Service Dog Update

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

The Illinois boy with autism who I wrote about the other day will be allowed to bring his service dog to school, at least for a short time after the district discusses accommodations and before a full court hearing takes place.

I’m happy that the dog and boy will stay together, and I’m also glad that some of the district’s infuriating arguments were disregarded. The district claims the dog is not a true service dog because he isn’t listed in the boy’s Individual Education Plan (IEP). But the boy’s doctors said he should get a dog, and the dog was specially trained for several thousand dollars, paid for by the parents — that sounds like a service dog to me.

IEP’s can’t be as comprehensive as full medical evaluations; they’re basically lists of learning goals, and shouldn’t override doctors’ orders. And, because the district doesn’t want the dog in class, of course they wouldn’t recommend a dog in an IEP. You can’t conclude that the boy doesn’t need the dog just because the district left dogs out of the document.

This statement by the district Superintendent is misleading:

“If 230 students were to bring animals, it would be catastrophic to the degree it would be uncontrollable and very unhealthy to the students,” Settles said.

We’re not talking about pets brought for show and tell, but animals (usually dogs; I don’t know which other animals the district is expecting) that help children cope with serious medical problems. Dogs have to go through a lot of screening and training before they are given to patients. “Uncontrollable” animals don’t make the cut. I should hope the district would not advance similar arguments against a service dog used because of epilepsy or vision impairment. Autism deserves equal consideration.

Although the judge issued an injunction in the boy’s favor, I’m standing by my assertion that he would be better off with tuition tax credits. No one should have to attend a school that resents his service dog and that fought hard in court to exclude it.

All Good Things Must Come to an End

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

Including Cash for Clunkers. This sentence sums up the experience:

President Barack Obama said in an interview Thursday that the program has been “successful beyond anybody’s imagination” but dealers were overwhelmed by the response of consumers.

Giving out free money (or paying above the market rate, which amounts to the same thing) is a wildly popular policy. No one should be surprised by consumers’ robust response to the opportunity to get something (cash) for nothing (a clunker, by the program’s own admission).

It’s strange to call a program “successful” when it did little more than squander wealth — and so quickly that even Washington politicians realized it couldn’t continue.

Although Cash for Clunkers will drive into the sunset on Monday, the idea lives on in a multitude of other policies that offer attractive payment in exchange for ubiquitous antiques. Like gun buybacks, for example.

Our World-Famous Health Care Study

Posted on by Josh Smith

The latest Show-Me Institute Policy Study — “The Prognosis for National Health Insurance: A Missouri Perspective” — is shaping up to be a slam dunk.

Produced by Arduin, Laffer & Moore Econometrics, the study gives some historical perspective on the growth of the public sector’s role in paying for health care expenses, and provides an analysis of the effect of a public health care plan on Missouri residents. The study spells out the expected costs such a plan would impose per capita on Missouri residents, as well as making predictions about inflated medical costs overall in the face of increased bureaucratic distance between health care producers and consumers.

And it’s getting attention. Missourinet ran a segment about it, and it was also featured on Jamie Allman’s radio show yesterday, as well as some more attention from him while he was guest hosting for The Laura Ingraham Show this morning. So far, it has also been featured in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Springfield News-Leader. This coverage combined to break our previous single-day study download record yesterday, and we’ve already more than doubled that number so far today.

Why wait? Read the study that everyone is talking about. Or, if time will simply not permit, at least check out the four-page briefing paper.

Why Autistic Children Need Tuition Tax Credits

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

Many school districts don’t have the resources to provide intensive services for autistic students — or the ability to accommodate their service animals. This article reports on a boy whose parents are suing his school district because it refused to allow his service dog in a kindergarten class.

There are merits to both sides of the dispute. The boy’s behavior is improved when his service dog is around, and it would be a big disruption for him to be separated from the dog for several hours every school day. But, from the district’s point of view, the teacher and classmates expect to go to school with people, not dogs. Some could be afraid of animals or allergic.

It’s not that one side is right and the other wrong, just that they’re a poor match. The district would be better off leaving its classrooms free of dogs. And the boy with autism would benefit from an environment that’s more accepting of his condition and its treatment.

How Good Is Health Care in Missouri?

Posted on by Stephen Feman

Many of my friends are involved in discussions about health care. A common thing I hear is that people are happy with the parts of the health care system that affect them personally. Often, there is a story, such as: Doctor (you supply the name) found a cancer in my (you supply the relative); he/she started therapy just in time and that person’s life was saved.

That is wonderful. But is that all there is? The health care debate seems centered on financial issues. Where is the dialogue about health? With all the talk in the news and elsewhere, is something missing? Could your health be better?

Missouri is blessed with many health care educational programs. There is the Saint Louis University Medical School, the first school west of the Mississippi, founded in 1836. Then there is the School of Medicine at Washington University, the Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine, the University of Missouri–Columbia Medical School, the University of Missouri–Kansas City Medical School, and the College of Osteopathy in Kansas City. In addition, there are plans to build a program in Joplin. If so many physicians are being produced, then health care in this state should be pretty good. Is it?

To find out about that, one must look at how the health care system product is measured. Although asking your aunt about her cardiologist and how well he responds to her needs can be helpful, aggregate data is needed to get valid information. The common tools used by states to measure health care system outcomes are: 1) life expectancy; and, 2) infant mortality.

According to the World Bank, “life expectancy at birth is the average number of years a newborn infant would be expected to live if health and living conditions at the time of its birth remained the same throughout its life.” That definition includes both the current health of a population and the quality of care people receive when sick.

