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October 2013
Cowboy Mike



In July, 2009, Governor Daugaard formalized an agreement with the US Census Bureau, designating SDSU's Rural Life/Census Data Center as South Dakota's State Data Center, and Mike McCurry as the State Demographer. 
Quick Links
 

 

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Meet the Data Center Staff 
There's a lot of data out there, and a lot of requests for help retrieving it. Mike doesn't have time to do it all himself, so he has three Sociology graduate students (that also love data) assisting him. Below is some background on each of them.
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Prekchya 

Singh 

   

Prekchya Singh is a PhD student of Sociology and Rural Studies at SDSU. After completing the Masters Degree in Rural Development from her home country, Nepal, she decided to pursue further studies at SDSU. Her areas of specialization are Demography and Social Organization. She is currently working as a Research Assistant in the State Data Center. Among her accomplishments at the data center, she has looked at the demographic changes in South Dakota's Hutterite population.  From her review of Census 2010 data, she found that data on two Hutterite colonies had not been included on the U.S. Decennial census. She has developed a method to locate Hutterite colonies in order to obtain demographic data, which has been acknowledged by the demographic researchers of Montana and Alberta. She has presented in various conferences bringing demographic information to demographers and other professionals. Apart from her studies and research, she has been involved in various on-campus activities like being the President of International Relations Council, Executive Member of Nepalese Students' Association and performing on various cultural events to off- campus activities like volunteering in the adopt-a-highway program.

 

Eric 

Guthrie 

 

Eric was born in the sunny paradise of south Florida, which he promptly fled for the icy fields of Minnesota upon turning 18.  He earned his Bachelor's Degree in History and Sociology from Gustavus Adolphus College in 1998 and his Master's degree in teaching from Minnesota State University, Mankato in 2003.  Realizing the great opportunity they had, MSU, Mankato, hired him to work in administration before he could find a teaching position.  He languished in that position for more years than he cares to count, but is now back on the right track while pursuing a PhD in Sociology with a concentration in demography. 

 


J.L.   
Jackson

J.L. Jackson  (also known to us as "Jeremiah") came to us from Kalamazoo, Michigan.   

 

J.L. says: "My research and teaching interests lie in the fields of social psychology, sociological theory, and demography. Specifically, my primary research interest concerns the construction of place identity and community membership among racial and sexual minorities in the rural Great Plains. In addition, I am also interested in social psychological processes of epistemology: how culture, gender, race, and sexual orientation influence the process of gaining knowledge in both the scientific and everyday spheres. Finally, in the field of demography, my research concerns how migration impacts community resilience in rural America. When I'm not thinking about sociology, I enjoy hiking, running, reading, and spending time with friends and family."
   
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The Census May Be Down, But There is Still Data!

 

During this time when the Census web sites have been down, we've needed to develop a list of alternate sites for population data.  Here's Mike's list of sites for demography when the Census is down.  All provide Census Data - not necessarily in as readily usable form as American FactFinder, but sometimes they're even easier to use. 

 

http://census.ire.org/ 

 

http://beta.censusreporter.org/ 

 

http://mcdc.missouri.edu/acs/profiles/menu.php 

 

http://mcdc.missouri.edu/ 

 Mike McCurry, Ph.D.

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Give Us YOUR Opinion, Please!
The South Dakota State University Rural Life and Census Data Center is
conducting a survey of its customers to learn more about our customers
and receive feedback on the quality of our services. We would love to
get your feedback. You can partake in the survey at the link below.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/3BL9P69
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Check The Data Twice if You Agree With It! 

 

I'm in the process of retirement planning.  One of the big tasks in retiring is getting the important messages out before going out.  My most important message deals with validating information, and why we don't do enough of it.  Part of it is that we have a tendency to prefer data that supports what we already believe.  A bit over a year ago, Shtulman and Valcarcel published an article: "Scientific knowledge suppresses but does not supplant earlier intuitions."  (http://faculty.oxy.edu/shtulman/documents/2012b.pdf).  A simplified, condensed read version is at http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/frontal-cortex/2012/06/brain-experiments-why-we-dont-believe-science.html. 

 

Mark Twain is credited with writing "It's not what you don't know that kills you, it's what you know for sure that ain't true."  He didn't have the benefit of scientific research, but I think he hit the nail on the head.  What we know that isn't true is a problem - and if we have a tendency to believe what isn't true, we need to know it.

I hang out with in sociology.  When I listened to a grad student telling me about no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq, that matched what I thought was true.  Since I was so ready to believe it, I googled "wmd found in Iraq".  I learned that about 500 munitions that qualified as weapons of mass destruction had been found by 2006.  I think I found an accurate source.  My memory wasn't.

 

I received an email a few weeks back - the guy was annoyed because I had treated his county badly by pointing out it had the state's greatest population loss and its population was aging and would continue to age.  He explained how I shouldn't use census data, and shouldn't report it by counties.  The facts did "not supplant earlier intuitions" and he was a bit PO'd.  It's not like I was trying to aggravate him.  

 

The issue of gun control brought requests for data and interesting spots where people know things that aren't so.  Statistically, there are fewer rifles used in homicides than blunt objects.  Incredibly, sharing that fact didn't change a lot of minds.  Folks opposing gun control liked it, and their opponents didn't.  We really do live in a world where you need to check the data yourself.   Don't trust me, check the data.

 

The most important message I can get out is to check the data. If it supports a cause you support, check the data twice.

 

Mike McCurry, Ph.D.

