Inside update . . .
SENATE PANEL,
HINDERED BY ALLOCATION,
LIMITS NSF
INCREASE
The Senate VA, HUD, and
Independent Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee marked up its bill on July
19. Its decisions were ratified by the
full Senate Appropriations Committee that same day. Hindered by a smaller allocation than its counterpart House
panel, the Senate Subcommittee provided the National Science Foundation (NSF)
with $4.673 billion, a $256.1 million or 5.8 percent increase over last year’s
appropriated level. Despite the
commitment of panel Chair Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) and Ranking Republican
Sen. Christopher Bond (R-MO) to double NSF’s budget in five years, they found
themselves constrained by the budget resolution and the need to take care of
certain agencies like the Corporation for National and Community Service that
the House had zeroed out. The
President’s request of $4.473 billion for NSF was slightly more than one
percent higher than last year’s appropriation.
The House gave NSF considerably more – an increase of 9.3 percent.
For Research and Related
Activities (R&RA), the Senate Subcommittee allocated $3.514 billion, $171.9
million or 5.1 percent above last year’s appropriated level. The House Committee provided $3.642 billion,
and the President requested $3.327 billion.
Unlike the House panel, the Senate Subcommittee did not break down the
R&RA appropriation by directorates.
It did provide recommendations to increase certain elements above the
requested level, such as plant genome research (+$10 million to $75 million),
mathematics (+$5 million to $25 million), and information technology and
nanoscience engineering and research, each up $25 million.
The Committee report expands
on these recommendations and also directs NSF to spend $10 million for a
Regional Innovation Cluster Initiative to support the development of strategic
plans that bring competing and cooperating companies, suppliers, and
institutions of higher education that focus on research, education and training to identify “best practices
in regional innovation development and university knowledge and technology
transfer activities.”
The report includes language
about “several exciting ongoing NSF initiatives in the behavioral sciences,”
encouraging NSF to support young investigators in these sciences. It also notes that “research on how people
think, learn, remember, work in groups, apply learned information in new ways,
and other related research holds a great deal of potential for enhancing
educational practices and increasing student achievement.” There is no report language about a
Children’s Research Initiative.
For the Education and Human
Resources Directorate, the Subcommittee allocated $872.4 million, $86.8 million
or 11 percent above the FY 2001 appropriated level. This is the same as the President’s request. The House Committee provided $886
million. The Senate panel agreed with
NSF that graduate student stipends are too low and supported the 20 percent
requested increase so that the stipends can be boosted to $21,500.
Unlike the House Committee,
which gave NSF the full $200 million for President Bush’s Math and Science
Partnership Initiative, the Senate Subcommittee recommended a total of $190
million. The appropriated level would
be $130 million, with the other $60 million derived from the H-1B Nonimmigrant
Petitioner Receipts the agency receives.
As reflected in its hearings (see Update, June 18, 2001), the
panel hedged its support for this program and wants to know how it will build
on the systemic reform and teacher and student development programs currently
supported by NSF.
For the Office of Policy
Development and Research at the Department of Housing and Urban Development,
the Subcommittee recommended $53.4 million, a slight $22,000 increase over last
year and $10 million above the President’s request. The difference is that the Senate continued funding for the
Partnerships in Advancing Technology in Housing (PATH) program. The Administration wanted to abolish PATH.
The full Senate is expected to take up the
VA, HUD bill before the August recess.
The House version of this appropriations bill was on the floor as Update
went to press.
senate
appropriations passes cjs funding bill
The Senate Appropriations Committee, chaired by Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV), passed the Commerce, Justice, State fiscal year 2002 funding bill on July 19. The Senate’s appropriations for the following programs did not differ dramatically from the House version, which passed the full House on July 18.
For the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the Committee provided $54.9 million, the same as the President’s request and the House appropriation. NIJ would also receive $5.2 million from Violence Against Women Act programs for research and evaluation in the area of violence against women.
For the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the Committee recommended $32.3 million, the same as the House amount and $3.6 million more than the current year.
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention would receive $328.5 million, $25 million above the budget request and $30.6 million more than in the House bill.
