The Panel on Estimates of Poverty for Small Geographic Areas was established by the Committee on National Statistics at the National Research Council in response to the Improving America's Schools Act of 1994. That act charged the U.S. Census Bureau to produce updated estimates of poor school-age children every two years for the nation's more than 3,000 counties and 14,000 school districts. The act also charged the panel with determining the appropriateness and reliability of the Bureau's estimates for use in the allocation of more than $7 billion of Title I funds each year for educationally disadvantaged children. The panel's charge was both a major one and one with immovable deadlines. The panel had to evaluate the Census Bureau's work on a very tight schedule in order to meet legal requirements for allocation of Title I funds. As it turned out, the panel produced three interim reports: the first one evaluated county-level estimates of poor school-age children in 1993, the second one assessed a revised set of 1993 county estimates; and the third one covered both county- and school district-level estimates of poor school-age children in 1995. This volume combines and updates these three reports into a single reference volume.
Recent trends in federal policies for social and economic programs have increased the demand for timely, accurate estimates of income and poverty for states, counties, and even smaller areas. Every year more than $130 billion in federal funds is allocated to states and localities through formulas that use such estimates. These funds support a wide range of programs that include child care, community development, education, job training, nutrition, and public health. A new program of the U.S. Census Bureau is now providing more timely estimates for these programs than those from the decennial census, which have been used for many years. These new estimates are being used to allocate more than $7 billion annually to school districts, through the Title I program that supports educationally disadvantaged children. But are these estimates as accurate as possible given the available data? How can the statistical models and data that are used to develop the estimates be improved? What should policy makers consider in selecting particular estimates? This new book from the National Research Council provides guidance for improving the Census Bureau's program and for policy makers who use such estimates for allocating funds.
The Panel on Estimates of Poverty for Small Geographic Areas was established by the Committee on National Statistics at the National Research Council in response to the Improving America's Schools Act of 1994. That act charged the U.S. Census Bureau to produce updated estimates of poor school-age children every two years for the nation's more than 3,000 counties and 14,000 school districts. The act also charged the panel with determining the appropriateness and reliability of the Bureau's estimates for use in the allocation of more than $7 billion of Title I funds each year for educationally disadvantaged children. The panel's charge was both a major one and one with immovable deadlines. The panel had to evaluate the Census Bureau's work on a very tight schedule in order to meet legal requirements for allocation of Title I funds. As it turned out, the panel produced three interim reports: the first one evaluated county-level estimates of poor school-age children in 1993, the second one assessed a revised set of 1993 county estimates; and the third one covered both county- and school district-level estimates of poor school-age children in 1995. This volume combines and updates these three reports into a single reference volume.
The U.S. Department of Education uses estimates of school-age children in poverty to allocate federal funds under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act for education programs to aid disadvantaged children. Historically, the allocations have been made by a two-stage process: the department's role has been to allocate Title I funds to counties; the states have then distributed these funds to school districts. Until recently, the department has based the county allocations on the numbers and proportions of poor school-age children in each county from the most recent decennial census. States have used several different data sources, such as the decennial census and the National School Lunch Program, to distribute the department's county allocations to districts. In 1994 Congress authorized the Bureau of the Census to provide updated estimates of poor school-age children every 2 years, to begin in 1996 with estimates for counties and in 1998 with estimates for school districts. The Department of Education is to use the school district estimates to allocate Title I basic and concentration grants directly to districts for the 1999-2000 and later school years, unless the Secretaries of Education and Commerce determine that they are "inappropriate or unreliable" on the basis of a study by the National Research Council. That study is being carried out by the Committee on National Statistics' Panel on Estimates of Poverty for Small Geographic Areas.
The workshop was a direct outgrowth of a previous study by the CNSTAT Panel on Estimates of Poverty for Small Geographic Areas. That panel, established under a 1994 act of Congress, began its work with a very specific mission: to evaluate the suitability of the U.S. Census Bureau's small-area estimates of poor school-age children for use in the allocation of funds to counties and school districts under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. In carrying out their assignment, panel members came to realize that the properties of data sources and statistical procedures used to produce formula estimates, interacting with formula features such as thresholds and hold-harmless provisions, can produce consequences that may not have been anticipated or intended. It also became evident that there is a trade-off between the goals of providing a reasonable amount of stability in funding from one year to the next and redirecting funds to different jurisdictions as true needs change. In one instance, for example, the annual appropriation included a 100 percent hold-harmless provision, ensuring that no recipient would receive less than the year before. However, there was no increase in the total appropriation, with the result that new estimates showing changes in the distribution of program needs across areas had no effect on the allocations. Choosing the Right Formula provides an account of the presentations and discussions at the workshop. The first three chapters cover the overview, case studies, and methodological sessions, respectively. Chapter 4 summarizes the issues discussed in the roundtable and concluding sessions, with emphasis on the identification of questions that might be addressed in a panel study.
