The Community Research Collaborative Blog

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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Cincinnati’s Real GDP Growth: Trailing Nearly All Its Peers

By: Janet Harrah

One hears a great deal about GDP in the news lately. One might ask, “Well, just exactly what is GDP, anyway?” Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, measures the final value of all the goods and services produced in the United States in a given period of time.

The reason that economists and virtually everyone else follows GDP is because it is the broadest measure of economic output, and provides the best overall picture of economic activity. So, as the nation’s economy rises and falls, the GDP is the best way to track that progress (or more recently, the lack thereof).

 

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