The Community Research Collaborative Blog

Schools as Centers of Community

By: Geoff Zimmerman

In 2001, the Cincinnati city school district (CPS) adopted a policy that all schools will engage their communities in improving student achievement: “As centers in the community, the schools and their partners should foster strong collaboration, set high expectations, embrace diversity, and share accountability for results.”  Over ten years later, CPS Community Learning Centers act as hubs for community services, providing access for students and families to health, safety and social services, as well as recreational, educational, and cultural opportunities.

 

 

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A Dynamic Picture of Population Change and Aging

By: John Besl

On December 1, United Way of Greater Cincinnati hosted a program titled “Demographics Forum: Strategic View of Our Region’s Changing Demographics for Nonprofit and Civic Organizations.”  The keynote speaker, Dr. Warren Brown of Cornell University, covered multiple topics related to the demographic composition of the Cincinnati region, including our age composition and how it compares to the United States as a whole.

In the course of his talk, Dr. Brown went on to display a few charts depicting age composition for the Cincinnati metro area and selected counties from the 2010 Census, as well as the two previous national headcounts.  The charts showed a dynamic picture of population change and aging over the past two decades.  In this post, I want to review those charts while examining some other jurisdictions in the metro area, and adding some commentary.

 

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Poverty Measurement Redefined

By: John Besl

In my October post, I reported on the latest national findings on income and poverty from the Current Population Survey.  The nation’s official poverty rate increased from 14.3% in 2009 to 15.1% in 2010, while the number of people in poverty grew by 2.6 million.  As grim as those numbers may sound, many researchers believe that the official poverty measure, which was developed in the 1960s, understates the true extent of deprivation in the United States. 

 

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Education, Income, and Health

By: Geoff Zimmerman

Earlier this year, United Way led the development of Bold Goals for our region.  The Bold Goals builds on the Agenda for Community Impact by developing bold, but attainable goals in the areas of education (preparing children, youth, and young adults to succeed in school and life), income (ensuring individuals and families achieve financial sustainability), and health (helping individuals live quality lives & achieve maximum health and independence).

In addition, United Way has just launched a new Call for Investment process that will determine its investments in community and agency partners for the 2013-2015 time period. To support this process, and better understand the Bold Goal impact areas, United Way’s Research Council developed three short regional assessments that show, at a fairly high level, how things stand in our community in the three Bold Goal areas.

In this post, I’ll explore some of the data and highlights from the Regional Assessment for Education and the interconnections between the areas.

 

 

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How Many Jobs Are Needed Over the Next Year to Keep the Unemployment Rate in Cincinnati Steady?

By: Janet Harrah

The Cincinnati economy needs to create approximately 1,000 jobs per month over the next year to maintain its current unemployment rate.  The number of jobs needed to keep the unemployment rate steady is dependent on: (1) the population growth of persons 16 years and over and (2) the rate of labor force participation.  In the Cincinnati area, between 2005 and 2010, the population 16 years and over increased on average, 1.2% each year.  During this same period, the labor force participation rate (LFPR) has averaged 67.3% (see Table 1).  The LFPR represents the proportion of the population 16 years and over that is in the labor force. 

If the average 1.2% growth continues, the population 16 years and over will increase by about 19,700 (see Table 2) in 2012.  With the labor force participation rate at 67.3% then an additional 13,200 people will join the Cincinnati labor force.  To maintain the area’s current 9.1% unemployment rate, 12,000 of those individuals joining the labor force will need a job.  In other words, the economy will need to create approximately 1,000 net new jobs each month to maintain the current unemployment rate.

 

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Defining School Success in Ohio

By: Geoff Zimmerman

There has been a lot of attention recently on school performance and the school rating system in Ohio.  Ohio schools and districts can be classified in one of six rating categories: Excellent with Distinction, Excellent, Effective, Continuous Improvement, Academic Watch, and Academic Emergency.  These categories are based on three factors: performance indicators, performance index, and value added.

In this post, we’ll take a closer look at data for two of the three factors that make up Ohio school rating: performance index and value added.

 

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Income Divide Sparks Public Protests

By: John Besl

The campsites are gone from Piatt Park in downtown Cincinnati, but the discontent behind the “Occupy Cincinnati” protest movement continues to simmer, and the original “Occupy Wall Street” protest drags on.  A familiar criticism of the protests goes like this, “What do they want, and what exactly are they protesting against?”  Boiled down to its essence, the short answer is income inequality, whereby “the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.”  I’d like to use the space this month to report on this timely topic, first describing recent national trends, then drilling down with new state and metropolitan data from the American Community Survey.  Finally, we’ll highlight a single Cincinnati census tract that ranks first on a key measure of income inequality among some 60,000 tracts nationwide.

 

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New Data on Unemployment for Metropolitan Areas Hint at Another Downturn in the Labor Market

By: Janet Harrah

In analyzing the economy, economists and business analysts study a variety of data such as the number of jobs, number of new housing permits, number of home sales and total retail sales.  Looking at these data at one point in time usually is not very informative.  Most analysts track data over time to determine the extent to which individual industries or regions are contributing to or detracting from economic growth. 

One problem with tracking trends over a few months or quarters is that many data series have movements that recur regularly.  For example, over the course of a year, the size of the labor force, the levels of employment and unemployment, and other measures of labor market activity undergo fluctuations due to seasonal events, including changes in weather, harvests, major holidays, and school schedules. Because these seasonal events follow a more or less regular pattern each year, their influence on statistical trends can be eliminated by seasonally adjusting the statistics from month to month. These seasonal adjustments make it easier to observe the cyclical, underlying trend, and other non-seasonal movements in the series.

 

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College and Career Readiness in Northern Kentucky

By: Geoff Zimmerman

A key focus for Kentucky is preparing each student for college/career.  One aspect of Kentucky’s accountability system is the Educational Planning and Assessment System (EPAS).  The EPAS was developed by ACT, Inc. in response to the need for all students to be prepared for high school and the transitions they make after graduation. 

EPAS provides a longitudinal, systematic approach to education and career planning, assessment, instructional support, and evaluation.  It focuses on a number of key transition points that young people face.

 

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New Census Bureau Report Documents the Spread of Poverty

By: John Besl

The American public has been bombarded lately with sour economic news.  The Census Bureau piled even more evidence last month, with the release of its annual report on national trends in income, poverty, and health insurance coverage.  (View the report here.)  The data were collected as part of the 2011 Current Population Survey (CPS) Annual Social and Economic Supplement. 

The number of Americans living in poverty increased to 46.2 million in 2010, the highest total in 52 years of published poverty estimates.  An additional 2.6 million people slipped into poverty between 2009 and 2010, the fourth consecutive annual increase.  The poverty rate also rose for the fourth consecutive year, from 14.3 percent in 2009 to 15.1 percent in 2010.

 

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