Technology in Classrooms: A Cautionary Tale

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

The Jennings School District bought more than 2,500 hand-held computers back in 2006. Now, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports, the district is getting rid of them. They were purchased with high hopes:

Students could use them to graph math equations, take notes, draw charts, and even, coupled with external probes, measure temperature and pH.

The north St. Louis County school district, now with about 3,100 students, bought one machine for each third- through 12th-grader.

Jennings made two mistakes when it bought all those devices. First, it didn’t have a specific purpose for the technology. The things students could have done with the computers, like taking notes and studying equations, were tasks they could do already with pencils or calculators. Teachers aren’t going to adopt new technology when the old technology does the job just as well. It’s no wonder most teachers said they didn’t use the computers and don’t intend to use them.

Second, the district bought the computers for too many students. It would have made more sense to introduce the devices to one grade, and wait for results before giving them to other grades.

Districts can easily get carried away by dreams of quick technological fixes, so I don’t blame Jennings for being so ambitious. What’s puzzling is that Jennings doesn’t seem to have learned from what happened. The district plans to get rid of the devices by giving them away to graduating students over the course of several years, even though the devices are almost obsolete and will probably be worthless in a year or two. It’s like Jennings can’t give up on its expectation that students will use the computers — if not in school, then after they graduate.

Jennings should sell the computers once and for all. And remember the moral of the story: More gadgets aren’t always better.

How Not to Limit Eligibility to Parents as Teachers

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

In the comments section to this article about Parents as Teachers, some Columbia Daily Tribune readers are brainstorming ways to limit eligibility to the program, to make the most of its remaining funding.

I agree that the program provides too many services for free to too many people, but not all suggestions for limiting it struck me as good ideas. One plan in particular that I think would be unsuccessful is restricting the program to children who are lagging behind in their development.

An argument for Parents as Teachers that I find persuasive (although not sufficient justification for free services to the wealthy) is that helping at-risk children when they’re young can prevent problems and save tax dollars later on. Parents as Teachers couldn’t do that if only children with below-average development were let in. That’s because the younger children are, the easier it is for their development to be considered satisfactory; not much is expected from a newborn baby. But when children are a few years old, they need to have passed several milestones to still be on track. The effect of screening by development would be to keep out most babies and bring children into the program years later, after their developmental problems have surfaced. Programs like Parents as Teachers shouldn’t look for children who are already behind, but for children who are fine now and likely to fall behind later.

Furthermore, “normal” means different things to different people, and there is some subjectivity involved in diagnosing developmental delays. In this radio interview, a representative from Parents as Teachers talks about the possibility that doctors and Parents as Teachers educators might disagree about whether a child has a developmental problem. (I can readily believe that such differences might arise, because Parents as Teachers educators don’t need to have any medical background and their training consists of short seminars and distance learning.) Who would have the final say in determining whether a child is eligible? And there’s still the question of which mothers should get home visits before their babies are born.

Although I hope Parents as Teachers will end its free home visits to families that don’t need help, it shouldn’t use developmental screenings to determine which people to serve.

Missouri State Agencies Fact-Check Themselves

Posted on by Christine Harbin

My recent post about how government agencies in Missouri spent $2,047,457.28 on Credit Card Fees and $17,940.49 on Late Payment Penalty Charges during 2009 has generated some interest! The KC Prime Buzz blog and the Political Fix blog both linked to it.

The Political Fix blog initially titled its article “Missouri state agencies fact check blogger,” later changing it to “Credit check: State agencies dispute Show-Me Institute figures.” Both titles misrepresent the truth. The numbers that I reported were produced by Missouri government agencies, not by the Show-Me Institute or myself. The data in the “Show Me: The Spending” web tool comes directly from the Missouri Accountability Portal, which contains information reported and distributed by the state of Missouri.

I spoke with Lorna Domke, outreach and education chief for the Missouri Department of Conservation, who checked with her accounting office and discovered that funds had been misallocated. In an email, she provided the following clarification to me:

Our contracting services for our Permits sales system (“POS system”) should have been through an object code #2496, “other business services.” That category should have had $1.789 million put in it instead of in the object code #2487, “credit card fees.”

