Latino, African-American Arts Organizations Face Steeper Climb to Sustain Success

Latino and African-American museums and performing arts organizations struggle to draw philanthropic support compared to other cultural institutions, creating "chronic financial difficulties" that sharply limit what they are able produce, according to a comprehensive new report, Diversity in the Arts. The study by the University of Maryland's DeVos Institute of Arts Management suggests that donors focus their giving on bigger grants for "a smaller cohort [of minority organizations] that can manage themselves effectively, make the best art, and have the biggest impact on their communities." The 51-page report was cited by the Los Angeles Times and reported in The Chronicle of Philanthropy.  The report said that minority-focused arts organizations’ most debilitating weakness has been difficulty in attracting private, individual donors, a demographic whose charitable giving far exceeds the grantmaking of foundations, corporations and government.

“In 2015 a large number of arts organizations of color are struggling, in some cases desperately,” says the report, overseen by Michael Kaiser, the veteran arts administrator and former Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts president who heads the DeVos Institute.  The report also recommended that “serious arts funders must address the need to develop pipelines to bring talented college graduates of color into the arts management field.”

Using 2013 tax returns, DeVos found that the 30 largest black and 30 largest Latino nonprofit arts groups had a median budget of $3.8 million, versus $61.1 million for 20 major general arts institutions. Minority entities reported getting 5 percent of their funding from individual donations, compared to a norm of 60 percent for other groups, the Times reported.

“There is an urgent need for philanthropic leaders to revise funding policies to account for changing demographics and the distinctive characteristics of organizations of color,” the report said.  Funders may need to support “a limited number of organizations,” the report stated, noting that “it might allow the sector to thrive by creating a group of strong, effective organizations of color that can serve as role models and training grounds for others.”

“The small staffs at many organizations of color are already stretched to the limit delivering their services and oftentimes struggle with reporting requirements set by institutional donors…A shift toward general operating support allows organizations to direct resources to where they are most needed while promoting sustainable capacity growth.”

The “Diversity in the Arts” report contains another potentially controversial finding: When large, mainstream arts organizations put on black- or Latino-themed performances or exhibitions, they siphon away artistic talent, donations and attendance from black and Latino companies, the Los Angeles Times reported. Kaiser called the study "a wake-up call" for arts funders.

A survey to which 29 of the 60 black and Latino arts groups in the study replied showed that the median percentage of donations coming from individuals was 5%. The norm is about 60% for big mainstream arts organizations.  “This is the most important single statistic in the study,” the report says.  Minority arts organizations also trailed when it came to box office receipts and other earned revenue. Earned money accounted for 40% of their revenue, compared with 59% for the big mainstream groups.

To develop its financial profile, the DeVos Institute used tax returns for what it ranked as the 30 largest African American and 30 largest Latino nonprofit arts groups nationwide, by budget, in the fields of theater, dance and museums. The institute compared them with 20 of the biggest general companies in those fields.

The study concludes by suggesting that “people look at the challenges of arts organizations of color in a new way.  And we hope that leaders of every community will feel moved to work together to ensure that the arts of every segment of our varied society are allowed to thrive.”

The DeVos Institute of Arts Management provides training, consultation and implementation support for arts managers and their boards.  It has been associated with the University of Maryland since 2014 but has its origins in the early 1960’s, and has served more than 1,000 organizations in 80 countries.

Listen, Look and Respond to Texts While Behind the Wheel – Legal in Connecticut?

In Connecticut, Public Act 10-109, enacted into law in 2010, states that “no person shall operate a motor vehicle … while using a hand-held mobile telephone to engage in a call or while using a mobile electronic device while such vehicle is in motion. An operator of a motor vehicle who types, sends or reads a text message with a hand-held mobile telephone or mobile electronic device while such vehicle is in motion shall be in violation of this section.” Now, technology and the nation’s automakers are doing their best to skirt the language of the law, with in-car electronics that allow drivers to listen to, read and send text messages while at the wheel. 

The technology, now being widely advertised as 2016 new car models reach showrooms, “may unintentionally cause greater levels of cognitive distraction,” according to AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.

