Mark Your Calendar!

Wednesday, February 29, 2012 12:00noon – 1:00pm

In partnership with the Detroit Free Press, The Center for Michigan will host an Education Twitter chat to discuss strategies for family and community involvement to ensure student success.

Building upon the momentum of The Center’s Community Conversations currently underway across the state, the upcoming Twitter Chat provides another opportunity for Michigan residents to share their ideas and examples of how collaborations among educators, businesses, nonprofits, families, and other community stakeholders can lead to student achievement.

Also joining the Twitter Chat will be representatives from Detroit Parent Network and the Education Trust Midwest.

To participate:

• If you don’t already have one, sign up for a Twitter account.
• Be sure to follow the twitter accounts for the host and invited guests:
• @centerformi (Host)
• @freepopinion
• @bridgemichigan
• @DPNDetroit
• @EdTrustMidwest
• Before the Twitter Chat starts, connect to the discussion using the hashtag #edchatmi by using TweetChat, Hootsuite, or Tweetdeck.  This will allow you to view the Twitter chat as a continuous stream.
• Share your comments, ideas, and resources to the questions posed throughout the discussion.

For more info, contact Tanya Upthegrove at tupthegrove@thecenterformichigan.net

Gov. Rick Snyder has made a blunt claim about Michigan’s schools in 2011: Few of their graduates are actually ready for college work.

This spring, Snyder said only 16 percent of the state’s 2010 high school graduates were college ready and that 238 schools had zero — 0 — college-ready students based on ACT benchmarks.

The governor called the statistics “truly scary” and said the state isn’t receiving the appropriate return on its investment in the education system.

Critics say Snyder’s use of the figure is “misleading.” A review by the Center for Michigan found that Snyder’s use of the 16 percent figure is technically accurate. However, the debate is far from resolved over whether the ACT figures fairly reflect the college ‘readiness’ of high-schoolers.

In response to the problems he sees, Snyder wants to lift the state’s cap on charter schools, expand school of choice for students, adopt “performance-based” teaching standards and overhaul teacher tenure law.

But educators such as Judy Pritchett, the chief academic officer of the Macomb Intermediate School District, argue that leaning too heavily on ACT scores as a predictor of college readiness — or as the basis for overhauling K-12 education policy — is an unfair and unwise approach.

Pritchett agrees reforms are needed. But the ACT’s benchmarks are flawed measures that paint an incomplete and misleading portrait of how successfully Michigan schools are preparing students for college and post-secondary careers, she said.

“Human beings are extremely complex organisms,” said Pritchett, whose intermediate district encompasses 21 school districts. “To say we’re failing or not based on one index is not fair and not what we should be doing as we make major decisions on reforms.

“These numbers are not a good basis for making education reform. We’re the first to say that we’re not into the status quo and we need to make some changes. But this one is so flawed because it’s a limited study and to use just one assessment when making decisions with these ramifications is just not a good approach,” she added.

The standard Snyder has used is based on the performance of Michigan’s high school juniors on the ACT’s college readiness benchmarks in the four areas of the test: English, reading, math and science.

ACT sets minimum subject test scores —18 in English; 21 in reading; 22 in math; and 24 in science (out of a possible 36)  — for students to have a “high probability” of success in credit-bearing college classes in those respective areas. According to ACT, students who meet a benchmark have approximately a 50 percent chance of earning a ‘B’ or better and approximately a 75 percent chance of earning a ‘C’ or better in corresponding college courses.

For example, if a student meets the benchmark in math, he or she is thought to have a 75 percent chance of earning a ‘C’ or better in college algebra. English composition, biology and social sciences are the other corresponding courses.

All Michigan juniors are required to take the ACT as part of the Michigan Merit Exam. Of those who graduated in 2011, only 16 percent met the college readiness benchmarks in all four subject test areas when taking the test in 2010 — the figure Snyder and others in Lansing have used.

Pritchett and other educators representing the Macomb and Oakland intermediate school districts recently distributed a document detailing why they see that measurement as misleading. Among the points they raised:

According to ACT, the benchmarks were created using data from nearly 100 institutions and more than 90,000 college students. That study is too limited to establish the standards, making the benchmarks arbitrary, Pritchett said.

Michigan is one of only a handful of states that require all students to take the ACT as juniors, regardless of whether they aspire to attend college. That skews comparisons to the scores of other states and national averages, she said.

Missing just one of the four benchmarks classifies a student as not college ready. “We all have strengths and challenges,” Pritchett said. “I was good in reading and English, but struggled in math and probably wouldn’t have done well on that subtest. We can find thousands of students who fall into that category — who may not do well in one subject test but will excel in college. Conversely, you may have students who test well but for whatever reason — no motivation, no organization — get to college where there’s more freedom and suddenly are not successful.”

Of the 238 schools Snyder pointed to as having zero college-ready students, a majority were alternative education schools or dropout recovery programs, Pritchett said.

What’s more, ACT adjusts a state’s scores when students retake the test, which some do as seniors. In fact, when Michigan’s scores for the class of 2011 were adjusted, the percentage of students meeting all four college readiness benchmarks rose from 16 percent to 20 percent. The national average for 2011 graduates was about 25 percent.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Mike Flanagan said the ACT benchmarks are a fair measure because universities use the test scores as part of their entrance requirements.

“I’m a little taken aback by those who are defensive about this because the universities think (the ACT) has some merit,” he said.

Flanagan acknowledges many schools may have students who perform well, but miss the benchmark in one of the four areas and therefore are not deemed “college ready.” Instead of arguing over the statistics, those districts should concentrate on boosting performance in subject areas where the most students seem to be missing the benchmark, he argued.

“If I were a local superintendent and I saw we were down in a specific subject area that’s where I’d focus,” he said.

In June, ACT data was released for the class of 2012 and the percentage of juniors meeting all four college readiness benchmarks increased to 17 percent (up from the 16 percent of the 2011 class before it was adjusted for retakes). The percentage of students meeting benchmarks increased in all four individual subject areas. Meanwhile, the average composite score (the average of the four subject tests) for the class of 2012 was 19.3, up from 18.7 in 2008.

