A liberal finally explains the ranking situation properly...

Conservatives like to cite studies and rankings showing Texas as the top exporting state, the top state for job creation, the top state for recovery in this recession, and all kinds of other figures like that.

Liberals say... "oh yeah" and cite studies showing Texas in the lesser categories of things like health insurance or high school diplomas...

Which ones are more valid?

Both matter... both are important... but usually liberals try to play the poor rankings in education or medicine as proof of the coldness of Republican ideas.

The Texas Tribune talked to a Brookings expert, and he actually nailed it for once (link). Excerpt follows...

How can Texas rank last in the nation — 51^st — in the percentage of adults with high school diplomas, and simultaneously rank 22^nd in the percentage attending at least some college?

[SNIP]

The leading factor driving down the state’s rankings has little to do with the quality of public schools and everything to do with the rapid rate of immigration, said Alan Berube, senior fellow and research director at Brookings, a left-leaning policy think-tank.

Many Mexican and Latin American immigrants “came to Texas as adults. They didn’t come there to finish high school. They came there to work. So that depresses the indicator,” Berube says. Further, the wide gap between high school and college attainment indicates a relatively large percentage of Texans who do complete high school go on to college, with many graduating, he says.

The same trends can be seen in California — the other huge state with rapid growth in immigration — with an even more severe spread between high school and college attainment. The sunshine state ranked 49^th in high school attainment, yet 15^th and 16^th, respectively, in the percentage of adults with bachelor’s and graduate degrees.

When conservatives make this exact same argument they are often called racist or cruel or indifferent to people who look different from themselves...

In reality, demographics can lie. Texas is one of the wealthiest states in the country, and one of the wealthiest places in the world... it has a vibrant middle class... if you have a blue collar or white collar job in Texas you can most likely afford a two story house in the suburbs, two cars, and a flat screen television... and afford to eat out all the time... there are more millionaires and billionaires in Texas than almost anywhere else... entrepreneurs flourish in Texas... you have rich guys driving around the same Ford F-150s they had when they started their own companies from scratch... yet in the rankings Texas is in the lower tier of income...

The reason...

Texas has a lot of immigrants from abroad... and many are adults when they come here... and they aren't focused on things like education. California is a liberal utopia... and it barely ranks ahead of Texas in terms of percentage of people with a high school diploma... why? Demographics... immigration driven demographics...

When Rick and other Republicans talk about the economic and job growth of Texas, I think they have a valid argument... places with conservative policies just seem to do better economically than liberal places.... that goes for countries, states within America, and just about every other way you can divide it...

When moderates and liberals like Kay and Bill White complain about Texas having a high rate of uninsured or high rate of dropouts... aren't they really just complaining about their own open borders policies that led to huge numbers of illegal immigrants settling here?

There is an important point they could make... namely that regardless of who is to blame for the porous borders, these peeps are now Americans... and they are our future... so we have to integrate better them into society... we have to give them tools to become rich and well educated just like the rest of us who have been here for generations and generations... just like the Irish and German immigrants of the 1800s and early 1900s...

I have not seen a single innovative idea from liberals regarding helping immigrants and their kids succeed and not become a drain on our society far into the future... their ideas usually lead to more dependence on government, more division, and less upward mobility...