One advertisement seen recently on local television and appearing on-line, from Chevrolet, is for the company’s Text Message Alert system. The description of the new feature explains “When you’re in your vehicle, this convenient feature alerts you when a new text has been received and allows you to listen to messages, view messages (when your vehicle’s not in motion) and reply with a preset message with a compatible smartphone.”

Whether or not the new technology meets the letter and spirit of the Connecticut law, now five years old, has yet to be tested.  And if it does, is that in the best interest of Connecticticut drivers, or should the law be revised to address changing technologies?  Peter Kissinger, President and CEO of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, points out that “Technologies used in the car that rely on voice communications may have unintended consequences that adversely affect road safety.”

“We already know that drivers can miss stop signs, pedestrians and other cars while using voice technologies because their mind is not fully focused on the road ahead,” adds Bob Darbelnet, President and CEO of AAA.

The Chevrolet ad exclaims that “Life doesn’t stop when you’re driving. With MyLink you can stay in touch and up-to-date safely with hands-free calling and access to your personal address book through Bluetooth® wireless technology.”  But data indicates that hands-free is not necessarily safe, according to AAA.

AAA has pointed to recent research which indicates that “the accuracy of voice recognition software significantly influences the rate of distraction.”  For example, a team led by Dr. David Strayer and researchers at the University of Utah found that using a speech-to-text system to listen to and compose emails or texts was a greater distraction than talking on a hand-held or hands-free cell phone or listening to the radio.

With three out of four drivers believing that hands-free technology is safe to use, AAA officials caution, Americans may be surprised to learn that these popular new vehicle features may actually increase distraction, according to the new research.  AAA is urging manufacturers to “continue their efforts to develop and refine systems that reduce distractions: while encouraging drivers to “minimize cognitive distraction by limiting the use of most voice-based technologies.”

To assess “real-world” impact, Dr. Joel Cooper with Precision Driving Research evaluated the two most common voice-based interactions in which drivers engage – changing radio stations and voice dialing – with the actual voice-activated systems found in six different automakers’ vehicles. On the five point scale, Toyota’s Entune system garnered the lowest distraction ranking (at 1.7), which is similar to listening to an audio book. In comparison, the Chevrolet MyLink resulted in a very high level of distraction (rating of 3.7). Other systems tested included the Hyundai Blue Link (rating 2.2), the Chrysler Uconnect (rating 2.7), the Ford SYNC (rating 3.0) and the Mercedes COMMAND (rating 3.1).

Chevrolet also offers a feature called Siri Hands Free.  The company’s website explains that “The system allows limited hands-free interaction for when you need to compose important messages on the go.”

“It is clear that not all voice systems are created equal, and today’s imperfect systems can lead to the perfect storm for driver distraction,” continued Darbelnet. “AAA urges vehicle and device manufacturers to use this research to improve their voice systems and promote road safety.”

As someone once described it during the consideration banning texting while driving in Connecticut earlier in this decade, “cell phones don’t cause accidents, distractions do.”

https://youtu.be/kY6ohMfY2gQ

Nearly 2/3 of Americans Have Confidence in Charities, But More Than 1/3 Don’t, Survey Reveals

Almost two-thirds of Americans have confidence in charities, according to a new poll by the Chronicle of Philanthropy — the first to measure public views on the subject since 2008. Although most expressed “a great deal” or “a fair amount” of confidence in charitable organizations and more than 80 percent said charities do a very good or somewhat good job helping people, dissatisfaction was also expressed.  A significant number voiced concern about finances: a third said charities do a "not too good" or "not at all good" job spending money wisely; and 6 in 10 said their leaders are paid too much, the Chronicle reported.

Half of those surveyed said that in deciding where they will donate, it is very important for them to know that charities spend a low amount on salaries, administration, and fundraising; 34 percent said that was somewhat important.  And 35 percent said they had little or no confidence in charities, the Chronicle underscored.

Maggie Gunther Osborn, President of the Connecticut Council for Philanthropy, points out that “in a new and positive era of transparency, better questions are being asked and more data provided about the positive impact of charities.  The sector is being asked to more openly communicate and be accountable to the public trust.  This is a good thing.”