“The steady progress is promising, but we can and must do better,” said Snyder, who signed a controversial 2012 state budget that cut state aid to schools by $300 per pupil. “I am confident that with our rigorous high school requirements, high-quality teachers and the enactment and implementation of key education reforms, this positive trend will continue.”

MSU prof: U.S. students falling behind

While he has reservations about using the ACT benchmarks as a measure for college readiness, Michigan State University professor William Schmidt said Snyder is generally right to be concerned that students in Michigan — and across the country — are falling behind their peers around the globe.

“We are in a startlingly bad position compared to the rest of the world,” said Schmidt, a university distinguished professor of statistics who was instrumental in developing the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). “Our kids are way behind. It’s reality. You can’t just push it aside and try to excuse it. A debate over the tests misses the point.”

Launched in 1995 and conducted about every four years, TIMSS has generally shown American students lagging behind countries such as Belgium, the Netherlands, Japan, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan, Schmidt said.

The problem, Schmidt contends, is that America hasn’t set high enough standards, especially in math, where students generally begin to fall behind in middle school.

Schmidt helped benchmark the new Common Core Standards that Michigan adopted in 2010 and plans to begin assessing in 2014. The new K-12 standards — which cover math and English language arts — are focused, coherent and demanding and will help prepare Michigan students to compete globally for jobs, Schmidt said.

“The ‘college ready’ thing is a nice catchphrase, but the more fundamental issue is the way our system is set up and the fact that, by international benchmarks, our standards are not particularly focused, adequate or competitive,” Schmidt said. “We’re preparing our kids for lesser roles in the world. We’re not going to be a leading technological and innovative country if we continue to educate at that level.”

ACT scores are an important gauge of academic preparation and open doors to college and scholarships, but there’s much more to helping students become ready for post-secondary success, said Doug Ross, president and founder of the University Prep Schools, a system of seven charter schools in the Detroit area.

“Using ACT as a measure of kids’ academic preparation is appropriate,” said Ross, who in July also was tapped to direct the Detroit Public Schools Charter School Office. “But that’s so far away from, ‘can you stick to it and succeed?’ The difference between 20 and 23 on the ACT is not going to predict how you do compared to social skill factors and other character issues.”

Though members of the first graduating class at Ross’ University Preparatory Academy had average ACT scores well below the college readiness benchmarks, roughly 80 percent of those students went on to earn college degrees.

Ross’ schools, which have a goal of graduating 90 percent of students and sending 90 percent of those students on to college, focus heavily on helping students develop intangible skills such as time management, goal setting, responsibility and work ethic. Students complete internships to explore potential careers and have daily advisory periods

“It’s a set of skills we call ‘habits of mind,’ ” said Margaret Trimmer-Hartley, superintendent of University Prep Science and Math Schools, a middle school and high school in the University prep system. “We begin in middle school and teach them very intentionally so kids can develop that side of themselves. We’re focused on charging up kids’ batteries and getting them to believe they can play in the college game.”

Editor’s note: Doug Ross is a member of the Center for Michigan’s Steering Committee. Margaret Trimer-Hartley is a member of the Board of Advisers for the Center’s new online magazine, Bridge, which launches Sept. 6.

Editor’s note: The Center continues a series of comments from Kurt Metzger of Data Driven Detroit on what the 2010 census results mean for Michigan today, and tomorrow. Metzger worked for the U.S. Census Bureau for 15 years and has been studying demographic data and issues in Michigan for three decades.

The Census Bureau has released detailed data from the 2010 Census that allows us to look more deeply into the racial and ethnic trends that portray the diversified future Michigan has in store for itself.

Figure 1 -- Percent Persons of Color in Michigan by Age Cohort, 2010

Figure 1 provides a visual representation of Michigan’s age and race/ethnic structure. It is clear that, with two exceptions, the share in persons of color increases steadily with decreasing age. Those two exceptions are sequential cohorts — “30-34 years” and  “35 to 39 years” — and represent many of the immigrants who arrived in Michigan during the 1990s and have aged 10 years, as well as a smaller group of immigrants since 2000. The chart represents a three-fold increase in the share of persons of color as one goes from the oldest to the youngest cohort.

All cohorts below 40 years of age have higher shares than the state average. The largest increase between cohorts is seen in the two youngest groups, signaling the larger contributions that persons of color are making to Michigan’s birth numbers.

Before we begin to look at age distributions by gender across racial and ethnic groups, I thought it would be interesting, particularly in the light of new tests that allow early determination of a baby’s gender, to see how gender plays out across the age spectrum.

Figure 2 -- Percent Males in the Population by Age Cohort in Michigan, 2010

Figure 2 shows the share of males in each age cohort. It is clear that, because more male babies are born than female babies, males claim the majority of each cohort from birth to 29 years of age. Beginning with the 30-34 years cohort, women begin to outnumber men and show a gradual, but steady, increase in their share through the 65-69 years cohort.  The life expectancy differential begins to take hold after about 72 years of age and the male share drops quickly. Once the population reaches 85 years and over, women outnumber men better than 2 to 1.

Figure 3 -- Population Pyramid for the Total Population in Michigan, 2010

Figure 3 illustrates a population pyramid for the total population in Michigan.  This is another way of illustrating the male/female share by age group. One can see that the lowest bar (0-4 years) is slightly longer for males, while the top bar (85 years and over) is significantly longer for females.

Figure 4 -- Population Pyramid for the White, non-Hispanic Population in Michigan, 2010

Figure 4 illustrates the population pyramid for the white, non-Hispanic population. The high end/low end pattern discussed above is exaggerated here due to the fact that white women tend to have longer life expectancy than any other group. Another observation is that the bars for the lower age cohorts are shorter, indicating that, due to decreasing birth rates, young children account for a smaller share of the white, non-Hispanic population than for other race/ethnic groups, and hence a smaller share than in the general population as a whole.

