Recent federal policy changes require state vocational rehabilitation (VR) agencies to expand service delivery to transition-age youth and young adults with disabilities. These expanded services intend to improve youth’s preparation for college and employment.

Professional development that combines online and in-person activities offers a number of potential advantages for teacher learning. Online activities can extend the learning that occurs in face-to-face sessions, and in-person sessions can establish a strong foundation for teachers’ online interactions.

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.

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.

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.

The goal of the webinar is to expand local and state leaders’ knowledge of teacher survey instruments to enhance the evaluation of school leaders.

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

This webinar defined educational inequity and discussed its implications. It included a brief introduction to culturally responsive pedagogy and what broader systemic changes may be necessary to implement equity and culturally responsive pedagogy.

Hear from ACOs about their approaches to improving care delivery, and from CMS about new policy opportunities.

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.

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.