Question

Does it matter whether governments or private organizations produce report cards

Answer 1

Organizational sponsorship or support (meaning production wherewithal) can be lodged in the executive branch or legislative branch or private sector. In the executive branch it can be housed in the budget office, a major department, or, perhaps best, a collaborative or children’s cabinet. In the legislative branch it is most likely to be housed in the staff arm or budget arm of the legislative body. In the private sector it can be housed in a single advocacy organization or a collaborative or council.

The purposes of sponsorship are twofold: First, organization support and financing is necessary to support the work and produce the products. But leverage, visibility, and utility may be even more important. Children’s report cards, like children’s budgets are political documents, and who sponsors them says a lot about how they will be seen and used. The obvious message here is to go for the highest level sponsorship possible, preferably joint executive legislative authorization and support. Before this is possible the report card may need to go through its development in the private sector.

There is an argument to be made that the report card should be developed by and remain in the private sector, as a means of providing an outside, “objective” view. This is in fact the way most report cards have been produced. The Annie E. Casey Foundation Kids Count reports are mostly produced by private non-profit or university based organizations. The advantage here is flexibility. The possible disadvantage is more limited access to data and less powerful standing in the political and budget processes. United Ways are playing an increasingly important role in the development of report cards. These organizations often represent at least partially neutral ground, and have the organizational resources to pull it off. Foundation or other private sector funding is often necessary.

Once the project is authorized and funded, the fun begins. Many report card efforts of the past have skipped “results” gone directly to the businesses of selecting indicators, and did this mostly on the basis of data power (i.e. what was available). So you end up with a report card that is the best of available data. The problem with this is that the indicators are often a disembodies set of data with no anchor to the notion of well-being for the population being reported on. It has more to do with the quality of data than the purpose of the data. The purpose of indicators is to help quantify results, conditions of well-being. Results themselves can help us be more specific about what we mean by well-being. So using results to select indicators produces a logic chain

Report cards provide a platform and opportunity to influence decisions about children families and communities. The press coverage of report cards is sometime the most concentrated attention these issues get in the press. If the report card is produced by government, then it is not likely to allow much in the way of specific recommendations. In this case private advocacy organizations can and should issue a companion analysis offering specific policy recommendations.

Report cards can help us stay on course when we’ve made progress. Take the example of Tillamook County where teen pregnancy rates rebounded after years of progress. Report cards can help us keep our eye on what is most important even when the numbers look good (or better) and take action to sustain progress.