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A new study issued by a team of researchers led by Sheila Kennedy at Indiana University-Purdue University (Charitable Choice: First Results from Three States) appears to offer grim news on the President's faith-based initiative. It asserts that "faith-based job training and placement services are somewhat less effective than those of secular organizations" and that "congregational leaders lack the constitutional knowledge and competence to assure constitutionally appropriate program implementation."

The study—a preliminary report—is based on an investigation of charitable choice implementation in three states: Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Indiana. Charitable choice refers to the new rules passed as part of the 1996 federal welfare reforms to guide government contracting with faith-based organizations (FBOs) that deliver social services. President Bush supports charitable choice, and has advocated increased collaboration between government and FBOs.

The report asserts that Bush's initiative is based on the assumption that faith-based groups outperform secular social service providers. The Washington Post journalist reporting on the study unquestioningly accepted this claim. But it's wrong. In fact, the initiative has always been about creating a level playing field by ending discrimination against FBOs. As the White House has stated repeatedly, the guiding principle behind the initiative "is that faith-based charities should be able to compete on an equal footing for public dollars to provide public services." There's no reason to expect that all faith-based programs are more effective than all secular programs. Rather, those faith-based programs that are effective (whether they be many or few) should not be excluded from government funding just because they are faith-based. It is not necessary to believe in the universal superiority of FBOs to adopt the position that discrimination against them is unjustified.

Still, the effectiveness of programs is an essential question. The Kennedy study examined the performance of six new faith-based providers invited into Indiana's contracting system through the FaithWorks initiative to provide employment services for clients in Lake and Marion Counties. Essentially, it found that these groups performed as well as secular contractors in terms of job placement and wage rates (clients of FBOs, though, worked fewer hours and were less likely to have health benefits). It also indicated that these FBOs: (1) had fewer years' experience operating job training programs; (2) received less money from government; and (3) had smaller budgets and fewer employees than the secular organizations. It also appears that the secular providers were more likely to be assigned clients from Marion County, which the authors admit has a greater demand for labor than Lake County. Taking all these facts together, it seems that these faith-based groups faced some additional challenges—and yet performed almost as well. This, unfortunately, went unnoted in the Washington Post article heralding the study.

Substantial anecdotal data indicate that FBOs are effective in transforming broken lives and revitalizing distressed communities. There are also some limited empirical studies suggesting that in certain arenas, such as drug rehabilitation, FBOs may have an edge over secular programs. The largest literature review to date on effectiveness, conducted by the Center for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society, examined over 800 studies. It found that "organic religion"—people's belief in God, attendance at worship, and devotional exercises—is persuasively linked to positive health and social outcomes. But it also concluded that there is not yet sufficient evidence to make a case that FBOs are better (or worse) performers than secular groups in a wide variety of social service programs. As the Kennedy report itself admits, we need a lot more research on this question.

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June (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47