Quick hits: Fall leaf color predictions; Texas water crisis; rural movie for 2020 pandemic; opioid meds for jails

Map from SmokyMountains.com shows fall leaf color projections. Red indicates peak color. 

As autumn begins across much of the U.S., many Americans and tourists plan day trips or vacations to take in nature’s stunning fall colors. "Parts of the U.S. will soon start to see — if they haven't already — leaves and shrubs trade their green hues for vibrant shades of orange, yellow and red as the days get shorter and temperatures get chillier," reports Rachel Treisman of NPR. Explore Fall, TheSmokyMountains.com and Almanac websites offer some of the best "estimates [for] when leaves will change and colors will peak across the country."

Faced with ongoing population growth, an aging water system, and intermittent droughts paired with scorching temperatures, Texas officials and lawmakers are working to address the state's water crisis. But even as solutions are hammered out in Austin, the "state's regional diversity and patchwork of governments complicate matters further," reports The Texas Tribune. "Texas voters will be asked this fall to approve a $20 billion package to protect the state’s water supply. . . . The $20 billion is just a fraction of what some experts believe the state needs to invest going forward." 

In a bid to help balance pharmacy payments, Optum Rx "has increased reimbursement minimums for brand drugs for approximately 2,300 independent pharmacies," reports Heather Landi of Fierce Healthcare. The company's shift to a cost-based model is helping the bottom line of the "more than 24,000 independent and community pharmacies it works with. . ." More than half of all independent pharmacies operate in rural areas of the U.S., but many have closed or struggle to stay afloat due to high operational costs and low reimbursement rates.

When it comes to remembering 2020, many Americans would probably prefer not to recall the year at all. But film director Ari Aster doesn't want anyone to forget. In his latest film, "Eddington," Aster takes viewers back to the early days of the pandemic through the lens of a rural town drama set between a town sheriff and its mayor. Eddington captures the "anxiety, confusion, listlessness, and frustration of those first few months of lockdown as the backdrop for a dark and twisted story of a man, a town, and a country gone crazy," writes Anya Petrone Slepyan of The Daily Yonder. "Ari Aster’s latest rural thriller will give you something to think about."

When individuals suffering from opioid addictions are released from jail or prison, they face a high risk of overdose; however, a recent study shows that medication treatment during incarceration can lower their chances of overdosing upon release. "Use of medication for opioid use disorder (OUD) in jail was strongly associated with lower risks for overdose, death, and re-incarceration after release into the community," reports Shannon Firth of MedPage Today. The observational study was conducted in Massachusetts correctional facilities.

No matter where adults live, it may seem like kids have a different language that includes words that don't mean what they meant even three years ago. Keeping up with what young people are saying can feel impossible for anyone attempting to stay "hip," but not knowing kid-jargon can be a particular nightmare for parents. "As a little bit of an explainer, here’s a quick guide to slang terms that have made a mark in recent months," writes Paul Anthony Jones for Mental Floss. A few "explainers" are shared below.

Kid-jargon can mystify adults. (Graphic by Justin Dodd, Mental Floss)

W in the chat! "W has been used as a slang abbreviation for a win for over 50 years — although nowadays it’s used not just of victories, but of anything that could be regarded as laudable or impressive."

What the sigma?!? "As Merriam-Webster has noted, [the word] sigma has become increasingly ironic, pejorative, and jokey. . . This phrase in Gen Z and Gen Alpha vernacular is roughly the 2020s equivalent of 'What the heck?!'"

Do it for the plot! "If you imagine your life as one big movie, 'doing something for the plot' means doing something bold or risky that, in the retelling of your life story, would act as a major plot point."

Rural communities struggle to find ways to communicate with growing non-native English-speaking population

Despite the ongoing growth of non-native English-speaking populations in rural communities, people in many counties and towns have failed to find effective ways to communicate with residents still learning English. The small town of Elko, Nevada, serves as an example. The town's "Hispanic or Latino population has grown to about 26%," reports Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez of KFF Health News. "The share of people age 5 or older who speak a language other than English at home increased to 18% as of 2022, while Spanish is the language spoken in nearly 15% of households."