One other distinguishing characteristic of the pyramid is the large bulge one sees in the age cohorts between 40 and 64 years of age. This represents the baby boom years of 1946 to 1964, with a small tail from 1965 to 1969 when birth numbers were still high. It is only in the white, non-Hispanic population that this bulge is so noticeable.

Figure 5 -- Population Pyramid for the African American Population in Michigan, 2010

Males account for the smallest overall share of population for African Americans (47.5 percent vs. 49.1 percent in total population) than any other race/ethnic groups (Figure 5).  A look at their population pyramid shows that males outnumber females only through the 15-19 years cohort.  In addition, their younger age structure is clearly shown by the higher percentages that the younger cohorts account for in the African-American population than in the white, non-Hispanic population. This holds true until the age of 40 years.

One can also see an extremely large cohort of 15- to 19-year olds nestled between smaller cohorts. This pattern is probably due to a number of factors, including the high numbers of births that occurred between 1988 and 1993 (especially in Detroit and other cities with high shares of African Americans), high death rates for African-American males in their early 20s, and high rates of undercounting in the Census for African-American males in their 20s. The shorter life expectancy of African-American males begins to take its toll earlier and the overall shorter life expectancy of African Americans is clear in their smaller shares at the top of the pyramid.

Figure 6 -- Population Pyramid for the Native American Population in Michigan, 2010

The Native American population (Figure 6) shows a pattern somewhat similar to that of African Americans, though males outnumber females through the age of 29, and even gain advantage again in the 40-44 years cohort. Males have a higher share of the population in every age cohort, with the exception of 85 years and over, than they do in the general population. Once again one sees the 15-19 years bulge. (Figure 6 — Population Pyramid for the Native American Population in Michigan, 2010)

Figure 7 -- Population Pyramid for the Asian Population in Michigan, 2010

The Asian population pyramid (Figure 7) shows characteristics of an immigrant group in that the highest shares of the population fall in the cohorts between 20 and 44 years of age. The largest streams of immigrants tend to arrive in their late 20s and early 30s, and many of our Asian residents are arriving with college degrees or coming here to acquire college degrees. The younger age structure, combined with high degrees of husband-wife families, are driving larger shares of young children that in the general population. While Asian men outnumber women only to the age of 24 years, they tend to have higher shares across the age spectrum – particularly in the older cohorts – than any other group.

The final group that we have to observe is the Latino/Hispanic population. The way the Census is conducted, with separate questions for Race and Hispanic origin, Latinos may be of any race.

Figure 8 -- Population Pyramid for the Latino/Hispanic Population in Michigan, 2010

The first thing one realizes with this pyramid – Figure 8 – is the fact that it IS A PYRAMID! The concept of a population pyramid came about in the baby boom years when births were rising and each successively younger age cohort accounted for an increasing percent of the population. Birth trends in the general public, and all race groups, have changed the shape to a gradually evolving rectangle. This is not the case with the Latino population, however.

Not only do the bars increase in size as the age cohorts decrease, but you will see that the axis range had to be increased from a high of 5.5 percent to one of 6.5 percent. This is because, while the 0-4 years cohort for the total population accounts for about 3 percent for both males and females, the youngest age group accounts for double that in the Latino population. This “bottom heavy” age structure holds throughout the youth cohorts. The Latino population is a very young population that still has relatively high birth rates – particularly among recent immigrants. While it has not grown in Michigan to the degree it has in other parts of the country, it is clear that its age structure will drive population growth in the future.

The evidence is clear: The 2010 Census results have shown that Michigan is diversifying, with more than 30 percent growth for both the Asian and Latino populations. While the recession has resulted in population losses among whites, African Americans and Native Americans, there is growth in the multi-race category, giving us some clues as to the growth occurring in other ethnic groups – Arab Americans, Chaldeans, Eastern Europeans, Africans and more – all of whom are contributing to a richer, more exciting, more diverse Michigan.

* Kurt Metzger and his team at Data Driven Detroit have been busy indeed with the wealth of data from the 2010 Census. Now available at their site is a county by county look at how Michigan has changed demographically from 2000 to 2010:

http://datadrivendetroit.org/michigan-county-profiles/

* Downtown Midland could get a $50 million development project:

http://www.ourmidland.com/news/article_2ec4e2f3-0b02-55de-9175-8b99a65c21d0.html

* Building power-generation plants that use natural gas could create nearly 20,000 construction jobs, says a Michigan State University professor:

http://ipr.interlochen.org/ipr-news-features/episode/15336

* Gentex is looking for more than 1,000 new workers for its Zeeland operation. The firm is holding a job fair today in Holland to help fill 300 of the new slots:

http://hollandzeeland.wzzm13.com/news/news/60901-gentex-will-hold-job-fair-thursday

* Could more housing be in the future for downtown Kalamazoo?:

http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2011/08/could_downtown_kalamazoo_suppo.html

* Almost 20 state lawmakers in Minnesota are retrieving salary they did not get during the state’s recent government shutdown. State workers, says this story, don’t have this option. How many campaign ads will materialize off of this little maneuver?:

http://www.sctimes.com/article/20110823/NEWS01/108220054/Some-lawmakers-who-deferred-shutdown-pay-will-take-it?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7CUmbrella&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+StatelineorgRss-Headlines+%28Stateline.org+RSS+-+Headlines%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Translation: “If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you.“ And it is a great — no, perfect — set-up for all the wonderful “Pure Michigan” TV

CFM Founder and President Phil Power

commercials extolling the beauties of our state.

Naturally, it seems only right that Sleeping Bear Dunes, near Traverse City, has just been anointed by the “Good Morning America” TV show as the most beautiful spot in the nation.

My wife, Kathy, and I took our summer rest at our cabin on the south shore of Lake Superior earlier this month, and just finished the eight-hour drive back from the Upper Peninsula to our home near Ann Arbor. The state motto says “peninsula,“ not “peninsulas,” because it was adopted two years before Michigan became a state in 1837, at a time when we didn’t yet have the Upper Peninsula. And the northern half of our state still gets short shrift.