In 2000, the U.S. Census Bureau said that life expectancy in Missouri was 76.2 years, and it has improved since then to 76.4. That can be contrasted with 78.5 in Iowa, 77.5 in Kansas, 76.7 in Illinois, 75.3 in Kentucky, 75.3 in Oklahoma, 75.1 in Arkansas, and 75.0 in Tennessee. Missouri is in the mid-range among our adjoining states, but not at the top, and many states have life expectancy rates higher than ours.

In 2009, the average life expectancy for the entire United States was 78.11, and more than half the people in this country were doing better than Missourians. What is most disturbing is that there are several countries in 2009 with life expectancy rates better than ours. With this measure, many people are found to have better health than we have in the United States, and in America many states are reported to have better health care results than we have in Missouri.

The second most frequently used gauge of health care system outcomes is the infant mortality rate. It is used to evaluate prenatal care, postnatal care, and all the other aspects of society that affect young children. The following are the rates for infants under one year of age per 1,000 live births in 2005. In Missouri it is 7.5, Kansas 7.4, Iowa 5.3, Illinois 7.4, Kentucky 6.6, Tennessee 8.9, Arkansas 7.9, and Oklahoma 8.1. Our state, again, is in the middle range. That year, the infant mortality rate for the entire US was 6.89 per 1,000 live births. Once again, it seems that Missouri’s health care results are not as good as the average for our country.

How does this compare with the rest of the world? Many international organizations study this. The easiest numbers to access come from groups interested in economics, such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Among OECD nations, the average is 6.1 per 1,000 live births. The United States is not too far from that average — but Missouri is. In 2005, there were five countries with infant mortality rates of less than 3.5. What is the difference? Do they care more about their children than we do?

What is the matter with health care in Missouri? These are only a couple of the areas that need improvement. Please be sure that your quality of health is included in the health care discussion.

“Regard It as Just as Desirable to Build a Chicken House as to Build a Cathedral”

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

St. Louis was mentioned as a city that allows urban chicken farming in this article about an Indiana neighborhood and its chickens. (Thanks to Drudge Report for the link.)

I liked this part:

The urban chicken movement has businesses that sell equipment and offer tips for raising the birds.

“There are even ‘stealth’ chicken coops that look like trash cans,” Stulp said.

Camouflaged coops are an amusing reminder that some activities are better left legal and regulated. If you’re concerned about chickens getting loose and wandering the streets, you’d prefer they be kept in secure enclosures. But if raising chickens is illegal, their owners will try to hide them — sometimes in specially designed hidden coops that are completely functional, but possibly in improvised cages that sacrifice practicality for covertness.

In case you’re wondering, the quote in the title of this entry came from Frank Lloyd Wright.

St. Ann Could Become a “Pool” Sales Tax City

Posted on by David Stokes

Not just anyone can come up with attention-grabbing headlines like that. You are either born with the talent or not. Seriously, though, the above headline has it all. Mid-size suburb, detailed local sales tax issues … who wouldn’t jump at a chance to read this entire post?

My Tim Hardaway writing skills aside (that reference will be lost on just about every one of my readers, except for one loyal dude who reads from London), we all know how the current economy has really hit the financial health of malls and the cities that depend on them. One such city in St. Louis County is St. Ann, home to Northwest Plaza, which will go into foreclosure soon, and has been in trouble for some time. This will have a significant impact on St. Ann’s finances, but the city does have options.

Option one, which it will likely follow, would be to pour even more tax incentives into the property in an attempt to revive it. The St. Ann city manager is quoted in this Post-Dispatch article:

Conley said the structure of the public assistance for mall redevelopment remains. He noted that city officials hope for an eventual revival of St. Ann’s largest commercial property.

“I don’t think there’s anybody who would disagree that something needs to be done up there,” he said.

Well, I disagree, for whatever that is worth.

Option 2, which is probably a long-term solution with short-term budget pains, would be NOT to pour more tax dollars into a failing developement, and instead just become another sales tax pool city within St. Louis County. I doubt anyone in St. Ann is seriously considering this, although I would love to be wrong. If St. Ann became a pool city, it would benefit from growth around the county, and would not be so dependent on one particular mall. This move would increase the total amount of tax dollars available in the pool, and with St. Ann’s large population, the city would get a significant amount from it each year — although not near what they used to get when Northwest Plaza was a thriving mall. Those days are gone, however, and an investment in public dollars might change things around, or it might not. A switch to “B” or “Pool” status would be in the long-term interest of the city and its people.

Lest you think I am picking on St. Ann, I think Crestwood should do the exact same thing.

How Online Courses Can Help

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

From some of the feedback I’ve received on my writing about virtual schools, I get the impression that readers think online education is about supplanting traditional schools. For example, Million writes that “the digital realm is not going to and cannot replace the physical one anytime soon,” and equates online courses with “taking kids out of classrooms.”

Some students do enroll in virtual schools full-time, but that’s not the only possible model for online education. And while a mass exodus of students from brick-and-mortar schools would certainly spur competition, more realistic scenarios would improve the education market too.

Online courses came to mind when I read this article in the Post-Dispatch about the discrepancy between graduation rates and scores on state tests. High schools are graduating some students who score below proficient on core high school subjects like algebra and English. All high schools require those courses for graduation, but the content students learn varies from district to district.

Virtual schools could boost the achievement of students in districts with less rigorous courses. If everyone sees that a district’s curriculum for algebra doesn’t prepare students for the state test, the students could take that course after school or during the summer through the online academy. The district would have to bring its course up to the level of the virtual schools, or enrollment for that course would plummet.

If all else failed, it could schedule the class in a computer lab and enroll students in the virtual school during class time. Districts no longer have the excuse that it would take them years to design a new curriculum, because online courses are ready for use and available in all districts.

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