Data on Educational Attainment

Scott Jaschik at Inside Higher Ed:

New data from the Lumina Foundation show that in 2016, 46.9 percent of Americans aged 25 to 64 had a postsecondary degree or certificate. That is a 1.1 percentage point increase in a year and a 9 percentage point increase since 2008, but Lumina's report says that the rate of increase isn't large enough to meet a goal of 60 percent by 2025. Further, the Lumina data show significant gaps by race and ethnicity. The 2016 figures by race/ethnicity (for degrees only, excluding certificates) are:

• Asian American: 61.7 percent
• White: 46.4 percent
• Black: 30 percent
• Native American: 24 percent
• Latino: 21.9 percent

State data show that Massachusetts ranks at the top (56.2%) and West Virginia at the bottom (34.7%)

Health Rankings: "Mississippi Has the Greatest Opportunity for Improvement in Overall Health"

From America's Health Rankings:

America’s Health Rankings® presents its 28th Annual Report, providing new insights to the longest-running assessment of the nation’s health on a state-by-state basis. The 2017 report looks at 35 measures covering behaviors, community and environment, policy, clinical care and outcomes data. The report also serves as a benchmark for states – and the nation – to measure progress, identify emerging trends and drive action for improving public health.

...

Across the U.S., the premature death rate (the number of years of potential life lost before age 75) increased for the third straight year, reaching 7,214 years lost before age 75 per 100,000 population. This recent rise is concerning, particularly after the
premature death rate declined dramatically by 20 percent from 1990 to 2015.

2017 also saw increases in the rates of cardiovascular and drug deaths nationwide. Cardiovascular deaths increased in the U.S. for the second consecutive year. The rate among blacks is significantly higher than the rate among whites, Hispanics, Asians
and American Indians/Alaska Natives. Drug deaths continued on an upward trend, increasing by 7 percent to the highest level recorded by America’s Health Rankings (15.0 deaths per 100,000 population) and were particularly high among whites

...

This year, Massachusetts ranks as the healthiest state, while Hawaii — which has held the top spot for the past five years — drops to second. Vermont (No. 3), Utah (No. 4) and Connecticut (No. 5) round out the top five states for overall health.

For the second year in a row, Mississippi (No. 50) has the greatest opportunity for improvement in overall health. Louisiana (No. 49), Arkansas (No. 48) and Alabama (No. 47) maintained their rankings from last year, while West Virginia fell three places (No. 46) to round out the five states with the most significant areas of opportunity for improvement in health and well-being.

Corruption in Isolated State Capitals

In The San Diego Union-Tribune, Christopher Cadelago reports:

California’s capital is about 85 miles from San Francisco, 385 miles from Los Angeles and 500 miles from San Diego. Does that remoteness make Sacramento susceptible to greater levels of corruption?

Researchers out with a new study seem to think so.

In “Isolated Capital Cities, Accountability and Corruption: Evidence from U.S. States,” Filipe R. Campante and Quoc-Anh Do argue isolated capital cities are robustly associated with greater levels of corruption. California along with Florida, Nevada and Texas are listed as among the least concentrated states. [See an earlier post on an earlier version of this paper.]

Campante, of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, and Do, a Paris-based economist, also contend that the various mechanisms for holding state politicians accountable are similarly affected by the spatial distribution of population.

“Newspapers provide greater coverage of state politics when their audiences are more concentrated around the capital, and voter turnout in state elections is greater in places that are closer to the capital,” the researchers argue.

The paper provides a telling example from Massachusetts and New York:

Both states have witnessed recent corruption scandals that led to the indictment and eventual conviction of two very prominent state legislators: former Senate Majority leader Joseph Bruno, in New York, and former House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi, in Massachusetts. We can learn about the scope of media accountability in both states by looking at these scandals and how they were covered by the New York City and Boston press. ...