Sadly not as well-known as it should be to the “trolls” (folks below the Mackinac Bridge, in UP-speak), the Upper Peninsula this summer was hot and very, very dry. When you walked in the woods, you heard the parched pine needles crackle under foot and saw the bracken fern turning yellow. Dry weather like that terrifies local folks, for good reason. One lightning strike could set off a roaring forest fire that can consume thousands of acres in a fiery flash.

But, ah, the sights, sounds and smells of the UP!

The soft whish of the wind blowing gently through the pines, bringing the unforgettable scent of needle and bark. The deep, intense and cloudless blue sky. The stars burning bright on a dark night – seemingly as close as the tips of your fingers.

When you swim, eyes open, under water in Lake Superior, the cleanest body of fresh water on the planet, the distance is turquoise and the sand below golden in the sun. And if you are a fly fisherman, nothing quite beats the flash of a brook trout, all speckled in gold and red and blue, as it rises to your No. 12 Michigan Hopper.

Lake Superior, on the Keweenaw Peninsula, near Betsy. (CFM Michigan Photos)

Once, we paused on our walk to let three Sandhill Cranes – great birds five feet tall with a bright red top knot and a peculiar hesitant walk – pass silently, not 10 yards in front of us. And as we started our drive south early in the morning, the sun rose through a storm over Lake Superior in globs of red and orange and yellow, with shafts of light piercing the dark clouds, as though it were the hand of God made manifest here on Earth.

There is no place on Earth as wonderfully pure and fresh as Michigan‘s UP — and no place that can look so sad.

This always has been a hard land, a tough place to make a living winter or summer, sparsely populated to start, with far too many people now out of work. On our drive down, we passed five, 10, 20 abandoned houses, the fallen roofs each covering the graves of some family’s once modest hope for a clean, well-lighted dwelling.

There are many abandoned small motels along the way, too — paint peeling, the windows cracked and trees starting to grow in the parking lots. Our favorite – the “Generic Motel,” just outside the tiny village of McMillan — seemed to have disappeared.

The parking lots around the Indian casinos were jammed, although it was hard to say whether the folks inside were having fun …or merely desperate for a big score to try to beat the odds.

Then, when you come across over the Mackinac Bridge – itself a delicate triumph of steel and grace and soaring air – things suddenly change. The pine and hemlock vanish, to be replaced by hardwoods like oak and maple. The soft sand dunes and hard granite glacial erratic rocks give way to softer mounds of grassy farmland and rolling hills near Vanderbilt.

And a couple of hundred miles farther south, it’s, well, lush and green and settled and no longer savage. The air started to get humid as we stopped at a gas station just south of Grayling. As we drove on familiar roads near our home, we saw the vegetable gardens ripe with produce and the corn standing tall.

The late Judd Arnett, who wrote a column in the Detroit Free Press from 1959 until the early ’90s, used to refer to “Michigan, my Michigan.” Old Judd, who would have been a century old this year,  had it right. There is no place like Michigan, our Michigan. We all have a stake in preserving its natural splendors and restoring its economy to its former glory.

Editor’s note: Former newspaper publisher and University of Michigan Regent Phil Power is a longtime observer of Michigan politics and economics. He is also the founder and president of the Center for Michigan, a nonprofit, bipartisan centrist think-and-do tank, designed to cure Michigan’s dysfunctional political culture. The opinions expressed here are Power’s own and do not represent the official views of the Center. He welcomes your comments at ppower@thecenterformichigan.net.

Edington, director of the University of Michigan’s Health Management Research Center, said he has not advised Snyder on how to improve the health of Michigan citizens. But as this edited conversation with Rick Haglund shows, Edington has plenty of suggestions for the governor.

Explain the title of your latest book, “Zero Trends: Health as a Serious Economic Development Strategy.”

The trend in health care costs has been 6 percent-to-8 percent growth for many years. To get that trend down to the overall rate of inflation, that’s the zero trend I’m talking about. It not only goes for health care, it goes for disability and workers’ compensation. We have to get everything down.

Dee Edington, an expert on work health issues at the University of Michigan, says Gov. Rick Snyder should take a practical approach to improving public health policy and outcomes in the state, such as simply urging people not to gain any additional weight.

We all focus on cost, but the real issues are people’s quality of life and the quality of the work force. I gave up on this being a health argument in the 1980s. Companies are more focused on economics than health, so I tried to switch this to an economic issue. Economics are driving the health issue. Cities are getting hit just as hard as companies, even more so.

You say in the book that we need to switch from a “wait-for-sickness” health-care system to one that also incorporates a wellness strategy. What’s the business case for that?

I think healthy, high-performing people are going to be the competitive advantage in the 21^st century. That will keep a company’s costs down. If you only focus on reducing sickness costs, wellness might get hurt. If you focus on all costs, you get a different picture. You have to look at the total value of health.

Wellness is such a small percentage of the health-care dollar. It’s about 2 percent. It should be more.

If you were advising Gov. Rick Snyder on developing a health promotion strategy, what would you tell him?

Just making a statement will be an important event. But he can’t just say, “We’re going to do this.” He has to get the senior leaders in the organization engaged — and I mean engaged. All of the department heads and the people who report to them have to be on board with the governor.

He has to say, “This is why it’s important to do this. We need be the best place to live, the best place to work, the best to invest.” He needs to send a message to businesses that Michigan has healthy, high-performing people who are going to keep their costs down.

And he’s going to need to allocate some financial resources for this. It’s not a one-year deal. It has to become part of the culture of Michigan. It needs a champion. I’d like to see this effort led by the economic people, but Snyder will probably give it to his health people.

We should take advantage of our tourism and agriculture industries in Michigan. Recreation and nutrition are basic parts of peoples’ lives.