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Brain Drain in Rural America 

There has been a great deal of discussion of rural migration in the context of how it affects the overall educational level of an area.  Some claim that this is leading to a depleting of rural America, the "Brain Drain" perspective, while others point to the gains that some communities have accomplish as a new "Brain Gain."  Whichever side wins the argument, condition in the regions of concern need to be investigated to see which is happening.  This study attempt to take the first step in this process for South Dakota by looking at the rates of change for the age cohorts for its various counties.  To accomplish this we have looked at the data from the US Census from 1930 to 2010, and have calculated the rates of change for each 5-year age cohort.  We will look at these rates to see if there is a change for particular cohorts and to see if there is a difference between different generations of cohorts.  These differences in the rates of change will or will not speak to differing migration patterns for the different generations represented.  We will generally be looking at the changes for the cohort ages between 25 and 65, as that would isolate migration as the primary component of change.   

 -Eric Guthrie, PhD Student

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A Matter of Healthhealthcare.jpg

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation has posted a map, at county level, showing life expectancies, incidence of hypertension and obesity, and a physical activity rating assignment.  It's available at  http://www.healthmetricsandevaluation.org/tools/data-visualization/us-health-map.  The county level data in South Dakota may vary from other sources, of course.  Sioux Falls and Rapid City are large enough to have pretty good reliability, but small populations in counties like Campbell and Jones may increase the possibility of error. 

Mike McCurry, Ph.D.

  
Graduation Rates Aren't Always Easy to Calculate

Sometimes, the questions need more than a private answer. This time the question was, "One educator on Pine Ridge gave me an estimate that only about 10 percent of kids on the reservation graduate from high school. I know there are probably no good data - it's very hard to get good data on on-time high school graduation rates nationally - but does that sound plausible to you?"

 

Some of my friends on Reservations have taught me to look for what is happening right there. This is one of those areas where it's easy to find data that supports the idea that things are really terrible on the Pine Ridge - but looking a little more closely shows that the folks on Pine Ridge do a lot better than graduating 10 percent of the students.

 

Shannon County Schools graduated only 7 students in 2012. If I stopped looking there, and saw the average elementary enrollment of about 125 students per grade, less than 10 percent would look right. We need to look further - Shannon County Schools total high school (9-12) enrollment was under 100. If we assume that a quarter of the high school students are seniors, Shannon County graduates about 30 percent of its senior class. But even that isn't a safe assumption. We need to include high school graduates from BIE and church schools - so I googled the schools and their graduates:

 

Red Cloud (Parochial -Jesuit) shows 29 graduates in the 2013 ceremony photo.

Pine Ridge Indian School (BIE) showed 85 seniors graduating in 2013 and 21 failing (4/13/13 minutes).

 

Little Wound School (Kyle, SD, Grant) graduated 62 seniors in May 2011

 

Crazy Horse (Wanblee, Grant) 11 graduates on stage in school graduation photo for 2013.

 

The 2010 Census showed 1,505 Shannon County residents from 15 to 19 years. If we divide that by 5, we would expect about 300 to graduate from high school in any given year. Adding the 5 different reservation schools graduation numbers gives us roughly 194 graduates per year on Pine Ridge, plus others are graduating from other BIE schools off the Pine Ridge. It looks to me as if at least 65 percent of Pine Ridge students graduate from High School. I can't speak to whether they're on schedule or not.

 

Mike McCurry, Ph.D.

  
Attention
All
Students!
If you want some "hands on experience" working with demographic data, we have just the opportunity for you! This Spring Semester the Data Center is offering an Internship for students to help collect, compile and analyze data. Excited? Be sure to sign up for Soc 494 S02 (Internship listed with Dr. McCurry) when enrolling for classes. Pre-Registration for current students begins October 28, 2013. Enhance your resume, get practical experience, work with a fun group of demographers and get college credit for it!

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Mike's Favorite Websites:

 

 

ACS Profiles (Missouri)

http://mcdc1.missouri.edu/acsprofiles/acsprofilemenu.html

 

Agriculture

http://www.agcensus.usda.gov/

 

American FactFinder

http://factfinder2.census.gov/

 

Bureau of Economic Analysis

http://www.bea.gov/regional/bearfacts/

 

Center for Disease Control

http://www.cdc.gov/

 

County Level Data

http://censtats.census.gov/usa/usa.shtml

 

County Business Patterns

http://www.census.gov/econ/cbp/index.html

 

Crime

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/ucr

 

Health Stats

http://www.statehealthfacts.org/

 

Historical Census Browser

http://mapserver.lib.virginia.edu/

 

Life Expectancy

http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/

     

Migration

http://interactive.taxfoundation.org/migration/

 

Missouri State Data Center

http://mcdc.missouri.edu/

 

Mortality (CDC)

http://wonder.cdc.gov/cmf-icd10-archive2005.html

 

Onthemap

http://onthemap.ces.census.gov/

 

SD Labor

http://dlr.sd.gov/lmic/default.aspx

 

Statistical Abstracts

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/

 

    

  computer-mouse-abstract.jpg  

 

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SAVE THE DATES

State Data Center& Census Information
Center Annual Training
Conference  
 
October 21-24 
from 12:30 - 4:00 pm

For more info on this virtual conference, click below: 
 

2014 Demography  

Conference  

 

Tues-Thursday,  

June 10-12, 2014.  

 

(On the campus of South Dakota  

State University).


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South Dakota State Data Center Affiliates


mt_rushmore.jpg

Black Hills Council of Local  

Governments

 

Central South Dakota Enhancement  

District

 

First District Association of  

Local Governments

 

Governor's Office of Economic  

Development

 

Karl E Mundt Library

 

Labor Market Information Center

 

Northeast Council of Governments

 

 Northern State University

Planning & Development  

District III

 

Rural Life Census Data Center

 

Sioux Falls Planning Department

 

South Dakota Department  

of Health

 

South Dakota Kids Count

 

South Dakota State Data Center

 

South Dakota State Library

 

Southeast Council of Governments

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