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The Abstract
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> By Stephanie DiCapua Getman, Arnold Ventures
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Gov. Greg Abbott celebrated Texas Independence Day this week by declaring Texas’ independence from COVID-19. We are now free to fend for ourselves, thanks to his order rescinding the state’s mask requirement and allowing businesses to fully reopen. It is “the most expansive step by any state to remove coronavirus restrictions” — and comes on the heels of a winter storm that drove thousands to shelter in close quarters at warming centers and friends’ homes. It is a decision at odds with data-driven guidance from public health officials and was announced just a day after Houston became the first U.S. city to record all COVID strains. I understand the motivation to reopen Texas and provide economic relief to residents and small business owners who have suffered a year of setbacks. But why can't we re-emerge with masks on, a proven effective way to slow the spread of the coronavirus? We have only just begun to see an improvement in cases, spring break is around the corner, and just 7% of the state is fully vaccinated. (Teachers were finally put at the front of the line on Wednesday.) Where is the data, Governor? Three out of four of your medical advisors were not consulted on this decision. Our exhausted medical community, which was just beginning to celebrate the progress made thus far, has widely condemned it. We have tried to outrun COVID before, and each time Texas has eased restrictions, a new wave of cases has followed. (The Washington Post TikTok guy sums it up perfectly.) Our state’s Black and Hispanic communities, which have suffered a disproportionate fatality rate from COVID-19 and where data shows vaccines have been harder to come by, could be even more vulnerable now. Those who work and live in jails and prisons may be more susceptible to transmission from the outside. Even the small businesses this order is meant to help may be hurt: Employers have been put in the unenviable position of playing mask referee. (Luckily, many large retailers and grocery chains, following the guidance of experts, have said they will continue requiring masks, and many schools and municipal buildings will follow suit.) To achieve functional herd immunity, says Baylor College of Medicine’s Dr. Paul Klotman, we need to be vigilant about wearing masks until around 70 percent of the population is vaccinated. But without masks, he says, we may see a fourth wave and further delay our return to normalcy. This order was clearly guided by politics, not data or science, and will likely create unnecessary confusion. And while science and politics may be inseparable, that doesn't mean scientific findings should be disregarded in favor of politics — especially when lives are at stake.
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Undercover For-Profits,
Zombie Accreditors
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By Adrienne Faraci, Communications Manager
For years, higher education watchdogs have been sounding the alarm about private, for-profit colleges, which have a long history of misconduct. Federal law requires institutions be overseen by the Department of Education, states, and accreditors. Despite these three supposed quality control structures, students and taxpayers continue to be victimized. “Are our oversight systems sufficient to guard against predatory behavior?” says Kelly McManus, AV’s director of higher education. “The answer is quite clearly no.”
What’s Happening: Experts point to two ways some for-profits take advantage of the current system of regulation: using tax code to convert to nonprofit status (and gaining the tax benefits of that status) and evading oversight by seeking accreditation from an agency with notoriously low standards, particularly the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools. ACICS has been called “a zombie accreditor” for its history of losing and gaining back its recognition. Just today, the Department of Education's accreditation advisory group voted in favor of staff's recommendation to again strip ACICS of its certification — a critically important move to protect students and taxpayers, but just the first step toward strengthening the quality assurance system in higher education.
What’s Next: Increased scrutiny of for-profit conversions by the IRS and Education Department has already begun to improve. With the Biden administration reevaluating federal oversight systems for higher education, experts are hopeful that reforms are within reach.
Read the story >
Related: Read Arnold Ventures' statement on Friday's decision to decertify longtime, problematic accreditor ACICS.
Related: This Hechinger Report interactive shows how different proposals for canceling student debt could impact different groups of borrowers.
Related: The Brookings Institute makes the case for why student debt relief should be focused on borrowers who are struggling.
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Texas Residents Offer
a Lesson in Preparedness
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By Adrienne Faraci, Communications Manager
Texas just experienced one of the most devastating winter storms in recent history. It left millions of people without basic necessities like power, water, and food in freezing temperatures for days. The extreme weather tragically caused the loss of dozens of lives and billions of dollars in damage.
What’s Happening: The storm in Texas laid bare the fragility of our infrastructure in the face of extreme weather events — and the need to take more proactive steps for the future. Residents who invested time, energy, and resources to prepare for the worst fared better, but our most vulnerable neighbors can’t always afford to protect themselves — and this is where the state comes in. Texas failed to invest in its power infrastructure, an expensive mistake.