I would say to the governor, “You came in with some promises and you delivered on them. Now here’s another one that’s critically important for the health and well-being of citizens.”

We’ve had president’s councils on physical fitness under various names since 1956. Governors have enacted health-promotion programs. Yet obesity is on the rise and health-care costs keep escalating. Why have these programs failed?

The president’s councils usually put in an athlete as the spokesman for the council. They forgot that this is not about athletics — this is about real people. These organizations generally have a single focus and they don’t work with the culture that is working against healthy habits.

You’ve been advising corporations and organizations for decades on implementing wellness programs. What are some of the things successful companies do?

The easiest thing I see companies do is focus on changing the vending machines in the cafeteria. Put the healthy snacks at eye level. Put the unhealthy snacks at the bottom so people at least have to bend over to see them. Some companies don’t have fried foods on Friday in their cafeterias.

Open up the stairwells. Give people a chance to walk at lunchtime. Give them flextime if possible. As an employer, you want to ask, “Is this a good place to work? Would your employees recommend people to work here?”

Managers must recognize the importance of this. At some companies, people don’t smile. The attitude is, just keep working. Celebrate people who walked two miles or five miles. Make it a place where people don’t leave worse at the end of the day than when they showed up.

Explain what you mean by implementing a “don’t get worse” strategy.

That’s my favorite strategy. The public health people hate that. They think it’s setting the bar too low. But you can’t get better until you don’t get worse. It takes the pressure off people. If you tell them to just don’t gain weight, they’ll say, “I can do that.”

Adults in this country gain an average of one pound a year. If there are 5 million adults in Michigan and they didn’t gain weight for a year, as a state we’d be 5 million pounds lighter. I think we get better by small wins. The first win is, don’t get worse.

Are you optimistic that Michigan citizens will become healthier?

I absolutely am. Some state has to step up and set an example for the rest of the country. The governor who does this will talk to other governors and other states will figure out they can do it, too. Why not be No. 1 instead of No. 48?

What did you eat for lunch today?

I had carrots, peanut butter and iced tea.

Did you exercise today?

I walked. I think walking is the exercise for Americans. I have a high desk so that I can stand up at my computer. Don’t ask me about sleep. I’m not very good about that.

That’s the reality in Michigan, says a health expert engaged in a campaign to get tens of thousands of uninsured children signed up for one of the state’s public health programs. Phillip Bergquist of the Michigan Primary Care Association says the Census Bureau estimates that in 2009 (most recent figures available), Michigan had 127,000 children not covered either by a private insurance policy or public health program.

Bergquist’s group has allied with the Michigan Health & Hospital Association and the Middle Cities Education Association to spearhead the “Enroll Michigan” campaign to address the gap. On Aug. 23, the group will launch a “back to school” push to enroll uninsured children in one of the state’s public health programs since 65 percent of such children (more than 80,000) are eligible for the Medicaid or MIChild public programs.

Even if a child is enrolled, however, prompt medical visits are not assured. A survey released in June by the Center for Healthcare Research & Transformation (a nonprofit partnership between the University of Michigan and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan) found that:

* “Forty-two percent of Medicaid recipients reported having been told their primary care doctor was not accepting their coverage, compared to just 15 percent of those with Medicare, 12 percent of those with employer-based coverage, and 10 percent of individual insurance holders.”

* “Forty-six percent of those with Healthy Kids (Michigan’s Medicaid program for children and pregnant women) reported having been told their specialist would not accept their child’s coverage, compared to 14 percent with MIChild (Michigan’s Children’s Health Insurance Program for uninsured children of working families.)”

Those trends track with a study published this summer in the New England Journal of Medicine that found 66 percent “of those who mentioned Medicaid-CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program) were denied appointments, compared with 11 percent who said they had private insurance,” reported the New York Times.

“As we know, kids need to arrive at school healthy in order to succeed academically and later in life. However, low-income children who have public health insurance, like Medicaid, aren’t always able to access needed health-care services. More than one-third of parents whose children are covered by Medicaid report they have trouble finding a doctor who will see their children. With 1 million children in Michigan covered by Medicaid, this is a real issue,” said Jack Kresnak, who heads the advocacy group Michigan’s Children.

For fiscal 2012, Michigan will spend $12 billion on Medicaid with $2 billion coming from the state’s $8 billion general fund. (Federal funds constitute the lion’s share of Medicaid spending.) Michigan spends another $50 million ($13 million from the general fund) on MIChild. Nevertheless, Michigan’s payments to doctors and other medical providers for Medicaid patients have trailed the national average, which has led to providers limiting the number of Medicaid patients they accept.

Michigan has 1 million children already enrolled in either Medicaid (966,828) or MIChild (36,182). However, while children constitute a slight majority of all Medicaid recipients, they received less than 20 percent of overall spending in 2007 (most recent figures available from statehealthfacts.org). By contrast, senior and disabled Medicaid recipients received two-thirds of all Medicaid payments.

Medical ‘homes’ eyed for savings

On Monday, a coalition of advocacy groups touted the results of an independent review of a Kent County program that “is succeeding in significantly reducing the number of expensive emergency room visits and hospital admissions while improving kids’ health.”

The premise of the program is to provide better coordination of medical and social services, and incentives, to ensure needy children on public programs always have a medical “home” — a doctor’s office or clinic — where they can be seen for preventive care and illnesses.

The evaluation of the Kent County Children Healthcare Access Program found that when “societal benefits,” such as fewer missed school days were included, CHAP provided a return of $1.20 for each $1 invested.

However, the Kent program and a similar one gearing up in Wayne County are built on investments from private foundations.

“The premise of CHAP in Kent County and now in Wayne County is that these are demonstration projects.  It has been our goal from the beginning to demonstrate that this approach could be funded with existing health care dollars, as long as we have the policy change to support it,” explained Amy Turner-Thole of First Steps Kent, one of the coalition partners. “If CHAP continues to show positive results in the state’s two largest population centers, we believe we can make a strong case that the state should look at this approach for all children with Medicaid in Michigan.  We recognize that philanthropic investment cannot sustain CHAP long-term.”

