2010 Shape of the Nation Report: Status of Physical Education in the USA

Source: National Association for Sport and Physical Education

The 2010 Shape of the Nation Report: Status of Physical Education in the USA provides a current picture of physical education (PE) in the American education system. Incremental improvements have been made in the last few years in the number of states that now require PE (17% increase) and student assessment in PE (26% increase). However, the Report shows that more states now allow waivers and exemptions from PE classes (77% increase) and no progress has been made in providing daily physical education in all grades K-12.

Chatting with Kids about Being Online

The Federal Trade Commission is offering a FREE publication, "Net Cetera," to help parents talk to their kids about safely navigating the online world.

Net Cetera covers what you need to know, where to go for more information, and issues to raise with kids about living their lives online.

OnGuardOnline.gov encourages you to use this guide with your kids, in your school, at your PTA meeting, or anywhere else parents might gather. Feel free to order as many free copies as you'd like, put your own sticker on it, reprint sections in a newsletter or on a website, download a button or link to it, or even reprint it with your own logo. These materials are in the public domain.

Tallest Mountain to Deepest Ocean Trench

Here's an infographic from Our Amazing Planet delineating the "highest heights and lowest lows of our planet, from the outer reaches of the atmosphere all the way to the bottom of the deepest oceanic trench in the world."

(Thanks, Jaquandor.)

Opportunity Knocks

Here's a link that opens up the newest Census PSA, Opportunity is Knocking at Your Door. This PSA relates to the Non-Response Follow Up campaign that is currently being conducted thorughout the country by US Census Enumerators. These census takers are visiting the households that have yet to return their census questionnaires to make sure every community is counted accurately in the 2010 Census.

5,639 Searchable Corporate Donation Records of $1,000,000+

The NonProfit Times and NOZASEARCH are pleased to provide access to a searchable database of more than 5,000 $1 million + corporate donations. This is a free service, and no registration is required. Simply search by business name, or create an instant list by location or cause. Your results can be exported directly into a spreadsheet with the click of a button.

Employer Costs for Employee Compensation

The latest Employer Costs for Employee Compensation news release was issued June 9, 2010 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Highlights are below.
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Employers spent an average of $29.71 per hour worked for civilian compensation in March 2010. Wages and salaries averaged $20.67, and benefits averaged $9.04. Health insurance was the largest individual employer benefit cost at $2.48 per hour, which accounted for 8.3 percent of total compensation costs.

Mixed Race Marriage More Common

The Pew Research Center analyzed data from the U.S. Census Bureau and found that in 2008, 14.6 percent of all marriages were between spouses of different races. Whites had the lowest rate of intermarriage at 9 percent, followed by blacks at 16 percent, Hispanics, 26 percent, and Asians, 31 percent.

More HERE.

Free Credit Scores?

In answer to a question about websites or other resources that offer free credit score information, as opposed to just free credit reports, a colleague pointed out a Wall Street Journal article, Credit Scores: Can You Get Them Free?

If you are curious about your credit scores, you may have tried one of the plethora of Web sites and services that offer some free credit information, then lure you into paying for your scores, usually as part of a credit-monitoring package.

Consumers are entitled by law to a free credit report— which is simply a record of your borrowing and repayment history — but the numerical scores derived from these reports will cost you, in part because credit-reporting agencies aren't required by law to provide them for free to consumers along with the reports.

Now, a handful of companies are launching services that give consumers at least a glimpse at their credit scores free of charge. The sites— Credit.com Inc., Credit Karma Inc.'s CreditKarma.com and Quizzle.com— also offer a window into the key factors that go into calculating your score, what you can do to improve them and how your credit stacks up against others. Last week, for example, Credit.com launched a free Credit Report Card that shows consumers how they're likely to rate across five credit-scoring models.

So I tried them all out this morning.

My experience with Credit.com was similar to the article writer's. I got A+ in four categories, and a C- in Account Mix, but that's only 10% of my score, so I received an A overall. It doesn't give absolute numbers but it does give ranges, and based on a report I had paid for, the FICO range of 750 to 850 appears correct. I waas mildly annoyed that to get my actual score I was requested to "upgrade" my account for "just $14.95 per month."