With Elko's number of non-native English-speaking residents, the area needs translation support to ensure all residents understand vital information. Unfortunately, "state lawmakers in Nevada left out smaller counties from a recently enacted statewide language-access law," Rodriguez writes. "Not providing language access to people who need it is not only a violation of civil rights protected by Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, but it also can create public health and safety concerns said Jake Hofstetter, a policy analyst for the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank focused on immigration policy and research."

While much of rural America is white and English-speaking, its population has diversified, leaving smaller communities struggling to adapt to residents who aren't proficient in English. Rodriguez explains, "Implementing state and local language-access laws, however, is a challenge, researchers say, given standards can vary across state agencies and localities, making it difficult to ensure high-quality assistance is provided to speakers of various non-English languages."

The language-access challenges rural communities now face will continue to grow. "The number of white residents in rural parts of the nation decreased by about 2 million from 2010 to 2020, according to an analysis by the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire," Rodriguez reports. "And the percentage of people who are members of a racial or ethnic minority living in rural areas increased from 20% in 2010 to 24% in 2020, with the largest share being Hispanic."

Language access services in metro and urban settings have grown; however, "Hofstetter said he doesn’t see many local policies that focus on the issue in rural areas," Rodriguez writes. "People living in rural areas may still benefit from a patchwork of resources through state agencies that provide services in their counties or local programs required to address language access because of federal funding."

Nonetheless, language barriers put non-native English speakers at a disadvantage. Rodriquez adds, "The degree to which local governments offer communications in languages other than English varies for several reasons, including enforcement of civil rights protections. That enforcement relies on civil rights complaints, which often must be filed by residents who may not know their rights related to language access."

News-media roundup: Citizens want info on government and its meetings; bad news vs. good news; style points . . .

Glenda Arnett accepts the Citizen of the Year award from
Steve Henry of the Brinkley Chamber of Commerce.

Glenda Arnett of Arkansas' Brinkley Argus was getting ready to take the front-page photo of the local chamber of commerce's Citizen of the Year on Feb. 23, just as she has for more than 50 years. “They began reading about the person, and I couldn’t really hear what they were saying when they announced the winner,” she recalled. “I asked my sister, ‘Whose name did they call?’ and she said, ‘It’s you.’” One nominator said of Arnett, “Glenda is the epitome of everything that is great about Brinkley. She is dedicated to the town and volunteers for innumerable charitable activities through civil and religious organizations. ... There are few lives in Brinkley that she hasn’t touched.” There are thousands of Glenda Arnetts at rural newspapers across the nation. Read more about her in Arkansas Publisher, the newsletter of the Arkansas Press Association. 

Google map highlights towns in study.

What readers want: Sarah Stonbely, research director of the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University, surveyed residents about what they need from their local news outlets. Rural Blairstown, urban Paterson (next to Montclair), and the state capital of Trenton are very different, but many of their news needs are the same, Laura Hazard Owen reports for NiemanLab, which she edits.

"All three communities had lost most of their existing local news outlets over the years," Owen writes. "All wanted more service journalism, in the form of information about municipal government meetings or contact information for local leaders. And all relied heavily on local Facebook groups for news, even though they also understood Facebook’s flaws."

Stonbely told Owen, "One might assume that there isn’t a ton of interest in municipal meetings, because they’re kind of boring. So I was really excited to hear that people wanted to know more, to have a list. And it’s easy — it’s kind of low-hanging fruit, right? It shouldn’t be that difficult to keep an updated list of when and where and what the meetings are."

Stonbely's report suggests building a community calendar with help from trusted local organizations, with true collaboration, "beyond just asking them to contribute content, so that trust is built in from the beginning." Also, "Engage to a greater extent on Facebook, and be present on Facebook groups that are relevant. . . . This is where most of the traffic is and where you’ll have the greatest visibility.'

Bad news gets clicks, but many want good news: "A new study has found that negative words in headlines increased click rates, while positive words decreased them," Joshua Benton reports for NiemanLab. "Each additional negative word increased the clickthrough rate by 2.3%." Axios notes, "The human instinct towards negativity has been well-documented, but Joshua Benton writes that this study, which drew on data from Upworthy’s hyperbolic headlines, is unusually quantifiable . . . Upworthy did extensive A/B testing on headlines, with editors required to write 25 headlines for each article. One surprise was the headlines with words associated with sadness did better than headlines associated with fear or anger."