Delonda McCullum of Wayne, as a young single mother, had to navigate the Medicaid system for her children. Now, she is assisting others as the intake coordinator for the Wayne CHAP.

“If we educate the people and let me know the important of what is out there in community, we can ensure the whole community is taken care of,” she said.

“Kent CHAP has demonstrated that a medical home model with a focus on prevention and access can help stem the rising cost of health care by reducing hospital admissions and emergency room visits,” said Kresnak of Michigan’s Children. “Medical homes allow for kids and families to form strong relationships with their primary care doctors, and kids get better health care so that conditions like asthma can be caught earlier and managed without expensive trips to the ER.”

By Kurt Metzger

Editor’s note: The Center continues a series of comments from Kurt Metzger of Data Driven Detroit on what the 2010 census results mean for Michigan today, and tomorrow. Metzger worked for the U.S. Census Bureau for 15 years and has been studying demographic data and issues in Michigan for three decades.

The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis released 2010 personal income numbers for metropolitan areas on Aug. 9. In a reversal to 2009 results, BEA calculated that personal income rose in all but four of the nation’s 366 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs), with all of Michigan’s metros falling in the gainers column.

Personal income in the metropolitan portion of the United States  overall rose 2.9 percent (not adjusted for inflation) in 2010, after falling 1.9 percent in 2009. Personal income growth in 2010 ranged from a high of 10.1 percent in Elizabethtown, Ky., to a low of -0.9 percent in Grand Junction, Colo.

In 2010, earnings grew 2.3 percent and property income grew 0.6 percent as the metropolitan portion of the United States continued to recover from the recession, which ended in June 2009 (in case you have forgotten). In 2009, these components of personal income fell 4 percent and 6.1 percent, respectively. The growth of personal current transfer receipts (including unemployment compensation and social security benefits) slowed to 7.8 percent in 2010 from 13.7 percent in 2009.

Earnings by industry: Earnings grew in the government sector and in 18 out of 21 private industries in 2010. In two of these industries — professional services and the management of companies — the 2010 earnings increase was sufficient for them to recover from the earnings declines in 2008 and 2009. The health care and educational services industries (which are not cyclical) continued to expand in 2010, growing 3.3 percent and 6.2 percent, respectively. In the other 14 private industries that grew in 2010 (including durable goods manufacturing, nondurable goods manufacturing, and finance) earnings grew 2.8 percent (on average) in 2010 after falling 6.5 percent in 2009.

While entrepreneurship and diversification serve as main components of Michigan’s economic motto, it is manufacturing of both durable and nondurable goods that still sustain us. Their growth is critical for our growth.

Figure 1: Percent Change in Earnings by Industry in Metropolitan Areas, 2008-10

also fell 0.1 percent in the utilities industry, following a 1.4 percent increase in 2009.

(Figure 1, at right, shows the private industry sectors that grew during the 2009-2010 period.)

Earnings by MSA: Private-sector earnings grew in 2010 in each of the 15 largest MSAs in the nation. The Detroit-Warren-Livonia metro ranked 13th in total personal income.

Total earnings growth for these 15 accounted for 48 percent of total private sector earnings in the metropolitan portion of the United States.

The picture for Michigan: The BEA data track 15 metropolitan areas that contain one or more Michigan counties. In addition to total personal income, BEA tracks a number on income components. For the purpose of this analysis, we will look at the three primary components of: net earnings; dividends, interest and rent; and transfer receipts.

The only metro that experienced an overall increase during 2008-09 was Battle Creek at 0.4 percent. This gain was solely attributable to transfer receipts (see definition below) as both earnings and dividends trended negative.

The largest percentage losses among the other 14 were in Detroit and Monroe (both down 4.6 percent) and Ann Arbor and South Bend (both down 4.4 percent). While all four experienced large increases in transfer receipts, they were far outweighed in each cases by losses in both earnings and dividends.

Figure 2: Percent Change in Personal Income for Michigan Metropolitan Areas, 2008-10

The 2009-10 results show a total reversal of fortune for Michigan as all 15 metros experienced personal income increases (see Figure 2), ranging from 2.1 percent for Monroe to 4.2 percent for Niles-Benton Harbor.

(Figure 2, at right, shows the percent change in personal income for Michigan metros, 2008-10)

While universal personal income increases are great news for Michigan, even more important, in my opinion, are the factors that drove the increase.

Net earnings were in the positive column for every area, ranging from a low of 0.7 percent in Flint to a high of 4.3 percent in Niles-Benton Harbor. Eight of the 15 areas experienced personal earnings increases of 2.5 percent or more — all above the national average of 2.3 percent.

Dividends, interest and rent showed marked improvements year to year, although they were still on the negative side (less than 1 percent however) for all but Flint and Muskegon. The national rate was a 0.6 percent increase.

In the area of transfer receipts, all areas showed significant drops — in half or more — and all areas fell below the national average of 7.8 percent. While Michigan’s unemployment rate has remained high (with many dropping off the roles due to extended periods without employment), increases in other areas of the country have resulted in significant increases in their payments.  Adding to this are increasing numbers of Social Security recipients, many of whom opted to retire early due to the economic downturn.

While it is obvious from the economic news that every positive story tends to be followed by a reminder that all is not rosy, the data reported in this BEA release are good news for Michigan. The economic success of states is predicated on the success of their metropolitan areas. Michigan is comprised of economic regions that must thrive for the state to thrive. Gov. Rick Snyder understands this concept and has been working with Bruce Katz from the Brookings Institution and Michael Porter from the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City to better position our metro for success.

Let 2010-11 bring even better news!

Table 1: Personal Income for Michigan Metropolitan Areas, 2008-10

Background on personal income: Table 1 displays personal income for Michigan Metropolitan Areas, 2008-10. Personal income is the income received by all persons from all sources. Personal income is the sum of net earnings by place of residence, property income, and personal current transfer receipts.