“At the same time,” she added, “outliers and bad actors are publicized and amplified, tarnishing the sector and creating misinformation and incorrect perceptions.”

People who gave charities low marks on spending money wisely were asked what kind of spending they considered unwise. The biggest portion, 37 percent, cited salaries or other administrative costs. The second-highest answer, named by 11 percent, was advertising.

Mary Cahalane, a Connecticut-based nonprofit fundraising consultant and author of the blog Hands On Fundraising, said that “Charities need to do a better job explaining the importance of our work to the general public. Surveys like this are instructive.”

The Chronicle poll, conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International, surveyed 1,000 adults in June, asking several questions identical to those included in polls that Princeton conducted from 2002 to 2008.

Americans rank charities higher than a range of other institutions. Fifteen percent said they had a great deal of confidence in charitable organizations over all, with 21 percent stating the same about charities in their own communities. Other institutions did not fare nearly as well.  In a June Gallup poll, only 4 percent said they had a great deal of confidence in Congress, 9 percent in big business, 10 percent in newspapers, and 12 percent in banks, public schools, and organized labor. The top scorers: the military (42 percent) and small business (34 percent), the Chronicle reported.

The survey found significant demographic differences in views toward charities. For example, young people were more positive than older people: 65 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds said they had a great deal or fair amount of confidence in charities, compared with 54 percent of people ages 65 and older. Republicans were more likely than Democrats to say nonprofits do a not-too-good or not-at-all-good job spending money wisely (38 percent and 22 percent, respectively), the Chronicle noted.

“Even the politicians are trying to highlight outliers in the sector to make statements about the whole which are creating false perceptions and in fact end up undermining the social purpose sector and creating false understandings,” Osborn explained.

“It also undermines the ability of the sector to continue to care for the most vulnerable, lift up and advance our society through the arts and education and create ways to deal with safety, environmental and health shifts of enormous impact on our daily lives,” she continued.  “The majority of people, who have factual information or just faith, support and believe in the powerful good of the sector.”

Cahalane also noted three thoroughly debunked myths about charities, which nonetheless remain widely held, are reflected in the survey results:

• Myth #1: Charities should spend every dollar on direct service. This has been called the “overhead myth”. Services can’t happen without administrative and fundraising support. Charities should spend money wisely, but looking at a ratio of service versus administration expenses is not wise. The largest watchdog groups have realized this, she points out.
• Myth #2: Nonprofit staff don’t deserve to be paid for their work. Many staff people have years of specialized experience and skill. This is their profession, and they deserve to be paid fairly for their work. If charities are to run well, skilled people are needed to do the work. A few egregious examples of high executive salaries shouldn’t fool anyone: most in the industry make considerably less than they would in the for-profit world, Cahalane explains.
• Myth #3: People make giving decisions based on low salaries or administrative costs. Most do not. Most give to organizations that make a good case for giving - organizations that move their hearts and align with their values, she emphasized.

When asked in the survey about factors that influence their giving, the biggest portion, 68 percent, said it is very important the charity has evidence that its programs are effective. The other factors, in addition to the 50 percent who favored low overhead spending: the charity gets good ratings from watchdogs, 54 percent; it works on a cause that has affected me or my loved ones, 39 percent; it only occasionally asks for money, 27 percent; and I know people who work there, 24 percent.

In the survey, women had more confidence than men (66 percent to 57 percent) in charitable organizations, and college graduates had more than those with just some college (73 percent to 56 percent).  In 2008, 64 percent said they had a great deal or a fair amount of confidence in charities, compared with 62 percent in the new poll.

Update:  Additional Resource

Building Police-Community Connections As Diversity Lags in Hartford

When Governing magazine examined the diversity within local police departments, compared with the communities they serve, Hartford was among the ten cities with the largest disparity.  But two recent programs that have also received national attention underscore the city’s efforts to strengthen relationships between police and the community. The data indicated that Hartford’s police department was 35.3 percent minority, in a city where the population is 84.1 percent minority.  That was the 7^th largest gap in the nation, after Fontana, CA; Edison, NJ; Irving, TX; Grand Prairie TX; Daly City, CA; and Allentown, PA.  Using 2013 data, Governing reviewed 269 local police agencies across the country.