Her numbers check out. I isolated these numbers in the Show-Me: The Spending web tool, and then I exported the relevant data to Excel to combine into the following graph. In 2009, the department’s expenditures on credit card fees increased by about $1.7 million and its expenditures on “other business services” decreased by the same amount.

Picture 1

According to her email, the correct FY09 credit card fees total should have been $31,616 and the correct FY08 credit card fees should have been $32,439.

I also asked Ms. Damke if she could define this category for me, because some of our blog readers raised questions about which types of fees it might contain. In the email, she provided the following clarification:

“Expenditures for the fees incurred when accepting payment by credit card.”

Credit card companies will charge the vendor (our Nature Shops in our case ) a fee of a few% of purchase plus 20 or 30 cents per transaction for each purchase, depending on the agreement. So our credit card fees are only for paying the credit card company for being able to accept credit cards for payments. They do not include any interest, late fees, etc.<just the regular fees for accepting credit cards.

At the Show-Me Institute, we’re glad to see that the Department of Conservation admitted that it made a mistake in coding its expenditures. It would be nice if they could get it right the first time. It would also be nice if other departments would also check their numbers. As reported on the Political Fix blog:

Department of Public Safety officials said the figure is misleading, and does not represent late payments from the department.

The Department of Public Safety should check with its own accounting office, because that’s the origin of the numbers that I reported.

The Missouri Budget Project Is Wrong

Posted on by David Stokes

When you keep repeating an error that others have corrected for you and explained to you multiple times why it is incorrect, it ceases to be merely an error — you border on becoming willfully obtuse. Such is the case with the Missouri Budget Project’s continuing claim in its talks and writings about the Missouri “Fair Tax” bill that the legislation would require an 11-percent state sales tax in order for the state to maintain its revenue stream after eliminating the state income tax. As Show-Me Institute executive vice president and University of Missouri–Columbia economics professor Joseph Haslag demonstrated in a recent case study that he wrote with Show-Me Institute intern Abhi Sivasailam, that revenue-neutral rate would be about 5.8 percent.

There are certainly legitimate arguments one might make against the Fair Tax proposal — simply stating, perhaps, a belief in in the fairness of progressive income taxation, wherein one’s tax burden automatically increases with income. I would disagree with that argument, but it is a perfectly legitimate argument to make because it doesn’t employ a demonstrably false set of facts. Repeating a figure based on a faulty set of assumptions about a proposal in order to score political points through fear, however, is not a legitimate form of argument.

The Missouri Budget Project again used its 11-percent sales tax figure in a Saint Louis Beacon op-ed today. Only a few days ago, I witnessed two economists tell the author of the MBP piece that her number was incorrect. They corrected her politely and professionally, and explained why it is wrong. Months ago, the MPB also received a copy of the Show-Me Institute’s case study, which went into great detail on the question and explained again why their 11-percent estimate is far too high. Unfortunately, they’ve continued to repeat their unreliable figure at every opportunity.

If you want to argue against Fair Tax legislation, that is fine with me. And, yes, it is likely that different people will come up with somewhat different estimates for how high the revenue-neutral replacement level of the sales tax would need to be. But if your estimate differs so dramatically from everybody else who has studied the issue that it appears to be just plain wrong, you should cease using it once that has been brought to your attention — or attempt to demonstrate where your opponents’ reasoning is faulty, in a detailed, systematic way. And if you don’t, people should stop taking you seriously.

Why I’m Still in Favor of Merit Pay for Teachers

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

I’m not convinced by some economists’ assertions that offering merit pay and bonuses doesn’t make employees more productive. One of the economists professing that opinion is Dan Ariely, who describes his research in Wired. Here are some of the tasks he asked his subjects to perform:

We asked them, for example, to assemble puzzles and to play memory games while throwing tennis balls at a target.

When the subjects were offered big rewards, they did poorly on the puzzles.

I have no doubt that Ariely and his collaborators ran their experiments under rigorous laboratory conditions, but it’s a stretch to conclude from them that merit pay is bad. What goes on in the laboratory is far removed from day-to-day classroom activities. Good teaching depends more on verbal and interpersonal skills than on hand-eye coordination. And a controlled experiment with tennis balls is of necessity finished within minutes, whereas teaching takes place over the course of many months. The long work of establishing a rapport with students and building knowledge isn’t comparable to putting a little puzzle together.

