An Open Letter to All Organizations in Need of a Program Evaluator

By Watson Scott Swail, President & CEO, Educational Policy Institute/EPI International Dear Prospective Client: My organization and thousands of others, including university-based, non-profits, and for-profit organizations, are pleased that you are soliciting our help in evaluating your project. This is how we keep the doors open, and, in our case, as a non-profit organization, it is how we preach our mission of expanding educational opportunity … Continue reading An Open Letter to All Organizations in Need of a Program Evaluator

What the President’s Budget Really Need(s/ed) To Do

By Watson Scott Swail, President & CEO, Educational Policy Institute/ EPI International The pundits are now coming out of the woodwork to discuss the President’s budget, which is unlikely to even remotely pass the way it is currently packaged, and as House Republicans plan on cutting much more liberally (no pun intended) than the President. In total, the President’s budget cuts approximately $1 trillion over … Continue reading What the President’s Budget Really Need(s/ed) To Do

Not Quite Achieving the Dream

Dr. Watson Scott Swail, President & CEO, Educational Policy Institute Back in 2004, Lumina Foundation for Education began pumping millions of dollars into its Achieving the Dream initiative, an effort to improve educational practice at two-year institutions through data-driven decision-making, the use of learning communities, and changing the way students are processed at community colleges. Seventy-six million dollars later, a new MDRC report suggests that … Continue reading Not Quite Achieving the Dream

The Passing of a Student Aid Giant: Remembering Lutz Berkner

By Dr. Watson Scott Swail, CEO, Educational Policy Institute/EPI International As many people know, I am passionate about the pathways to and through higher education, and I follow the data with excruciating detail. Three letters—BPS—mean more to me than most people: Beginning Postsecondary Student. This is the name of the US Department of Education survey of 19,000 students attending mostly US institutions who are followed … Continue reading The Passing of a Student Aid Giant: Remembering Lutz Berkner

Merry Christmas: The Lasting Impact of the Economy and a Congress that Apparently Doesn’t Give a Damn

By Dr. Watson Scott Swail, CEO, Educational Policy Institute Okay, I could have written a softer, nicer, gentler, “funner” piece for Xmas. But I received an email yesterday from the Southern Education Foundation that said that “extreme poverty in the United States increased during 2009 by 12.9 percent, expanding the number of people living below 50 percent of the poverty threshold by more than 2.1 … Continue reading Merry Christmas: The Lasting Impact of the Economy and a Congress that Apparently Doesn’t Give a Damn