Recent trends in federal policies for social and economic programs have increased the demand for timely, accurate estimates of income and poverty for states, counties, and even smaller areas. Every year more than $130 billion in federal funds is allocated to states and localities through formulas that use such estimates. These funds support a wide range of programs that include child care, community development, education, job training, nutrition, and public health. A new program of the U.S. Census Bureau is now providing more timely estimates for these programs than those from the decennial census, which have been used for many years. These new estimates are being used to allocate more than $7 billion annually to school districts, through the Title I program that supports educationally disadvantaged children. But are these estimates as accurate as possible given the available data? How can the statistical models and data that are used to develop the estimates be improved? What should policy makers consider in selecting particular estimates? This new book from the National Research Council provides guidance for improving the Census Bureau's program and for policy makers who use such estimates for allocating funds.
The Panel on Estimates of Poverty for Small Geographic Areas was established by the Committee on National Statistics at the National Research Council in response to the Improving America's Schools Act of 1994. That act charged the U.S. Census Bureau to produce updated estimates of poor school-age children every two years for the nation's more than 3,000 counties and 14,000 school districts. The act also charged the panel with determining the appropriateness and reliability of the Bureau's estimates for use in the allocation of more than $7 billion of Title I funds each year for educationally disadvantaged children. The panel's charge was both a major one and one with immovable deadlines. The panel had to evaluate the Census Bureau's work on a very tight schedule in order to meet legal requirements for allocation of Title I funds. As it turned out, the panel produced three interim reports: the first one evaluated county-level estimates of poor school-age children in 1993, the second one assessed a revised set of 1993 county estimates; and the third one covered both county- and school district-level estimates of poor school-age children in 1995. This volume combines and updates these three reports into a single reference volume.
The workshop was a direct outgrowth of a previous study by the CNSTAT Panel on Estimates of Poverty for Small Geographic Areas. That panel, established under a 1994 act of Congress, began its work with a very specific mission: to evaluate the suitability of the U.S. Census Bureau's small-area estimates of poor school-age children for use in the allocation of funds to counties and school districts under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. In carrying out their assignment, panel members came to realize that the properties of data sources and statistical procedures used to produce formula estimates, interacting with formula features such as thresholds and hold-harmless provisions, can produce consequences that may not have been anticipated or intended. It also became evident that there is a trade-off between the goals of providing a reasonable amount of stability in funding from one year to the next and redirecting funds to different jurisdictions as true needs change. In one instance, for example, the annual appropriation included a 100 percent hold-harmless provision, ensuring that no recipient would receive less than the year before. However, there was no increase in the total appropriation, with the result that new estimates showing changes in the distribution of program needs across areas had no effect on the allocations. Choosing the Right Formula provides an account of the presentations and discussions at the workshop. The first three chapters cover the overview, case studies, and methodological sessions, respectively. Chapter 4 summarizes the issues discussed in the roundtable and concluding sessions, with emphasis on the identification of questions that might be addressed in a panel study.
It is easy to underestimate how little was known about crimes and victims before the findings of the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) became common wisdom. In the late 1960s, knowledge of crimes and their victims came largely from reports filed by local police agencies as part of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) system, as well as from studies of the files held by individual police departments. Criminologists understood that there existed a "dark figure" of crime consisting of events not reported to the police. However, over the course of the last decade, the effectiveness of the NCVS has been undermined by the demands of conducting an increasingly expensive survey in an effectively flat-line budgetary environment. Surveying Victims: Options for Conducting the National Crime Victimization Survey, reviews the programs of the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS.) Specifically, it explores alternative options for conducting the NCVS, which is the largest BJS program. This book describes various design possibilities and their implications relative to three basic goals; flexibility, in terms of both content and analysis; utility for gathering information on crimes that are not well reported to police; and small-domain estimation, including providing information on states or localities. This book finds that, as currently configured and funded, the NCVS is not achieving and cannot achieve BJS's mandated goal to "collect and analyze data that will serve as a continuous indication of the incidence and attributes of crime." Accordingly, Surveying Victims recommends that BJS be afforded the budgetary resources necessary to generate accurate measure of victimization.