"People find bad news more interesting than good news," Amina Khan writes for the Los Angeles Times, reporting on a study of 1,156 people in Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, France, Ghana, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, Senegal, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States: "The findings, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, hint that this human bias toward negative news might be a large part of what drives negative news coverage. But the results also revealed that this negative bias was not shared by everyone, and some even had a positive bias: a sign that there may be a market for positive news."

Style points: The Associated Press has updated its Stylebook on several topics, including: using LGBTQ+ instead of just LGBTQ, to make it more inclusive, AP says; a new entry on euthanasia, medically assisted suicide, physician-assisted suicide that spells out proper usage for each term; a new entry on the Civil Rights Movement, which it says should be capitalized when referring to the specific historical period in the U.S., mainly in the 1950s and '60s; and the addition of B.C.E. and C.E. as acceptable options in referencing a calendar year in the period before Christ and anno Domini: in the year of the Lord, respectively. C.E. means the Common Era; B.C.E. means before it.

The New York and Michigan Solutions Journalism Collaborative has compiled a Caregiving Coverage Style Guide to help writers "avoid language that reflect negatively on aging," the Local Media Association reports. "The entries are based on – and credited to – sources including the Associated Press Stylebook, AARP’s Caregivers Glossary, the National Center on Disability and Journalism’s Disability Language Style Guide, and the Changing the Narrative project."

Storytelling workshop teaches Appalachian children to appreciate the fading 'mountain dialect' of their grandparents

Octavia Sexton shares the 'mountain dialect.' (WEKU photo)

The voice that tells the story can be as important as the story itself. In Kentucky, the Appalachian voice is being taught by traveling teacher Octavia Sexton, reports Sam Dick of WEKU in Richmond, Ky. "She describes herself as a teaching artist who travels the state inspiring students in vocal storytelling in her mountain dialect. The 69-year-old Sexton explains to the students, 'I tell my stories in dialect. Your teacher teaches you in what’s called standard English. . . . But my dialect is a part of who I am, and I’m not ashamed of it. Don’t you ever be ashamed of the way your grandma talks.'”
 
Dick provides Sexton's recent workshop with third graders at Mount Vernon Elementary as an example. "When Sexton tells her stories that she heard from her grandparents, she moves and acts the story," Dick reports. "She explains her approach to teaching the students. 'Focus on presentation skills. We work on that a lot. I want to get them to develop speaking skills and confidence.'. . . Sexton grew up in Rockcastle County and remembers facing discrimination and being stereotyped. . . . Part of her message is about uplifting the students no matter where they come from."

Rockcastle County, Kentucky (Wikipedia)

When students were asked what they thought about Sexton's storytelling, Nine-year old Grayson Vance told Dick, “She’s really funny and she’s like a very good like storytelling about the story.” Eight-year-old Arabella Smith added, “she’s a very good voice actor.” 

Sexton's trip was financed by a grant from Arts for All Kentucky, a nonprofit. Art teacher Robin Rumsey told Dick that it’s important that Sexton brings back the Appalachian roots to the students 'that are kinda disappearing for these smaller children.'"

Hey, you guys! Let's all say 'you all' or 'y'all'

A water tower in Northern Kentucky first promoted the Florence Mall but the city
learned it couldn't do that, so "y'all" was a replacement. (Photo by Getty Images)

Here's one thing Americans can be blessedly thankful for: We don't have to say "You guys" anymore. Not at restaurants or family gatherings, not when trying to get everyone's attention, and not when we really don't know "who-all" should be included. We can send our gratitude to historian David Parker, who looks at the contraction's past and gives everyone permission to say "y'all" (short for "you all").

"While 'y’all' is considered slang, it’s a useful word nonetheless," Parker writes for The Conversation, a platform for journalistic writing by academics. "The English language doesn’t have a good second person plural pronoun; 'you' can be both singular and plural, but it’s sometimes awkward to use as a plural. It’s almost like there’s a pronoun missing. 'Y’all' fills that second person plural slot – as does 'you guys,' 'youse,' 'you-uns' and a few others."