Both led to high-pro le convictions, in scandal-plagued environments. It is interesting, however, to contrast the coverage devoted to these cases by the main newspapers from the respective states' main cities: New York City, located just over 100 miles away from the state capital Albany, and Boston, which happens to be the capital itself. A search for \Joseph Bruno" (or \Joseph L. Bruno") and \corruption" in November 2011 yielded 154 articles in the online archives of the New York Times, 77 in the New York Post, and 91 in the New York Daily News. The same search with \Salvatore DiMasi" (or \Salvatore F. DiMasi"), on the other hand, yielded 238 matches in the Boston Globe and 130 matches in the Boston Herald. The di fference is more remarkable if we control for the size of the diff erent newspapers: a \neutral" search (for the word \Monday," following Gentzkow et al. (2005)) reveals, for instance, that the New York Times is about twice the size of the Boston Globe. In sum, Boston newspapers seem to have devoted substantially more coverage to the DiMasi scandal than New York City newspapers did to the Bruno a air { consistent with the idea that their readership might be more interested in what goes on in Beacon Hill (the central Boston neighborhood that is the site of the state government) than the New York papers' is in what takes place in Albany.

Federalism and the Boston Bombing

Our chapter on federalism includes an extensive discussion of crime.  Stateline reports:

Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev faces federal charges that carry the death penalty, a punishment that does not exist in Massachusetts since the state repealed it in the 1980s.

So far, no Massachusetts authorities have publicly objected to a potential death sentence, but the case does raise federalism questions, said Doug Berman, a law professor at the Moritz College of Law at the Ohio State University and the editor of the blog, Sentencing Law and Policy.

There is an understanding that federal authorities should be cautious before pursuing the death penalty in a non-death penalty state, said Berman. “But it’s well established that the federal government and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts are separate sovereigns and each side has the right to vindicate its interest,” he said.

Tsarnaev was charged by a federal court, but he could still face charges in state court for a number of state crimes, including the murder of MIT security officer Sean Collier, kidnapping and carjacking of a man from a convenience store in the Boston suburb of Allston, and other serious state crimes.

Pursuing the federal death penalty in a non-death penalty state has aroused conflict before. Just last year, Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee argued all the way to the Supreme Court to keep the federal government from taking over the murder case against Jason Wayne Pleau because the federal prosecutor had said he would pursue the death penalty. Rhode Island has not had the death penalty since 1984, and before that, the state had not executed anyone in 99 years. Ultimately, the Supreme Court rejected the case and Chafee was forced to hand over Pleau to federal authorities. Pleau’s federal trial for robbing and killing a gas station manager is ongoing.

The Irish and America

Many posts have dealt with ethnicity in the United States. On St. Patrick's Day, it is appropriate to consider some data from the Census:

34.5 million Number of U.S. residents who claimed Irish ancestry in 2011. This number was more than seven times the population of Ireland itself (4.68 million). Irish was the nation's second most frequently reported ancestry, trailing only German.
Source: 2011 American Community SurveyIreland Central Statistics Office

150,990 Number of Irish-born naturalized U.S. residents in 2011.
Source: 2011 American Community Survey

39.3 years old Median age of U.S. residents who claim Irish ancestry is higher than the U.S. residents median age as a whole (37.3 years).
Source: 2011 American Community Survey

12.9% Percent of New York state residents who were of Irish ancestry in 2011. This compares with a rate of 11.1 percent for the nation as a whole.
Source: 2011 American Community Survey

33.3% Percentage of people of Irish ancestry, 25 or older, who had a bachelor's degree or higher. In addition, 92.9 percent of Irish-Americans in this age group had at least a high school diploma. For the nation as a whole, the corresponding rates were 28.5 percent and 85.9 percent, respectively.
Source: 2011 American Community Survey

$57,319 Median income for households headed by an Irish-American, higher than the $50,502 for all households. In addition, 7.3 percent of families of Irish ancestry were in poverty, lower than the rate of 11.7 percent for all Americans families.
Source: 2011 American Community Survey

At The Huffington Post, Jed Kolko writes:

Irish-Americans are strongly concentrated in the Northeast. The percentage of people with primary Irish ancestry tops out at 20% in the Boston metro area, followed by Middlesex County, MA (west of Boston) and Peabody, MA (north of Boston). The top six metros are all in Massachusetts or upstate New York:

America's Most Irish Metros
# U.S. Metro % Irish ancestry
1 Boston, MA 20.4%
2 Middlesex County, MA 16.9%
3 Peabody, MA 15.8%
4 Albany, NY 15.6%
5 Syracuse, NY 15.0%
6 Worcester, MA 14.8%
7 Camden, NJ 14.8%
8 Philadelphia, PA 14.2%
9 Long Island, NY 13.1%
10 Wilmington, DE-MD-NJ 13.0%

Among 100 largest metros. Primary Irish ancestry only.

