I’ve just finished reading Margaret Wente’s latest Globe and Mail Opinion piece on the push for more rigorous evidence about the success (or lack of) of the social programs funded by various levels of government in Canada. This comes after being challenged on Twitter earlier in the week by B.C.’s Tobey Steeves to look a little deeper and more carefully at some of the ideologies and rhetoric associated with the way that we frame and talk about public education. Taking up his challenge, I’ve immersed myself in some of the writing of Gert Biesta, one of the many voices stepping forward to challenge some of the assumptions that we make when we talk about evidence-based strategies, best practice and scientific rigor.
At first blush, Wente’s call to a disciplined approach to research of social programs sounds like common sense, but when you begin to poke the beast a little, you may become sensitive to fact that not everything that is valuable and worthwhile is easily measured by even the most rigorous of scientific inquiries. Human communities, and the systems that we have designed to support them, are complex things and, as Biesta and others will argue, to attempt to impose a frame that looks to find a simple relationship of cause and effect is foolish and, itself, ineffective.
One of the questions that is missing from Wente’s rather casual stroll through the conversation has to do with what we mean by success or failure of any particular social program. What do we intend to have happen when we fund the development of community-based social clubs, systems of mentorship, or job-training programs. Is it a lower crime rate? Is it better-adjusted young people? Could it be higher test scores?
I’m not a fan of careless spending in any area of public life. But I think that we have to be very careful about defining what we mean by success, and what measures will provide the best feedback on effectiveness. And I’m not convinced by Wente’s (and other’s) suggestion that evidence-based rigor is the answer.
After all, what have testing protocols like Ontario’s EQAO done to the quality of education in the province?
I would like to follow this thread further over the next few days. Your insights are most appreciated!
I’m always wary when Wente writes about something because she has a well documented history of blaming the poor for their circumstances, so her interest in writing about social program seems likely to be an effort to further that agenda. That’s certainly what happened with her take on Paul Toughs book where she focussed on the importance of grit in learning. Since then Tough’s been uncovered as a hard core neo-con apologist.
To me social programs are simple. There are certain basic rights everyone has. In a rich society as ours no one should be going hungry, be without shelter or health care. In addition, everyone should have fair shot at making a good life for themselves. Opportunity doesn’t=success however. Just because someone gets support to get a job doesn’t mean they will, etc.
We don’t do these things because we want to achieve a certain result, because the result is always in doubt. We do them because of what it says about us. It says we are kind people who take care of each other. We don’t provide parenting support because it makes better parents but because we believe that everyone should get help if they need it. Whether the programs work is another question all together, but we do these things because it’s the right thing to do.
Thank you for writing this and starting the conversations that you do. I have to admit, before this year, I had never heard of Wente and I still wish I never had. I have trouble getting through her articles without feeling sick. She presents such a sheltered and close minded view of the world. It is not so simple to say that money is money and success is success.
We have all benefited from the way in which our society offers social programs, sometimes we don’t see them so clearly. It is not so cut and dry.
For the numerous projects that I have worked with, I know intuitively that a program has been successful, but not always in the numeric data that the public craves as proof of purchase. Much like schools, social programs are much more about the intangibles; the relationships, the memories, the impacts that can’t be documented because they don’t have during or in the days directly afterwards. The way in which we assess is rooted in a filtering process of assuming that everything can be categorized and shown through a bar graph.
I don’t know what the right questions to ask are, but I think they are both complex and simple.
Glad you’re enjoying the encounter with Gert Biesta. Call me prejudiced, but I think Biesta would mop the floor with Ms. Wente …