“'Y'all' might serve an important function, but it has acquired negative connotations,” Parker notes. “Back in 1886, The New York Times ran a piece titled 'Odd Southernisms' that described 'y'all' as 'one of the most ridiculous of all the Southernisms'. . . . Like the Southern dialect in general, the use of 'y’all' has often been seen as vulgar, low-class, uncultured and uneducated. As someone noted in Urban Dictionary, 'Whoever uses [y’all] sounds like a hillbilly redneck.'”

In tracing the etymology of "y'all," Parker explores several options from American, English (a 1631 poem) and Nigerian. His verdict is "murky," but he does get to the point: "The word seems to have grown in popularity. An article in the Journal of English Linguistics in 2000, "The Nationalization of a Southernism," said that scientific polling showed ”'Y'all will soon be seen as an American, rather than Southern, word.”

And maybe with good reason. Parker writes that “'you guys' . . . is losing support because of its sexist connotations. Are females included in you guys? How about those who identify as nonbinary?"

Project aims to capture the wide variety in Appalachian accents in North Carolina and instill pride in its speakers

Map by North Carolina Language and Life Project; click the image to enlarge it.

If you hear someone talk about an Appalachian accent, you might hear the echo of a Kentucky twang in your head. But accents and terminology vary widely even within Appalachia, which nearly 26 million people in 13 states call home. Mountains foster isolation, which has led to communities even a few miles apart having slightly different accents and vocabulary.

Walt Wolfram, a linguistics professor at North Carolina State University, is trying to showcase the variety in Appalachian speech in his state through the North Carolina Language and Life Project, Cass Herrington reports for Blue Ridge Public Radio.

"We celebrate our wonderful Southern writers, we celebrate our artists, we celebrate our songwriters, but we tend to stigmatize language," Wolfram told Herrington. "One of the things we need to understand is that language is part of our history, it’s part of our tradition and we need to start celebrating that." Because of that stigma, many Appalachians have worked hard to lose their native accent to gain an edge in the workplace.

The project also aims to capture the ethnic diversity that informs North Carolina Appalachian accents, contradicting the narrative that Appalachian means white. In fact, 18.2% of Appalachians were racial minorities in 2016, up from 16.4% in 2010, according to the Appalachian Regional Commission. "But there have been communities of color in the region all along," including the Cherokee, Herrington reports.

The project has produced material that teachers can incorporate in lessons. "Wolfram says he hopes instead of feeling shame, people will be encouraged to celebrate their heritage, to include how they sound," Herrington reports.

AP announces Stylebook changes, including rejection of 'Indian' as a shorthand for 'Native American'

The Associated Press has announced the latest round of changed to its Stylebook, the essential manual for those who write for publication. "This year, many of the changes centered on racial, ethnic, and gender entries, some new and some revised," writes Merrill Perlman, a member of the executive committee of ACES: The Society for Editing, formerly the American Copy Editors Society. AP makes its announcement at each annual ACES conference. (Mary Hufford, grammar guru at The New Yorker, has an entertaining report on the meeting.)

“Indian” is no longer allowed for references to Native Americans, "and should be reserved for people from South Asia or the nation of India," Perlman notes. "In another change, the stylebook now says that 'Latino is often the preferred noun or adjective' for people of Spanish heritage. 'Latina' is the feminine form. As for the gender-neutral 'Latinx,' the stylebook now says its use 'should be confined to quotations, names of organizations or descriptions of individuals who request it and should be accompanied by a short explanation.'"

AP will no longer use hyphens in expressions denoting dual heritage, such as “African-American,” a term in which many other organizations dropped the hyphen years ago. A hyphen is more meaningful than you might think. "Dropping a hyphen does not appear to be a big deal," Perlman writes, "but it reflects a growing acknowledgment among news organizations that racial and ethnic identities are individual, that the individuals have differing views on how to portray themselves, and that news organization should be aware of those desires."

Perlman says Asian Americans "have eschewed the hyphen for years, but the African American community has been less unified in whether to use it or not: the National Museum of African American History and Culture does not use the hyphen, for example, while some other institutions, including student organizations, still hyphenate. The trend in recent years, though, has been to remove the hyphen."