The article points out that “although no national standards regarding diversity levels exist, the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies does require accredited agencies to adopt steps to ensure their workforce mirrors their communities.”  It also indicates that “law enforcement experts emphasize that mending fractured relationships with communities takes much more than merely a diverse force.”

Two locally developed programs, one at the Hartford Public Library (HPL) and the other at the Charter Oak Cultural Center, are working at building police-community relationships.

HPL is one of 10 public libraries in the U.S. that have been participating in the American Library Association’s Libraries Transforming Communities (LTC) initiative since April 2014. The initiative, in collaboration with the nonprofit Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, is an 18-month community engagement training program where libraries learn how to address challenges facing their community.

Hartford’s work was recently featured on the national website of the American Library Association.

Through eight community conversations in Hartford’s North End neighborhood, HPL found that residents’ main concerns were public safety, community violence, and their relationship with the police. In response, a three-session community dialogue on public safety with police and community members was held, led by HPL community engagement director Richard Frieder.  Participants ranged in age from 18 to 87.

During the three sessions, according to published reports, the groups got to know each other; talked about what makes a good neighborhood and what they liked about theirs, what they would like to change, how safe community members feel, and what they believed the residents’ and police officers’ roles were in making the community safe; and figured out how to take action and solve the problems.

Some of the ideas generated include having the police and the community members participate in more activities and learning experiences together, such as block parties and community theater, where they address these issues.  Even though the 18-month project officially ends this month, HPL’s staff hopes to sustain the values and goals they developed.

At the same time, another initiative in the city was taking root – one which soon reached the pages of The New York Times and the attention of the White House.

The Charter Oak Cultural Center’s Good Vibrations program began with a conversation between Hartford’s police chief, James Rovella, and the Center’s director, Rabbi Donna Berman.  The innovative program, which began earlier this year, sought to pair middle school age students who were at a crossroads in their lives with Hartford police officers to inspire and inform the youths involved as well as helping to change the community's negative perception of police officers.  Nearly two dozen students – and police officers – collaborate on musical instruments, and in composing rap lyrics.  The relationships built, and music made, has been described as transformative. Good Vibrations includes two free courses; a Rap Poetry/CD production class, and a guitar class. All the materials are free, including the guitars, which students get to keep.

Last month, a Hartford police officer and a seventh-grader who participate in the program were honored at the White House as "Champions of Change" for their role in helping to build "bridges between youth and law enforcement, while improving public safety," according to the White House. "During the three-and-a-half month program, officers and youth helped to lift the negative stigma between police and youth through open discussions about racism, crime, government, and family."

One participating middle-schooler told the Times: “I thought police officers were just to catch bad guys and be in a bad tone. But these guys are awesome. They’re always in a good tone with us. They play with us. They tag along in our jokes. They do stuff with us. They help us. They give us advice and everything.”

CT Ranks 14th in Percentage of Women in State Legislature, As Numbers Stagnate Here and Nationwide

For two decades, it has been one step forward, one step back in efforts to expand the number of women serving in state legislatures around the county.  That is true as well in Connecticut, where in recent years the number of women in the Connecticut General Assembly has receded slightly. Connecticut’s legislators include 53 women – 44 House members and 9 Senate members, who make up 29 percent of the General Assembly’s membership.  That is a decline from 59 women, or 31 percent, as recently as 2009. Women currently comprise 25 percent of the State Senate and 30 percent of the House of Representatives, according to the Permanent Commission on the Status of Women.   That number places Connecticut 14th among the states in 2015 for the percentage of women members in the legislature, tied with Alaska. 

The latest issue of Governing magazine indicates that “women have held less than 25 percent of all state legislative seats for years. But both parties are trying to recruit more female candidates.”  Women make up about a third of Democratic legislators nationwide, but less than a fifth of Republicans. Of the 1,793 women currently serving as legislators right now, 60 percent are Democratic.

