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Leya

@leyamohsin.bsky.social
126 followers 292 following 73 posts

making policy more evidence-based @scientistsorg.bsky.social | alum of @arnoldventures.bsky.social + @teachforamerica.bsky.social views are my own

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Leya @leyamohsin.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
one potential stumbling block: if this passes, Ohio IHEs will need help knowing when evidence is strong enough to qualify for funding. the What Works Clearinghouse is a great potential source of that information, but staff/funding has been dramatically cut for that resource.
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Leya @leyamohsin.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
4) there are already some GREAT, evidence-based student success programs like CUNY ASAP (evidence that in part was generated at Ohio colleges)!
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Leya @leyamohsin.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
3) funding can go to "development, piloting, scaling, and assessment of student success programs" -- meaning this is flexible enough to allow newer programs to come on the scene and to give IHEs space to evaluate their programs when they implement.
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Leya @leyamohsin.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
2) it also provides a clear definition of what outcomes programs need to have produced -- in this case, a stat-sig impact on either achievement or degree attainment.
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Leya @leyamohsin.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
1) it's modeled on language from other tiered-evidence funds like the federal Education Innovation and Research Program, the bill makes clear what qualifies programs for different "tiers" depending on the strength of their evidence and gives preference to funding programs with better evidence.
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Leya @leyamohsin.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
BREAKING: the Ohio legislature does something we can be proud of -- a new bill (HB644) called the Higher Education Evidence-Based Innovation Fund -- breaking down why this rocks in thread! www.legislature.ohio.gov/legislation/...
legislature.ohio.gov
House Bill 644 | 136th General Assembly | Ohio Legislature
Learn More : Glossary of Terms | The Legislative Process
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Alfred P. Sloan Foundation @sloanfoundation.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
The Sloan Foundation recently supported a @scientistsorg.bsky.social event that asked what it takes to design initiatives centered on big, challenging goals that lead us to better science, and why many previous "moonshots" have fallen short. Read the takeaways: fas.org/publication/...
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Aaron Sojourner @aaronsojourner.org · 18/05/2026
This Kind Of Smart, Reliable, Mixed-methods Evidence Is Illegal To Build In Most American Agencies
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Federation of American Scientists @scientistsorg.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
The problem with sacred cows isn't that they existed – it's that they have taken on new life as facts, even as the world changes around them. @merici.bsky.social takes on the sacred cows of digital government delivery, and what we can win if we put them out to pasture. fas.org/publication/...
fas.org
What Did We Stop Questioning in Digital Government Delivery?
Let’s see what rules we can rewrite and beliefs we can reset: a few digital service sacred cows are long overdue to be put out to pasture.
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Leya @leyamohsin.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
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Leya @leyamohsin.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
is distracted driving a problem? yes! is this quality evidence that you should avoid getting in your car when taylor swift's 13th album inevitably drops? probably not.
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Leya @leyamohsin.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
your alarm bells should *always* go up when you read about ginormous effect sizes like this. in this case, the study looks at a pretty small number of album release days (10) and finds an increase of 18.2 fatalities nationwide on those days. I don't find that particularly convincing!
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Federation of American Scientists @scientistsorg.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
Universities think they're too nerdy for city hall. City hall thinks they're not nerdy enough for universities. Meanwhile, communities wait for solutions. The new Civic Research Agenda report digs into what's stalling the research-to-impact pipeline — and how to fix it. fas.org/initiative/c...
fas.org
The Civic Research Agenda - Federation of American Scientists
The Civic Research Agenda is the first comprehensive reporting on the priority research needs of American cities and counties.
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Tarja Porkka-Kontturi @tarjapk.bsky.social · 13/11/2025
she’s a 10 but Excel thinks she’s October
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Leya @leyamohsin.bsky.social · 13/11/2025
More broadly, I'd love to get your thoughts on the post I have up this morning on next steps for the evidence-based policymaking movement! fas.org/publication/...
fas.org
What’s Next for Federal Evidence-Based Policymaking - Federation of American Scientists
Decision-makers relied upon the more than 1,000 federal advisory committees that provided expert advice and insights. Most recently, the 2018 Evidence-Based Policymaking Act sought to catalyze movemen...
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Leya @leyamohsin.bsky.social · 13/11/2025
Attending #2025APPAM? Come check out my session this Saturday where I'm partnering with colleagues to talk about the future role of evidence synthesis and AI in powering better policy- and decision-making.
