FY 2006 APPROPRIATIONS PROCESS UNDERWAY IN HOUSE

 

With the FY 2005 Supplemental Appropriations bill signed by the President so that the military will have enough funds to continue the war in Iraq, Congress is turning its attention toward funding for the next fiscal year, which begins on October 1, 2005.

 

 The Congressional Budget Resolution set overall discretionary spending at $843 billion for FY 2006.  The House Appropriations Committee has made allocations for its ten subcommittees and the markup season has begun.  Committee Chairman Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) hopes to have all the bills through the House by July 4.  The Senate expects to begin its markups at the end of May.

 

 On May 10, the House Committee approved its first two bills, which included funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Department of Interior, Environmental Protection Agency, and other agencies, including the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).

 

 As requested by the President, DHS is one of the few agencies that will receive a significant increase for FY 2006.  The House Committee recommended a total of $2.58 billion.  Within that total, the area of Science and Technology was allocated $1.26 billion.  However, the Committee provided reduced funding for the Office of University Programs, which funds the DHS Centers of Excellence as well as scholarships and fellowships.  The FY 2005 appropriation for these programs was $70 million; for FY 2006 the panel only allocated $63.6 million.  However, the Office has $45 million in unspent funds that could be carried over into FY 2006.

 

 The Committee also appropriated $138 million for the NEH.  This is the same as the President’s request and the same as FY 2005.  Included in the appropriation is $11.2 million, the same as the current fiscal year, for the “We the People” initiative to increase understanding of American history and culture.

 

 The rest of the subcommittees will move to the markup phase in the next few weeks.  Each of them faces difficult choices.  The multi-agency panels such as Labor, Health and Human Services and Education, and Science, Commerce, Justice have competing priorities and limited funds that probably proscribe significant increases for research agencies such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

 

 

CRIME PREVENTION RESEARCH AND POLICY: CAN THEY CONNECT?

 

On May 2^nd and 3^rd, the Jerry Lee Crime Prevention Symposium was held in Maryland and Washington, DC.  The Symposium focused on the work of the Campbell Collaboration’s Crime and Justice Group ( www.aic.gov.au/campbellcj/ ).

 

 The first day of the Symposium, held at the University of Maryland, College Park, was spent primarily on the methodological issues in crime prevention, such as evidence, systematic reviews, and evaluation.  The second part of the meeting, held on the Senate side of Capitol Hill, centered around research on criminal justice topics, including:  law enforcement strategies for reducing illegal gun use and possession; the status of drug courts in America and their effects upon recidivism; and the effect of mentoring programs on juvenile and young adult crime.  The Symposium offered a myriad of perspectives on both the actual content of the research as well as the most effective ways in which to present findings to influence policy making. 

 

Gun Crime:  Directed Patrols Work, But More Research Needed

 

 Christopher Koper, a senior research associate for the Jerry Lee Center of Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania, presented his findings on the efficacy of certain strategies currently used to deter illegal firearm possession and gun violence.  Overall, he argued that “directed” police patrols, which target specific areas for additional officers and heavy gun detection efforts, are a promising strategy, though not yet a “proven” one.  In his research, Koper compiled several studies dating back to the 1990’s, detailing the strategies of law enforcement units in major U.S. cities as well as in Bogota and Cali, Colombia.  His findings showed that in areas where directed law enforcement pressure was applied, homicide shootings were reduced, overall gun crime dropped, there was little or no significant migration of crime into other neighborhoods, and community self-perception improved significantly.  However, Koper left the audience with the caveat that the lasting effects of these strategies have not yet been studied, and that “aggressive” strategies can also trigger racial profiling as well as decrease public trust in law enforcement. 

 

 Hubert Williams, President of the Police Foundation, responded positively to Koper’s analysis, adding that we need more research about the impacts of aggressive law enforcement approaches on public trust.  Williams also brought up the idea that more behavioral study is needed in high-gun possession areas in order to find ways to “get inside the heads” of those who believe they need guns to maintain a certain “persona.”  Edward Davis, a Police Chief from Lowell, Massachusetts, emphasized that due to the immediacy of the job, law enforcement officials have difficulty finding time to read the latest research.  Jay Apperson, who serves as Chief Counsel to the House Government Reform Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, agreed that policy makers also find themselves in the same predicament.  He argued that while good intentions exist in terms of Congress trying to supply law enforcement with the resources to implement the most effective strategies, there is very little time to seek out research, and even less money to fund studies.  When an audience member inquired as to whether money would be available at some point in the near future, Apperson responded with a resounding “No.”  Glen Ivey, the State’s Attorney for Prince George’s County in Maryland, took Apperson to task for his responses, arguing that a political majority to back such initiatives could be found, but that better Federal leadership is needed. 

