by Sean McManus
Staff Writer
It’s been one year since Dr. Adam Herbert returned to Jacksonville and started the Florida Center for Public Policy and Research.
Now it’s time to take the show on the road.
Herbert has been busy lately, speaking to social service agencies, Meninak, clergy groups, Rotary, local business leaders and corporations such as Blue CrossBlue Shield about one of the most sophisticated think tanks for policy research in the state and what it can do for Jacksonville.
The seeds were planted years ago. Seeing that the intellectual capital of Florida universities, and especially the University of North Florida, where Herbert served as president from 1989-1998, were not being tapped to solve real-world problems, Herbert began the process of developing a data-driven approach to helping city government deal with every day issues.
Garnering momentum from his post as chancellor of the state university system, where he served from 1998-2001, Herbert raised money to start the center, which will focus on statewide issue analysis, while maintaining the UNF mission to improve the quality of life on the First Coast.
The Center is a comprehensive data warehouse that accumulates information on the state and the region in several categories. The plan is to conduct specific projects for the academic enhancement of universities across the state, as well as respond to requests for proposals from government agencies that need feedback on how to direct policy. The Center will also work with government agencies and foundations to flush out unique problems and coordinate efforts to form helpful conclusions.
One recent project that grew out of conversations with the county health department is called The Florida Child. Based on the concession that the City hasn’t had a viable mechanism to study what’s happening to children in general, and how to compare factors like academic performance with young people in other regions, the Center in tandem with the Children’s Commission, Episcopal Child Services and other public entities will begin taking quarterly snapshots of factors such as education readiness, health, juvenile justice and social and economic well-being.
“Central to our mission is GIS [Geographic Information Systems], a high-tech program that maps data and plugs it into a colorful grid so we can get a good sense graphically of what’s going on,” said Herbert. “I call it eye candy.”
It is in the GIS lab that students and faculty can develop multi-variable analysis and present a composite of what’s happening over time.
“It’s easy if you think about our database as layers or a big juke box with each CD as a variable,” said Herbert. “We know every street, every census track, zip codes, legislative districts, FCAT scores, race and ethnicity, dropout rates, number of teachers and median income of anywhere in Jacksonville. So we know what areas are succeeding and which are failing and we can focus our attention where we need to.”
The GIS lab can also conduct longitudinal analysis of exam scores over several years. So for example, teacher experience and the longevity of principals can be compared with test scores to see if these factors really do make a difference. Issues like how mobility affects performance can be addressed in a real way, and whether schools with more strict attendance policies actually compete better.
Recently, Herbert was able to pull up a GIS grid of every toxic waste dump in Duval County and then simultaneously superimpose the infant mortality rates.
“It’s powerful stuff,” he said.
Another major project is to perform complex election analysis.
“We want to really analyze voter turn out to figure out who is voting for what, where,” said Herbert. “The Center will be able to aggregate hard data, not just exit polls, to form conclusions about the issues people care about.”
Every one will be looking to Florida, he noted, to see if the situation has improved from 2000.
The Center will also be able to conduct private surveys for foundations about how well they are doing in different areas. And data from across the world is constantly being funneled into the Center which can help steer fresh water policy for example, something that Herbert says is a major problem.
“Florida is going to surpass New York with 16 million people in the next 10-12 years,” he said. “And we’re in line to have 25 million people by 2020.” That means, explained Herbert, that Florida needs definitive data on how weather systems impact droughts, and the cyclical nature of the water supply.
“What do you do in a state with 25 million people with a major reliance on agriculture when there’s no water?” said Herbert. “We can study desalination along with weather cycles and geographic population numbers and help figure out how best to deal with these issues.”
Herbert said organizations like Jacksonville Community Council, Inc. are working in partnership with the Center to facilitate studies on what issues the city and the state should be dealing with in the next few years. The Center is also a helpful platform for working with students and faculty to publishing materials that can be of benefit to public policy.
The plan is to have one major project each year specifically dealing with an important issue in Duval County, so a questionnaire will be released annually to help guide in that mission. But even with state-of-the-art equipment, Herbert said the Center has no intention of competing with the private sector to conduct market research analysis. “Our mission is to strengthen public governance,” he said.
The Center will develop information for the legislature and specific districts, snapshots of the needs of specific constituencies. And eventually, they want to make all of this information available via the web.
And in an effort to make it easier for politicians to gain access to specific information about Florida from all over the country, the Center has developed a bimonthly e-mail newsletter called e-News.
Every day researchers search through 33 national newspapers that fit into one of several categories such as higher education, K-12 readiness and public management and e-mail them to subscribers. They have over 500 people registered so far.
“It’s the best single source to know what the rest of the country is saying about Florida,” said Herbert.