The US is a great place to live, for those with top health coverage, top
property values, and top standardized test scores, however increasing
Americans are having greater problems, and we may have a poor handle on how
much change is going on.

When the smaller rural and urban hospitals and those in lower and middle
income areas close, what will happen? What is happening when the resources
provided for health care are limited currently?
Gap widens between rich, poor hospitals
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=24359

The widening gap between rich and poor hospitals is likely to lead to a
"sizable shakeout," New York-based Standard & Poor's analyst Liz Sweeney
wrote in a report last week, "as those players that are just marginal now
will find it impossible to survive in a more difficult environment. This
will likely trigger a new wave of mergers, closures and bankruptcies."

The loss of even a single hospital in a poor neighborhood would punch a
hole in the city's health safety net — already strained from deep cuts to
Cook County's health system — sending an influx of needy patients with
chronic diseases like diabetes and asthma into the city's bigger hospitals,
hampering their ability to focus on medically complex cases.

Oops. Another black mark on stats experts
Census overstated number of uninsured
By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER Associated Press Writer
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/politics/4656237.html
WASHINGTON — The government's estimate of the number of Americans without
health insurance fell by nearly 2 million Friday, but not because anyone
got health coverage. The Census Bureau said it has been overstating the
number of people without health insurance since 1995. The bureau blamed the
inflated numbers on a 12-year-old computer programming error. The bureau
reissued figures for 2005 and 2004 on Friday. It plans to issue new numbers
for every affected year in August, when the 2006 numbers are scheduled for
release. Health insurance statistics are widely cited in debates over the
nation's system of health care, which is expected to be a big issue in the
2008 presidential election. The revised estimates show that 44.8 million
people, or 15.3 percent of the population, were without health insurance in
2005. The original estimate was 46.6 million, or about 15.9 percent of the
population.

Suburbs are joining the ranks of the new populations with higher levels of
poverty such as working parents, etc.
Suburban Poverty
As numbers of poor in the suburbs rise.
By Claude Lewis, Philadelphia Inquirer. February 7, 2007.

Lots of Testing, But what does it really mean, and who really benefits.
Experts: U.S. testing companies ``buckling'' under weight of No Child Left
Behind
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/illinois/chi-ap-il-nclb-standardized,1,5461800.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
By MEGAN REICHGOTT
Published March 25, 2007, 12:57 PM CDT
CHICAGO -- To motivate juniors on last April's assessment exams,
Springfield High School offered coveted lockers, parking spaces near the
door and free prom tickets as incentives for good scores.

But the incentives at the central Illinois school went unclaimed until
earlier this month, when Illinois finally published its 2006 test scores --
more than four months after they were due.

Critics pounced on Harcourt Assessment Inc., which lost most of its $44.5
million state contract over delays -- caused by everything from shipping
problems to missing test pages and scoring errors -- that made Illinois the
last state in the nation to release scores used to judge schools under the
federal No Child Left Behind Act.

But experts say the problems are more widespread and are likely to get
worse. A handful of companies create, print and score most of the tests in
the U.S. and they're struggling with a workload that has exploded since
President Bush signed the education reform package in 2002.

"The testing industry in the U.S. is buckling under the weight of NCLB
demands," said Thomas Toch, co-director of Education Sector, a
Washington-based think tank.

When Education Sector surveyed 23 states in 2006, it found that 35 percent
of testing offices in those states had experienced "significant" errors
with scoring and 20 percent didn't get results "in a timely fashion."

--Oregon's Education Department complained that a computerized test was
plagued by system problems. Test company Vantage Learning later terminated
its contract with the state, claiming it was owed money, and the state sued
the company for breach of contract. Now, thousands of students who haven't
completed online exams will take them in May the old-fashioned way, using
paper and pencil.

--Connecticut last year fined Harcourt $80,000 after a processing error
caused wrong scores for 355 students in 2005. While that's a fraction of
the state's 41,000 kids who took the test, state officials had to notify
51, or nearly a third, of all districts that some of their students got the
wrong scores. The problem came a year after the state canceled its contract
with another company, CTB/McGraw-Hill, after scoring problems caused a
five-month delay in reporting scores.

--The Texas Education Agency passed 4,160 10th-graders who initially failed
the math section of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills in 2003
after officials discovered a test question had more than one correct
answer.

--Pearson Educational Measurement apologized last year after it reported
more than 900,000 Michigan results weeks late. In 2003, previous vendor
Measurement Inc. delivered 3,400 MEAP scores months late and nearly 1,000
results went missing.

--Alabama education officials said a testing company mistakenly failed some
schools while passing others that should have failed, due to scoring
problems on the 2005 assessment test.

"Not only (have) states wanted different content in terms of the tests, but
they also have very many different requirements as to logistics, delivery,
look and feel, color, how the questions are organized, horizontal, vertical
... you name it, it was on the table," Hansen said.

Others say the problems are exacerbated by little competition or
regulation.

The NCLB testing industry is dominated by four companies: Harcourt of San
Antonio,Texas; CTB/McGraw-Hill based in Monterey, Calif.; Pearson
Educational Measurement of Iowa City, Iowa, and Riverside Publishing of
Itasca, Ill.

"It's not entirely a monopoly, but it is an oligopoly, with very little
regulation," said Walter Haney, professor at the Center for the Study of
Testing Evaluation and Educational Policy at Boston College.

From the IRP Web site: http://www.irp.wisc.edu/   Poverty Dispatch

Robert C. Bowman, M.D.
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