In my last post, I looked at the connection between the educational attainment of the working-age population of a region or state, and the prosperity of that region or state. The short story is that at both geographic levels, the…
Most discussions about economic development in Michigan are pretty narrowly focused. How many jobs did we “create?” What companies did we “attract”, or retain? Manufacturing jobs receive the lion’s share of attention, and it’s generally understood that in order to…
Every year, the US Census Bureau publishes estimates of the poverty rate in the U.S. There is the official poverty measure (OPM), which is what we use to determine eligibility for government assistance, and the supplemental poverty measure (SPM), which…
The appropriate size and scope of our social safety-net has long been a matter of disagreement between politicians, researchers, and advocates on the left and right. But one thing that seemingly everyone can agree on is that no matter how…
This post originally ran in February 2017. We are rerunning it because of its relevance to the discussion we should be having about what post-pandemic education should looks like for all students. Whether in school or learning at home. Nearly…
Test scores have become the sole fixation of our education system. At least since the passage of No Child Left Behind in 2001, states, districts, schools, principals, teachers, and students have been labeled successful or failing based on the single,…
Earlier this year, I wrote a post breaking down newly released federal data on the student loan “crisis.” There were two big lessons that came from this data: (1) Stay away from for-profit colleges. The number of students who take…
In our 2018 state policy agenda, we write that the state needs a strong social safety net in order to promote opportunity for Michigan families. Last week, Michigan’s Senate Republicans took a step towards cutting another large hole in that…
Tuition-free college is having a moment. States across the country are offering tuition-free programs at their community colleges. And last year New York State began the largest tuition-free program in the country, making all two- and four-year colleges tuition-free for…
Last week, the Equality of Opportunity Project, led by Stanford economist Raj Chetty, released another study in their ongoing series on mobility in America. This one was particularly sobering. The headline: black males raised in wealthy households (the top quintile…