Many state and local court systems fail to use properly certified interpreters

Many state and local courts fail to use qualified translators and ignore federal rules for when interpreters are required, Rebecca Beitsch reports for Stateline. The result is that "many criminal defendants and civil litigants with limited English skills are not equipped to navigate the complex legal system, jeopardizing their constitutional rights."

"The lack of skilled interpreters is less of a problem in federal courts, where interpreters must pass a competitive test," Beitsch writes. "Most states certify court interpreters, requiring that they pass a test to demonstrate their language skills. But many state certification tests aren’t as rigorous as the federal one, and many state and local courts allow uncertified interpreters to serve even if they haven’t passed the test. Many states also ignore the federal mandate that they provide free interpreters in both criminal and civil courts." (Stateline graphic: Interpreter certification policies by state)

Since 2010 the U.S. Department of Justice "has investigated courts in Colorado, Hawaii, Kentucky, New Jersey, North Carolina and Rhode Island for failing to comply with federal rules.eight states don’t certify court interpreters," Beitsch writes. Eight states don't certify court interpreters and in 32 of the states that do, interpreters say those states don't follow policies giving preferential treatment to those who are certified.

The problem with using an uncertified translator is that they might not be as skilled in translation as they think they are, Beitsch writes. Certification tests require "not only language skills, including legal vocabulary, but the ability to interpret 'simultaneously' so as not to delay court proceedings. Certified interpreters must remain no more than six words behind a speaker—listening to a torrent of words in English while translating what was just said into another language—for minutes at a time." (Read more)

States boosting economies by teaching immigrants English; youngest immigrants in Great Plains, South

States are investing millions of dollars to help "new immigrants learn English and acclimate to American culture, hopeful that it will pay off with economic activity," Tim Henderson reports for Stateline. The youngest immigrants are in North and South Dakota, and those states have a median immigrant age of 34. Kentucky is next, at 36, followed by Nebraska, Oklahoma and Iowa (37) and Wyoming, Kansas, Minnesota, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and Indiana (38). The average oldest immigrants are in Hawaii (48) and Florida (47).

"Immigrants fill many of the country’s labor gaps: from low-skilled work in agriculture to high-skilled work in science and technology," Henderson writes. "Having an immigrant population that is younger often means the newcomers are contributing to a state’s workforce, which can increase the tax base. But it also can mean young families that have children. And that can burden public schools, which are obligated to teach students who don’t speak English."

"Having an immigrant population that skews older can mean a state has a greater percentage of immigrants who have aged out of the workforce and may need help with health care, housing and retirement—though not always," Henderson. But the states with the oldest immigrants, Hawaii and Florida, "have settled in enclaves where many speak the same language or share the same culture," while immigrants in Hawaii—mostly from Asia—tend to be more affluent. (Stateline map: For an interactive version, click here)

Free writer's symposium to focus on all things Appalachian; scheduled for Sept. 9-10

The Appalachian Symposium, billed as the largest ever gathering of Appalachian writers, will be held from Sept. 9-10 at Berea College in Eastern Kentucky. The event is free and open to the public. No registration is required, and all sessions "will be ‘front porch style’ so that audience members feel as if they’re eavesdropping on the writers talking about these issues," said symposium director Silas House, writer and NEH Chair of Appalachian Studies at Berea College.

"While all sessions will focus on the contemporary state of the region’s literature, specific topics will include dialect, place, politics, religion, music, photography, displacement, the new millennium, gender roles, diversity and much more," House said in an email. "Besides the public conversations, three writing workshops are being offered, as well as a photography exhibit from acclaimed photographer Roger May, whose work was recently featured in The New York Times. Music from artists such as Caroline Herring and Sam Gleaves will be featured."

Keynote addresses will be given by famed author and activist bell hooks and Pulitzer Prize finalist Maurice Manning. Other authors scheduled to be in attendance are: Darnell Arnoult, Pamela Duncan, Denise Giardina, Robert Gipe, Jesse Graves, Chris Green, Amy Greene, Richard Hague, Jane Hicks, Ron Houchin, Jason Howard, Loyal Jones, George Ella Lyon, Linda Parsons Marion, Paula Nelson, Gurney Norman, Lisa Parker, Rita Quillen, Erik Reece, Gwyn Hyman Rubio, Anne Shelby, Glenn Taylor, Frank X Walker, Julia Watts, Charles Dodd White, Crystal Wilkinson and Marianne Worthington.