Screenshot from APPAM program describing living evidence session to be hosted Saturday, November 15 at 1:45pm
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Leya @leyamohsin.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
(disclaimer: I'm not an economist! just a policy person who reads a lot of research 😅)
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Leya @leyamohsin.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
I feel like the overall evidence on co-requisite education is pretty mixed, and there's a lot of variation in how these programs are designed/implemented. So hard to say if these results would replicate! Jill Barshay did a good write up on this a few years ago hechingerreport.org/proof-points...
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Leya @leyamohsin.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
cuny asap, of course! www.mdrc.org/work/publica... but on your second question, I think this paper on co-requisite math/stats courses is interesting. they suggest that the earnings impact that they find is driven by reduced time to degree. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.3102/...
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Leya @leyamohsin.bsky.social · 16/10/2025
also worth noting that TX-18, a heavily democratic district, has been without a rep since January...
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Joshua Smith @smithmachine.bsky.social · 29/08/2025
This is illegal. www.gao.gov/blog/what-po...
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Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 28/08/2025
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Charles Ornstein @charlesornstein.bsky.social · 28/08/2025
Rep. Wesley Hunt has spent months trying to get officials to hire Elon Musk’s The Boring Co. to build a major flood control project in Houston. The company has pitched tunnels that are far smaller than what may be needed to address the flooding issues.🤔 @lmcgaughy.bsky.social @chengyilun.bsky.social
propublica.org
A Texas Congressman Is Quietly Helping Elon Musk Pitch a $760M Plan to Build Tunnels Under Houston to Ease Flooding
For years, experts in Houston have been studying the idea of building massive tunnels to divert floodwaters and save lives and property. Now Elon Musk’s tunneling company wants a piece of the project.
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Bryce Covert @brycecovert.bsky.social · 25/08/2025
Truly wild that this entire story doesn't mention the fact that DOGE nuked USDS and 18F, which actually did this work for years. Including online passport renewal and the creation of Direct File to make filing taxes easier! www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
washingtonpost.com
Trump’s new chief design officer aims to make federal websites ‘satisfying’
Joe Gebbia, an Elon Musk ally who also worked for DOGE, said navigating dot-gov websites should be just as easy as visiting the Apple Store.
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Jill Barshay @jillbarshay.bsky.social · 14/07/2025
Ever since the former commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics was dismissed by the Trump administration in February, I wanted to hear her story. Peggy Carr was among a string of Black senior officials fired in early 2025. (1/3)
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Alt National Park Service @altnps.bsky.social · 12/07/2025
Posted in the State Department. The resistance always grows. Tomorrow there will be more of us.
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Leya @leyamohsin.bsky.social · 09/07/2025
It’s true, FEMA doesn’t serve people as well as it should. But it’s also clear that in large part the tragedy unfolding in Central Texas was exacerbated by a failure of local and state officials’ response. So why should Texans trust those same people to manage their recovery?
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Leya @leyamohsin.bsky.social · 30/06/2025
for my #edusky people, highly recommend this resource the HEDCO institute just dropped that is tracking research on four-day school weeks (and all their research dashboards!): hedcoinstitute.uoregon.edu/dashboards/f...
hedcoinstitute.uoregon.edu
Four-Day School Week Research Database
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Kumail Nanjiani @kumail.bsky.social · 10/06/2025
real bummer finding out that literally everything was on the honor system this whole time
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Jill Barshay @jillbarshay.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
Yesterday, June 2, was an interesting day at work. I was reporting a story about how the Education Department hadn't delivered a report to Congress on the Condition of Education, despite the June 1 deadline mandated by law. 🧵 (1/9)
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Leya @leyamohsin.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
A blast from my past: New evidence on the program Skew the Script finds promising impact of the curriculum on AP test scores. This resource helped me bring Beyonce, influencer salary, and food deserts into the conversation into my math classroom! skewthescript.org/blog/harvard... #edusky #mathsky
skewthescript.org
Harvard researchers find evidence that Skew The Script boosts AP Stats scores — Skew The Script
A research group at Harvard found evidence that Skew The Script lessons had a causal impact on AP Stats scores across Texas…
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Colette Delawalla, PhD @cdelawalla.bsky.social · 29/05/2025
Delighted to see this piece with Victor Ambros, @carlbergstrom.com, Carol Greider, @michaelemann.bsky.social, and @briannosek.bsky.social in the wild. Trump’s new ‘gold standard’ rule will destroy American science as we know it @standupforscience.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
Trump’s new ‘gold standard’ rule will destroy American science as we know it | Colette Delawalla
The new executive order allows political appointees to undermine research they oppose, paving the way to state-controlled science
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Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 29/05/2025
The Trump administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” report misinterprets some studies and cites others that don’t exist, according to the listed authors
notus.org
The MAHA Report Cites Studies That Don’t Exist
The Trump administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” report misinterprets some studies and cites others that don’t exist, according to the listed authors.