CreditKarma.com gave me a slightly lower score, in large part because, of the seven criteria, I got 3 A's 2 B's (for 99.00% on-time payments, and 2 hard credit inquiries), and 2 N/A. Since they apparently have no information on my monthly income, they can't calculate my debt-to-income ratio. This site had some interesting statistics about credit here. I "have a score better than 167 million people," FWIW.

It took me a while to get to the end of Quizzle.com, and it wasn't for lack of effort. Earlier, I'd get to a certain point and it'd claim I was leaving out some unstated information. So I tried it later, and I got tripped up by one of the verification questions - "How much is our monthly mortgage?" - and I must have picked the wrong range (hey, it comes out automatically out of the bank account; it's not as though I write a check.) BUT, you can then call the 800 number, give them additional information, and then get into the system. These results I also found accurate, AND, as the story reports, "One thing Quizzle.com offers that the others don't is a free credit report — and the ability to dispute errors on your Experian credit report on the site."

As the credit.com page made clear:
Payment History is 35% of your score
Debt Usage 30% of your score - keep your debt under control!
Credit Age 15% of your score - "A long credit history shows that you are established."
Account Mix 10% of your score - Balance of credit and loan accounts on your credit report.
Inquiries 10% of your score - "Applying for new credit conservatively is helping to boost your score."

More interesting info:

If your revolving utilization stays under 10% you'll continue to earn almost all of the credit score points available in this category. As that percentage goes higher, your score will go lower. It's a common myth that you only need to keep your revolving utilization 50%. That's absolutely incorrect. 50% is better than 60% but not as good as 40%.

There's another common myth that could hurt you in this category: some people recommend that you should close your credit card accounts if you are not using them. However, closing accounts can cause your utilization rate to go up and your credit score to go down. If you have an old account you don't want, you may want to cut up the card but not close the account. Cutting up the card will prevent it from being used fraudulently but will leave you with the unused credit limit for your credit score.

This is the best description I've read on this. Closing old-line credit cards of long tenure could LOWER your score.

There are a few different ways you can maintain a low revolving utilization rate. Keeping credit card balances low, increasing your credit limits or opening new credit card accounts for extra borrowing power could all work. However, the safest option is to maintain low balances on the credit cards that you are currently using. Opening new accounts or requesting credit limit increases could have a negative impact on your credit score.

100 Great Ways to Spend Your Gap Year

Taking a time off for financial or personal reasons has become increasingly common amongst college students. But many worry that these gap years in between semesters or degrees may lead to lessened productivity and a compromised professional and academic future. This obviously doesn’t have to be the case! Free of scholastic shackles, students taking a year or 2 away from school have plenty of amazing opportunities to learn more about themselves and the world, make a difference in society, network, channel their creativity and intellect, and even earn a bit of extra money without making a commitment to a full-time position. Time away from school does not equate to time away from personal growth and opportunities to gain valuable experience to bolster their future careers.

Planning for College Financially

Data Detective Dale pointed this out to me. He thinks this is important to share, and I quite concur. Moreover, this being the graduation season, it’s timely !

He has discovered that many parents are quite surprised about how much they are expected to contribute to their kids’ college costs. Dale writes, "This is referred to as their Expected Family Contribution (EFC). What typically happens is that parents bumble along (I know we did) until their child is a junior in HS and then they go through the process of applying to colleges and for financial aid at the FAFSA.gov website when WHAM >>>> - they get a reality check upside the head when it comes to how much the federal government thinks THEY can contribute toward attending school." I can imagine there are MANY parents sitting in financial aid offices with tears in their eyes over this.

What can the schools or government do to reduce this sticker shock when it comes to EFCs? Dale notes, "Figuring out financial aid has always been a bit of a 'black box'. You put a bunch of numbers in and out comes your EFC with no understanding of what it is or how it comes about.