For the Census Bureau, the Committee provides $517.1 million, $26.3 million below the budget request. Periodic censuses and programs would receive $348.5 million which, while $26.3 million below the request, would fully fund this account when combined with a $27 million carryover. This would fund planning for the 2010 census and other periodic programs, including the American Community Survey (ACS). It would also provide $27.1 million for continuous measurement (which covers data collection at ACS test sites), $52 million for economic censuses, and $6 million for intercensal demographic estimates.
The Committee provided $62.5 million for Economic and Statistical Analysis, which includes the Bureau of Economic Analysis. A nearly $9 million increase, this level is the same as the request and was also provided by House Appropriations. The increase includes $3 million to improve core statistics, including Gross Domestic Product.
Finally, for educational and cultural exchange programs at the State Department, the Committee provided $242 million, $5 million more than the House and $11 million more than the current year. This includes $127.8 million for the Fulbright program.
The full Senate will not take up the bill until after the August recess.
SENATE PANEL INCREASES FUNDS FOR AGRICULTURE COMPETITIVE GRANTS
On July 17, the Senate
Appropriations Committee, following the lead of its Agriculture, Rural
Development, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, reported out the FY 2002
funding bill for programs in this policy area.
The good news is that the
National Research Initiative Competitive Grants program (NRI) received $137
million, a $31.2 million increase over FY 2001 and the President’s
request. The House, by contrast, had
provided the same as last year and the President’s request.
The bad news is that the
Senate joined the House in eliminating an appropriation for the Funding for
Rural America. The Senate did allow the
Department of Agriculture to use FY 2001 funds to keep the Initiative for
Future Agriculture and Food Systems alive at $120 million.
In other actions, the panel
provided $67.2 million, the same as the House and the request, for the Economic
Research Service (ERS). The amount
recommended includes $9.2 million for food assistance studies and
evaluations. The Committee allocated
$113.8 million for the National Agricultural Statistics Service. This is the same as the request and slightly
less than the $114.5 million allocated by the House. The Senate figure includes $25.4 million for the Census of
Agriculture. Hatch Act formula fund
payments are level-funded at $180.1 million, the same as last year, the
President’s request, and the House amount.
For Special Grants, the
Senate committee appropriated slightly more than $84 million, just above the
House’s number of $82.4 million, clearly rejecting the Bush administration’s
attempt to rein in earmarking. The Rural
Development Centers received $600,000 from the Senate panel – $100,000 less
than they received from the House, but above last year’s level of
$522,000. The Rural Policy Research
Institute (RUPRI) garnered $820,000 from the Senate panel – the same as last
year, but considerably less than the $1.3 million appropriated by the
House. The Senate panel also included
$8.4 million for Youth-At-Risk extension programs and $1.2 million for
Geographic Information System development.
With Majority Leader Tom
Daschle (D-SD) abandoning his intention to get nine of the thirteen
appropriations bills through the Senate before the August recess, floor action
on the Agriculture and Rural Development funding bill will most likely occur in
September.
ojp nominees
appear before senate judiciary
As the Senate continues to try to move the confirmation process forward for the President’s nominees, the Judiciary Committee, chaired by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), examined two Department of Justice nominees on July 24. The Committee considered Deborah Daniels for Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) (see Update, March 23, 2001) and Sarah Hart for Director of the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) (see Update, April 9, 2001).
In her opening statement, Daniels discussed her experience assisting victims of crime and affirmed her belief in the importance of research. Research should inform policy, she said, and must measure the outcomes. Policies that research demonstrates to be effective should be replicated.
Although the Senators tried to inject some substance into the conversation, questioning of Daniels was not heated. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) opined that OJP (which is charged with developing the nation’s capacity to prevent crime) is a tremendous bureaucracy, and that each dollar must work to protect victims and drive down crime. He also expressed his belief that there are some gaps in statistics and evaluation at OJP. While speaking favorably of drug courts, Sessions specifically expressed disappointment that OJP has not determined which aspects of drug courts work and which do not.