What’s Next: AV Vice President Sam Mar offers a few lessons that state and federal lawmakers can take away from this event to be better prepared for next time, including accelerating the development, commercialization, and adoption of new energy innovations and transitioning to a zero carbon emissions future.
Read the story > |
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The High Cost of Responding
to Low-Level Crimes
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By Evan Mintz, Communications Manager
Police chiefs need to reconsider the costs and benefits of misdemeanor enforcement, argue AV Executive Vice President Jeremy Travis and Data Collaborative for Justice Director Preeti Chauhan in an op-ed published this week in USA Today.
Why It Matters: While violent crimes make headlines, a majority of policing involves responding to low-level violations such as disorderly conduct and drug possession. Overly punitive police responses to these misdemeanor offenses can actually work to undermine public safety — especially for communities of color that are over-patrolled and under-protected. Disproportionate enforcement can even have deadly consequences. George Floyd, Eric Garner, and Michael Brown were all killed by police responding to misdemeanors.
What’s Next: Travis and Chauhan call on police chiefs to collect and publish the data around misdemeanor enforcement. The Research Network on Misdemeanor Justice was launched in 2016 to study this oft-overlooked aspect of police work, but critical information is still missing about the volume and location of misdemeanor arrests, types of crimes involved, and the age, race, and gender of those arrested. Collecting this information is key to addressing the harms around misdemeanor enforcement. “When racial disparities are evident, the chief should convene community groups and researchers to assess the drivers of those disparities and ways to reduce them,” Travis and Chauhan write. “The chief should use these data to ask whether the benefits of misdemeanor enforcement outweigh the costs in officer time, taxpayer dollars, racial disparities, and public trust in the police.”
Read the op-ed >
Related: The House on Wednesday passed The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, a police reform bill that would ban chokeholds and overhaul qualified immunity protections for officers.
Related: D.C. Superior Court’s misdemeanor courtrooms have been closed amid the pandemic. Lessons learned show this policy should continue when the pandemic threat ends. |
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George Gascón, who upon his swearing in as Los Angeles district attorney announced a series of sweeping reforms intended “to permanently change the course of California’s criminal justice system and end the era of mass incarceration in Los Angeles and beyond.” They include an end to cash bail for all misdemeanor and non-violent, non-serious felony crimes, a move toward diversion rather than jail, and the creation of a review board to hold law enforcement officials more accountable. For Gascón, the reforms are a culmination of a 40-plus-year law enforcement career, during which he saw the damage mass incarceration has done on communities, especially those of color. He talks with the National Partnership for Pretrial Justice about his vision for the largest county in the U.S., using data to drive change, and his own personal evolution on the need for systemic reform.
Read the Q&A>
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By Evan Mintz, Communications Manager
It was just last year that criminologists Thomas Abt and Richard Rosenfeld warned politicians not to become complacent about a drop in crime during stay-at-home orders for COVID-19. “There’s reason to believe that 2020 will actually end up being a more violent year than 2019,” they wrote in July 2020. They were, unfortunately, correct. Major U.S. cities were likely struck by the single largest annual increase in murders last year — a 30 percent growth from 2019 to 2020.
What’s Happening: In a new op-ed, Abt and Rosenfeld describe a path out of a most violent year with three key policy recommendations: First, restart proactive violence reduction efforts that may have been slowed or halted as part of COVID-19 precautions. Second, engage earnestly with the crisis in policing that was brought to national attention after George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer. Finally, provide COVID-19 vaccines, protective equipment and any necessary health care to the police, public health and community-based workers who work to curb violent street crime.
Bottom Line: Policy makers must summon a bold response to turn around the increase in crime rates. “Sustained reductions in violence depend heavily on improving the fairness and legitimacy of the justice system. Translating calls for policing reform into workable policy will not be easy, but it is essential for sustained improvements in both safety and justice for everyone.”
Read the story >
Related: Is New York City’s spike in violence a return to the “bad old days?” asks The Crime Report.
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The Marshall Project launch of their series “One Year Later: The Pandemic Behind Bars,” which starts by surveying those living inside federal and state prisons. The answers reveal widespread interest in the coronavirus vaccine as well as pervasive distrust of the prison medical system.
