka and tabla with aplomb). And the only Beatle I’ve seen play live was Ringo (with my mom — what a great show.) So I enjoyed this mea culpa appreciation of Charlie Watts, “The Rolling Stones' Understated Drum Master.”  
   
• Do you pretend your dog can talk? It’s OK, you’re not alone. (Our chiweenies have a high-pitched, frenzied voice, according to my daughter’s running commentary on their antics.)

Our Complex Care team has issued a request for information (RFI) to better understand the experiences of people who are dually eligible for Medicaid and Medicare. They are gathering information from consumer advocates, thought leaders, and technical assistance providers to help inform future policy positions around care integration for the dual-eligible population. Learn more here.

The Complex Care team is also funding research into how to improve the systems that deliver care to a population of more than 12 million people who are dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid. Learn more here.

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 all of our RFPs here