A 2013 report from American University indicates that women are less likely to seek political office than men, even if they have similar resumes. Women who are elected, however, are far more likely than men to have participated in a training program, according to Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women in Politics at Rutgers University.

"Women do need to be recruited more than men," she told Governing. "In our surveys, men were much more likely to say it was largely their own idea, that nobody had to ask them."

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), 24.4 percent of state legislators in the United States this year are women.  That is almost identical to 24.2 percent in 2014 – and the 24.2 percent back in 2009. That year, NCSL pointed out that the ratio of women “has increased by less than 4 percentage points over the past fifteen years.”

The leading states are Colorado, where 42 percent of the legislators are women, followed by Vermont, at 40.6 percent, Arizona at 35.6 percent, and three states tied at one-third of the legislature (33.3 percent) – Washington, Minnesota and Nevada.   At the bottom of the rankings are Louisiana, 11.8%, Wyoming, 13.3%, South Carolina, 13.5%, and Alabama, 14.3%.

States with the most women elected to the state legislature:

1. Colorado      42%
2. Vermont      40.6%
3. Arizona         35.6%
4. Washington  33.3%
5. Minnesota 33.3%
6. Nevada        33.3%
7. Montana     31.3%
8. Oregon          31.1%
9. Illinois            31.1%
10. New Jersey     30%
11. New Hampshire 29%
12. Maine                    29%
13. Hawaii                 28.9%
14. Connecticut      28.3%

Youth Face Substantial Challenges in Fairfield County, Report Reveals

There are significant unmet needs among the children and youth of Fairfield County, with over 800 students dropping out of high school each year, 1 in 8 youth ages 16-24 unemployed and over 2,600 youth ages 16-19 neither employed nor in school, according to a new report by Connecticut Voices for Children.  Youth well-being differs from town to town and city to city according to the report, commissioned by Fairfield County’s Community Foundation. The outcome disparities “present a threat not only to the children, families and neighborhoods of Bridgeport, but also to Fairfield County,” the report concluded, noting that Bridgeport today educates as many students as Westport, Wilton, Weston, New Canaan, and Darien combined.  The report indicates that Fairfield County’s future lives in its cities and depends very much on the success of its vulnerable children and youth.

The purpose of the report is to inform and develop Fairfield County's Community Foundation’s Thrive by 25 Program, to help Fairfield County young people achieve self-sufficiency by age 25. The report points out that “Fairfield County’s 100,000 young people ages 16 to 24 face youth unemployment rates between 13.6 percent and 49.5 percent, one of the nation’s most expensive housing markets, and a shortage of living-wage entry jobs.  When large numbers of young adults remain dependent on family or relocate for jobs, their futures are shortchanged and their communities decline.”

Looking across the towns of Fairfield County, large disparities in relative opportunity emerged in the study. Six “very high opportunity towns” stood out clearly among their peers, the report highlighted: Darien, Westport, New Canaan, Wilton, Weston, and Easton are among the wealthiest towns in the United States. Unsurprisingly, few children in those towns face the sort of barriers to opportunity children typically face in Bridgeport, Stratford, Norwalk, Stamford, and Danbury, the report said.

Five relatively “low opportunity towns” also stood out: on nearly every indicator they fell in the bottom third of Fairfield County’s 23 towns. “Even more disturbing,” the report emphasized, these “low opportunity towns” were home to racially concentrated areas of poverty: “not only is youth opportunity lower, but that lower opportunity affects mainly children of color,” the Voices report indicated.

The 27 page report includes town-by-town breakdowns for each of Fairfield County’s 23 municipalities, including breakdowns of specific data for 20 distinct factors in the areas of Family, Community and School.  The assessment includes the percentage of the population that includes families in poverty, unemployment, housing unaffordability, preschool experience, median income and on-time graduation from high school.

