OKLAHOMA CITY (OBV) – Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt and philanthropic nonprofit Arnold Ventures are partnering to help Oklahoma children achieve greater educational outcomes.
Stitt and Arnold Ventures’ co-founders Laura and John Arnold all participated in Q&As at the OSU Hamm Institute for American Energy in Oklahoma City on Wednesday, discussing the new education-focused partnership.
Punchbowl News, a Washington, D.C.-based media outlet, conducted the Q&As, hours after the partnership was announced.
The partnership involves a multimillion dollar investment in new resources into the Department of Human Services’ Be A Neighbor initiative. The contribution is expected to propel further investment into Oklahoma that will create more opportunities and better outcomes for Oklahoma’s youth.
“Oklahoma is proud to lead the way in supporting effective community programs that deliver results and a brighter future for our young people,” Stitt said. “This partnership highlights our commitment to world-class education, workforce readiness, and ensuring every young Oklahoman has the tools they need to achieve their full potential and thrive.”
Arnold Ventures will support Be A Neighbor by matching government investments dollar-for-dollar over the next 4 years. It will provide up to $10 million for a potential total investment of $20 million.
Initial funds will be focused on community-driven programs that have a proven history of unlocking student potential.
Arnold Ventures funds research that provides clarity on the root causes of the United States’ most persistent and pressing problems as well as evidence-based solutions.
“With policymakers facing increasingly complex problems and the need to balance budgets, it’s crucial to support strategies with the greatest potential to drive real, measurable outcomes for children, families, and communities,” Laura Arnold said. “We look forward to working with Governor Stitt and his team in Oklahoma on this significant partnership.”
Two potential initiatives are as follows:
- Saga tutoring – A proven educational intervention that provides intensive math tutoring services to 9th and 10th graders in low-income high schools. Large, well-conducted randomized controlled trials found that Saga produced a sustained increase in students’ math achievement.
- Wendy’s Wonderful Kids – This program recruits adoptive families for children in foster care or other out-of-home placements. A large, well-conducted randomized controlled trial found Wendy’s Wonderful Kids increased adoption rates by more than one-third over a period of several years.
Arnold Ventures helps governments be more efficient in solving problems, John Arnold said during the Q&A with Punchbowl News.
“Arnold Ventures was government efficiency before government efficiency was cool. We had a different name for it. We called it evidence-based policymaking. And we’re trying to figure out how can government be more efficient with scarce taxpayer resources,” John Arnold said. “In government programs and social programs, there’s a lot of things that are implemented that just don’t work very well and are not improving the lives of people.”
John Arnold said a trend towards using evidence and research to figure out what works and what doesn’t in social programs has grown in the past 15 years.
“We have a much better understanding now as a field. Arnold Ventures has funded a lot of this, but it’s been a much broader field of trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t, especially at a time now when a lot of state budgets are tight,” he said. “The question is how can political leaders improve the lives of their communities and the people? You can’t just throw more money at these problems. You have to change how you allocate the existing funds.”
John Arnold said Stitt’s efforts toward criminal justice reform, political leadership that cares more about solutions and good policy over ideology and Stitt being a business-oriented governor who values data and research evaluation are three reasons why Arnold Ventures is working with Oklahoma in search of better outcomes for children.
“In the scheme of government budgets, $10 million over four years is tiny. Our goal here really is how can you try to change the demand for evidence in budgeting in government,” John Arnold said. “So, we needed a partner who came from that background who really valued the data and the research, and unfortunately, that’s not every governor. With those three [attributes] we found a great partner here.”
Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization, will work with the state and Arnold Ventures to identify promising program opportunities, scale impactful initiatives and ensure the sustainability of public funding.
The Coalition will guide and assist state and local agencies in implementing these efforts.
Oklahoma will rely on these partnerships to develop long-term strategies to direct and optimize resources toward evidence-based programs that demonstrably benefit local communities.
“In recent years, we’ve made tremendous progress in identifying programs that produce meaningful, lasting improvements in people’s lives,” said Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy President Jon Baron. “Governor Stitt and Arnold Ventures are now taking the critical next step — implementing and scaling these proven programs to build a better future for the youth and families of Oklahoma.”
