PLY: Education in vogue once again for SIB projects, welcome to another week of SIB News:
Can This Save Early Childhood Education?
Eleanor Clift – Daily Beast
Social impact bonds have attracted liberals and conservatives, as well as big banks, but can they really fund education?
Politicians agree that quality preschool is good and perhaps even necessary. But when it comes to government picking up the tab, that’s where everyone falls silent except maybe Bernie Sanders, who would raise taxes to pay for lots of things. With Republicans controlling at least one chamber of Congress for the foreseeable future, if liberals want to see expanded preschool in their lifetime, they will have to get creative.
The most innovative approach that Save the Children Action Network advocates in a white paper released on Capitol Hill on Wednesday is “social impact bonds” or SIBS. “The basic idea is private investors loan money to social service providers who are running programs these investors think are really promising and will have a clear payoff in successful results,” says Katharine Stevens with the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. “And if it works out, the government will pay them back.”