Last fall, the Irish Times polled the island about the US presidential race:

THE VAST majority of Irish voters want Barack Obama to win the US presidential election in less than three weeks time, according to the latest Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll. It shows a tiny level of support among the electorate for Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

When asked who they would support if they had a vote in the US election, 79 per cent of respondents said Obama while just 5 per cent opted for Romney and 16 per cent had no opinion.

Majority, Minority, Markey

Representative Edward Markey (D-MA) won his first House election in 1976. Of returning members of his party, only John Dingell (MI), John Conyers (MI), Charles Rangel (NY), George Miller (CA) and Henry Waxman (CA) have served longer.  But now that President Obama has nominated Senator John Kerry (D-MA) to be secretary of state, Markey will run in a special election to succeed him.  In other words, he wants to give up being the sixth most senior House Democrat in order to become the least-senior Senate Democrat.

There are two reasons why this decision makes sense.

First is the prestige difference between the two chambers.  House members often run for the Senate, but contemporary senators never voluntarily give up their seats to run for the House.

Second is the difference between majority and minority status.  As a member of the minority party in the majoritarian House, Markey faces daily frustration.  One may gather that he does not expect his party to regain the majority anytime soon.  In the Senate, his party is in the majority.  If it can avoid serious losses in the 2014 midterm, it will probably retain the majority for quite a while.

Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and State Law

In Springfield, Massachusetts, WGGB reports:

You’ve probably seen the national commercials saying that you can start your Black Friday shopping at 8 P.M. on Thanksgiving. You’ve also probably also seen signs saying that in Massachusetts, that won’t be the case.

Bay state Blue Laws keep that from happening. They were drafted in the Colonial era by Puritan church members to regulate public activities on Sundays.

Due to the Blue Laws, prior to 1994, retail stores couldn’t open before noon.

Now the legislation is enforced by the Attorney General’s Fair Labor Division prohibiting businesses from opening on certain holidays.

...

Rhode Island is the only other state in the nation to enforce Blue Laws on Thanksgiving.

In Oklahoma City, News9 reports: 

 Retailers may be offering better Black Friday deals to shoppers in other states. It's all because of an old law still on the state books. Those national advertisements for places like Wal-Mart show some huge discounts. But that "Bargain Busting Law" in Oklahoma could mean less savings and disappointed bargain hunters. It's an old law called the Unfair Sales Act, banning retailers from selling products below cost and protecting small businesses from big box stores.

News9.com - Oklahoma City, OK - News, Weather, Video and Sports |

Judicial Deliberative Privilege

On August 9, The Boston Globe reported:

The state’s highest court said today that judges cannot be forced to disclose to ethics investigators what they were thinking when they made their rulings, a decision that creates a “judicial deliberative privilege’’ in Massachusetts for the first time.

Writing for all seven members of the Supreme Judicial Court, Justice Robert Cordy said judges must not fear that the issues, laws, and personal views that underlie their rulings will be displayed to the public.

From the opinion:

In this case we conclude that although holding judges accountable for acts of bias in contravention of the Code of Judicial Conduct is essential, it must be accomplished without violating the protection afforded the deliberative processes of judges fundamental to ensuring that they may act without fear or favor in exercising their constitutional responsibility to be both impartial and independent. In so concluding, we formally recognize a judicial deliberative privilege that guards against intrusions into such processes--a protection we have implicitly understood as necessary to the finality, integrity, and quality of judicial decisions. Such a privilege is deeply rooted in our common-law and constitutional jurisprudence and in the precedents of the United States Supreme Court and the courts of our sister States.

