Facts certainly can be interesting

Going way back, we always have been fascinated by the World Almanac. To some that may seem strange, but it always been deemed here as interesting reading.

We suppose it has to do with the clarity of facts -- there they are so starkly in black and white -- quite impressive at times in an ambivalent world.

And we have been involved in a personal situation here lately where one can see the problems associated with individuals who think they know the facts (or would have others believe that they do) when, in essence, they at making statements and assumptions based on, at best, partial truth.

As has been said, a little bit of knowledge is dangerous. Or, stated another way, sometimes people don't want to be confused by the facts.

But we digress.

We recently received an interesting little pamphlet called "50 State Comparisons," published by The Taxpayers Network of Green Bay, Wisc.

It contains a wealth of pure information about each of the states, and clearly shows some of the problems and accomplishments as revealed by simple facts.

We recently have been reaching the conclusion that Arkansas has, as a state, clearly been investing a significant amount of its resources into public education and that the landscape is changing in that regard.

The booklet makes that case convincingly in this way:

Arkansas consistently ranks in the lower three or four states in the nation in critical income and economic areas, but is well up the scale in a couple of important public education measurements. For example, the state is 49th out of 51 (Washington, D.C., is included in all these rankings) in median housing value, ahead of only Mississippi and West Virginia. Arkansas also is 49th in median family income ($45,093), with Mississippi and West Virginia again at the bottom of the scale.

The state is only slightly better in the ranking of the percent of population below poverty level (17.3 percent), coming in at a fifth place tie with West Virginia. The worst four are, in order, Mississippi, Washington, D.C., Louisiana and New Mexico.

All those figures make the average salary of public school teachers in Arkansas somewhat surprising -- ranking in 32nd place at $44,245. Mississippi and West Virginia again come in near the bottom, along with North Dakota and South Dakota. The state also ranks well in the public school expenditure per pupil, coming at 27th ($8,905). The lowest are Utah, Arizona and Mississippi.

On other educational standards, Arkansas also does very well relative to per capita income -- 12th in student-teacher ratio, 37th in math and reading scores for fourth and eighth graders (Massachusetts leads in all categories of testing) and 40th in ACT scores. Arkansas ranks 32nd in the "Smartest State" category based on academic performance, graduation rates, school revenues, class sizes and teacher-pupil ratio. The worst five states are Arizona, Nevada, Mississippi, California and Alaska. The best five are Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey and Maine.

Other interesting Arkansas facts:

--second in percent of population receiving Social Security payments (20.8), ranking only behind West Virginia.

--a poor 48th in ranking of relative health of citizens, ahead of only Louisiana and Mississippi; the three healthiest states are Vermont, Minnesota and Hawaii.

--an alarming 12th in the violent crime rate; neighboring Tennessee is third.

--eighth in the nation in fatal vehicle crashes per mile of travel, with Montana ranking first.

--seventh in the nation in percentage of population that fishes and hunts (26 percent), with Minnesota first and California last.

--31st in residential electricity prices and 16th in residential natural gas prices.

--a positive ranking of 42nd in state debt per capita ($1,623), with Massachusetts by far the worst ($10,149) and Tennessee the best ($637).

--the state is at the absolute bottom in state and local government annual pay ($34,455), with California leading the way ($61,871).

--only Alabama ($393) has lower per capita local property taxes than Arkansas ($422); New Jersey ranks first at $2,202.

--on the agricultural scene, Arkansas ranks first in rice, second in cotton and broilers, second in aquaculture, third in eggs, fourth in turkeys and ninth in soybeans.

--Arkansas was the 32nd most-populous state as of July 1, 2007, at 2,834,797; the state grew by 6.3 percent from 2000 to 2007, ranking 21st; the national average was 7.2; the three fastest-growing states were Nevada, Arizona and Utah, while bringing up the rear were Louisiana, Washington, D.C., and North Dakota.

--REK