Acting Chair Russ Feingold (D-WI) expressed concern with Daniels’ support of minimum mandatory sentencing, asking Daniels whether she considers alternatives to incarceration to be a priority. Acknowledging that research shows abuse to be a risk factor in later delinquency, Daniels, as with other issues, addressed this question indirectly, saying that one of the best things we can do is mentoring.
Turning to NIJ, Sessions expressed his support for NIJ and his opinion that the research at NIJ is of high quality, and that maintaining the integrity and quality of that research is critical. He qualified, however, that the research could be more practical and directed towards specific problems.
Feingold began his questioning of Hart by noting that, while the law requires the Director of NIJ to have research experience, Hart’s background is not in social science but in the practice of law. Hart replied that she has worked on projects in the past that involved research.
Seeming to anticipate Feingold’s next question, Hart also expressed her belief in the integrity of research, asserting that research results must be heeded whether or not one likes what they say.
Feingold asked specifically about research on the death penalty, which NIJ recently solicited (see solicitation on p. 7). After a lengthy exchange, he received assurance from Hart that, if the research concludes the existence of bias in the application of or determination to seek the death penalty, the results would nevertheless be released.
New Census
Director announced
President Bush announced his intention to nominate Louis Kincannon to be Director of the Census Bureau. Kincannon has served as Deputy Director, Chief Operating Officer, and Acting Director of the Bureau at various times between 1982 and 1992, and also served in various Bureau positions between 1963 and 1974. More recently, he served as Chief Statistician for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris from 1992 to 2000. He has been working as a statistics consultant since. Kincannon is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin.
The choice does not appear controversial, as both former Bureau Director Kenneth Prewitt (a Clinton appointee) and House Census Subcommittee Chair Dan Miller (R-FL) praised Kincannon’s qualifications.
briefing reveals
demand for continual census data;
ACS Progress reported
As progress continues towards development of the American Community Survey (ACS), a diverse group of scientists, practitioners, and policymakers gathered at a Congressional briefing on the applications of continuous survey data, at which the words “statistical event” and “exciting” were uttered in close proximity. Held on July 16, the briefing was sponsored by the Population Resource Center and co-sponsored by COSSA.
The ACS, currently in the development stage, would replace the decennial Census long form and provide yearly data to communities, scientists, and policymakers (see Update, June 18, 2001). Calling the ACS “a visionary project,” Richard Boykin, Chief of Staff for Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL), said it would provide an up-to-date profile of America’s communities in a time of rapid demographic change.
Nancy Gordon of the Census Bureau described some of the benefits of the ACS and the process of its development. Policymakers, she said, would be able to do a better job with any issue at the state and local level if they had ACS data. Development of the ACS, Gordon explained, includes the reengineering of the decennial census. The long form, which would be replaced by the ACS, would be dropped from the 2010 Census, greatly simplifying and streamlining the decennial census and improving its accuracy.
Gordon emphasized the need to fund early planning for 2010, which would include modernizing the geographic databases. These changes, plus the implementation of ACS, would be cheaper than the cost of implementing another long form in 2010, Gordon argued.
Also speaking was Cynthia Taeuber, who has a joint appointment with the University of Baltimore and the Census Bureau to develop state and community uses of the ACS. Taeuber discussed the importance of statistics as tools for developing policy. Education statistics, she explained, are used at all levels, for distributing funding, evaluating programs, forecasting school enrollment, planning, and more. Not only is ACS data more timely, she pointed out, but the annual frequency of release, as opposed to the decennial frequency of long form data, enables a much better analysis of trends.
Ron Haskins, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, called the ACS the “most important statistical event in the U.S. in decades.” Haskins related how, when serving on the staff of the House Ways and Means Committee, he was constantly faced with “crummy data . . . A great nation should have great data collection.” Timely, quality data, he said, can enable better distribution of federal funds according to the directives of Congress. Staff at the Congressional Research Service, scholars, federal agencies, and many others, Haskins envisioned, will all find a use for such data.
Specific areas where we lack data that the ACS can provide, Haskins mentioned, include child poverty in smaller communities and big cities, marriage, the use of food stamps, and family dynamics.