 

 Drug Court Efficacy Affirmed, But

More Uniformity Needed

 

David B. Wilson of George Mason University headlined the next panel, which examined the effects of drug courts on recidivism.  His research used meta-analysis to look at over 200 studies, including the 1997, 2002, and 2005 program reviews by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).  Wilson claimed that his review attempted to compensate for deficiencies in past studies, which failed to use meta-analysis and did not include some of the more recent  work done in the last few years.  While there was great variability across studies, Wilson ultimately found that the drug courts had a lower recidivism rate than their counterpart comparison courts.  He cautioned, however, that the wide variability in studies and dearth of quality data compromises a definitive conclusion.

 

Ron Weich, counsel to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), echoed the sentiments of previous panelists in saying that Congress is, in effect, a “bubble.”  Often, Members and staff only hear from practitioners and social scientists in “controlled” environments such as hearings, or in lengthy written briefs that get passed over because there is simply no time to pore through them.  He added that Wilson’s type of meta-analysis is useful to policy makers, who lack the time and resources to consolidate studies on a large scale.  Both Weich and Jonathan Roman, a Senior Research Associate at the Urban Institute, agreed that drug courts themselves were a breakthrough innovation because they recognized the need to constructively treat drug addiction as a disease, and to deal with the root causes of crime in addition to punishing perpetrators. 

 

Roman and the third discussant, Ivey, brought up the need to have uniform, or perhaps federal, standards for drug courts, so that each unit’s efficacy can be assessed objectively.  Roman pointed out that having a body to review drug court practices could “cut out the middleman” of self-evaluation.  Ivey argued that having an institutional body to accredit these courts would aid in lending credibility to their existence, uniformity to their procedures, and further expansion possibilities.  Ivey echoed the previous panel by bringing up the need to become more involved in the social impacts of crime.  He called the subculture of criminality “crippling” and “devastating” to society.  Ivey concluded the panel’s discussion by encouraging policy makers and their staff, such as Apperson, to exercise greater leadership in Washington.  In the absence of such leadership, he said, academia can play a very influential role if they play their cards right. 

 

 Mentoring and Political Realities

 

The final panel of the day focused on the impacts that mentoring programs can have upon the ever-increasing problem of juvenile crime.  Patrick Tolan, Director of the Institute for Juvenile Research at the University of Illinois at Chicago, presented his meta-analysis study of mentoring programs, touting their efficacy in preventing juvenile delinquency.  In addition, Tolan found that while delinquency reduction was the most clear and convincing effect, mentoring also showed somewhat significant effects on aggression and academic achievement. 

 

 J. Robert Flores, Administrator of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Programs (OJJDP) at the Department of Justice, conveyed concerns about the fact that while Tolan had gone to great lengths to make the data understandable, it was still generally inaccessible and lengthy.  Flores also expressed subtle and qualified agreement with Apperson’s comments earlier in the day.  He encouraged researchers and practitioners to acknowledge the political climate, accept it, and cater to it accordingly.  While the fight between research funding and other priorities does not have to be a “zero-sum game,” he reasoned, “it can be if we’re not careful.”  Patricia Puritz, Executive Director of the National Juvenile Defender Center, argued that while there are “no silver bullets” for juvenile crime and behavioral problems, mentoring “works” and is one of the most cost-effective tools around.  Third discussant Steve Rickman, Former Director of the Weed and Seed Program at the Department of Justice, shifted the focus of the panel away from the struggle to fund research and directed it back toward the logistics of running mentoring programs that will continue to improve crime prevention. 

