A new look for our 10th year: same mission, sharper tools and better branding
Annoucing our new visual look and our brand new website.
ReadRead The Civic Pulse
Posts
Arrests in Schools: Starting with the Basics
To pique your interest: Out of 1000s of school districts in the U.S., how many do you think accounted for over half of all school-based arrests of American Indian and Alaska Native students in 2021-22? Keep reading for the answer.
ReadNew Year, New Budgets, and a New Collaboration with The Greenlining Institute
What a doozy the start of this year has been.
ReadJust like you, local governments face budget constraints that go beyond 💵💵
When you think about government constraints, what comes to mind? Money? Political will? Public opinion? Lack of staff?
ReadCan you guess the number of local governments in the U.S.? In your state?
We said we’d have another newsletter coming soon…and we kept our word for once! We strive to be super reliable to clients and always meet their deadlines, but our self-imposed newsletter timelines are another story…
ReadUncovering Wisconsin's hidden fifth largest school district
In 2024, we worked with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction’s Education for Homeless Children and Youth team to analyze data on students experiencing homelessness. We were so impressed by the team’s knowledge of the students and schools they were trying to serve – and were really struck by the number of children experiencing homelessness in Wisconsin, a state not particularly known for this issue.
ReadAre education researchers going the way of coal miners?
This edition of the Civic Pulse is off to a cheeky start as Jared was speculating earlier in the week about whether there are currently more coal miners or education researchers. Determining the current number of coal miners – about 40k – is easy thanks to the gold standard source of economic data: FRED. Unfortunately, education researchers don’t get our own labor category so our population count is less clear. The American Educational Research Association (AERA) claims 25k members although that includes students and international members. Considering major contractors like AIR, Mathematica, WestEd, and others as well as myriad researchers at state and local education agencies, we’ve got to be approaching 20,000 or more education researchers right? Will we merit any Emmy-award winning TV shows or Pulitzer Prize-winning books?1
ReadThe Headlines Hit Home: "Terminated for Convenience"
The Civic Pulse has been on an unplanned 14-month hiatus as we were blessed with lots of interesting projects keeping us busy. Now it’s back, making an unplanned reappearance, because lots of those projects were abruptly canceled last week with the termination of most contracts at the Institute of Education Sciences (IES). To learn about the cancellations from a more objective perspective, please check out these articles from Education Week and The Washington Post. Why write now? We hope to achieve three things:
ReadAt What Cost?
Did you know that local governments (cities, counties, school districts) spent over $2.2 trillion in 2021?* That’s nearly as much as all state governments combined and about ⅓ of total federal spending including Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. In other words, thousands of local government decisions across the country account for a large part of the public investment that shapes our lives.
ReadMeasuring equity equitably
Early this year we were awarded a research grant from the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Grant Program funded by the National Science Foundation. Our proposal was titled: Equity analysis at a large scale: Using small area estimation to get the most from the CRDC school arrest data and Hannah and I will both be serving as Co-Principal Investigators.
ReadDefend your data
The steps you need when using data to contend with power
ReadThe invisible tech monopolies holding back democracy
Plus why the timesheet and benefits portals at your job are so bad
Read5 Steps You Can Take to Defend Your Data
At Civilytics, we’ve seen firsthand the higher burden advocates face when seeking to use data to make change. That’s why we were excited to partner with Tableau on creating a 5-step guide to #defendyourdata.
ReadThank you, Dad
In memory of Jim Knowles
ReadWhat my favorite Super Bowl ad says about Americans’ top domestic priority
I have a new habit when I’m brushing my teeth at night – counting vacant houses. Last night I counted 6 vacant units visible out my window. This is in the middle of one of the hottest real estate markets in the country. Vacant houses are on my mind personally (I live in a home that was formerly vacant) and professionally as a shortage of housing sends prices skyward nationwide.
ReadTracking ARPA Spending by State and Local Governments
Understanding how state and local governments are spending their American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds can be challenging, but several groups have put together excellent trackers to aid in this quest. This post highlights key features (and a few limitations) of four trackers.
ReadDid You Know? 5 Facts about Jared from a Recent Interview
Jared recently talked with Leanpub co-founder Len Epps on the podcast Frontmatter. This post has 5 fun facts Jared shared in the episode.
ReadThe danger of Truman's one-handed economists
A retrospective on the use of data in the school closure debate
ReadCivilytics Asks, Treasury Responds (Well, Kind Of)
Civilytics made 5 requests to Treasury in our comments on the Interim Rule this summer, and we were eager to see how they responded this month. Here we share a recap of our original comments, Treasury’s recent responses, and our takeaways.
ReadWhat You Should Know about the Final Rule for ARPA's State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds
The final rules are now available for the American Rescue Plan Act’s Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds. Here we briefly review changes in the final rules and what they mean for how local governments can use funds.
