Continuing my ongoing epic of examining the Renewable Energy Initiative, I stumbled upon an interesting section of the Missouri Clean Energy website. Apparently, if you give 10 of your friends’ and family’s email addresses to Missourians for Cleaner, Cheaper Energy, so they can spread the word, they send you a sweet free Missouri Clean Energy T-shirt. Now, I am currently in the process of getting to the bottom of whether this issue is worth my vote, but I’ll be danged if this awesome T-shirt doesn’t help the MCCE’s cause just a little. And I would just like to apologize to those 10 family and friends whose email addresses I gave out. Some of them comment on this blog frequently, so I’m sure I’ll be hearing about it from them.
Beyond Freakonomics in St. Louis
While I should have posted something about this sooner, I’ll offer a brief account of Tuesday evening’s visit from Steve Levitt, the author of Freakonomics and one of the authors of the New York Times‘ popular Freakonomics blog. The event was jointly hosted by the Show-Me Institute and St. Louis University at SLU’s John Cook School of Business. An overflow crowd of more than 500 people came out to hear this bestselling author and University of Chicago professor offer his thoughts on how economic research can lead to wiser, more effective public policies. Professor Levitt was funny and insightful, recounting several stories from his first book and giving guests a whiff of his upcoming title, which he says will be called Superfreakonomics, in honor of Rick James. The lecture was part of a continuing series hosted by the Show-Me Institute, in which we strive to bring some of the top names in economics and public policy to help Missourians develop a deeper understanding of how these issues affect our lives.
WashMo Endorses Renewable Energy Initiative
For the past few weeks I have been researching and writing extensively about the Missouri Clean Energy Initiative. The issue will be on the November ballot and, if passed, will require Missouri’s four largest energy suppliers — Ameren, Empire, Aquila, and Kansas City Power & Light — to provide 15 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2015. So far, there has been little opposition to the bill, and even the power companies seem to be on board.
Now, being away at college and working in the Clayton office of the Show-Me Institute every day, it’s not surprising that I can forget my roots. So, when checking John Combest today, I was surprised to see my li’l old hometown, Washington, Mo., smack on top of today’s news. Washington’s newpaper, The Washington Missourian, has gone green and officially supports Proposition C — the Missouri Clean Energy Initiative.
Though the article is, not surprisingly, lenient toward the proposition (it claims there is no downside, even though rates will initially rise by a small percentage), it is good to know that even the people in my small hometown are taking time to find the best solution to the energy situation. Honestly, I guess the move toward renewable energy is not too surprising, considering just how many people in WashMo can see the Labadie coal plant from their backyards.
An Instance of Charter School Diversity
Traditional public schools and charter schools are sometimes presented as a stark dichotomy: broad education vs. specialized programs, neighborhood communities vs. citywide enrollment. Those generalizations are sometimes correct, but not all charters fit the mold.
For example, there’s City Garden Montessori, which was featured in the South Side Journal:
Any parent can stop by during the course of the day and they often do as most live nearby, said Michelle Marshall, the school’s family support coordinator.
The school has a preference for neighborhood students written into its charter. It seeks children living between Interstate 64 and Magnolia Avenue and Grand and Kingshighway boulevards in the Botanical Heights, Forest Park Southeast, Shaw, Southwest Garden and Tiffany neighborhoods.
Here’s a charter that wants to draw children from the surrounding area, like most public schools do, but that is innovative in other ways. City Garden offers a Montessori curriculum in both its preschool (which was established several years ago) and its new elementary school. I’m impressed, because many schools drop the Montessori focus by first or second grade, when it’s harder to put into practice.
The Post-Dispatch and Suburban Journals are doing a great job of profiling the area’s charter schools and illustrating what’s unique about each one. Stay tuned as new charters open!
The Missouri Plan, for Your Consideration
Combest today has a number of links to articles about proposed changes to the Missouri Plan of judicial selection. In the very near future, I will blog in-depth about Congressman Hulshof’s proposals. In the meantime though, please check out the ideas for yourself. They’re covered well by this AP article in the Columbia Missourian (the other articles are also very good). Then please consider the ideas put forth in this Show-Me Institute study, released earlier this year, and my own op-ed about this issue, from last year.
My first response is that I think many of the proposals are worthy of serious consideration. They do not scrap the Missouri Plan and return to the use of elections for these positions, nor do they give too much power to any one entity. But more to come on this topic next week.