 

Making Research the “First Port of Call”

 

Phil Davies, the Deputy Director of the Government Chief Social Researcher’s Office in London, closed out the day by talking about strategies for researchers to integrate evidence more into policy.  According to Davies, in a policy culture where opinion often suffices as “evidence,” the overall goal of the academic community needs to be “making research the first port of call for policy.”  This begins with inserting researchers into a higher level in the “food chain,” a hierarchical list Davies created to demonstrate that on the spectrum of influential bodies in policy-making, academics fall at the very bottom of the list.  In order to cultivate a better position for themselves and for evidence-based policy in general, researchers must: encourage governments to offer incentives for evidence-based policy ideas, and in contrast, disincentives for policy plans that are poorly supported by evidence;  establish shared notions amongst policy makers, researchers, and evidence providers as to what constitutes “quality” evidence;  ensure that evidence is laid out in an accessible fashion, so that policy makers and their staff can easily distinguish between the “signal” and the “noise”; and finally, polish the presentation so that it is clear, yet does not compromise the academic “freedom” of the researchers involved.  Davies emphasized that while many in the academic community have cried foul when it comes to “dumbing down” or “simplifying” research findings, compromises in presentation must be made in order to ensure that valuable conclusions do not fall upon deaf ears.  

 

 

NAS: MORE NIH SUPPORT FOR SOCIAL/BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE TRAINING NEEDED

 

On May 13, the National Academies of Sciences (NAS) released the twelfth in a series of congressionally-mandated reports, entitled Advancing the Nation’s Health Needs:  NIH Research Training Programs, monitoring the changing needs for behavioral and biomedical research personnel.  The NAS Board on Higher Education and the Workforce’s Committee for Monitoring the Nation’s Changing Needs for Biomedical, Behavioral, and Clinical Personnel was charged with advising the National Institutes of Health (NIH) “on issues regarding research personnel needs in the basic biomedical sciences, behavioral and social sciences, clinical sciences, oral health, nursing and health services.”  They were also told to examine the “long-range trends and identify training needs” for the NIH through 2010.”

 

The committee divided the research enterprise into three major areas:  basic biomedical; behavioral and social sciences; and clinical research.  The report’s primary recommendation is that for all three areas the “total number” of the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Awards (NRSA) positions awarded by the NIH “should remain at least at the fiscal year 2003 level.” 

 

Currently, 22 percent of NIH’s total funding is for graduate education in the biomedical, social and behavioral, and clinical sciences.  The program plays a leadership role in training for these fields. The committee argued that the grants are important because they:  1) serve to attract quality people in biomedical research; 2) help to direct training into specific research areas; 3) establish training standards – the requirements imposed on individuals supported by NRSA training grants are also imposed on trainees supported by other means; 4) offer the possibility of providing support for training in emerging areas for which other mechanisms may not be available; and 5) provide graduate students, during the early years of their training, the opportunity to explore different areas of research.

 

 Basic Research Should Remain a Focus

 

The report recommends that “future increases be commensurate with the rise in the total extramural research at NIH in the biomedical, clinical, and behavioral and social sciences.”  The committee emphasizes that despite its single recommendation for the three areas, there is recognition that “each area has considerations that merit special attention.  For example in the basic biomedical and behavioral and social sciences, it is important to maintain focus on basic research.”

 

While acknowledging that the “ultimate goal” of the NIH is “improved health care,” the committee argued that breakthroughs “are usually found on basic rather than highly applied research. . . [and that] broad training in basic concepts is essential.”  The application of lessons learned from basic science to health-related problems requires training in translational areas, which should be the focus of the clinical sciences, the committee notes. 

 

Given that physicians are, ideally, best equipped to do this research but are reluctant to pursue research because of the heavy debt load incurred in medical school, the committee recommends “that the size and scope of the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) be expanded at least 20 percent, and that the scope be expanded to include the clinical, health services, and behavioral and social sciences.”  The expansion of scope, the committee argues, “would permit the behavioral and social sciences… to participate more fully in the program.”  However, this “should not be at the expense of the current MSTP support for basic biomedical research,” the report explains.  It is also recommended that “training grants be established for physicians to learn the skills necessary for clinical investigation.”

 

 Behavioral and Social Sciences Research:  “Far More Complex and Variable than Some of the Natural Sciences”

 

The committee recognizes that:  “The behavioral and social sciences are far more complex and variable than some of the natural sciences; not only are there an almost uncountable number of factors affecting individual and social behavior, but these factors combine and interact in extremely complex and mutable ways.  Partly for this reason and partly for historical and cultural reasons, research support and research training in these areas lag well behind those in other sciences . . . The social and behavioral sciences deal with many of the most complex and least predictable phenomena that affect people’s health.”

