Statecraft

Government data often underpins policy debates. Nevertheless, those who work with it will know how uniquely frustrating it can be. Relative to the private sector, government systems collect data in idiosyncratic ways. They prioritize continuity and legality over ease-of-use, in anticipation of a narrow set of users. As a result, these datasets can feel impenetrable.
In October 2024, I was trying to understand how international students enter the US workforce: where they move for work, how many of them use programs like Optional Practical Training, and whether they stay in the US after graduating. So, I opened up a dataset from the Department of Homeland Security’s Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS). Today this data is available on the OPT Observatory; it’s the most granular public resource available to answer these questions. But it took me over a year to produce. The process of getting there taught me as much about government data as it did anything else.
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Jeremy Singer is the President of College Board, which he has led for over a decade. In that role, he oversees the SAT, AP, and other core elements of the U.S. college access ecosystem, and he’s previously had leadership roles at Kaplan and McGraw Hill Education.
Why is Jeremy on Statecraft today? After the failed redesign of FAFSA in 2023, he spent six months at the Department of Education helping to ensure the 2024 launch was successful. The revised application form meant 1.7 million students were eligible for maximum Pell Grants in the 2025-26 application cycle.
We discuss:
* Why attempts to simplify FAFSA went so badly wrong
* The problems caused by precise drafting in Congress
* How Singer got FAFSA back on track
* What politicians and GAO don’t understand about developing software
The full transcript for this conversation is at www.statecraft.pub.


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Baillee Brown is Head of Government and External Affairs at Inclusive Abundance, which works to help members of Congress get more interested in abundance-policy areas, principally housing, energy, science, innovation, and good governance.
She worked on Capitol Hill for 10 years, for Congressman Scott Peters from San Diego. She began as scheduler, moved to the legislative team, and was most recently his chief of staff in the DC office.
For the full transcript of this conversation, go to www.statecraft.pub.


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.statecraft.pub

James Anderson leads the Government Innovation Program at Bloomberg Philanthropies, the umbrella for the charitable giving of billionaire and former three-term New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
He was Mayor Bloomberg’s communications director, leading on the design of NYC Service and on public engagement for a number of Bloomberg reforms.
James has paid more attention than almost anyone to how cities work, and how they learn from each other. But is the Bloomberg model for making cities better “technocratic”? What can it do, and what can’t it do? And should mayors be “innovative”? Or are the best practices, at the end of the day, pretty straightforward? We get into these questions and more.
Read this conversation transcript at www.statecraft.pub.


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Today’s guest is Greg Berman, and we talk about nonprofits — Non-Governmental Organizations, or NGOs. Greg’s got a new book out called The Nonprofit Crisis: Leadership Through the Culture Wars, which I enjoyed. I asked him to explain his diagnosis of the nonprofit sector. What’s happened to nonprofits this century? What’s happened to how people perceive nonprofits? And are “NGOs the bad guys”? As critics from both ends of the political spectrum will argue.
Greg was part of the founding team responsible for creating the Center for Justice Innovation, serving as Director from 2002 to 2020, and helping to guide it from a start-up to an org with an annual budget of more than $80 million. Alongside that, he:
* Has written multiple books, mostly on reducing mass incarceration, including Trial and Error in Criminal Justice Reform and Good Courts: The Case for Problem-Solving Justice.
* Has been at the center of left-liberal attempts to do criminal justice reform, especially in New York City, over the past two decades.
* Was on the Board of Correction for Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and the public safety transition team for Mayor Bill de Blasio and Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance.
* Is the co-editor of a publication called Vital City, which I enjoy — it’s one part New York journalism, one part policy journal.
* Is the Distinguished Fellow of Practice at the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, investigating various topics related to violence.
Thanks to Charles Lehman, Sean Sullivan, Oliver Traldi, Park MacDougald, Rafa Mangual, Ari Schulman, and many others for their contributions to my thinking on this piece.
We discuss:
* Why nonprofits matter to government service delivery
* Critiques of nonprofits from the left, the right, and both sides
* How the Center for Justice Innovation reduced incarceration, and why funding that work got harder
* What nonprofits should do to regain public trust
The full transcript for this conversation is at www.statecraft.pub.


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.statecraft.pub