The report indicated that Danbury has the highest proportion of students learning English in Fairfield County (21 percent), and a rate of student arrest twice that of Bridgeport, Norwalk and Stamford.  Over one-third of Danbury children live in households with income below 200 percent of the poverty level, which is $47,700 for a family of four.  Among the other data revealed in the report:

• Bridgeport is the city in Fairfield County with the greatest need, with over 1,100 disconnected youth 400 annual high school dropouts and a youth unemployment rate of 17 percent.
• Shelton (13%) and Wilton (17%) have exceptionally high rate of chronic absenteeism – on par with cities like Norwalk (12%) and Stamford (15%).
• Redding performs exceptionally low on housing affordability compared to other high opportunity towns, with almost half of housing unaffordable (45 percent).
• Stamford’s teenage pregnancy rate (3 percent of total births) is lower than in many suburban towns.

The comparison between Bridgeport’s youth and their counterparts in Westport is striking.  Bridgeport educates a student population of which nearly 40 percent never attended preschool and almost 80 percent of third graders failed to score proficient in reading, drawing from a property tax base less than one-sixth the size per pupil of Westport. In Westport, barely 5 percent of students miss preschool and only 17 percent of third graders fail to score proficient in reading. While over 400 students drop out of Bridgeport high schools each year and only 18 percent of Bridgeport students complete college within six years, Westport reports only 4 high school drop-outs per year and a 71 percent college completion rate.

Connecticut Voices for Children is a research-based think tank that focuses on issues that affect child well-being, from educational opportunity to healthy child development to family economic security. Its mission is to ensure that all of Connecticut’s children have the opportunity to achieve their full potential.

To assess specific obstacles to youth opportunity in Fairfield County and to prepare the way for new solutions, Connecticut Voices for Children constructed a Youth Opportunity Index containing over two-dozen indicators from the U.S. Census Bureau, State Department of Education, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and others. Guided by existing research, the researchers, including Ellen Shemitz, J.D., Nicholas Defiesta, and Wade Gibson, J.D., compiled family, community, and school indicators for every town in Fairfield County.

The study also assessed three measures of the number of disconnected youth in each town: the annual number of high school dropouts, the number of youth, ages 16-19 neither employed nor in school, and youth unemployment (ages 16-24). For each indicator, they assessed towns’ standing relative to one another. They then looked across indicators and assessed how each town stacked up relative to others in Fairfield County. In addition, Fairfield County as a whole was compared with the broader State of Connecticut.

Religion Slipping Away From Millennial Generation

A major academic study into millennials and religion is gaining attention for its conclusion that the generation born in this century appears to be the least religious generation of the last six decades, and possibly in the nation's history. “Survey results from 11.2 million American adolescents demonstrate a decline in religious orientation, especially after 2000. The trend appears among adolescents as young as 13 and suggests that Millennials are markedly less religious than Boomers and GenX’ers were at the same age. The majority are still religious, but a growing minority seem to embrace secularism, with the changes extending to spirituality and the importance of religion as well.”

The report also indicates that “correlational analyses show that this decline occurred at the same time as increases in individualism and declines in social support. Clearly, this is a time of dramatic change in the religious landscape of the United States.”

The researchers -- including Jean M. Twenge and Ramya Sastry from San Diego State University, Julie J. Exline and Joshua B. Grubbs from Case Western Reserve University and W. Keith Campbell from the University of Georgia -- analyzed data from 11.2 million respondents from four nationally representative surveys of U.S. adolescents ages 13 to 18 taken between 1966 and 2014.

Recent adolescents are less likely to say that religion is important in their lives, report less approval of religious organizations, and report being less spiritual and spending less time praying or meditating, the researchers point out. The results were published recently in the journal PLOS One.

Compared to the late 1970s, twice as many 12th graders and college students never attend religious services, and 75 percent more 12th graders say religion is "not important at all" in their lives. Compared to the early 1980s, twice as many high school seniors and three times as many college students in the 2010s answered "none" when asked their religion.

Compared to the 1990s, 20 percent fewer college students described themselves as above average in spirituality, suggesting that religion has not been replaced with spirituality.

"Unlike previous studies, ours is able to show that millennials' lower religious involvement is due to cultural change, not to millennials being young and unsettled," said Twenge. "Millennial adolescents are less religious than Boomers and GenX'ers were at the same age. We also looked at younger ages than the previous studies. More of today's adolescents are abandoning religion before they reach adulthood, with an increasing number not raised with religion at all."