ReadGetting things done at Civilytics (Jared’s version)
This issue will skew a bit tech-heavy because in 2021 I spent a lot of time rethinking the tools we use to improve collaboration and scale to more than one employee. This will be the first in an annual issue of The Civic Pulse looking into our lab and sharing a bit about how we get things done. If you are curious about tech, thinking about business software solutions for your own work, or wonder a bit about what the day-to-day in a small data science company looks like — I hope you enjoy! In this issue you’ll find:
Open source tools spurring our collaboration and securing our data
Communication tools for sharing findings to very different audiences
Statistical tools we’ve built or are building
Tools we are learning about or in search of — have an idea/recommendation/suggestion, let us know!
ReadNew book on education data available today
Civilytics’ origin is in education data analysis and, though it makes up a significant share of our work, it’s often work that we can be less public about. So this month we’re excited to devote the newsletter to our education work!
ReadHow Mass Incarceration Erodes Black Political Power
More than 2 million people are imprisoned in the US; relocated and held in a community different from the one they reside in. The population relocation that is a direct result of mass incarceration shapes political power in every state. Learn more in the Civic Pulse.
ReadNew Study Illuminates Underreporting of Deaths due to Police
A new study finds that official government death records underreport by more than 50% how many people are killed by police. This post summarizes the study’s findings and data and offers our take on how this research should shape the way we think about our communities and government.
ReadPrison Gerrymandering Dashboard: Data & Methods
This post describes the data sources and methods used to create our dashboard on prison gerrymandering for the Tableau Racial Equity Data Hub.
ReadNew dashboard visualizes scope of prison gerrymandering, points to opportunities for change
A new dashboard created for the Tableau Racial Equity Data Hub examines prison gerrymandering across states. Prison gerrymandering is the practice of counting incarcerated people where they are imprisoned for the purpose of redistricting.
ReadHappy birthday Civilytics!
This year marks the 5th anniversary of Civilytics Consulting (founded 8/28/2016). Five years is undoubtedly a milestone – one that most of the times I was sure I’d make it to but not always! When I founded Civilytics, it was with a five-year plan in mind. My plan was to build a sustainable practice tackling projects that reflected my values for how data and social science should inform policy. And we’ve done that. So in this newsletter I’d like to share a bit about that journey and what comes next.
ReadFour Ways to Look at Police Spending
As I mentioned in a prior post, I recently presented to a group of academic researchers on local budgets and police spending. In the presentation (and elsewhere ), I talked about 4 different way to look at and present police expenditures. Trying out each approach is important because different frames or lenses can be more powerful or resonate more with different audiences.
ReadMyths & Realities of Local Budgets + The Cost of Policing
I recently presented to a group of academic researchers on the myths and realities of local budgets and police spending and staffing. These are some of the lessons learned from reading and analyzing dozens of city and county budgets in the past 2 years.
ReadWhat you should know about crime waves and public safety
There’s been lots of discussion of “crime waves” in the past few months. One thing I cannot emphasize enough is how detached these conversations are from both the empirical evidence and the lived experience of violence in the U.S. Whether you are interested in data and measurement, or concerned about how we make safer communities, we’ll talk about the issue from both angles in this edition of The Civic Pulse.
Read7 Bold Ideas for How to Use ARPA Funds
In sharing these ideas, we are trying to encourage communities and organizers to think bigger and bolder about how to use ARPA funds. We do not intend to say these are the “best” ideas for your community or the most impactful options. Instead, we want to collectively brainstorm and share ideas about how to use funds in ways that do not reproduce the status quo. For other ideas from community organizers across the country, check out this fact sheet from the Community Resource Hub.
ReadWe uncovered a 5-word change to ARPA worth $5 billion
Analysis featured in major story
ReadCivilytics’ analysis uncovers $5 billion inequality in aid program for 100M Americans
~ FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ~
ReadHow You Too Can Become Obsessed with Understanding ARPA Aid Allocations (Part III – Data and Methods)
Here at Civilytics we sunk way more time into understanding ARPA aid allocations than we initially expected to. The more we learned, the more we wanted to know – and we got a little obsessed. We justify this to ourselves and to you by reiterating that this is $19.53 billion, affecting 27,000+ local governments across the country, and at least 100 million people.
ReadHow 5 Words Shifted $5 Billion Dollars (ARPA Aid to Small Towns Part II)
Update (6/29/2021): We’ve published our full methodology in part 3 including how you can recreate this analysis using official data sources and why it took so long to figure out.
ReadCivilytics' Comments on the State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds Interim Final Rule
Updated 7/15/21 to reflect the final comments Civilytics submitted to Treasury
ReadARPA Aid to Small Towns
Treasury divided this $19.53B evenly among states based on their non-metropolitan population, as directed by the legislation. But the aid only goes to “non-entitlement units.” In many states, a substantial share of the population lives in unincorporated areas so “non-metro population” ≠ “non-entitlement population” in many states.
The seemingly small decision about how to count the population this aid is targeted toward has a big impact on how much aid towns across the country will ultimately receive.
