Want funding for new programs? Prove it works.

When Texas state Sen. Florence Shapiro asked state auditors to tell her which programs designed to help struggling, low-income students worked and which didn't, she was shocked by the answer. 

Because there wasn't one.

"Billions of dollars flow into programs designed to boost poor students and to keep them in school," Gary Scharrer of the San Antonio Express-News writes. "But there are too many variables to measure their impact."

Shapiro doesn't buy that.

Under her watch, state budgets now include a specific instruction to education officials: They have four years to prove the value of any new education program. Those demonstrating success will then have leverage to ask for more funding — and bad programs would be exposed as a waste of taxpayer money and educators' time. 

Lawmakers are expected to receive their first report in January. We'll be very interested in what it has to say.