30,000 Leagues The Policy Lab

How would you spend $1.1 billion? The question sounds like something that most of us only dream about, but it’s a very real question with real implications that Rhode Island faces as leaders decide how to spend the $1.1 billion in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding.
Guest co-hosts Jonathan Womer and Lisa Vura-Weis spoke with Michael DiBiase, President and CEO of the RI Public Expenditure Council (RIPEC) and Linda Katz, Co-Founder and Policy Director of the Economic Progress Institute, who helped author a Rhode Island Foundation report called “Make it Happen: Investing for Rhode Island’s Future”.
This episode dives into the report, which is a combination of policy analysis and public stakeholder input, and presents a set of spending recommendations including housing, behavioral health, workforce development, and more.
About our guest co-hosts: Jonathan Womer is a Senior Advisor and Head of Budgeting at The Policy Lab, and Lisa Vura-Weis is a Partner and Associate Director at Boston Consulting Group.

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What's the right kind of school and at what age should a particular kid start? How can you best manage TV and social media time?
In this episode, we take a deep dive into a data-driven approach to parenting with Emily Oster, Brown professor of economics and mom of two and author of "The Family Firm: A Data-Driven Guide to Better Decision Making in the Early School Years." In her latest New York Times bestseller, Emily offers a classic business school framework for data-driven parents to think more deliberately about the key issues of the elementary years: school, health, extracurricular activities, and more.

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Year Up is a workforce development program that aims to bridge the opportunity divide and help young low-income adults who don't have a college degree find meaningful work. But how effective is it?
Join us for a conversation with David Fein of Abt Associates about his newly-released five-year results from a major randomized controlled trial evaluating the effectiveness of Year Up.

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Governor Dan McKee became the 76th Governor of Rhode Island in unique circumstances, but he is no stranger to governing.
In this episode, David Yokum sits down with Governor McKee to discuss how his experience as Mayor and Lt. Governor prepared him to lead, policy priorities for Rhode Island, and the role of science in government.
Take a deep dive with us and get to know Rhode Island's new Governor.



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You're mindlessly scrolling through your phone, holding the entirety of the internet in your hand, but you're still bored out of your gourd. Why? And what can you do about it?
In this episode, David Yokum sits down with John Eastwood, co-author of Out of My Skull: The Psychology of Boredom and Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology at York University to discuss his research on boredom and its association with the unengaged mind.

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It’s April 28th, 2020, and we’re a few months into the Covid-19 pandemic. Here in Rhode Island we’ve been under a stringent, stay-and-home order for the past 30 days. 
States across the country are starting to consider when and how to responsibly lift these restrictions. Yesterday, Governor Raimondo released a framework for how to reopen the state, called “Reopening RI: Charting the Course.” It describes three phases of progression, and the metrics we’ll monitor to know when to move from one phase to the next. 
Today we’re joined by Dr. James McDonald, Medical Director of Rhode Island's Department of Health, to talk about that framework and give a picture of what life might look like over the coming weeks and months, depending on how Covid-19 evolves.

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