Thursday, May 05, 2005
Go figure: 'Think-and-do tank' flubs the math
The Center for Regional Strategies miscalculated the number of college graduates in the New Century Region.
The latest from The Ticker blog
Turns out we aren't as undereducated as they thought.
The Center for Regional Strategies recently confirmed that a researcher's errant cut-and-paste from a spreadsheet caused one measure of the region's level of educational attainment to appear a lot worse than it is.
Specifically, in a study released in March by the Center for Regional Strategies, a self-described "think-and-do tank" housed at Virginia Tech, the center reported that a dismal 11 percent of the region's population older than 25 had bachelor's degrees or higher.
That number should have been 20 percent, which would align the so-called New Century Region with some other regions - Athens, Ga., and Asheville, N.C. - initially thought to be better educated.
Stuart Mease, a spokesman for the Center for Regional Strategies, said the center discovered the error last month while preparing for a presentation in Danville about the center's study.
"It was just a simple cut-and-paste error," he said. "I don't know how it happened, but it did. We apologize for our mistake and want to correct it."
Mease said the New Century Region still lags other fast-growing metropolitan areas that once were more similar to the New Century Region on several measures of economic growth and vitality. They include the percentage of population older than 25 who have bachelor's degrees or higher.
"The 20 percent number is better, but hardly anything to cheer about," Mease said, noting it is lower than both Virginia's 29 percent and the U.S. tally of 24 percent.
"It doesn't change any of our thinking or our belief that educational attainment is a significant issue for the region," and that more can be done to retain the tens of thousands of undergraduates studying at colleges in the New Century Region, Mease said.
In its benchmark analysis study, the Center for Regional Strategies compared the New Century Region - including the cities of Roanoke, Covington, Radford and Salem and the counties of Alleghany, Bland, Botetourt, Craig, Franklin, Giles, Montgomery, Pulaski, Roanoke, Smyth and Wythe - to six other regions around the country.
The regions selected for comparison were: Asheville, N.C.; Athens, Ga.; Colorado Springs, Colo; Fort Collins, Colo.; Knoxville, Tenn.; and, Lexington, Ky. The center, relying on census data from 1990 and 2000, determined the New Century Region lagged behind these other regions in job growth, population growth and per capita income growth during the prosperous 1990s.
Earlier, Wayne Strickland and Matt Miller of the Roanoke Valley-Alleghany Regional Commission, as well as Robert Stauffer, an economist at Roanoke College, had questioned the center's educational attainment finding of 11 percent. Strickland said his staff calculated 20.1 percent of the population of the New Century Region had received a bachelor's degree or higher. Stauffer quoted a similar figure.
Strickland said the study's error and subsequent coverage in The Roanoke Times could have negative consequences.
"The importance of getting this figure correct is that the lower percentage shown in the study, and the article, may place us at a disadvantage when businesses are looking at our region as a possible place to relocate, expand or to open a new business," Strickland said.
He said Gov. Mark Warner and other economic development specialists consistently emphasize that a region's educational level "plays a major role in business location decisions."
Stauffer said Walter Rugaber, a board of trustees member and a founder of the Center for Regional Strategies, has invited him to meet with center researchers to discuss how cost-of-living considerations can affect income comparisons between and among regions.
Rugaber, former publisher of The Roanoke Times, is Virginia Tech's first presidential fellow. Wendy Zomparelli, current president and publisher of The Roanoke Times, also serves on the center's board of trustees.
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