Saturday, December 15, 2012

Is the Love Affair With Data Driven Public Policy Cooling Off? | toteachornototeach

Is the Love Affair With Data Driven Public Policy Cooling Off? | toteachornototeach:


Is the Love Affair With Data Driven Public Policy Cooling Off?

Is the Love Affair With Data Driven Public Policy Cooling Off? 
06hargreaves
by Marc Epstein
The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 – 1882)
When historians and political scientists look back on the first decade of this century I suspect they’ll spend a fair amount of time explaining why politicians, enamored of data driven “reforms,” bypassed the democratic process to achieve their goals.
If we’re lucky, they’ll also be explaining why these reforms failed so miserably.
It seems the give and take of the American political dialectic no longer works for them. In its stead when it comes to solving the pubic policy issues of our day the businessman-technocrat and politician are acting in