ReadArrests in schools and what you can do
In this edition of the Civic Pulse you’ll find: Arrests in schools and what we can do to reduce them, Urban Institute’s Education Data Explorer, updates on ARPA, our new website, and more.
ReadHow the Geography of Policing Affects Your Life
In this edition of the Civic Pulse, you’ll find: ideas for effective ways to use your community’s ARPA aid, a behind-the-scenes look at our longer-term work on the geography of policing, exciting grassroots research reports on policing and safety in Oakland and Phoenix, and more.
Read5 Impactful Ways Cities Could Spend Their ARPA Aid
The American Rescue Plan provides large direct payments to local governments to address the fallout from the COVID-19 global pandemic and its economic ramifications. Here are five ideas for impactful ways cities could spend this aid.
ReadHow the American Rescue Plan Affects Your Community
In this edition of the Civic Pulse, you’ll find: estimates for how much $ local governments will receive through the American Rescue Plan, an intro to Tableau’s new Racial Equity Data Hub, an intro to Civilytics’ first hire, and more.
ReadLocal Government Aid Estimates for the American Rescue Plan
The American Rescue Plan allocates $350 billion in aid for state and local governments. Look up how much your city or county is estimated to receive (it’s generally a lot!) and learn more about how and when the funds can be used.
ReadCivilytics Looks Back at 2020
In this edition of the Civic Pulse, you’ll find Civilytics’ 2020 in numbers, simple joys, and gratitude.
ReadBuild Back Better - But for who?*
In this edition of the Civic Pulse, you’ll find seven research-backed policy proposals that prevent violence without increasing police budgets, some good down-ballot election news for criminal justice reform, and the latest education resources from Civilytics.
ReadWhy Write Education Data Done Right?
In co-authoring a book for education data analysis, I wanted to provide tools to tackle the frustrating parts of the job and increase agencies’ analytic capacities, describe the shadow curriculum that agency data analysts need, and give advice on how to streamline and perfect undervalued tasks like data requests and descriptive analysis.
ReadPolice, Budgets, and the People's Money
This is a repost of my newsletter, The Civic Pulse, which I am crossposting to the blog. If you like the newsletter, subscribe here: https://civilytics.substack.com/welcome
ReadTake Back Your Budget!
A New Guide for Police Budget Advocacy From the Community Resource Hub
ReadPublic Safety Without Police
This is a repost of my newsletter, The Civic Pulse, which I am crossposting to the blog. If you like the newsletter, subscribe here: https://civilytics.substack.com/welcome
ReadFour Myths About Police Budgets
This is a repost of my newsletter, The Civic Pulse, which I am crossposting to the blog. If you like the newsletter, subscribe here: https://civilytics.substack.com/welcome
ReadFour Lessons for Delivering Online Learning to Professionals
In the past few months I have led lots of online trainings for education data analysts. The topics have varied:
ReadPolicing From Reform to Abolition
This is a repost of my newsletter, The Civic Pulse, which I am crossposting to the blog. If you like the newsletter, subscribe here: https://civilytics.substack.com/welcome
ReadPolicing, Accountability, and What Comes Next
This is a repost of my newsletter, The Civic Pulse, which I am crossposting to the blog. If you like the newsletter, subscribe here: https://civilytics.substack.com/welcome
ReadCivilytics publishes first ever analysis of campus police departments nationwide
Friends and Colleagues,
ReadPolicing the American University out now!
The report by Civilytics Consulting covers the history of campus police departments and describes where campus police departments are located, how many people they employ, what kind of arrests they make, and how they compare to city police departments. The report is accompanied by resources to inform community discussions about police accountability.
ReadCivilytics contributes to the Reveal national radio show
Friends and Colleagues,
ReadWorst practices in managing data science teams
Or, sometimes we learn best by learning what not to do
ReadWhy local government accountability matters
Civilytics tagline is: “Measuring the pulse of civic life.” Measurements, whether in health care or care of a democracy, only tell part of the picture, but when chosen well, they can tell that part of the picture very efficiently. The pulse is a simple, but vital, measure that conveys a lot of information while remaining easy to understand and measure. Ongoing monitoring of a patient is done by keeping track of a patient’s pulse and a number of other indicators that provide immediate interpretation and lots of information.
ReadCan police departments be held accountable like schools?
Government agencies, just like any person or organization, resist accountability. As Behn (2001) writes:
ReadThree lessons in performance accountability from public education
A lot of people ask me why I think building public accountability measures for police departments is possible. If police aren’t currently held accountable for their performance, why would communities begin to do that? How would we ever gather the data? Where would we begin?
ReadA review of Democracy and Expertise
The centering of data within the public policy discourse is happening across the country and the pace of it is accelerating. That’s a big part of my consulting practice now - providing an infusion of data expertise to help an organization move forward toward its goals. It’s important and necessary work now that governments are being asked to do more than ever.
Read