By Craig Helmstetter, Minnesota Compass

To our friends:

Happy New Year!

In this post-holiday greeting, I was tempted to brag about how our project has grown over the past year. Our Housing section is getting so mature, and our newest addition, Environment, is already learning GIS!

But there's still more to do. As many of you know, more data and better measures would strengthen all of our efforts to both measure progress and inspire action. Let's all challenge ourselves to make this wish for improved data come true. I'm looking forward to working with you on improving the data -- and the region -- in 2009.

Have your own wish list for better data? Have ideas about how to make these a reality? Let us know.

Here are my eight for 2009:

  • Voter turnout: While we have voter turnout data, we do not track it by race, ethnicity, or income in an ongoing, reliable way. To better target our efforts to build on this regional strength, it would be useful to know more about the demographics of the (non-voting) electorate. Also, currently no one tracks how many adults are disenfranchised in our region due to felony imprisonment or probation. See more on Civic Engagement.
  • School readiness: Implement an assessment for kindergarteners that is representative of the 7-county region. While the Minnesota Department of Education has developed a way of assessing readiness, at present participation is voluntary and the assessment is not widely administered. As a result, lower-income students and others who may be less likely to be up to speed are left out. We cannot confidently say how many kindergarteners arrive ready to learn, and feel this is critical information to have to continue to improve quality of life in the region. See more on Early Childhood.
  • Nationally and internationally comparative education data: We need more indicators of how our students stack up against national and global competition. The state's standardized tests are a rich and policy-relevant resource, but could be more so if they enabled national comparisons. While the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) does allow national comparisons, it currently does so only at the state level. The ACT and Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) data also allow for some comparisons, but not all students currently take these tests. We are also looking forward to the day when graduation rate calculations are nationally standardized, apparently in 2011. See more on Education.
  • Protected natural land: We would like to see a comprehensive inventory of critical habitat and sensitive natural land that is protected in the region. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has been working in this area, but it surprised us to learn that no one really knows how much of this land in the region is protected. See more on Environment.
  • Water quality: More comprehensive and uniform monitoring of lake water quality in the region is needed. The Metropolitan Council, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, and a small army of specially-trained citizen volunteers do a good job of getting a read on water quality in our region, but it turns out many of the lakes that appear safe by the measures used (testing for phosphorous, chlorophyll-a, and secchi depth) might be classified as impaired if they were subject to a wider battery of tests (for Mercury, E. coli, pesticides and other chemicals). Also, if the lakes tested on an annual basis were representative of all local lakes (in terms of use and size) we would have a better read on lake water quality in the region and across the state. See more on Environment.
  • Expand the SHAPE Survey: This is a great data resource -- we just need more of it! Hennepin County's quadrennial Survey of the Health of All the Population and the Environment is an invaluable source of health data, and is one of the few data sources that allows us to look at indicators not only by race, but by racial sub-categories, including African-born immigrants and Southeast Asian populations. We would love to see all the counties provide similar data. See more on Health.
  • Access to Destinations: The University of Minnesota Center for Transportation Studies is creating an exciting new transportation measure. It focuses on accessibility -- rather than congestion alone -- to arrive at a more complete picture of the efficacy of a region's transportation system. We look forward to featuring it as a Key Measure in our Transportation Section later this year. See more on Transportation.
  • Your evidence-based research: Each of our topic areas has an "Ideas at Work" section which shares local and national evidence-based research. Share your data with us, so we can learn what works from each other. See Ideas at Work in each topic area on the site.

Here's wishing each and every one of us a happy and enlightening new year.

--Craig