To learn the true effects of bonuses and incentives, it’s better to look at studies that examine how real teachers in schools respond to merit pay.

Arguments Against a Language-Specific Charter School

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

The L.A. Times reports on the disagreement that is holding up a proposed Hebrew-language charter school in California. The school promises to teach languages (Hebrew and a few others), not religion, but some people still think it would violate separation of church and state. Here’s a quote by an opponent of the proposed charter from a previous article:

“By requiring the students study Hebrew, I think you’re effectively limiting (who would apply),” said Dennis King, a former Hart school board member of 20 years. “So it’s sort of an ethnic school. It’s a school that appeals to a particular culture. . . . I suspect 95% of the kids will be Jewish.”

I hope this way of thinking doesn’t become prevalent in Missouri, because I’m happy about the growth of language-immersion charters here and I’m afraid the argument could be used against them as well. The St. Louis Language Immersion Schools have suggested the possibility of opening new schools in the future. Would they be barred from opening a Japanese school because many students would be Buddhists, or an Arabic school because many Muslims would apply?

As long as the school does not promote religion, there’s nothing wrong with teaching a language that’s associated with a religious group. Public schools do it all the time; Ladue teaches Hebrew, and Bunche teaches Arabic. If public schools can teach these languages for an hour or two a day, charters should be able to focus on the same languages and teach them in more depth.

Government Agencies in Missouri Spent $3,866,129.40 on Recognition Awards Over the Last Decade

Posted on by Christine Harbin

Trend of Spending on Recognition Awards by Government Agency (in 1,000s)

Picture 2

The yellow line represents the Department of Transportation, which has historically spent far more on recognition awards than the other government agencies. The orange line represents the Department of Conservation, which replaced MoDOT for the top spot in 2009. Between 2000 and 2009, Missouri’s government agencies spent a combined total of $3,866,129.40 on recognition rewards.

Picture 3

The largest expenditure to a single vendor for recognition awards occurred in the Department of Public Safety in 2008, which explains the big spike in the dark blue line during that year. Adjusted for inflation, this department spent $110,270 with On Time Marketing Corp. The second largest expenditure occurred in the Department of Transportation in 2001 — it spent $107,627 with Kay-Cee Enterprises, Inc.

According to the Department of Transportation’s “Personnel Policy Manual,” each employee is eligible to receive as much as $2,000 in recognition awards per calendar year. The policy document also states that employees may receive additional recognition awards from non-MoDOT sources, so it is possible for a person to be awarded even more than this.

  • Aren’t there better uses for taxpayer money than roll-up blankets, windshield screens, and shirt/cap combos for bureaucrats?

  • If the highest-performing MoDOT employees receive paid time off as a recognition award, doesn’t it follow that the lowest-performing employees remain at work?

  • Isn’t Missouri looking for items to cut out of its budget? Wouldn’t it be more responsible to cut recognition awards before it cuts funding for education or for emergency communication?

I discovered this information via the Show-Me Institute’s new web tool, “Show-Me: The Spending.” Yesterday, Charis Fischer used this web tool to discover that travel expenditures for the governor’s office skyrocketed between 2008 and 2009, and I discovered that government agencies in Missouri spent more than $2 million on credit card fees in 2009 alone. I invite our blog readers to play with the tool and see whether they can uncover additional examples of wasteful spending by Missouri’s government agencies.

The Irony of Voter Vouchers

Posted on by Caitlin Hartsell

The Missouri Record ran a column yesterday about “voter vouchers,” written by political science professor David Webber. He explains the program thusly:

Once a year, registered voters in Missouri should receive a voucher of between $25 and $50, which will allow them to contribute public funds to any candidate for a local or state elected office who has filed with the Missouri Ethics Commission. Vouchers should be redeemable in $10 denominations, allowing voters to spread their support among several candidates.

He writes in response to the recent Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance and corporations (an entirely different discussion, though one I believe was well-argued by Ilya Somin on the Volokh Conspiracy blog). Webber laudably hopes to increase citizen involvement, but voter vouchers wouldn’t accomplish that; in fact, they would likely cause more problems than they could potentially solve. After a discussion about voter vouchers with David Stokes and Audrey Spalding, we have come up with a number of arguments against them. I welcome any perspective, for or against, in the comment section.

