January 2019

On January 15, President Donald Trump signed the Foundations of Evidence-Based Policymaking Act (H.R. 4174). The law incorporates many of the recommendations of the Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking report released in 2017 to encourage the use of administrative data in federal agencies to answer policy-relevant questions and inform program development.  

In November 2017, AERA issued a statement praising commission’s report and encouraging efforts to proceed with legislation. AERA also joined more than 100 organizations and leaders in a letter of support of the bill.

“The Foundations of Evidence-Based Policymaking Act is a positive step forward for advancing evidence-based policymaking while continuing to enhance privacy protections, data access and use, and transparency for the public,” said AERA Executive Director Felice J. Levine. “In a time of significant discord in the nation’s capital, the broad bipartisan support for this legislation was noteworthy.”  

Levine was also quoted in an Education Week story about the new law, saying, “I see possibilities not only for the knowledge that we can produce in terms of evidence and evaluation, but also how systems of administrative records can be strengthened or evolve in ways that will produce more robust findings for policymakers and decisionmakers."