 

The committee further recognizes that:  “It is now accepted that many diseases, historically considered mainly a matter for biomedical research, such as heart and lung disease, drug addiction, tuberculosis, and malaria, cannot be understood and treated without the benefit of behavioral and social research.”

 

The report continues on to say that “behavioral and social sciences receive considerably less research funding from NIH than the basic biomedical sciences and correspondingly less research training support,” and it further insisted that “[m]any of the nation’s health problems are not just physiological in nature and need to be addressed in the behavioral and social sciences as well. Consequently, the committee recommends that each NIH institute and center incorporate the behavioral and social sciences into its training portfolio, including institutes and centers that have not emphasized these disciplines in the past.”

 

The report also contends that most NIH institutes would benefit from scientists knowledgeable in the techniques, methods, and findings of the social and behavioral sciences.  It notes that in particular, knowledge of empirical design as well as quantitative and statistical methodology would be useful.

 

The committee notes that, in general, the NRSA program plays a larger role in research training for the basic biomedical fields it does for the social and behavioral sciences.  It is also noted that it “has been argued that much of the research in the behavioral and social sciences is not health related and that therefore, training in these research areas is not supportable under the NRSA program.”  The sample dissertations review by the committee, however, contradicts this reasoning because “90 percent of the reviewed dissertation abstracts were considered to be in areas fundable by NIH personnel.”

 

Social and behavioral sciences research has “traditionally been considered less relevant to the NIH mission.  This may also be seen in the fact that NIH does not house an institute devoted to basic and applied research in the behavioral and social sciences,” the committee acknowledged.   The report observes that what research training has been done at the NIH in basic behavioral and applied research has tended to be supported by NIMH, which has a mission to focus on mental health.  As a result, “training in research-relevant areas for many other health problems with a social and behavioral component (such as smoking, obesity, drug abuse, violence, alcoholism) has lagged far behind society’s needs.” 

 

The committee underscores that there may be additional concerns about continued research training in the social and behavioral sciences by NIMH, given the institute’s recent decision to shift “research funding to areas deemed to have more relevance to public health issues, such as neurological diseases and major mental disorders”  (See UPDATE, December 13, 2004 and September 27,2004).  NIMH has supported a majority of the predoctoral trainees and fellows followed by the institutes for Child Health and Human Development; Aging; Drug Abuse; Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism; and Cancer.  It is noted, however, that the Cancer Institute, while praised for being a major supporter of social and behavioral science research, has provided “little NRSA program training support in this area.”

 

In addition, the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) is singled out as a “particularly notable omission” from the list of NIH institutes that support training in the behavioral sciences by the committee.  In its report, the committee explains that “a few behavioral and social sciences doctoral students receive NIGMS training support, but only under institutional NRSA training grants that are focused on the biomedical or clinical training.”  It is further mentioned that “at one time NIGMS did support behavioral training but now claims that such training falls outside its mission.”

 

Notably, the report highlights the efforts being made by the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) to foster interdisciplinarity, despite the lack of support from the institutes.

 

 Data Needs

 

Finally, the committee recommends that a standing independent committee be created by the NIH to monitor biomedical, clinical, and social and behavioral research personnel needs, to evaluate the training of such personnel, to access the number and nature of research personnel that will be required in the future to assist in the collection and analyses of appropriate data, and to make recommendations regarding these matters to NIH. 

 

It is not sufficient, the committee reports, to constitute a new committee every five years given that each committee must analyze vast amounts of data, relearn old lessons, and duplicate past work, along with being pressed for time in completing its task. 

 

 

NAS PANEL DISCUSSES USABILITY OF ACS DATA

 

With the House and Senate holding several hearings on the status of decennial census preparations, the National Academy of Sciences’ Panel on the Functionality and Usability of Data from the American Community Survey (ACS) held its third meeting on May 9, 2005.  The focus of the meeting, chaired by Graham Kalton of Westat, Inc., was to bring together several levels of ACS data users in order to discuss the advantages and potential obstacles in using multi-year averages.

 

In the past, due to the substantial time lag in releasing long-form decennial census data, only static estimates were available to users.  However, with the phasing out of the long-form decennial census and the introduction of the short-form ACS format, the Census Bureau must deal with the transition from these static estimates to the multi-year and moving average estimates.  In fact, most of the morning discussion centered around the accuracy of moving averages, with panelist Nathan Erlbaum of the New York State Department of Transportation at odds with several others present over possible inaccuracies of these averages.

