Why education matters

The Common Good Forecaster, a joint project of the United Way of America and the American Human Development Project, is a webtool which estimates education levels as impacting a community's "important statistical indicators, such as income, health, voting rates and even the likelihood that a person will stay out of prison," as reported by USA Today.

According to the companion report to the Good Forecaster:

education is about more than just better jobs and bigger paychecks,...More education is also linked to better physical and mental health, longer lives, fewer crimes, less incarceration, more voting, greater tolerance, and brighter prospects for the next generation. More education...is also good for all of us, paying big dividends in the form of increased civic engagement, greater neighborhood safety, and a healthy, vibrant democracy.

USA Today goes on to say, the Forecaster website "allows users to fiddle with state and county high school graduation rates, college attendance and college graduation rates to predict what the effect of raising those rates might be."

Ten indicators featured on the website are examined in more detail in the companion report which makes "the case why education matters to each of these critical areas."

• Life expectancy
• Low birthweigh
• Murder
• Obesity
• Income
• Poverty
• Unemployment
• Children’s reading proficiency
• Voting
• Incarceration

Basic data sources include: the U.S. Census Bureau; CDC; National Center for Health Statistics; and the U.S. Department of Education.

The Common Good Forecaster (website)
Goals For The Common Good: Exploring The Impact Of Education (companion report, pdf, 16pp/680kB)