December 2007 Archives

Today, the Census Bureau released their new July 1, 2006 to July 1, 2007 population estimates by state. While Maine gained 2,297 new residents, most of them are under the age of one. Maine's natural increase (births minus deaths) was 2,024 while net migration (International plus domestic) was -18. As a result, all of Maine's increase in population was due to the stork.

Digging deeper into the data reveals some troubling trends. First, Maine's internal migration, i.e., migration between the states, was -717. This is the first drop since the mid-1990's and reverses one of the few bright spots in Maine's economy due to net in-migration. The following chart plots that year-to-year changes in net domestic migration (click "continue reading" to see chart).

The net outflow of people is a regional problem as well. All New England states lost people to other states with a loss of -355,725 folks. Rhode Island fared the worse losing -10,031 due to net domestic migration. The outflow of people was so bad, it swamped gains elsewhere and the state lost 3,809 people overall. Rhode Island and Michigan were the only two states to lose population.

Second, New Hampshire is now right on the heels of Maine population wise--1,317,207 versus 1,315,828. There is now a very high probability that in 2008 New Hampshire will, for the first time ever, surpass Maine's population. Assuming the same growth rate that just occurred in 2007, Maine will grow to 1,319,511 while New Hampshire will grow to 1,320,484. The primary reason for this change in fortunes is because New Hampshire has a higher rate of natural increase with more births and fewer deaths.

Last Wednesday, the Bureau of Economic Analysis released their third quarter personal income estimates by state. Maine's personal income growth ranked in the lowest quintile among all the states. More specifically, personal income grew at 1.2 percent (versus 1.4 percent nationally) and ranked as the 43rd highest.

The BEA concludes that: ". . . the health care and professional services industries contributed most to the third quarter personal income growth and have been among the largest contributors t personal income growth for the last year and a half. In addition, the state and local government sector was a major contributor in the third quarter. Together these 3 industries (representing 24 percent of personal income) contributed almost 40 percent of personal income growth. In addition, these 3 industries were the major contributors to growth in most states." Maine was no exception.

Two other key points:
1) For the first time, Maine's personal current transfer receipts (social security, medicare, medicaid, etc.) topped $9 billion continuing the recent run-up in this type of income in Maine.

2) Maine's private sector share of personal income is stuck at its all-time low hovering just above the 66 percent mark. However, the gap between Maine and the rest of the country continues to widen. To see graph click "Continue Reading."

Recently, the ALEC-Laffer State Economic Competitiveness Index was released. It grades a state's "economic outlook" on 16 factors such as the "Top Marginal Personal Income Tax Rate," "Estate/Inheritance Tax Levied," Public Employees per 10,000 of population," "State Liability System Survey," "Number of Tax Expenditure Limit," etc. Unfortunately, Maine again comes in at the bottom of the barrel ranked as the 44th best economy. Our next door neighbor, New Hampshire, comes in much higher at number 20.

At MHPC's next Maine Issues Forum, I'll be talking about some of the new school reform ideas being discussed across the nation, and how they might be implemented here in Maine to improve our schools.

Too often, promising reform ideas such as virtual schools and charter schools never get off the ground because of the one factor in public education most responsible for defending the failed status quo: the teachers unions.

As both a classroom teacher and a legislator, I've seen firsthand how the unions make it their mission in life to defend policies that keep poor teachers in the classroom, snuff out any competition to the public school monopoly, and expand their own power and influence.

A good example of this appears in a New York Sun column about how the teachers union in Wisconsin has managed to get the courts to close a highly successful online charter school:

The Wisconsin Virtual Academy has grown in its four years to about 850 students, all there by choice. The online public charter school gets good results on state tests, equivalent to small-town districts from which it draws students. Parents rave about it.

So, naturally, the state's biggest teachers union got a court to order it closed.

Why would the union do this? Because virtual schools are apparently taking education where it doesn't want to go. For one thing, the union doesn't seem to like alternative paths into teaching. Teach for America, which recruits top students from other fields, isn't in Wisconsin, for instance. WEAC may well fear for its prerogatives.

Nor can it bear to see success for a kind of school that thrives with about one teacher to 42 students. For years the union has been pushing to add teachers by cutting such ratios. With enrollment now falling in about six of 10 districts here, any move to make teachers more productive, as virtual schools do, would deprive the union of the rising membership and influence it wants.

Anyone seen online virtual schools developed in Maine yet? Hmmmmm....wonder why...

Read the entire article here.

New article out today:

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. students are lagging behind their peers in other countries in science and math, test results out Tuesday show.

U.S. students also had an average science score that was lower than the average score in 16 other OECD countries. In math, U.S. students did even worse — posting an average score that was lower than the average in 23 of the other leading industrialized countries.

Seems like we've been reading reports like this for years. When will we decide to take a new approach, a market-based approach, to fixing our schools? Clearly, whatever we're doing now is simply not working. Country with the top-ranked science and math students? Finland!

Read the article here.

The Brookings drum-beat gets louder today as the Governor's Council on Maine's Quality of Place released their recommendations. In short, most of it consists of warmed-over ideas from the Brookings report. However, there are some new, yet disturbing, wrinkles in it. One I have not heard before: "The Council recommends that a Maine Community Preservation program, with an administrative structure similar to that of the Land for Maine's Future Board, be capitalized with a bond issue or issues over multiple years totaling $50-100 million." Whatever the merits of such a program, it is obvious that the Brookings recommendation to pay for any new spending via reductions elsewhere has been jettisoned by this new study.

In fact, there is no mention of spending reductions in the report, or tax reductions, or health care reform . . . you know, the really big issues facing Maine. And why did we even need yet another "council" when Maine state government already has 355 agencies, divisions, bureaus, commissions and advisory boards? Could it be just another distraction from those really big issues? We need more bread and circuses . . .