 

Equally as important as the panelists chosen to discuss the ACS were those who attended the meeting as observers, hoping to glean some insight into possible difficulties in data usability.  These included Census Bureau Director Louis Kincannon, Deputy Director of the Census Bureau Hermann Habermann, Associate Director for the Decennial Census Jay Waite, Assistant Division Chief for Demographic Statistical Studies David Hubble, Nancy Torrieri of the ACS Outreach and Analysis staff (see UPDATE, March 21, 2005), and Susan Schecter of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

 

 

SCHOFIELD ON THE ROAD TO CONFIRMATION

 

Regina B. Schofield,  the President’s nominee for Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Justice Programs at the Department of Justice, appears to be well on her way to confirmation after an upbeat Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing.

 

Schofield and two other women nominated to be Assistant Attorney Generals, Alice S. Fisher for the Criminal Division and Rachel Brand for the Office of Legal Policy, had some rather compelling testimony to support their candidacies; namely Senators Mitch McConell (R-KY), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Tom Harkin (D-IA), Thad Cochran (R-MS), and Trent Lott (R-MS).  Each Senator provided commentary on each candidate’s biography and expressed their confidence in the abilities of the three women. 

 

As a testament to the panel’s sense of informality and lack of controversy, none of the candidates had prepared testimony for submission into the record.  Also, very few Committee Members showed up to the hearing, usually an indicator that there are not many points of contention over a nominee.  Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS), who chaired the Committee meeting in the place of Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) allowed each nominee to recognize their family and loved ones present at the hearing and to say their thank-you’s, after which he asked a few open-ended  questions and swiftly adjourned the hearing.

 

It is expected that all three nominees will handily win confirmation in the full Senate.

  

 

WILLIAM KRUSKAL, GIANT OF STATISTICAL THEORY, DIES AT 85

 

William Kruskal, who was the Ernest DeWitt Burton Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in Statistics at the University of Chicago, passed away on April 21 at the age of 85.  Kruskal, along with W. Allen Wallis, devised the Kruskal-Wallis test, a technique that has been incorporated into every major statistical package in use today. 

 

Kruskal also served as the Dean of Social Sciences Division at the University of Chicago from 1974-84 and as Interim Dean of its newly established Harris Graduate School of Public Policy from 1988-89.  He was President of the American Statistical Association in 1982.  President Nixon appointed him to the Presidential Commission on Federal Statistics in 1970.  Subsequently, Kruskal became the first chairman of the National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on National Statistics, a position he held from 1971 to 1978.

 

As a champion of the role of statistics in public policy, Kruskal was a member of the initial COSSA Board of Directors.  After his term ended in 1983, he continued to be a great friend and advisor to the Consortium.   

 

 

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.

 

Education Research Grant Funding

 

The Director of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) announces the FY 2006 competitions for grants to support education research.  The intent of the grants is to provide national leadership in expanding fundamental knowledge and understanding of education from early childhood education through postsecondary and adult education.

 

Although Congress has not enacted a final appropriation for FY 2006, IES is inviting applications for these competitions now so that it may be prepared to make awards following final action on the Department of Education’s appropriations bill, which May not happen until September or October.

 

Through its National Center for Education Research (NCER), IES plans to support the following research for competitions in FY 2006:

 

·         National Research and Development Centers.  These centers will focus on Education Policy, Early Childhood Education, Postsecondary Education, and Gifted and Talented Education.

 

·         Post Doctoral Research Training Fellowships.

 

·         Reading and Writing Education Research.

·         Cognition and Student Learning Research.

 

·         Mathematics and Science Education Research

 

·         Teacher Quality Research with a Focus on Reading and Writing Education

 

·         Teacher Quality Research with a Focus on Mathematics and Science Education.

 

·         Research on Education Finance, Leadership and Management.

 

·         Research on High School Reform.

 

IES also plans to support a number of special education research competitions in FY 2006 through its National Center for Special Education Research.

                 

In addition, IES, through its National Center for Education Statistics, plans to support a competition for secondary analysis of data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

 

Information regarding program and applications requirements for each of IES’s competitions is contained in the applicable Request for Applications package (RFA) which is available on the following website: http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ies/programs.html.