The National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) is the primary statistical data collection agency within the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). NASS conducts hundreds of surveys each year and prepares reports covering virtually every aspect of U.S. agriculture. Among the small-area estimates produced by NASS are county-level estimates for crops (planted acres, harvested acres, production, and yield by commodity) and for cash rental rates for irrigated cropland, nonirrigated cropland, and permanent pastureland. Key users of these county-level estimates include USDA's Farm Services Agency (FSA) and Risk Management Agency (RMA), which use the estimates as part of their processes for distributing farm subsidies and providing farm insurance, respectively. Improving Crop Estimates by Integrating Multiple Data Sources assesses county-level crop and cash rents estimates, and offers recommendations on methods for integrating data sources to provide more precise county-level estimates of acreage and yield for major crops and of cash rents by land use. This report considers technical issues involved in using the available data sources, such as methods for integrating the data, the assumptions underpinning the use of each source, the robustness of the resulting estimates, and the properties of desirable estimates of uncertainty.
The National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast Program, administered by the Food and Nutrition Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), are key components of the nation's food security safety net, providing free or low-cost meals to millions of school-age children each day. Under the most commonly adopted provisions, USDA reimburses districts for meals served on the basis of data collected in a "base year," during which applications are taken. After 3 or 4 years, applications must be taken again to establish new base-year data, unless the district provides evidence that local conditions have not changed. A special provision that does not require applications to be taken every few years would reduce burden, be more attractive to school districts, and potentially increase student participation by expanding access to free meals. To support the development of such a provision, the Food and Nutrition Service asked the National Academies to study the technical and operational issues that arise in using data from the American Community Survey (ACS)-a new continuous survey replacing the long-form survey of the decennial census-to obtain estimates of students who are eligible for free and reduced-price meals for schools and school districts. Such estimates would be used to develop "claiming percentages" that, if sufficiently accurate, would determine federal reimbursements to districts for the schools that provide free meals to all students under a new special provision that eliminates the base-year requirements of current provisions.
The National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs, administered by the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), are key components of the nation's food security safety net, providing free or low-cost meals to millions of schoolchildren each day. To qualify their children each year for free or reduced-price meals, many families must submit applications that school officials distribute and review. To reduce this burden on families and schools and to encourage more children to partake of nutritious meals, USDA regulations allow school districts to operate their meals programs under special provisions that eliminate the application process and other administrative procedures in exchange for providing free meals to all students enrolled in one or more school in a district. FNS asked the National Academies' Committee on National Statistics and Food and Nutrition Board to convene a panel of experts to investigate the technical and operational feasibility of using data from the continuous American Community Survey (ACS) to estimate students eligible for free and reduced-price meals for schools and school districts. The ACS eligibility estimates would be used to develop "claiming percentages" that, if sufficiently accurate, would determine the USDA reimbursements to districts for schools that provided free meals to all students under a new special provision that eliminated the ongoing base-year requirements of current provisions. Using American Community Survey Data to Expand Access to the School Meals Program was conducted in two phases. It first issued an interim report (National Research Council, 2010), describing its planned approach for assessing the utility of ACS-based estimates for a special provision to expand access to free school meals. This report is the final phase which presents the panel's findings and recommendations.
Each year's poverty figures are anxiously awaited by policymakers, analysts, and the media. Yet questions are increasing about the 30-year-old measure as social and economic conditions change. In Measuring Poverty a distinguished panel provides policymakers with an up-to-date evaluation of: Concepts and procedures for deriving the poverty threshold, including adjustments for different family circumstances. Definitions of family resources. Procedures for annual updates of poverty measures. The volume explores specific issues underlying the poverty measure, analyzes the likely effects of any changes on poverty rates, and discusses the impact on eligibility for public benefits. In supporting its recommendations the panel provides insightful recognition of the political and social dimensions of this key economic indicator. Measuring Poverty will be important to government officials, policy analysts, statisticians, economists, researchers, and others involved in virtually all poverty and social welfare issues.
The U.S. census, conducted every 10 years since 1790, faces dramatic new challenges as the country begins its third century. Critics of the 1990 census cited problems of increasingly high costs, continued racial differences in counting the population, and declining public confidence. This volume provides a major review of the traditional U.S. census. Starting from the most basic questions of how data are used and whether they are needed, the volume examines the data that future censuses should provide. It evaluates several radical proposals that have been made for changing the census, as well as other proposals for redesigning the year 2000 census. The book also considers in detail the much-criticized long form, the role of race and ethnic data, and the need for and ways to obtain small-area data between censuses.
Beginning in 2006, the Census Bureau embarked on a program to reengineer the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to reduce its costs and improve data quality and timeliness. The Bureau also requested the National Academies to consider the advantages and disadvantages of strategies for linking administrative records and survey data, taking account of the accessibility of relevant administrative records, the operational feasibility of linking, the quality and usefulness of the linked data, and the ability to provide access to the linked data while protecting the confidentiality of individual respondents. In response, this volume first examines the history of SIPP and reviews the survey's purpose, value, strengths, and weaknesses. The book examines alternative uses of administrative records in a reengineered SIPP and, finally, considers innovations in SIPP design and data collection, including the proposed use of annual interviews with an event history calendar.
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