IS IT TRUE April 11, 2012

IS IT TRUE that Ball State University has just released a study on the economic realities of all of the individual counties in Indiana and that Vanderburgh County stacks up fairly well in some categories when compared to the rest of Indiana’s counties but lags in one very important category?…that the category that Vanderburgh County lags behind other counties in is EDUCATION?…that the score earned by Vanderburgh County in the EDUCATION category was 35.3 on a scale of 100 and was awarded a D because the bell curve put such a rotten score in the D range?…that our neighboring counties of Warrick, Spencer, and Posey all got grades of A with scores of 83.5, 86, and 89.3 respectively?…that only 9 counties in the entire state received a grade of F and the highest scoring F was a 31?…that the highest D was Elkhart County that scored a 40?…that the most important indicators of whether or not a place is capable of growing and prospering are EDUCATION and POPULATION GROWTH?…that given that scenario it is apparent that Vanderburgh County and particularly the City of Evansville are not poised to be able to meet the needs of high value opportunities from a Workforce perspective with either the quantity or the quality of workers that will be needed?

IS IT TRUE that every school in the country has a grading system and most of them would give an F for a score of 35.3 when the highest grade awarded was 96.8?…that if Vanderburgh County doubles its score to 70.6 it would still only be a low B on the Indiana bell curve but a low C on a realistic grading scale?

IS IT TRUE that in the category of ARTS, ENTERTAINMENT, and RECREATION that Vanderburgh County scored a 95.8 that was good enough to get a grade of A and high enough to be #1 in the State of Indiana?…that this ranking corresponds to being able to claim bragging rights as “the best place to go in Indiana to enjoy the arts, to be entertained, or the participate in recreational activities”?…that is a pretty significant bragging right that we expect surprises a lot of people?…that this verifies what the CVB Chairman Bob Warren has been saying about Evansville having plenty of quality things to do but not recognizing it?…that this distinction also sort of blows the need for new entertainment venues out of the water?…that Mr. Warren was right and his CVB is on track to start marketing Evansville as a vacation destination for people all over the region including Evansville itself?…that perhaps the reason all of the nice ARTS, ENTERTAINMENT, and RECREATION opportunities are not recognized locally has to do with the 35.5 score that our county got for EDUCATION?…that maybe a bunch of us are just too dumb to recognize such things?

IS IT TRUE that the other grades for Vanderburgh County are for the most part all C’s except for the category of “PEOPLE” in which Vanderburgh County received a grade of 76.4 which slipped under the scale as the lowest A of the 9 Indiana counties that got an A for “PEOPLE”?…that it was Vanderburgh, Gibson, and the perimeter counties around Indianapolis that got the A’s?…that this category is a hard one to get a handle on as it includes things like population growth, poverty rate, unemployment, and gifts to charities?…that we suspect that if the City of Evansville were pitted against Vanderburgh County in the PEOPLE category that Vanderburgh County would get an A+ and that the City of Evansville would be down at C level or lower?

IS IT TRUE that studies like this are a call to improve and a metric to use on what it is that we need to work on?…that it is clear that EDUCATION is the big black eye on Vanderburgh County’s report card and that “RECREATIONAL DISTRACTIONS” are what we do well?…that this is sort of like a kid that gets the gift of a D on math for a grade of 35.5 but aces PE and PARTYING effortlessly while skating by with a gentleman’s C in everything else?…that if being the party animal that has difficulty with academics is who Evansville wishes to remain that we should just tap another keg and keep the party going?…that if Evansville wants to become a player in the thinking world that this change needs to start at home and it needs to start now?

IS IT TRUE that maybe if these kinds of poor grades in the cognitive skills would have been addressed years ago that maybe our City Council, our Redevelopment Commission, and GAGE would have the ability to VET proposals as other places responsible for public dollars do?

Link:

http://asset.cberdata.org/#Human_Capital_Education