1) Why would voter vouchers reduce apathy?

The main argument Webber uses in favor of voter vouchers is that they could combat voter apathy. I find it difficult to believe this would be the case. After all, the voucher would not be radically different from an ordinary vote, especially if each person is given an equal amount at no more of a (visible) cost to them than a vote would require. If a person cannot invest the time to research which candidate best aligns with his views and then head to the polls, why would giving him the potential “vote” of voucher money change his priorities? When somebody invests their own $50, there is far more incentive to research the candidates than when that same person is given $50 of “free” money.

2) Voter vouchers could potentially create a black market.

Voter vouchers would have a worth to some (campaign staff) that would likely exceed its worth to others (apathetic voters). This creates the potential for a black market to evolve, in which campaign staff trade, say, $30 in cash for the $50 vouchers. This would not increase voter involvement, but instead would intensify the very problems Webber was concerned with trying to solve. This could well foster a public-funded subsidy for campaigns that exists entirely independent of voter preferences, increasing ads and “media blitzes” by increasing funding to campaigns.

2) Votes are private; vouchers (and donations) are public.

Actual campaign donations (of a certain amount) are explicitly attached to the donor’s name. This is good for transparency, but a potential liability for those who might be publicly “expected” to allocate their money to a certain candidate or ballot issue, but privately wish to support a different candidate or issue. A vote cast is relatively private, but voter vouchers would not be. Even if the voucher donations were not made public in the same way that ordinary campaign donations are, such funding could be tracked in other ways that could increase an individual’s personal liability.

4) Public financing disproportionately helps incumbents.

Webber’s column in the Record pointed to Arizona and Maine as leaders in establishing public financing programs. But public financing does not decrease the influence of monied interests. In fact, a cap on expenditures aids the incumbent, who is already well-known and has “free” advertising in the form of thinly disguised constituent communication and favorable newspaper articles. Although voter vouchers would not necessarily lead to a prohibition of private donations, that would be the logical next step. On its own, this is not an argument against voter vouchers, but (in conjunction with the other arguments) it is an important consideration when considering any form of public financing.

5) Voter vouchers are funded by tax money that would be better spent elsewhere.

Webber estimates that it would cost, at maximum, $200 million to provide voter vouchers for the 4 million registered voters in Missouri. (This, of course, assumes that more people wouldn’t register to vote simply in order to benefit from a black market in voucher sales.) However you swing it, $200 million is a lot of money. It could be spent on any number of things (roads, schools, tax refunds) that would provide better public benefits than electoral campaigns would.

Voter apathy may or may not be a pressing problem, depending on one’s personal political philosophy, but voter vouchers are an unrealistic remedy. Even those who share a goal to increase citizen involvement should be wary of solutions that involve redistributing taxpayer money to candidates seeking public office. The repercussions of a voter voucher are too serious to ignore.

Lunch Money

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

Diner’s Journal writes that the proposed increase in federal spending on school lunches disappointed many advocates, who had hoped for a steeper rise in funding. By itself, the increase won’t allow schools to change their menus drastically:

Quick calculations show that at best, the president’s plan might offer less than 20 cents more per school lunch.

Schools can still improve the meals they serve, but they’ll have to find other ways to pay for better food. Schools might raise money specifically for their cafeterias, or they could divert resources from things they’ve been paying for that are less important than lunch. Some schools have already succeeded; this charter school, for one, spends a few dollars more on each student’s lunch than the typical public school. The Maplewood–Richmond Heights School District is another example of a school that changed its lunch offerings without federal help. The district was able to add fresh produce to its meals using a grant from a nonprofit organization.

Not every district needs to transform its cafeteria food. In some districts, the lunches aren’t great, but students live in households that can afford to send bag lunches if they choose. Other districts may decide that something else is holding back student achievement and that all resources should be focused on solving that problem before any additional money is diverted to making lunches tastier.

Districts that do want to spend more on food should accept the fact that they won’t receive unlimited appropriations from the federal government. They need to be frugal, and to buy the food they want at the cheapest price. They need to look for foods that are both nutritious and inexpensive. They can’t afford to squander money on pricey fads like “local” or “sustainable” food.

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