Michigan ranks second on list of states ‘running out of smart people’
February 8th, 2011
Is there any depressing state-rankings list that Michigan doesn’t make? Perhaps a better question is, are we so in the dumps that merely not being No. 1 on every bad list is good news?
The publication 24/7 Wall St. this week published its roundup of “Ten States Running Out of Smart People,” and, wouldn’t you know, Michigan is right up there. We land at second place, behind Colorado.
The site picked the states based on “the lowest education achievement and job levels compared to the other forty.” It looked at reading and math scores from 2003 and 2009 from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The analysis also factored in the percentage of state residents with bachelor’s degrees and the movement in that percentage relative to changes in population, Bureau of Labor Statistics data on white-collar employment and numbers for high school and graduate school education.
Here’s the (uncharitable) assessment of Michigan:
Michigans eighth graders scored significantly worse on reading tests in 2009 than in 2003. The change was the fourth greatest decrease in the country. The state also had the third worst change in math scores for eighth graders between those two years. Michigan lost 6.17% of its population with college degrees between 2000 and 2009, the largest drop among all the states. This is due in large part to the hard times the American automobile industry has had to face.
Yeah, yeah, brain drain, we get it. But it could be worse. A lot of our cities may be dying, but at least we’re not completely joyless. On Forbes’ recent list of America’s Most Miserable Cities, Detroit and Flint appear along with a handful of other usual-suspect Midwest locations, but the vast majority of the nation’s saddest spots are in California and Florida.
It might not be much, but it’s something that, from the depths of another Michigan winter, we’ll gladly take.
Email Troy Reimink at or follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/troyreimink.
Similar Posts:
- CRCT scores are in: What do they tell us this time?
- Nation’s Report Card on U.S. History Released
- State Superintendent Flanagan says Kent County school chiefs ‘whining’ about MEAP changes
- Beverly Hall: Shocked, saddened and sorry for shortcomings
- Most area 10th graders are passing high school exit exam
Tags: List, List States
Posted in School Advisory | No Comments »