Net earnings are earnings by place of work (the sum of wage and salary disbursements, supplements to wages and salaries, and proprietors’ income) less contributions for government social insurance, plus an adjustment to convert earnings by place of work to a place-of-residence basis.

Property income is rental income of persons, personal dividend income, and personal interest income. Personal income is measured before the deduction of personal income taxes and other personal taxes and is reported in current dollars (no adjustment is made for price changes).

Dividends. Payments in cash or other assets, excluding the corporation’s own stock, made by corporations located in the United States and abroad to stockholders who are U.S. residents.

Personal current transfer receipts consist of income payments to persons for which no current services are performed and net insurance settlements. It is the sum of government social benefits and net current transfer receipts from business.

* Muskegon County looks for cuts in spending. “The proposed budget anticipates $42.9 million in revenues for 2012, the lowest in at least six years and $1.3 million less than the current projection for 2011.”:

http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/index.ssf/2011/08/muskegon_county_proposes_healt.html

* In Schoolcraft Co;unty in the UP, the closure of a large employer and rising costs (40 percent bump in health insurance costs) has county commissioners scrambling to get the county into “survival mode”:

http://www.dailypress.net/page/content.detail/id/531790/County-in–survival-mode-.html?nav=5003

* On a list dominated by California and Arizona, Metro Detroit snags a spot on a list of the 10 “fastest roads” in America. Eastbound Michigan 5 has a stretch where the fastest 5 percent of drivers are averaging more than 80 mph, Forbes.com reports:

http://www.forbes.com/pictures/ehlf45ll/eastbound-mi-5-michigan-highway-heading-into-detroit-from-the-i-275i-96-interchange-to-telegraph-road

* Tax foreclosures have increased about 300 percent in Jackson County since 2008:

http://www.mlive.com/news/jackson/index.ssf/2011/08/tax_foreclosures_hit_record_hi_1.html

* “Can the middle class be saved?” See what Don Peck has to say about it in The Atlantic Monthly:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/09/can-the-middle-class-be-saved/8600/?single_page=true

* Sleeping Bear Dunes = “most beautiful place in America”:

http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/best_places_USA/sleeping-bear-dunes-michigan-voted-good-morning-americas/story?id=14319616#.Tkvlz1V26u4.facebook

* Don’t tell this to Republicans in the Legislature, or the AARP — “Attacks on sorely-needed increases in state tax revenues often include the unproven claim that tax hikes will drive large numbers of households — particularly the most affluent — to other states. The same claim also is used to justify new tax cuts. Compelling evidence shows that this claim is false. The effects of tax increases on migration are, at most, small — so small that states that raise income taxes on the most affluent households can be assured of a substantial net gain in revenue.”:

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3556

A 15-year-long effort to spur jobs and vitality in some of the state’s most economically depressed areas by turning them into virtual tax-free zones — and thereby forgoing about $1 billion in tax collections — is being curtailed by Gov. Rick Snyder.

Employees enter the new headquarters for the Accident Fund, a $182 million renovation and expansion of a former power plant in downtown Lansing that received tax breaks via the state's Renaissance Zone program. Accident Fund recently moved 650 employees to the site from its former HQ location a few blocks away in downtown Lansing.

Citing disappointing results in Renaissance Zones, the Snyder administration is ending some of the tax breaks in the zones and reining in a program that exploded far beyond its original parameters.

“The program was left largely to individual cities to market and over time the list of geographic zones grew, but the overall results weren’t overly impressive,” Snyder spokesman Ken Silfven said.

During the past 15 years, local units of government reported that 10,944 jobs, or only about 730 jobs a year, were created in the geographic Renaissance Zones. Another 2,000 jobs were credited for industry-specific zones. In the last 12 years of the program (2000-2011), the state has forgone $852 million in tax collections in pursuit of these jobs. At an annualized average rate of $70 million, the entire Renaissance Zone program would have led to “tax expenditures” nearing $1 billion.

And no one knows if the job claims are even accurate. The Renaissance Zone Act did not require the state to verify all job or investment data, and state officials have not audited the figures, which include a reported $3.1 billion in private investment.

(Where are the Renaissance Zones?)

“For us it is almost impossible to know how many jobs have been created in the geographic zones,” said Karla Campbell, manager of state tax incentives at the Michigan Economic Development Corp.

Originally, just nine cities and rural communities, including Benton Harbor, Flint and Detroit, were granted Renaissance Zone designations. That allowed those units of government to abate virtually all state and local taxes in geographic areas, or subzones, within their boundaries for as long as 15 years.

Two former military installations — Wurtsmith Air Force Base in Oscoda and the Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant in Warren — also were designated as Renaissance Zones.

“Today, Michigan begins the nation’s boldest experiment in the renewal of distressed communities,” then-Gov. John Engler said at the time.

“I believe that by eliminating the barriers of government, we can unleash the power of the private sector to bring good-paying jobs to Michigan. The nation will be watching this experiment, and it will see Michigan succeed,” he added.

But program mushroomed far beyond its original intent, with more than 150 geographic Renaissance Zones having been designated in 37 Michigan counties.

About 20,290 acres, or nearly 32 square miles of property, have taxes abated in geographic Renaissance Zones.

In addition, dozens of site- and industry-specific Renaissance Zones for tool-and-die shops, food processing operations, ethanol and battery plants and other businesses not required to locate in blighted geographic areas were created.

Companies in those zones have generated $1.87 billion in investment and added 2,002 jobs, according to a 2010 report to the Legislature by the MEDC.

Site- and industry-specific zones will continue as business investment incentive toosl, officials said.

“We draw a big difference between project-specific Renaissance Zones that are performance-based and the non-performance-based geographic Renaissance Zones,” said Mark Morante, senior vice president of policy, program administration and legislative affairs at the MEDC.

Snyder, who has been slashing tax incentives and special credits in the tax code, is quietly disassembling the geographic Renaissance Zone program.