"Lo and behold, there is now a way to determine your EFC at the FAFSA website. It is called fafsa4caster. Basically you can punch in info for the current year as though your child were applying to a college right now, and get an EFC figured out for you. It takes maybe 15 minutes to do and requires you to answer a TON of questions, including tax and investment questions. (I estimated some just playing around with the website to see how it works, you could do the same if you wanted to get a ballpark EFC for your family.)

"Regardless, it is exactly what I have always maintained people should be able to do. Even better, it allows people to see their EFC right now, even if their kids are young and not even in kindergarten, let alone high school or college. So my challenge to everyone is to try it, and be prepared to hear the collective gasps of parents or perspective parents around the web as they see what their EFC actually is !

"OK, go to http://www.fafsa4caster.ed.gov/F4CApp/index/index.jsf and pick option "B" to get started. Remember, you’ll need some basics like your adjusted gross income and how much you paid in taxes last year. Having other info, like any 529 Education account balances, or 401K contributions is also good to have. But even in the worst case, you can just punch in some estimates to see what ballpark your EFC will fall in."

Dale believes that putting this information on this site "could help people reassess what they are doing to prepare for their kids' futures!"

2009 MTA Payroll Shows Fewer Employees, Higher Spending

A searchable database of the complete Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) payroll for 2009 - including names, titles, base pay rates and total pay received by 77,191 individuals - shows an increase of nearly 3 percent in the average total pay of MTA employees last year.

The updated payroll file is now available at www.SeeThroughNY.net, the government transparency website sponsored by the Empire Center for New York State Policy.

The full text of this press release is available here.

Tax increases push states' revenues up, Rockefeller Institute reports

States’ overall tax revenues rose in the first quarter of calendar 2010 on a year-over-year basis, marking the first such gain since the third quarter of 2008, according to preliminary data in a new report from the Rockefeller Institute of Government.
Despite the overall growth in revenues, however, a majority of states still saw declines, according to Institute Senior Policy Analyst Lucy Dadayan, the report’s author. The increase in total collections was mostly attributable to revenue growth driven by legislated tax increases in just two states — New York and California. If those two states are removed from the calculations, total collections across the nation show a 2.2 percent decline in the first quarter of 2010. And even with the boost from those two states, overall revenues remain significantly below pre-recession levels.
Further, early indications of revenues in the April-June quarter — marking the end of the fiscal year for 46 states — are not promising, as the important April collections from income taxes showed a 7.6 percent year-over-year decline.
For the full report, visit the Institute’s Web site. The report was covered this morning in The New York Times.

Census Bureau Seeks Comments on Supplemental Poverty Measurement

The Census Bureau has issued a request for comments on the approach to developing a Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) presented in the report “Observations from the Interagency Technical Working Group on Developing a Supplemental Poverty Measure.” The Working Group’s report is available online here. The SPM is an experimental measure that defines income thresholds and resources in a different manner than the official poverty measure; it will not replace the official measure or impact allocations based on that measure. Regarding the SPM, the Census Bureau would like comments on:
• Methods and data sources used to geographically adjust poverty thresholds
• Methods and data sources used to adjust resources to account for child care and other work-related expenses
• Methods and data sources used to adjust resources to account for medical out-of-pocket expenses
• Methods and data sources used to impute dollar values for in-kind benefits and taxes
Written comments should be submitted on or before June 25, 2010 to spm@census.gov or David Johnson, Housing and Household Economics Statistics Division, Census Bureau, 4600 Silver Hill Road, Stop 8500, Washington, DC 20233-8500.

2007 Economic Census Workshops in Albany, Syracuse, NYC

The Census Bureau is conducting a half-day workshop for data users on the 2007 Economic Census.
• New users learn about the range of data about businesses available from the Census Bureau, including both the Economic Census and more frequent data sets.
• Experienced users learn about new features of the data, comparability issues, and qualifications of the data.
• Attendees gain skills in accessing Economic Census data in American FactFinder.
• Attendees have the opportunity to tell others about their own practical applications of the data and learn what others are doing.