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Matt Lanza @mattlanza.bsky.social · 17/05/2025
Exactly what we’ve been SCREAMING about since this whole mess started. This was inevitable. It’s not fault of the office itself. It’s entirely the fault of the current administration.
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Alondra Nelson @alondra.bsky.social · 13/05/2025
"For me, the answer now lies in refusal, the withdrawal of participation from systems that require dishonesty as the price of belonging." Today I am resigning from the National Science Board and the Library of Congress Scholars Council. I wrote about my decision in TIME. time.com/7285045/resi...
time.com
Why I’m Resigning from the NSF and Library of Congress
I cannot participate in systems that require dishonesty as the price of belonging.
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Leya @leyamohsin.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
And you can read more thoughts from me about why this report holds more salience than ever in the current circumstances here: fas.org/publication/...
fas.org
Getting ‘What Works’ in Education into Teachers' Hands
Living evidence still has a path forward in the U.S, and opportunities to continue to grow along with the growing global movement.
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Leya @leyamohsin.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
You can read more about how we propose IES use this innovative model to bring evidence-based practice to those who need it, when they need it here: fas.org/wp-content/u...
fas.org
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Leya @leyamohsin.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
IES’s mission is to equip teachers, school leaders, parents, and more with the tools backed by rigorous research that might help them do their jobs best. Living evidence is an approach that supports bringing knowledge to communities faster, better, and more efficiently.
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Leya @leyamohsin.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
The report comes at a crossroads: the Trump administration has taken steps to dismantle the Institute of Education Sciences, attacking it for a perceived failure to improve student achievement. But here’s the thing: the small, mighty IES team is not on school campuses teaching kids to read.
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Leya @leyamohsin.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
THREAD | Today, our team from the @scientistsorg.bsky.social and the Future Evidence Foundation shared a report sharing learnings and recommendations from a year-long design sprint that explored potential use of an innovative approach, living evidence, at the federal What Works Clearinghouse.
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Leya @leyamohsin.bsky.social · 30/04/2025
This is just the beginning. At FAS, we’re building bridges between science and public policy—at every level of government, now and for the future.
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Leya @leyamohsin.bsky.social · 30/04/2025
Some of our best ideas still need a home. If you’re in a position to act on science-backed policies across climate, tech, state capacity & more—we’ve got memos for you: fas.org/accelerator/...
fas.org
Day One 2025 - Federation of American Scientists
We sit on the verge of another Presidential election – and we see opportunity for meaningful, science-based policy innovations that can appeal to lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
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Leya @leyamohsin.bsky.social · 30/04/2025
For example, @mayaforcouncil.bsky.social's memo on Science and Technology Hubs for Congress has influenced GAO's development of an expert network to support legislators: fas.org/publication/...
fas.org
Creating a Science and Technology Hub in Congress
Congress should create a new Science and Technology Hub within the Government Accountability Office to support an understaffed and overwhelmed Congress in addressing pressing science and technology po...
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Leya @leyamohsin.bsky.social · 30/04/2025
Over the last 100 days, we’ve shared these ideas with executive and legislative leaders. Some have gone from “what if?” to being championed by real policymakers.
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Leya @leyamohsin.bsky.social · 30/04/2025
Last summer, we @scientistsorg.bsky.social sourced 100+ science and technology policy ideas that would be ready in-time for whoever took office to act on. We gave the authors of these ideas the tools to push for them, support them, and turn them into actually-implemented policy.
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Leya @leyamohsin.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
Visiting the Whitney Plantation changed my life, and I think about the lessons it taught me constantly. It is emotionally heavy but so worth your time to prioritize visiting, especially now.
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Leya @leyamohsin.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower was not just a novel, but an actual prophecy...
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Leya @leyamohsin.bsky.social · 21/04/2025
Linda McMahon said just two weeks ago at ASU+GSV that NAEP was "something we absolutely need to keep" and that it's "what keeps us honest, because it's comparing apples to apples."
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Liz Willen @lizhech.bsky.social · 21/04/2025
Funding for the education department's online library is slated to end: hechingerreport.org/proof-points... via @jillbarshay.bsky.social
hechingerreport.org
A treasure trove of education reports and studies is under threat
Funding for the Education Department’s online library, ERIC, is slated to end this week
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Leya @leyamohsin.bsky.social · 18/04/2025
Found this quote while on a walk when the Dept of Ed layoffs were announced… we’d do better to remember these wise words.
Plaque reading “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men” -Frederick Douglass
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