Agencies run by career execs get better management grades

a new report from Princeton University finds that career federal managers do a better job of running their agencies than their politically appointed counterparts. The study, from David Lewis of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, uses scores from the Bush administration's Program Assessment Rating Tool—a set of 30 questions devised to help budget examiners write formal program evaluations—to determine which managers are achieving best results. He then used biographical data on the 245 bureau chiefs graded by PART to find explanations for differences in results.