Science, to shamelessly quote the famous economist Adam Smith, is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition superstition. In the great debate over academic preparation programs, there has certainly not been enough of it.

That is why the new report on the performance of the Preuss School, the UCSD-run charter school, is a great sign. Mixed as the findings were, the document suggests that the university is finally starting to examine whether the tens of millions it has spent trying to woo underrepresented students has paid dividends.

After voters banned affirmative action in 1996, the University of California turned to outreach as a means of increasing the number of minority and poor students. In recent years, campus cultural groups and the Student Affirmative Action Committee have launched their own student-initiated efforts.

Sadly, few of the outreach programs face the same rigorous evaluations as Preuss. Up until several years ago, SAAC members didn’t even bother following up with attendees of their high school conferences to see if they were attending college, much less try to see whether the conferences made any real difference.

And if these programs don’t actually work — which no one knows, since no one has attempted to find out — taxpayers are not the only ones who suffer; ineffective outreach means the very underrepresented groups it is meant to help remain locked out of the state’s top universities.

Doing good science of the Preuss variety will ensure accountability on all fronts and would surely help convince state lawmakers not to cut the university’s outreach funding next year. Now, it just has to get done.