After relating his experience using existing federal data to produce the annual Kids Count data book at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, William O’Hare said, “You can imagine my mouth watering about ACS.” Not only would it continually update aging datasets, but it would also increase the accuracy of state-level data. The Kids Count data book paints a statistical portrait of the condition of America’s children (see Update, September 13, 1999).
O’Hare explained that welfare reform legislation contained provisions directing states to measure child poverty and provide remediation if it increases. The ACS would be able to provide that data in a timely manner, O’Hare explained, allowing public money to go to the children who need it most.
First ACS Data Available Soon
The Census Bureau is scheduled to release data from the Census 2000 Supplementary Survey on July 31. This is the first national-scale test of the ACS and contains questions similar to those on the decennial long form. The bureau will release national and state-level economic, demographic, and housing data from a sample of 700,000 housing units, as well as data from 21 of 31 ACS test sites for areas with a population of 65,000 or more. Data will be available at www.census.gov/c2ss/www.
Full implementation of ACS is planned for 2003. Whether the Bureau needs a new authorization from Congress is unclear, but Congressional support for moving forward with the ACS seems strong. Both Congressional appropriations committees funded continued development of the ACS for fiscal year 2002 (see appropriations story, page 1).
OMB SEEKS
COMMENTS ON INFOrmation DISSEMINATION GUIDELINES
The Office of Management and
Budget (OMB), responding to a provision of the Treasury and General Government
Appropriations Act of 2001, has issued proposed guidelines for “Ensuring and
Maximizing the Quality, Objectivity, Utility, and Integrity of Information
Disseminated by Federal Agencies” (Federal Register, June 28, 2001, pp.
34489-93). Comments are due by August
13, 2001.
The focus of these
guidelines is the Federal government’s information dissemination
activities. OMB notes that it has
designed the proposed guidelines to apply to a wide variety of government-wide
dissemination activities that are generic enough to fit all media, and that it
is not trying to impose undue administrative burdens or hurdles that would
inhibit or deter agencies from disseminating information beneficial to the
public.
In attempting to define “quality, utility, objectivity, and
integrity,” OMB suggests these are closely interrelated concepts. Collectively, these terms address the
following three aspects of information dissemination: 1) whether the information is useful to all who use it, including
the public; 2) whether the disseminated information is presented in an
accurate, clear, complete, and unbiased manner; and 3) whether the information
has been protected from unauthorized access or revision. In explaining number two, OMB notes that
“with respect to scientific research information, the results must be substantially
reproducible upon independent analysis of the underlying data.”
Congress has also required
that, one year after OMB issues these guidelines, agencies must issue their own
implementation plans. These must
include “administrative mechanisms allowing affected persons to seek and obtain
correction of information maintained and disseminated by the agency.” In the current proposal, OMB suggests these
mechanisms “should be consonant with established agency practice, flexible, and
appropriate to the nature of the disseminated information.”
Comments should be addressed
to Brooke Dickson, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of
Management and Budget, Washington, DC
20503. For further information
contact Ms. Dickson at 202/395-3191 or informationquality@omb.eop.gov.
gaps in data on children and youth identified
Although indicators of child well-being in America show improvement,
there are critical gaps in the data available on children and youth, according
to America’s Children: Key Indicators of Well-Being, 2001. The report is the fifth in an annual series
prepared by the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics which
consists of 20 federal agencies. The
report is designed to provide the nation with a broad annual summary of
national indicators of child well-being and monitors changes in these
indicators over time.
The data included in the report answer such questions as: How many children are there in the United
States? What proportion of the
population is under age 18? How
racially and ethnically diverse are our children? In what types of families do they live? What is the quality of their environment?
The 24 key indicators of child well-being are drawn primarily from
national surveys and vital records, which provide the best available measures
of the conditions of U.S. children.
These indicators are monitored through official Federal statistics
covering children’s economic security, behavioral and social environment,
health, and education. The data
collected offers insight into how well children are faring in these areas.