By gosh, local-level maps show the most popular swear words in tweets in the 48 contiguous states

When people in the South swear on Twitter, their preferred word of choice is usually "damn." In other parts of the country, Twitter users are more likely to use words we won't print here. It's easy to identify the favorite swear words of people in your area, thanks to Jack Grieve, lecturer in forensic linguistics at Aston University in Birmingham, England, who created a series of maps "based on an 8.9-billion-word corpus of geo-coded tweets collected by Diansheng Guo in 2013–14," Stan Carey reports for Strong Language.

"The frequency of a word in the tweets from a given county is divided by the total number of words from that county (which correlates strongly with population density)," Carey writes. "The result is then smoothed using spatial autocorrection analysis, with Getis-Ord z-scores mapped to identify clusters." That shows that "damn" isn't widely used among Twitter users in one part of the South, Appalachia. Neither are other swear words in the study. To view the maps, click here. Be warned: the maps contain explicit language.

Appalachian educators and researchers try to show that the region's dialects are varied and legitimate

Researchers are interviewing Appalachian residents in an attempt to record the region's many dialects to show "that Appalachian residents speak a variety of Englishes—and not a single monolithic dialect—and that scorn for the region's speech is often based on outdated notions of how they talk," Jonathan Drew reports for The Associated Press. (AP photo by Allen Breed: A flyer in the North Carolina State University linguistics department)

Kirk Hazen, a West Virginia University linguist, has spent two decades conducting interviews throughout the state, asking residents basic questions about friends, community and their love lives, Drew writes. Hazen told Drew, "You're trying to get across the idea that all language varieties are legitimate. There's not one that's somehow damaged and then others that are just fine. They're all just fine."

"The first step in changing perceptions of mountain speech is documenting how contemporary Appalachian residents talk," Drew writes. "Hazen has used his research to illustrate that other stereotypical features of Appalachian speech have become rare—such as the demonstrative "them" ('them apples are the best') or a-prefixing ('I'm a-going to the store')." But some other Appalachianisms, like redundant pronouns ('Both sides, they always ask'), are increasingly heard in the rest of the country, even on major broadcast networks.

"Despite Hazen's research, many outsiders still have negative impressions about mountain accents, sometimes based on outdated speech features," Drew reports. "It can take decades for perceptions to change."

In southwest Virginia, middle-school teacher Lizbeth Phillips "assigns her students to keep journals of how adults in their community switch between formal and casual ways of speaking," Drew writes. "Educators say the approach known as code- or style-switching allows students to preserve the way they speak at home and improve their writing without feeling ashamed."

English professor Amy D. Clark has held summer workshops for 15 years in southwest Virginia "to help rural teachers teach students to write effectively without shaming them about their speech," Drew writes. "The same message runs through teaching units on dialect for schoolchildren in North Carolina and West Virginia." (Read more)

Hablas español? Rural Virginia school chosen to test innovative online foreign language class

Highland County High School, located in the least populated county in Virginia, faced budget cuts last year that forced the school, which has about 100 students, to eliminate several positions, including the foreign language teacher. That made the school an unlikely but perfect place for the Virginia Department of Education to unveil a prototype Tuesday for online language classes, David Kaplan reports for WDBJ in Roanoke. Virginia students will be the first in the country to use the program, which will be introduced into classes in the fall.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Patricia Wright told Kaplan, "Student's don't always have the same opportunities in these localities as they have in other places." Highland County Principal April Goff said, "We had to reduce our force last year, and we lost our live foreign language teacher. So this online is the only opportunity our students have to earn that advanced diploma and to get their exposure to world languages." (Read more)

Courses for beginning, intermediate and advanced Spanish will be available through the education department's Virtual Virginia online learning program, reports The Associated Press. "Wright says the courses are expected to be especially popular in rural school divisions around Virginia. The courses are based on a nationally recognized series developed by John Conner, a long-time Spanish teacher and current dean of faculty at Groton School in Massachusetts. (Read more)

Interactive maps show counties' global connections: language, employment, heritage and more

Did you ever wonder what percentage of people in your county or state speak a language other than English when they're at home? How many students in your state are studying abroad? How many foreign born people live in your state? How many people work for import or export companies? These, and other answers about language, education, and economics are available at the click of a button on a website called Mapping the Nation.