The Constitutional Law Prof Blog adds:

The court rooted the privilege in part on two state constitutional provisions, both requiring, in different ways, an independent and impartial judiciary. The first, Article 29 of theMassachusetts Declaration of Rights, reads:

It is essential to the preservation of the rights of every individual, his life, liberty, property, and character, that there be an impartial interpretation of the laws, and administration of justice. It is the right of every citizen to be tried by judges as free, impartial and independent as the lot of humanity will admit. It is, therefore, not only the best policy, but for the security of the right of the people, and of every citizen, that the judges of the supreme judicial court should hold their offices as long as they behave themselves well; and that they should have honorable salaries ascertained and established by standing laws.

The second, Article 30 of the Declaration of Rights, referenced in a footnote in the opinion, reads:

In the government of this commonwealth, the legislative department shall never exercise the executive and judicial powers, or either of them; the executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them; the judicial shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either of them; to the end it may be a government of laws and not of men.

(Article 30 is part of Madison's survey of state separation-of-powers provisions in Federalist 47. Madison writes that Article 30 "corresponds precisely with the [strict separation of powers] doctrine of Montesquieu," but also that "[i]n the very Constitution to which it is prefixed, a partial mixture of powers has been admitted.")

The court said in the footnote that "[t]he circumstances of this case raise these very [separation-of-powers] concerns," because the complaint against the judge was initiated by an executive branch official (even though the Commission itself is formally a judicial body).

Elizabeth Warren's Native American Ancestry

Our chapter on citizenship discusses the status of Native Americans.  As previous posts have indicated, there is some controversy as to who counts as a Native American.  This controversy is affecting the U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts, as The Boston Globe reports:

A record unearthed Monday shows that US Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren has a great-great-great grandmother listed in an 1894 document as a Cherokee, said a genealogist at the New England Historic and Genealogy Society.

The shred of evidence could validate her assertion that she has Native American ancestry, making her 1/32 American Indian, but may not put an end to the questions swirling around the subject.

Intense focus on Warren’s heritage comes as the Democrat has faced several days of scrutiny about whether she has represented herself as a minority in her academic career.

The Boston Herald reported Friday that Harvard University Law School had promoted Warren as a minority hire when the school was under fire for a lack of diversity in its faculty.

Warren said Friday that she did not know the school had done so and that she did not recall using her Indian ancestry to advance her career.

But the Globe and other news outlets reported Sunday that Warren had listed herself as a minority professor between 1986 and 1995 in the Association of American Law Schools desk book, a major reference for legal professors.

Civic Education in Massachusetts

A recent report, noted in an earlier post, tracked the decline of civic education in college. Inside Higher Ed reports:

Massachusetts will soon track civic engagement at its public colleges, addressing increased concern that Americans aren’t equipped to impact their communities or interact meaningfully with government.

While it hasn’t been decided exactly how citizenship learning will be evaluated, the Board of Higher Education’s Tuesday vote mandates that civic engagement be measured along with more traditional standards such as graduation rates.

Higher education leaders, citing low voter turnout and other measures of civic engagement, have long doubted colleges do enough to prepare students to contribute to society. Eight state college systems now require students to receive some form of civic education, and some individual campuses have made citizen preparation a priority, said Carol Geary Schneider, president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities. She believes Massachusetts is the first state system to mandate that civic engagement at its two- and four-year public colleges be measured and compared to other states.

... 

Richard Freeland, the Massachusetts Commissioner of Higher Education, said Tuesday’s unanimous vote came after faculty members at several institutions pushed for a civic engagement component to the state’s Vision Project, which seeks to position the state’s public colleges among the nation’s best. By adding civic engagement to a list of five desired outcomes, including the percentage of high school graduates attending college and the percentage of students earning a degree, he believes colleges will focus more on making better citizens.

Some institutions within the Massachusetts system have already emphasized civic engagement. North Shore Community College has a Public Policy Institute that focuses on civic and community involvement, and Mount Wachusett Community College is planning a similar program. The University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the state’s flagship campus, has a Center for Digital Government. The new policy doesn't ask campuses to create their own research centers, like the Amherst program, but instead to measure the civic engagement of their students.