Grant writing with Census data. Celeste K. Carruthers

Transcription

1 Grant writing with Census data Celeste K. Carruthers

2 Introductions

3 Celeste Carruthers Associate Professor Joint appointment: Department of Economics, Boyd Center Education economist Research areas: higher education, education policy, economic history of U.S. education, and career and technical education Grant experience PI or Co-PI for over $1.6M in public and private grants Investigator for one $8M federal grant Reviewer for $27M in federal grants

4 Session attendees

5 Writing Grants Using Data

6 Assignment #1 What advice would you share with other grant writers on o Using data? o Writing successful proposals?

7 Mine: Two indispensable factors of a successful project Valuable outcomes Energized team

8 1. Target the funder 2. Develop the project 3. Write the grant

9 Better 1. Develop project Cultivate support team, allied organizations 2. Target Funder(s) 3. Write grant(s)

10 Assignment #2: What is your next big project? What is your organization s most pressing need?

11 (here s one of ours)

12 Grant applications and/or data: Tips from the room Follow the directions! Be concise. Answer their questions. Develop partnerships outside your organization. Be innovative. Clearly define the need. Look at past award proposals.

13 How can Census data improve your grant application?

14 What is within your project s boundaries? A place? City, county, state, A population? Children, the elderly, the homeless,

15 Use data (including Census data) to learn about this area. Sketch a statistical picture of who and what will be affected by your project. Sketch the same picture for adjacent and nearby places or populations. How is your jurisdiction similar? Different? Superlative?

16 One portal:

17 Another:

18 Moore County, TN Second-highest rate of net migration in the state Source: U.S. Census County-to- County Migration Flows (link) Net migration flows for Tennessee counties

19 Knox County, TN High rate of racial/ethnic dissimilarity across schools Thirty-nine percent of nonwhite students would have to change schools for each school to be representative of the district. Source: Elementary / Secondary Information System (link). School district dissimilarity index,

20 Tennessee filled 16 retail prescriptions per capita in 2016 Source: Kaiser Family Foundation State Health Facts (link)

21 Weaving this statistical picture into a grant Use data to motivate the need for your project, Or to describe the landscape and stakeholders affected by your project, Or as a tool in the project itself. And/or use your project to improve existing data and knowledge.

22 Data as motivation ASPIRE: Automation Supporting Prolonged Independent Residence for the Elderly $1.3M NSF grant to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

23 Data as motivation Because of the graying of the population, there is a growing need for new assistive technologies to aid the elderly in their daily living. Based on figures provided by the U.S. Census Bureau, and due largely to the aging of the "baby boomer" generation, the population of U.S. adults who are 65 and older is projected to be twice as large in 2030 as it was in 2000, increasing from 35 million to 71.5 million and representing nearly 20 percent of the total U.S. population

24 Data to describe the landscape The Tennessee Postsecondary Evaluation and Analysis Research Lab (TN-PEARL) $400K grant to UT to study Drive to 55 college completion initiatives in Tennessee

25 Data to describe the landscape Figure 2, based on American Community Survey data and featured in the Tennessee Higher Education Commission Report (2016), shows Tennessee s position relative to other states as a low educational attainment, low income state.

26 Data to describe the landscape $500K grant from the U.S. Department of Education to Mississippi s Simpson County Schools. Simpson County, Mississippi is located in south central Mississippi and shows a population of 27,639 in the census of The district serves the rural areas of the county that lie outside the municipal area of the county s seat, Mendenhall, MS.

27 Data as a tool How Military Service and Benefits Shapes STEM Career Trajectories $174K NSF grant to the University of Nebraska

28 Data as a tool How does military service and the educational benefits associated with it shape individuals subsequent training and employment in STEM fields? [T]project employs statistical analysis of publically available secondary data from the American Community Survey (ACS) and Department of Defense Demographic Reports. The result will be a newly merged public-use data set available to researchers that combines Census data with organizational data on the armed services.

29 Data as the outcome $50K Gates Foundation grant in 2009 to the National Congress of American Indians to improve data collection for the Census and tribal unemployment to expand the availability of data for tribal, state, and federal policymakers

30 Cautions

31 Cautions Scrutinize data and documentation Representativeness Margins of error Causal statements

32 Scrutinize data and documentation What does zero mean in the dissimilarity index? o Either perfect representation across schools, or o Just one school! This metric is less valuable for districts with a very small number of schools.

33 Knox County, TN High rate of racial/ethnic dissimilarity across schools Thirty-nine percent of nonwhite students would have to change schools for each school to be representative of the district. Source: Elementary/Second ary Information System (link). School district dissimilarity index, * * Excluding districts with 3 or fewer schools

34 Understand representativeness

35 Understand representativeness

36 Understand representativeness

37 Understand representativeness

38 Acknowledge margins of error Moore County, TN, county-tocounty flows o Population 6,286 (margin of error 40) o 900 movers from other U.S. counties (margin of error 282) o 207 movers from a different state (margin of error 164)

39 Acknowledge margins of error Generally, estimates for smaller places and smaller subpopulations have larger margins of error.

40 Take extreme care when making causal statements Districts with Program X have 15% higher achievement on state assessments. o These places might be more advantaged in ways that increase demand for special programs and raise student achievement. Persons with regular dental checkups live percent longer. o Persons with dental insurance or disposable income have numerous independent health advantages.

41 Take extreme care when making causal statements Support causal statements with peerreviewed research. An adequate (and free) place to start: scholar.google.com o Look for studies from reputable journals Keep digging with research databases such as PubMed, JSTOR, and NBER

42 Data for project evaluation Build careful research into your project s assessment plan. o Team up with faculty or independent evaluators that have expertise in this field. o Use independent data to track your project s outcomes of interest.

43 Wrapping up Descriptive data can Enrich your understanding of a place or population. Translate that place/population to independent grant reviewers. Understand your data and its limitations. Use data to motivate a project, describe its stakeholders, and assess its effects.

44 Questions?

45 Thank you Contact me: