A New Education Blog, and More on Hazelwood

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

Local education blogs are sprouting up all over the place! I’m happy to announce the appearance of EduDiva, which intends to write about "educational issues with a St. Louis perspective." In a few posts EduDiva has already covered girls and math education, the achievement gap, school rankings, and white flight, responding to my post on Hazelwood.

EduDiva points out that test scores in the St. Charles public schools aren’t much better than Hazelwood’s. I agree, but the only reference to St. Charles in the article was in a quote by one person, who commented that most of her neighbors had left for St. Charles. It could be that people who value higher scores are moving somewhere else. On the other hand, it could be that test scores have nothing to do with the "white flight." But given Hazelwood’s struggle to meet state standards, the article should have at least considered the possibility that the schools are causing people to leave.

A Better Solution for the Quality of Long-Term Care

Posted on by Justin Hauke

Yesterday, representatives of the National Senior Citizens Law Center (NCSLC) hosted news conferences in Kansas City, Columbia, and St. Louis to bring attention to the dubious quality of many of Missouri’s long-term-care nursing home contracts.

The group argues that many of these contracts violate minimum care obligations, which are mandated by state and federal law. For example, many nursing home contracts limit the facility’s responsibility for their residents’ health or personal items, and also require a resident’s family or friends to accept personal financial liability for long-term care. Though these requirements do not necessarily violate existing law, they are fine-print issues that trap the families of many residents with unexpected bills.

I have no doubt that there are nursing home abuses. But I always question why the most effective response to such abuses is a legislative one. There are two negative effects that come out of every "minimum care" piece of legislation Missouri passes: 1) It mandates certain levels of service that may or may not be important to actual nursing home residents and their families, thus driving up overall nursing home costs; 2) It encourages many nursing homes to lower their standards to the "minimum state requirement," adversely affecting the overall level of nursing home care.

Many violations highlighted by the NSCLC are well-publicized issues that consumer groups have encouraged families to be aware of. There are also elderly law consumer advocacy groups that offer pro-bono legal advice for help in finding nursing home contracts that properly meet a family’s individual needs.

The St. Louis Business Journal reports that St. Louis nursing home costs are the second-lowest in the country, with an average annual cost of $42,877. Nationally, the annual cost of nursing home care is $65,200, with average annual costs in some states reaching as high as $191,385. These are not small fees, and I would expect that many residents struggle to stretch their savings to cover that cost during 10 or 15 years of potential care. By passing additional minimum care laws, we risk pushing those costs even higher, forcing many elderly Missourians to forego nursing home care altogether.

I sympathize with the NSCLC — it’s disturbing to think of nursing home abuse. But passing new legislation (or even enforcing existing legislation) is not the answer. It’s great to promote consumer advocacy and raise awareness. It’s important to provide legal aid to families that helps ensure they enter nursing home contracts that properly reflect their needs. But mandating minimum levels of service will only increase costs that are already inflated, while ensuring an overall decreased level of care. And that will do nothing to provide better care for Missouri’s elderly population.

You Say Potato, and I Say TOMATO

Posted on by Justin Hauke

Yesterday, oral arguments were heard in a lawsuit in Jefferson City about a language change in a 2008 Missouri ballot initiative. The initiative will address state-based affirmative action programs, and will appear on the November 2008 ballot.

The Missouri Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI), the plaintiff in the case and defender of the initiative’s original language, argues that the new language is politically biased and misleading.

The article quotes the original ballot language submitted by MCRI as follows:

"Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to prohibit any form of discrimination as an act of the state by declaring, ‘The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education or public contracting?’"

The Missouri Secretary of State’s office, however, changed the language to read:

"Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to:

1. ban affirmative action programs designed to eliminate discrimination against, and improve opportunities for, women and minorities in public contracting, employment and education; and

2. allow preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin to meet federal program funds eligibility standards as well as preferential treatment for bona fide qualifications based on sex?"

I think you could argue that both wordings are somewhat misleading. But I sympathize with the MCRI’s argument. The original language is clear: the Missouri Constitution should be amended "to prohibit any form of discrimination as an act of the state." That would include ending any existing affirmative action or race-based preferential treatment.

The new language says the same thing, but in a much more emotively-charged way. By explicitly including buzz words such as "affirmative action," the initiative immediately polarizes voters. I think that the MCRI’s argument that this language will unfairly sway the election is valid. Moreover, it appears that the Secretary of State’s office took tremendous liberty with the submitted language from the MCRI.