The interactive map is easy to use. By clicking on a state, users can see county-by-county data. For example, the map above shows the number of postsecondary students studying Spanish in Pennsylvania. Below a map showing percentage categories of people who speak languages other than English in Kentucky. Similar maps are available for specific languages.

"The map was modeled on one developed for North Carolina’s 100 counties last year by (software company) SAS and the University of North Carolina’s Center for International Understanding," Renee Schoof reports for McClatchy Newspapers. "Its intended users are policymakers interested in learning more about the economic potential of global connections and students thinking about what kind of international skills might help them find jobs." Not all the factors are available on the county level; here's a map showing percentages of foreign-born in Tennessee, and one showing the number of employees at foreign-owned companies in North Carolina:

Caroline McCullen, director of education initiatives at SAS in North Carolina, said "about 6,000 SAS employees work in the state’s Research Triangle out of nearly 14,000 company employees worldwide. Being prepared for a global economy means not only being able to speak other languages, but also knowing how to work comfortably in other cultures, she said," Schoof writes. "Jennifer Manise, executive director of the Longview Foundation, said that the data was meant to help show the need for students who fit that profile." (Read more)

Study finds huge language gap between children from wealthy families and those with low incomes

In rural areas, 26.2 percent of children live in poverty, according to the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire, while the majority of public school students in 17 states, including most of the rural South, are considered low-income by the Southern Education Foundation.  A study conducted 20 years ago found a direct connection between low-income parents and the early development of children's language skills, finding that by age 3, children from wealthier families had heard three million more words than children of low-income families. A follow-up study by Stanford University not only confirmed the earlier data but also found that by age 2, wealthier children have learned 30 percent more words than low-income children, with the language gap between wealthy and poor children evident in some cases as early as 18 months of age, Motoko Rich reports for The New York Times. (NYT photo by Ramin Rahimian: Reading from a transitional kindergarten student's journal in Freemont, Calif.)

The study compared children from homes where the median income was $69,000 to homes where it was $23,900. "Since oral language and vocabulary are so connected to reading comprehension, the most disadvantaged children face increased challenges once they enter school and start learning to read," Rich writes. Kris Perry, executive director of the First Five Years Fund, an advocate of early education for low-income children, told Rich, “That gap just gets bigger and bigger. That gap is very real and very hard to undo.”

Trying to get low-income children caught up hasn't been easy, Rich writes. "President Obama has called for the federal government to match state money to provide preschool for all 4-year-olds from low and moderate income families, a proposal in the budget that Congress voted to postpone negotiating until later this year. The administration is also offering state grants through its Race to the Top Program to support early childhood education. Critics argue, however, that with so few programs offering high-quality instruction, expanding the system will prove a waste of money and that the limited funds should be reserved for elementary and secondary education."

During the 2010-11 school year, 28 percent of all 4-year-olds in the country were in state-financed preschools, and only 3 percent of 3-year-olds were, Rich writes. "The National Governors Association, in a report this month calling on states to ensure that all children can read proficiently by third grade, urges lawmakers to increase access to high-quality child care and prekindergarten classes and to invest in programs for children from birth through age 5. Currently, 17 states and the District of Columbia have policies requiring that third graders be held back if they do not meet state reading proficiency standards, according to the Education Commission of the States." (Read more) (Census Bureau map)

Interactive map shows each county's non-English speakers, by number and percentage

The Washington Post has updated its county-by-county map of languages spoken by at least 10 percent of the residents of a county at home, with additional languages. The data are from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey. Here's a screen grab of the latest version; for the actual, interactive version, click here.