The economic security indicators document poverty and income among
children and the accessibility of basic necessities. The health indicators document the physical health and well-being
of children by presenting information on their health status, immunization
coverage, death rates, and teenage births.
The behavioral and social environment indicators present information
about young people’s participation in illegal or high risk behaviors. The education indicators examine how well
America is succeeding in educating children, measuring preschoolers’ exposure
to reading and early education, student achievement, rigorous course-taking in
high school, and the number of young people who complete high school and
college.
The report also includes two special features which consists of
measures that are not available with sufficient frequency to be considered as
regular indicators: childhood asthma
prevalence and youth employment.
Critical Data Gaps
The report reveals that there are many important aspects of children’s
lives for which regular indicators are lacking or in development, such as
homelessness, long-term poverty, mental health, disability, neighborhood
environment, and early childhood development.
The report emphasizes that current data collection systems at the
national level do not provide extensive information on children’s lives, their
families, and their caregivers.
Specific data gaps include:
·
Family
interactions – children’s
interaction with non-resident parents, particularly fathers.
·
Time use – how and where children spend their time and
how these patterns change over time.
·
Economic
Security – changes in
children’s economic well-being over time anchored in an average standard of
living context.
·
Long-term
poverty for families with children – regular estimates are needed.
·
Homelessness –no regularly collected data exist on the
number of homeless children in the U.S.
·
Disability – many definitions of disability are used by
policy makers and researchers, but there is little agreement regarding which
components should be included or how they are best measured.
·
Mental
health – efforts are
underway to evaluate data from a mental health indicator that could be used in
national surveys to estimate the number of children with mental, emotional, and
behavioral problems.
·
Child abuse
and neglect – regular,
reliable estimates of the incidence of child abuse and neglect are needed that
are based on sample surveys rather than administrative records.
·
Indicators
of positive behaviors –
additional research to strengthen our understanding of positive activities and
the aspects of those activities that protect youth from risk.
·
Neighborhood
environment – a survey is
being implemented that would, for the first time, enable the monitoring of
America’s communities and neighborhoods over time and identify distressed
neighborhoods in which children are living.
·
Youth
violence – additional work
is needed to produce a more comprehensive and useful measure of the prevalence
of violence among young people.
·
Early
childhood development – a
regular source of data that can be used to monitor specific social,
intellectual, and emotional skills of preschoolers over time is needed.
The Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics is a
formal structure for collaboration among 20 Federal agencies that produce or
use statistical data on children and families.
For more information see the Forum’s website, http://childstats.gov.
sources of
research support
COSSA provides this information as a service and encourages readers to contact the sponsoring agency for further information. Additional application guidelines and restrictions may apply.
Examining the Federal
Death Penalty System
The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) requests proposals to conduct
research examining how homicide cases come into the Federal system. Of
particular interest is the identification of factors that may help to explain
the geographic distribution and racial/ethnic composition of capital
cases.
The investigation must be either national in scope or be a multijurisdictional design capable of answering a range of research questions discussed below. The research design should examine how homicide cases are investigated and how and why some of those cases enter the Federal system and others enter the State system. Research should also examine those cases that never enter the State or Federal system to understand why they remain uncleared by arrest, and address issues of race/ ethnicity and geography. Relevant questions include:
·What are the characteristics of homicide cases and offenders indicted in State systems compared to those indicted in the Federal system?
·What is the role of Federal law enforcement and its interaction with local and State law enforcement in these cases?
·What are the significant decision-making factors that determine whether a case is prosecuted in the Federal or State system and whether a capital offense is charged?
·What are the significant geographic, case, or other factors that help explain the resulting distribution of homicide cases prosecuted in the Federal and State systems and indicted on capital or noncapital charges?
Applications
are due October 19, 2001. For
further info, see http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles1/nij/s1000490.pdf.
Corrections: The July 2 edition of Update incorrectly identified Cora Marrett
as the new president of the University of Wisconsin system. Her new title is Senior Vice President for
Academic Affairs.
The July 16 edition incorrectly listed the amount provided by
the House Appropriations Committee for juvenile justice programs. The correct figure is $297.9 million.