Albany, NY
Wednesday, June 23, 2010, 9:00 AM – 12:30 PM

Cost: FREE

Location:
College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering of the University at Albany
CESTM Auditorium, Building 251
257 Fuller Road
Albany, NY 12203

Register HERE
Directions

Additional Workshops in New York State:
Additional workshops are planned for New York City (June 10 and 11, 2010) and Syracuse (June 24, 2010). For details about these workshops see HERE.

For more information contact:
Melissa Preston, College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, (518) 437-8680 or mpreston@uamail.albany.edu

Co-Sponsors
• College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering of the University at Albany
• New York State Department of Economic Development
• New York State Small Business Development Center

Librarians!

The Bureau of Labor Statistics provides some information about the number of librarians in the US. Also, OCLC provides some global library statistics that I find interesting.

Number of Libraries in the United States

Greendex

In their third annual survey to measure and monitor consumer behaviors that have an impact on the environment, the National Geographic Society and the international polling firm GlobeScan have found that environmentally friendly behavior among consumers in 10 out of 17 countries has increased over the past year. The survey results show that environmentally friendly consumer behavior, as measured by the Greendex, has now increased from 2008 levels in all but one of the 14 countries polled in both 2008 and 2010. By environmentally friendly consumer behavior, we mean people’s transportation patterns, household energy and resource use, consumption of food and everyday consumer goods, and what consumers are doing to minimize the impact these activities have on the environment.

Greendex 2010: Consumer Choice and the Environment — A Worldwide Tracking Survey is a comprehensive measure of consumer behavior in 65 areas relating to housing, transportation, food and consumer goods. Greendex 2010 ranks average consumers in 17 countries according to the environmental impact of their consumption patterns and is the only survey of its kind.

As in 2008, the top-scoring consumers of 2010 are in the developing economies of India, Brazil, China, in descending order. American consumers’ behavior still ranks as the least sustainable of all countries surveyed since the inception of the survey three years ago, followed by Canadian, French and British consumers. Consumers in emerging economies continue to round out the top tier of the Greendex ranking, while the six lowest scores were all earned by consumers in industrialized countries.

Cost Guides on Home Improvement

Here is a comprehensive set of cost guides on home improvement.

Click the image to enlarge

Source: Fixr Remodeling Cost Guides

Beloit College Mindset List for the entering college class of 2013

"This is the 12th year that Beloit College has assembled these observations that help to identify the experiences that have shaped the lives—and formed the mindset—of students starting their post-secondary education this fall.

"The Mindset List is not a chronological listing of things that happened in 1991, the year they were born. It is instead an effort to identify the worldview of 18 year-olds in the fall of 2009. Of course, our students come from many backgrounds and different traditions and these generalizations may not apply to all. The list identifies the experiences and event horizons of students and is not meant to reflect on their preparatory education.

"It is also not deliberately designed to make readers feel really old!"
Ah, but it DOES!

Reform for the Next Census

Editorial
New York Times (May 31, 2010)

When a bipartisan group of House and Senate lawmakers introduced a bill this year to improve the census, passage seemed inevitable. With the 2010 count under way, people were paying attention. And the bill, which grants the Census Bureau director more independence, is a smart response to the chronic problems that have plagued census planning: fragmented leadership, political interference and not enough financing.

The Obama administration, which should be supporting the bill, is instead raising objections. It has objected to a provision that would allow the census director to report directly to the commerce secretary. It also has objected to a provision that would require the director to send Congress the bureau's budget request at the same time it goes to the White House.

The commerce secretary, Gary Locke, lodged the objections with one of the bill's co-sponsors, Senator Thomas Carper, a Democrat of Delaware, a day before the committee on the census met in April to consider the legislation. The committee approved it anyway. But if the administration continues to fight, the reform effort could stall.

More HERE.

James O'Keefe: From ACORN to Census

Conservative activist's latest target is the Census Bureau. Interview on Good Morning, America, 06/01/2010 (10:39) Doesn't actually get to the Census until about 7:50, about which he alleges waste via overpayments to Census workers.