In little-noticed changes in the new tax code, residents living in Renaissance Zones must resume paying abated personal income taxes next year. And “C” corporations located in the zones will be subject in 2012 to the new corporate income tax signed by Snyder this year.

Campbell said she does not know how many businesses and residents will be affected by the tax changes.

One developer building a residential, retail and commercial project in Traverse City said those changes renege on commitments the state has made with investors and could chill investment in the zones.

“It’s breaking a promise,” said Raymond Minervini II, whose company is redeveloping the abandoned Traverse City Regional Psychiatric Hospital.

(Tax breaks saved mental hospital site, developer says)

Michigan is forgoing $103 million in tax revenue from Renaissance Zones in fiscal 2011, slightly more than the $100 million in taxes the state is giving up this year through controversial film tax credits, according to the Treasury Department.

Of that, $300,000 is in personal income tax revenue and another $21.2 million is in Michigan Business Tax revenue. The largest share of tax revenue the state is forgoing in Renaissance Zones is $81.5 million in property taxes, which will continue to be abated.

The Snyder administration has decided not to expand the geographic footprints of Renaissance Zones or extend their terms as they begin to expire this year. Such expansions and extensions were routinely approved by past administrations.

It also has frozen the Tool & Die Recovery Renaissance Zone program while it evaluates whether tooling firms in the tax-free zones performed better than those outside them.

Nearly 300 tooling companies, or roughly a third of all such firms in the state, are in Tool & Die Recovery Renaissance Zones, according to Jay Baron, president of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor.

Baron was a key player in establishing consortiums of tool-and-die companies that were later designated as Renaissance Zones.

Industry-specific zones, such as those for tooling and agricultural processing companies, helped companies survive as their industries struggled over the past decade, Campbell and others said.

Baron said most of the tooling companies in the Renaissance Zones likely would have failed had they not been granted tax-free status.

But he said the companies also benefited by collaborating with each other. He estimated about half of them will remain in zone consortiums after the tax benefits expire.

“They’ve learned a lot from each other,” Baron said. “They were surprised. They thought their companies had all the secrets.”

But a 2010 study by the Anderson Economic Group on state tax incentives found Michigan would have gained 12,806 more jobs through a statewide 2 percent, across-the-board cut in tax rates than it added through Renaissance Zones through the first three years of the program.

The study, conducted for the Michigan Education Association, concluded that Renaissance Zones were one of the three most ineffective tax incentive programs in the state. The others were the film tax incentives and the Michigan Economic Growth Authority.

Some complain that the lack of tax revenue in Renaissance Zones is squeezing the already tight budgets of school districts, community colleges and libraries.

The enabling legislation required the state to reimburse local school districts, intermediate school districts, the state school aid fund and local libraries for lost tax revenue.

But the state, faced with its own budget problems, stopped making those payments this year. Schools and libraries are losing about $26 million this year because of that action, said Gretchen Couraud, executive director of the Michigan Library Association.

“There are serious cuts to service delivery that no one is talking about,” she said.

The cuts in state reimbursement to libraries range from $1.3 million for the Detroit Public Library to $72,215 for the Hart Public Library, nearly a third of that library’s budget, Couraud said.

Economic activity hasn’t exactly flourished in many of the original Renaissance Zones. Just 1,891 jobs in Detroit, 511 jobs in Saginaw and 351 jobs in Flint have been reported by those communities in their zones since 1996.

“Just creating blanket tax-free areas, we would agree, is not an effective economic development tool,” said Olga Savic-Stella, vice president of business development at the Detroit Economic Growth Corp.

Doug Rothwell, who was president of the Michigan Jobs Commission (the forerunner of the MEDC) at the time of the Renaissance Zones’ creation, said he gives the zones a mixed review.

“I think the mistake a lot of communities made was using Renaissance Zones in their worst areas,” said Rothwell, who now is president of the advocacy group Business Leaders for Michigan. “There were too many issues involved in bringing those areas back.”

One example he cited was Saginaw’s designation of much of its central business district, including a Jacobson’s department store, as a Renaissance Zone. Eliminating taxes failed to save the store from closing, and much of the city’s downtown area remains depressed.

State officials said the 10 geographic Renaissance Zones in Grand Rapids generally have experienced greater success by strategically targeting troubled, but not completely abandoned, areas.

About $413 million in business and residential investment, and 1,630 jobs have been created in those zones since 1997, said Kara Wood, the city’s economic development director.

In addition, “hundreds” of residents are living in condominiums in downtown Renaissance Zones, she said.

The tax-free zones “attracted people to live in the center city,” Wood said. “They’ve driven redevelopment of properties that wouldn’t otherwise have been developed.”

Wood said 170 residential and business taxpayers in the Grand Rapids Renaissance Zones would be affected by the loss of tax exemptions, but she’s not sure how they will react to the re-imposition of tax payments.

Campbell of the MEDC said that, statewide, Renaissance Zones have not attracted enough investment and jobs to erase large swaths of blight in troubled cities and rural communities.

“If an area is too distressed, it can be very difficult to attract development,” she said. Renaissance Zones “might not be the right tool.”

Selected tax expenditures FY2011

Personal property credit            $137.3 million

MEGA credit                             $104.2 million

Renaissance Zone credit          $103 million

Film credit                                 $100 million

Brownfield credit                       $73.2 million

Source: Executive budget on tax credits, deductions and exemptions

Renaissance Zone credit breakdown FY11

Property taxes                          $81.5 million

Business taxes                          $21.2 million

State personal income taxes      $300,000

Source: Executive budget on tax credits, deductions and exemptions

Tax exemptions in Renaissance Zone

City income tax

City utility users’ excise tax

Neighborhood Enterprise Zone tax

Commercial forests tax

Personal income tax

Commercial property facilities tax

Michigan Business Tax

Enterprise zone facilities tax

Technology park facilities tax

Source: Citizens Research Council of Michigan

Editor’s note: Doug Rothwell is a member of the Center for Michigan Board of Directors.