This month’s guest columnist, Clifford Spiegelman, makes a strong case for more rigor and statistics in forensic science and also calls for a new agency to lead the way. Here he urges fellow statisticians to help realize the changes many deem necessary.

In his column this month, ASA Director of Science Policy Steve Pierson discusses other agencies’ progress on autonomy, stature, and leadership.

This month’s guest columnists, both ASA Fellows, write about the need for measurement to play a stronger role in economics and suggest a cultural shift in this field is necessary to realize such a change.

For this month’s column, ASA Director of Science Policy Steve Pierson invited representatives from the ASA’s Section on Statistics in Defense and National Security to be his guest authors. Members of this section have made outreach to policymakers an integral part of their activities, with significant strides. Here, they share their progress to date and their plans for the future.

Are the federal statistical agencies in the United States meeting the needs of their many users? Surveys required for policy purposes in health, education, labor, and other areas are being conducted with well-tested statistical designs that so far have reasonable margins of error. But what about the future?

Sixty ASA members recently took President Sally Morton’s advice to heed the call to action set forth by the Obama Administration when they spent the last day of JSM on the Hill advocating for statistical literacy and funding. They reported that their audiences were receptive to the ASA’s message, thereby opening the door for the ASA to realize its advocacy requests through sustained follow-up.

In his July column, ASA Director of Science Policy Steve Pierson highlighted Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Peter Orszag’s call for data on what works and what doesn’t as an example of the Obama Administration’s emphasis on data-driven decisionmaking. Orszag focused on health care and education as two areas where more data is needed. While all eyes are on health care this summer, Pierson thought it would be helpful to look forward to one of the next debates: education. Therefore, he is spotlighting the administration’s education secretary, Arne Duncan, this month.