Interesting Questions About Health Insurance
There is nothing more enjoyable when researching issues than coming across an article you think you are going to hate, and then discovering you’re completely wrong. I really don’t know why I assumed I’d dislike this column by Mary Jo Feldstein in the Post-Dispatch. Perhaps the opening line led me to make the wrong assumptions about it. But, anyway, it is an excellent article, and sort of a counter to the terrible piece by Bob Herbert that I blogged about the other day.
This is not to say that Feldstein’s column is in full agreement with the health savings account approach favored here at the Show-Me Institute. In fact, she raises some very interesting questions about them:
Research shows patients in these plans, particularly those with low incomes, sometimes avoid cost-effective preventive tests and prescription therapies because of their cost.
There is simply no magic potion to take our health care system and make it perfect. Last night we cosponsored the Steven Levitt (coauthor of Freakonomics) lecture along with St. Louis University, where the event was held. Levitt, in response to a question from a lottery-winning audience member who regularly runs for office, talked about health care. He believes that market pricing has to be put back into the system, and consumers and insurers are going to have to make tough choices about what people can and can not afford.
As Feldstein writes:
Patients should have a financial stake in their health and health care. But plans should encourage, not discourage, the wise use of limited resources.
I see her point perfectly. It is one thing for parents not to take their teenager, who only has a simple cold, to the doctor. That choice allows for more important uses of limited resources. To go further, it is unfortunate — but probably necessary — that dying elderly people do not receive every single expensive treatment possible. Remember when Mickey Mantle got a liver transplant and died soon anyway, after potentially taking away a precious resource (a functioning liver) that someone else may have used to live much longer? (Note: there is no proven evidence that someone other than Mantle died because of that transplant, but the decision to give the liver to him was still very controversial.)
It is another issue entirely for people with treatable conditions not to take their medicine because they are responsible for the first $2,000 of their costs before insurance kicks in, and they can’t afford it. I am not saying HSAs don’t work because of this issue, just that it is a reasonable possibility to consider. The great thing about Feldstein’s column is that it is a well-researched piece about a complicated issue, as opposed to Herbert’s uninformed broadside.
Economy Goes Down, Minimum Wage Goes Up
Missouri’s minimum wage is set to go up again in January. Here’s a thorough article in the Springfield Business Journal covering both sides of the issue very well.
The increase itself is not large as far as wages go, but I’m sorry it has to happen right now, when the economy’s not doing so well. This is a problem with tying the minimum wage to inflation — you don’t get to time the increases so as to soften the blow.
Autism Treatment in the Special School District of St. Louis County
A book review in today’s Wall Street Journal discusses a few of the hoaxes and scams aimed at the parents of autistic children. One is “facilitated communication,” whereby an assistant supports the arms, wrists, or even hands of a nonverbal autistic student and helps him or her point to letters on a keyboard. This method was discredited after studies found the messages to be controlled by the facilitators, not the students. (A summary of relevant research can be found on the American Academy of Pediatrics website here.)
Back to the review:
The method was easily debunked with a simple experiment: Don’t allow the facilitator to see what the child is seeing and suddenly the child’s communication skills evaporate. But facilitated communication flourished for years.
In fact, it still flourishes — in the Special School District of St. Louis County. Facilitated communication is listed on the SSD website as a term “used in special education and at SSD.” I wondered whether that meant that the district actually practices facilitated communication, so I called the district. I pointed out the term on the website, gave the same description of it as in the paragraph above, and asked whether SSD uses this method. The answer? Yes, they do, in cases where a child’s Individualized Instruction Plan prescribes it.
Facilitated communication is not just another multiplication algorithm or literacy curriculum. The Association for Science in Autism Treatment calls facilitated communication “an inappropriate intervention.”
And the following statement comes from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics:
Studies have repeatedly demonstrated that FC is not a scientifically valid technique for individuals with autism or mental retardation.
This is from the Association of Behavioral Analysis:
Thus the use of FC directly threatens the human and civil rights of the person whose communication is purportedly “facilitated,” and may also jeopardize the rights of others. […] its use is unwarranted and unethical.
Opponents of tuition tax credits for autistic students have claimed that these students can receive a satisfactory education based on the latest scientific findings in the public schools. Sadly, I don’t think that’s the case.
Great Editorial in KC Star About Bridge Program
I agree with every single word in this editorial by the Kansas City Star, down to and including the conjunctions. Nice linkage, John.