The study comes just after research released last month by the Pew Research Center that showed the portion of U.S. population as a whole that's not affiliated with any religion has climbed from around 16 percent in 2007 to nearly 23 percent last year. Christianity's share of the country's population dropped from 78 percent to under 71 percent, according to Pew.

"These trends are part of a larger cultural context, a context that is often missing in polls about religion," Twenge said. "One context is rising individualism in U.S. culture. Individualism puts the self first, which doesn't always fit well with the commitment to the institution and other people that religion often requires. As Americans become more individualistic, it makes sense that fewer would commit to religion."

Twenge and her colleagues looked at four large, nationally representative studies, according to published reports: The annual Monitoring the Future studies of eighth, 10th, and 12th graders, and the American Freshmen survey of entering college students (focusing on the years 1966 through 2014). They compared answers given by each of those groups to those given by members of previous generations at the same age.

The study finds the decline in religiosity is larger among young women, whites, those of lower socioeconomic status, and residents of the Northeast, the publication Public Standard points out. In contrast, this trend is “very small among blacks,” the researchers write, “and nonexistent among political conservatives.”

Building Character in Children Can Improve Voter Participation As Adults, Study Finds

As primary voters head to the polls in nearly two dozen Connecticut communities, with relatively low turnout anticipated, a newly released academic study on connections between childhood character-building and adult voting participation is gaining some notice. A researcher at Duke University has found that data from years of national surveys of youth reveal “a strong relationship” between measures of character in youth and the subsequent likelihood of voting, even controlling for test scores and demographics.

The study appears to have identified a causal relationship: Disadvantaged elementary-school children around the country who were randomly assigned to receive character-building education two decades ago were more likely to vote as adults by 11 to 14 percentage points.

The research paper, by John B. Holbein of Duke University, is entitled “Childhood Non-Cognitive Skill Development and Adult Political Participation.” Matching participants to voter files, Holbein found that childhood intervention had a large long-run impact on political participation.”  Non-cognitive factors were seen as at least as critical as cognitive factors – and perhaps more influential on voting behavior later in life.

The results of the study “suggest a refocusing of civics education.”  The study, published on the Social Science Research Network, concludes that “specific programs that schools implement—including those targeting psychosocial skills—appear to have a large impact on civic participation later on. This finding has important policy implications.”

In the last midterm election, in 2014, only 36.4 percent of eligible voters cast a ballot nationwide, the lowest turnout since 1942. To understand the causes of low turnout, the Census Bureau regularly asks citizens why they chose not to exercise their constitutional right, Jonah Lehrer points out on his website, summarizing that “the number one reason is always the same: ‘too busy.’ (That was the reason given by 28 percent of non-voters in 2014.) The second most popular excuse is ‘not interested,’ followed by a series of other obstacles, such as forgetting about the election or not liking any of the candidates.”

The Holbein study suggests there is more behind the lack of voting behavior than those oft-cited reasons would suggest.

Critical factors in character building are self-regulation and those involving social skills.  Components of self-regulation include, but are not limited to, grit or perseverance, emotion recognition and emotion regulation—the ability to understand and control individual affect; and inhibition, or the ability to avoid negative behavior and exhibit positive behavior.  Social skills involve the ability to work with others productively; components include the ability to communicate, build friendships, and solve group-based problems.

“Rather than focusing exclusively on the number of years a citizen spends in school, it is important to consider what context they were exposed to while in school… In a landscape of stagnant macro-level trends in participation and small estimates for many adult mobilization efforts, this finding should give scholars and policymakers renewed hope,” according to the study.

The research indicated that “interventions in early life can have large and long-lasting impacts on stubbornly low rates of political participation in adulthood. This finding suggests a reorientation of political socialization studies towards early childhood; a previously neglected critical period in the development of participatory predispositions.”  Similar research into the impact of non-cognitive learning has come away with consistent findings.