Preferential treatment, whether positively intended or not, is problematic and invites all kinds of race-based politics. A truly "color-blind" society should value its citizens based on their merit, not on the color of their skin, their place of birth, or their sex. I think that the MSCI strives to achieve such a society.

And Exactly Why Does Springfield Operate All Its Own Utilities?

Posted on by David Stokes

Springfield is a company town, and that company is City Utilities. Later today, the state auditor will be releasing an audit of CU, as it is known. The News-Leader has the preview. So, yes, I will return to this subject later after I have read the audit, but I find it very interesting that City Utilities still operates all the utilities in Springfield, instead of selling off the assets to a private company decades ago, like most larger cities. How big is CU? From the article:

CU employs 1,030 people and provides electricity, water, natural gas and public transit services to the public. The utility also operates the SpringNet computer network facility and a radio communication system for public agencies.

Electricity, water, gas, and the computer network could easily be managed just as well — and probably better — by a private utility. And (this is key) Springfield government would make a fortune selling off its assets to that private provider. That windfall could be used to lower taxes, improve services in other areas, and invest in capital projects such as transportation. Even the public transit part could be competitively contracted out, which is different from privatization but similar. Here is an op-ed I wrote on this subject for Kirkwood.

I will return to this issue after I have a chance to read the audit. That is known in the media as a "teaser." Pretty cool, huh?

“Price Gouging”

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

David Nicklaus has published some quotes on his blog from Eric Dixon’s op-ed about price gouging. I’m impressed by the economic knowledge displayed by the second comment to the post (I’m not even going to bother addressing the first comment):

It’s also appropriate for government to perform its normal role in assuring that people affected by disasters get the services that they contract for — for example, that if they pay a contractor to repair their roof, he will actually do so for the price agreed upon.

But it’s not necessary or useful for government to attempt to repeal the laws of supply and demand for dealing with disasters. One doesn’t need to be a die-hard libertarian to recognize that that will only slow recovery efforts and cause people to suffer longer.

It’s important to keep in mind that this isn’t a question of whether or not the state should take action after natural disasters. As this comment highlights, the state can either help recovery efforts with wise policies, or it can make things worth through misguided policies like punishing "price gouging."

Return of the Math Wars

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

I’d like to respond to Justin’s excellent critique of integrated math. I think we are mostly in agreement about integrated math’s faults. My position is that parents should be able to choose integrated math for their children if they want to, not that integrated math is good.

I think Justin is 100-percent correct (see, I can use numbers in real-life situations!) that math classes treating all answers as equally right aim only to fluff up students’ self-esteem, not to teach them anything. And when students go through school without learning math facts and formulae, they miss out on a basic part of education.

But I think parents should still be able to choose integrated math, for a few reasons. First, there’s disagreement about which curricula constitute integrated math. One of my brothers attended an elementary school that used Everyday Mathematics, by the University of Chicago School Mathematics Project. My brother hated this curriculum, and I thought it had several disadvantages. It encourages calculator use at a young age, some of the activities are pointless, and it presents some concepts in a more complicated way than necessary.

On the other hand, the curriculum emphasizes practice and getting the right answer. And although many critics object to it because the algorithms it teaches aren’t the same ones they learned in school, no one could accuse it of foregoing algorithms altogether, or of allowing students to make up answers. Is Everyday Math "integrated math"? This Wikipedia article says yes. Personally, I think Everyday Math isn’t so bad as the other integrated programs out there, and parents who choose it aren’t necessarily dooming their children to ignorance.

Justin’s suggestion to encourage computer programming, which uses set theory, is a good idea. But some people consider teaching set theory before college to be a "new math" scheme itself. I’ve seen traditional math books that eschew set theory entirely, even at the high school level.

Even curricula that are indisputably integrated might not be harmful in the long term. I went to a public elementary school that taught integrated math. We were always doing creative projects that were only tangentially related to arithmetic. But when I switched to a private school that taught only traditional math, I didn’t really miss anything, because the traditional sixth-grade math curriculum was basically a review of third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade arithmetic.

What about my peers who stayed in the public school? They started using a more traditional curriculum around that time, too. Several of them went on to major in science at college. Sure, our time could have been put to better uses in elementary school, but the fact that you don’t learn long division in one grade doesn’t mean that you’ll never learn it in any other grade. If parents choose integrated math for their kids in the early grades, their kids could still study all the traditional topics when they’re a little older.

