Setting the Record Straight – Strong Positive Impacts from the National Evaluation of Upward Bound

In January 2009, in the last week of the Bush Administration, the U.S. Department of Education (ED), upon orders from the departing political appointee staff, published the final report in a long running National Evaluation of Upward Bound (UB). The study was conducted by the contractor, Mathematica Policy Research. After more than a year in review, and over a year after the third and final contract had ended, the report was published over objections from the Policy and Program Studies Services (PPSS) ED career technical staff who were assigned to monitor the final Mathematica contract. The report was also published after a “disapproval to publish” rating in the formal review process from the Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE), out of whose program allocation the evaluation was funded. The Mathematica reports from the UB study (Myers et. al. 2004; and Seftor et. al. 2009) have had a large impact on policy development for more than a decade. They have resulted in an OMB “ineffective rating” and were used to justify the zero funding requests for all of the federal pre-college programs, UB, Upward Bound Math/Science (UBMS), Talent Search and GEAR UP in President Bush’s budgets in FY 2005 and FY 2006.