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Why it’s time for citizens to demand transparency in the redistricting process, “the true battle for American political power,” in this Boston Globe op-ed by FairVote’s David Daley and Sarah E. Hunt of the Joseph Rainey Center for Public Policy.
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The Lily writing about the harrowing experience of an incarcerated woman who gave birth alone on the floor of her cell. “This highlights a broader issue affecting many who pass through U.S. jails and prisons: Staff without proper medical training or knowledge act as gatekeepers for people who need all kinds of treatment, including pregnancy care.”
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News that New Jersey’s General Assembly has approved — with bipartisan support — a measure to end mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent offenses, via The Philadelphia Inquirer. The bill now goes to Gov. Phil Murphy’s desk, but it is unclear whether he will sign it.
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The Texas Observer reporting on a “culture of violence” inside Austin’s police academy. “One trainer said that people who fight or resist an officer ‘earned a legal ass whooping.’ Others belittled sex workers and people experiencing homelessness. ‘At one point we were writing essays about why we wanted to be cops, and one of the instructors said, “If you tell me that it’s because you want to help people, I’m going to punch you in the face.”’
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A provision in the COVID-19 relief bill takes a big step toward tightening the 90/10 loophole, which has been used by for-profits to target veterans for their GI Bill money, reports Inside Higher Ed.
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The Trace with a deep dive into the history of Baltimore’s response to gun violence and how its new mayor, Brandon Scott, aims to reimagine public safety in his city by having street outreach workers and police work together.
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With Alaska's first ranked-choice voting election around the corner, experts say it's time to educate voters and test the ballots, reports Alaska Public Media. |
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Pew writing on how opportunity zone tax breaks are shown to have little to no impact on economic activity in distressed communities according to researchers.
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This Bloomberg profile of Janelle Jones, President Biden’s chief Labor economist and the first Black woman to hold the position. “There are a lot of people like Janelle in Washington who have technical skills and policy experience, but there are very few who have the kind of vision that she has and an amazing ability for framing,”
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NPR’s Bill of the Month is a “double whammy of bills from two of the costliest kinds of institutions in America — colleges and hospitals — both with prices that inexorably rise faster.”
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This interesting tidbit from The Conversation: Women are more likely to donate to charities than men of equal means.
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“Soul of a Nation,” a six-part ABC series that host Sterling K. Brown calls an exploration of “the authentic lives and experiences of Black folks in this country.” The first episode’s theme is reckonings, told through a series of primetime news-style vignettes. We hear from Capitol Officer Harry Dunn about his harrowing and painful experience contending with the white supremacists at the Jan. 6 insurrection; delve into the activism of artist John Legend; travel to Evanston, Ill., set to become the first city in America to adopt reparations in an effort to pay the debt of racism; and sit in on a candid roundtable discussion hosted by Sunny Hostin about what it means to be a “patriot.” These stories are bookended by spoken word and musical performances. “Soul of a Nation” moves quickly with segments that leave you wanting more, but that’s because there’s a lot to say here. The discussions are refreshingly frank and the format intimate. I’m looking forward to the stories to come.
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- The latest episode of the Tradeoffs podcast, which digs into the details of the federal ban on surprise medical billing, a major piece of health legislation passed at the end of 2020. It aims to protect patients from outrageous bills and also sets up a “baseball-style arbitration” process to determine how much providers should get paid. What can we expect from the No Surprises Act, and will it work? Host Dan Gorenstein talks to University of Minnesota health economist Sayeh Nikpay, who brings with her some big numbers, several great metaphors, and both good and not great news about the potential impacts of the legislation. Bottom line: As the federal government implements this rule, regulations should be designed to ensure downward pressure on health care costs.
- The Sway podcast with guest Stacey Abrams, who discusses the 2020 presidential election, expanding access to the right to vote, which Star Trek character she looks up to most, and why she does the work she does: “I think that poverty is wrong. I think that we have failed to meet our obligations to those who are in need and vulnerable and disadvantaged and marginalized. I think we waste human capital through incarceration and through denial of basic services. And I know that the only way things change is if people do the work to create that change, and I’m one of those people.”
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Our Complex Care team is 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. They are seeking to fund researchers who are guided by the following principles: policy relevance, rigor and independence, and alignment with our strategy. 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.
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Have an evidence-based week,
– Stephanie
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Stephanie DiCapua Getman develops and executes Arnold Ventures' digital communications strategy with a focus on multimedia storytelling and audience engagement and oversees daily editorial operations and design.
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