In fact, given the pressure some parents put on their five-year-olds to memorize lots of facts, study textbooks, and prepare for first grade, I imagine I would request integrated math if I had little kids in kindergarten. I probably wouldn’t choose it for later grade levels. But if parents want to put off teaching traditional math until second or third grade, I think that should be up to them. And as for the parents who want their kids to study integrated math through high school? I think they should be free to choose that, even though I disagree with them.

If everyone sent their kids to private schools of their choice, we wouldn’t have this dispute about what schools should teach. The math wars (and reading wars, and spelling wars, etc.) are a product of our one-size-fits-all public school system, which forces a few educational approaches on all families. Opening up the system to choice would lead to more diversity, and less arguing.

Ready or Not?

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

Most brainstorming about education reform centers on urban districts. We hear about failing inner-city schools, discipline problems, and social issues. Suburban districts, with their relatively high test scores and upper-class constituents, seem like bastions of achievement in comparison. But we often overlook the rural districts. When I’ve asked people about this, they usually say, "Well, rural communities are satisfied with their schools. They just don’t have the same problems as the city districts."

That viewpoint may be overly optimistic. This article in the Southeast Missourian reports that some students in rural areas have a lot of trouble when they go on to higher education:

At Springfield-based Ozarks Technical Community College, 2,200 out of 3,000 incoming freshman needed a remedial algebra class and another 1,200 needed help in English last year. Only 35 percent passed a remedial math class.

"It’s an epidemic," said Ellen Newby-Hines, director of the academic achievement center at the community college that tutors students who need help in order to pass basic algebra, English and other classes.

The number of students in remedial courses isn’t necessarily an indication of a problem. Sometimes, students want to review after a summer away from school, or are unsure they’ll do well in college-level courses and take a remedial course during the first semester, just in case. But if large percentages of them can’t even pass the remedial courses at a community college (which employs tutors to give them extra help), that’s scary.

The article notes that a new state program that pays tuition for some community college students has attracted students who wouldn’t have gone to the schools otherwise. Maybe those students aren’t as well prepared. But failing remedial courses doesn’t only mean students aren’t ready for college — it means they aren’t ready for high-school-level coursework, either.

Math Lexicon

Posted on by Justin Hauke

I have to respectfully disagree with my colleague’s tacit approval of "integrated math," which is not an "intuitive or interesting" approach to mathematics. Rather, it’s a tool to justify falling academic standards and low test scores, and the district should seriously consider abandoning the program.

The same logic was used to justify the teaching of Ebonics in several California school districts in the late 1990s. Whatever your opinion may be regarding the defining characteristics of a lexicon, I think it is safe to argue that teaching Ebonics as the primary form of English in urban schools did a disservice to students. Teachers marginalized their students’ opportunities for success by teaching them a language with dubious credibility and zero applicability to the world in which they lived.

Mathematics is a language just like any other language, and it is imperative that students learn how to speak that language correctly if they want to be able to communicate effectively in society. The language equivalent of "integrated math" would be teaching Spanish that emphasized hitting the "high points" of the language, with no regard to grammar, conjugation, or syntax. As long as the basic message was clear, that would be all that was important.

Yes, mathematics can be a difficult subject, just like learning any language can be. But the idea of a "flexible" math curriculum invites the criticism that the curriculum is focused more on student self-esteem and higher test scores than actual learning. And as an article in today’s Southeast Missourian suggests, the fact that Missouri students are increasingly unprepared for college-level mathematics courses implies that academic standards have dropped. Students that sail through grade school with high grades from well-meaning teachers find themselves completely unprepared for college. Shouldn’t we be more focused on whether students are learning than whether they make straight A’s?

In my opinion, a far more effective approach to making math more accessible is to encourage and expand the pursuit of studies in math-heavy subjects, such as physics, statistics, and even computer programming (which relies on logic and set theory), rather than teaching "integrated math." Although students may fail to see the value of learning traditional algebra by itself, if they view algebra as a tool for understanding a subject which they enjoy, they will be more likely to excel in it.

Integrated math is not about "kids learning in different ways." It is a deliberate attempt to inflate math test scores by dumbing down the subject in the interest of "accessibility." And while that may be a short-run gain for school administrators focused on the metrics of individual school success, it is a long-run failure for their students’ future academic progress.

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