English learners more prevalent in rural schools, many of which lack resources to teach them

About 9 percent of U.S. students have limited proficiency in English, but in rural schools the figure is 11 percent, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. The number of English-language learners is quite large in some rural districts such as Columbus Community Schools, in the southeast corner of Iowa, where the Hispanic population is 66 percent, Sally Holland of CNN reports.

There is "a difference between a child who can speak general English and one who has the academic English skills required to get through school," Columbus Supt. Rich Bridenstine told Holland. "The English language learners don't have vocabularies big enough to learn at the rate and speed they need to."

Employers like Tyson Fresh Meats' pork processing plant in Columbus Junction employ large numbers of Hispanics. The increase in English-language learners puts a strain on school systems, with rural schools facing the most difficulty, Elena Silva of Education Sector, a think tank in Washington, D.C. told Holland: "They simply don't have the resources, training, funding and infrastructure to support English language learners." (Read more)

Rural California court has trouble finding certified language interpreters for minority population

In rural Humboldt County, Calif., a shortage of court-certified interpreters is slowing justice and costing the courts. Thadeus Greenson of The Times-Standard reports that the county courts are having to look abroad to find interpreters. Interpreting for the court differs from translating because interpreters must speak the translations and be very accurate on the spot. In Humboldt County, the court system spent about $92,000 of its $6.8 million budget last year on interpreter expenses, and that doesn't include costs like wasted staff time and empty courtrooms when an interpreter can't show up, or other complications cause a hearing to be canceled.

The expenses, however, are a small price to pay to ensure everyone gets their constitutional right to a fair trial, Humboldt County District Attorney Paul Gallegos told Greenson. "What we want to do is make sure anyone who comes through our legal system is given fundamental rights, and that is to know what they are accused of, to know their rights as an accused person and to have an opportunity to meaningfully and effectively challenge the state's evidence."

Spanish-speaking court-certified interpreters are in greatest demand, but the courts also need more exotic language-speakers from time to time. About 8 about of Humboldt County residents speak a language other than English at home, according to the U.S. Census. Interpreting for the courts is not an easy job to get. To become court certified, a potential interpreter must pass both a written and an oral exam in the language. Of the hundreds who take the tests annually, about 2 percent pass both. (Read more)

Chinese and other language courses increase in heartland-state middle and high schools

The number of foreign-language courses offered in middle and high schools across the country has been steadily declining over the last decade, but a new survey shows a rush by schools in all parts of America to offer instruction in Chinese. Some of the schools are paying for the courses on their own, Sam Dillon of The New York Times reports, but others are taking advantage of a program funded by the Chinese government that sends teachers to the U.S. and pays part of their salary.

The trend isn't limited to coastal metropolitan areas. The survey shows "many schools have started Chinese programs in heartland states, including Ohio and Illinois in the Midwest, Texas and Georgia in the South, and Colorado and Utah in the Rocky Mountain West," Dillon writes. "The mushrooming of interest we’re seeing now is not in the heritage communities, but in places that don’t have significant Chinese populations," Chris Livaccari, an associate director at the Asia Society, told Dillon.

The share of the 27,500 middle or high schools with at least one foreign-language course offering Chinese rose to 4 percent from 1 percent between 1997 and 2008, Dillon reports. The survey, conducted by the Center for Applied Linguistics and funded by the Education Department, also reveals the number of students taking the Advanced Placement test in Chinese, introduced in 2007, will likely pass German as the third most-tested language this year. (Read more)

'Buy local' campaigns lack lasting results; here's alternative advice, and a grammar lesson

We had an item the other day on predictions for the biggest small-town business trends of 2010. One of them, "shop local" campaigns, struck us as a bit stale. In today's Wall Street Journal, Diana Ransom reports, "Recent research shows that buying local campaigns provide only limited and short-lived results for small businesses."

So what are small-business owners supposed to do? Focus on the fundamentals, such as customer service and product quality; broaden the definition of "local" to include imports sold locally; and offer distinctive or even unique products and services that make customers "view your shop as unique and deserving the premium that small businesses often need to levy," Ransom writes.

Good advice, it seems, but we must point out that Ransom and her editors need a lesson in the meaning of the word "unique," which has become one of the most overused and misused words in American English. She writes, "offer unique or even one-of-a-kind products and services." That's the same thing!