Looking ahead, the study suggests that “expanding our view in this way will help expand our understanding of why some people vote, while others do not, and how to design reforms to increase turnout, particularly among individuals with a low propensity to vote.”

CT Ranks 35th in Economic Clout of Women-Owned Businesses

Connecticut ranks 35^th in the economic clout of women-owned businesses over the past 18 years, according to a newly released analysis.  Women now run more than 9.4 million businesses in the United States, 30 percent of the nation’s businesses, with just over 100,000 of them in Connecticut Between 1997 and 2014, the number of women owned businesses in Connecticut grew by 42.1 percent, ranking the state 43^rd in the nation.  Total revenue growth of 80.2 percent ranked Connecticut 28^th, and employment growth of 20.9 percent among women owned business placed the state 22^nd among the 50 states. 

Nationwide, the number of women-owned firms grew from 5.4 million in 1997 to an estimated 9.4 million this year, an increase of 73 percent over the nearly two decades.  Employment in those businesses grew by 12 percent and sales by 78 percent, nationally.  The number of women-owned firms is increasing at a rate 1.5 times the national average.

In Connecticut, the number of businesses owned by women climbed from 72,393 in 1997 to 102.900 by this year.  Employment increased from 78,598 to an estimated 95,000, and sales grew from just over $9 million to nearly $17 million.

The industries with the highest concentration of women-owned firms nationally are healthcare and social assistance (53 percent of firms in this sector are women-owned, compared to a 30 percent share overall), educational services (45 percent), other services (42 percent), and administrative support and waste management services (37 percent).

The states with the fastest growth in the number of women-owned firms during the 18 year period are Georgia, Texas, North Carolina, North Dakota and New York.  The slowest growth has taken place in Alaska, West Virginia, Iowa, Kansas and Maine.

Since 1997, the number of female-run businesses has grown by 74 percent, well above the national growth rate of 51 percent for all firms. In 2014, women opened the doors of 887 new businesses every day, on average, up from 602 in 2011.

Women of color contributed to more than half of that growth last year, opening on average nearly 500 businesses daily, according to the new 2015 State of Women-Owned Businesses Report, prepared with U.S. Census data by Womenable, a research organization supporting women's entrepreneurship, and commissioned by American Express OPEN.

Of the nation’s women-owned businesses, African-American women own 1.3 million, Latinas 1 million, and Asian women more than 700,000. Businesses owned by women of color tend to be smaller in terms of their average employment and revenue, the report indicated. But their growth, both in numbers and in their economic clout—the combined average of their growth, revenue, and employment—continues to outpace that of their white peers, the data indicates.

“Back in 1997, there were just under one million firms owned by non-Caucasian women, representing one in six (17 percent) women-owned firms. Now, there are an estimated 3.1 million minority women-owned firms, representing one in three (33 percent) women-owned firms,” pointed out Julie Weeks, President and CEO of Womenable.  “The growing diversity of women-owned firms is one of the most remarkable trends of the past decade.”

Three CT Counties Among the Nation's 244 Most Dense in Population, Comprising Half Nation's Residents

New York City's borough of Manhattan has about 1.6 million residents sharing just under 23 square miles of land. Meanwhile, 669 square mile Loving County, TX has just 86 residents, Business Insider reports in an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. According to the U.S. Census Bureau's population estimates and their tabulations of the land area of each county, 50.1 percent of the US population lives in the nation’s densest counties, indicated in dark purple on the illustrated map, which highlights the wide dispersion in the population density of the US's 3,142 counties. The 244 densest US counties are shown in dark purple, developed using U.S. Census Bureau data for 2014.

The nation's largest populations, by county, are in Los Angeles County, CA; Cook County, IL; Harris County, TX; Maricopa County, AZ, San Diego County, CA; Orange County, CA, Miami-Dade County, FL and Kings County, NY. 

The most populous county in Connecticut, Fairfield County, ranked 51^st by population (945,438) among the nation’s counties.  Just behind are Hartford County, ranked 59^th (897,985) and New Haven County, ranked 64^th (861,277).

All three are among the 244 densest U.S. counties that comprise just over half of the nation's population.