It was a strange story. Prosecutors were considering filing negligent homicide charges against a father for an automobile accident his son had had in which two people were killed.
It seems the father had bought his son a new Corvette. The son promptly totaled the car in a one vehicle accident, so the father, having more money than good sense, replaced it with another new Corvette. This time when the son totaled the car, he also killed two people in the accident.
I’m sure we could all tell at least one story of a kid who has been given a significant gift, maybe a car or a bicycle, and trashed it in short order. Why? American Revolutionary patriot Thomas Paine put it this way in The American Crisis: “…that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value.” The reason for this is simple enough. People who are always given things have no way to judge value because they have not traded any of their own time, talent, or energy to obtain the items.
This brings us to one of the problems with American public schooling: there is no direct cost to the beneficiary or his/her parents and so it is not appreciated and not valued. It is generally known that students in private schools do better academically. When parents put out anywhere from $4,000 to $30,000 a year to educate a child, they make sure the student invests some time, talent, and energy into the process.
All too often, I read about some scheme to pay kids for doing well at school, as if the education itself were not enough. An article in the Jan. 22, 2008, edition of the Atlanta Journal reports that, “Forty students … will be the first to try the ‘Learn and Earn’ program, where students will get paid to attend after-school tutoring programs.” The article goes on to report that these students will be given eight dollars an hour to attend class. The purpose of the program is to see if “paying students to study will improve classroom attendance, grades and test scores.” I will predict the outcome based on an often quoted statement of an economist friend: “You will always get more of what you subsidize.” Very quickly there will be more students in need of tutoring. An Oct. 22, 2007, article in the Sun reports a pay the students program to be tried in twenty-one Arkansas high schools to attract more students to advanced placement classes.
I have even been guilty of proposing such schemes. When Dr. James Best, superintendent at Westside, was expressing concern over the increase in seniors who were dropping out before graduation, I proposed we do a raffle. I suggested we get a good, used Ford Mustang and raffle it off to a member of the senior class. Tickets would be given free to seniors, and the only way to get one would to be enrolled as a senior with no more than 10 absences for the school year. The probability of winning would be much greater than in most raffles as there would only be a hundred or so tickets. As a tribute to his good sense, Best did not buy into the idea, though not long after I proposed it, I read where a Phoenix, Arizona, school was doing a take off on the same idea.
Why should we reward kids for doing something for which they are the sole beneficiary? Do they value the free gift of education so little that we have to add material value to it just to give it away? Yes, there are many who do not value it and the solution is not to add superficial value but rather make it cost the beneficiary something.
Before you start screaming about how this would deny an education to the poor, let me assure you I am not talking about charging tuition to attend public schools. The following quote from Daily Celebration, by William Barclay, states well what I mean: "In getting knowledge, the price of the journey is work. If we are not prepared to work really hard, we only get a smattering of a subject, a superficial knowledge of it, a nodding acquaintance of it …. If we are prepared to pay the fare in the coin of work, we can travel far. No one can learn without paying the fare -- in sheer hard work!"
The price to students should be hard work and if they are not willing to pay the price, they should not be allowed to attend school until they are.
This may seem harsh, but my guess is as parents begin to lose their free custodial care and students begin to lose their primary social venue, they will begin to take school work more seriously. The first year, a school might have to send several away, but once students understand they are going to work or else, the number of students being sent away would dwindle to nearly nothing, and there would be a lot more good work being produced. Students would begin to value their education because it would truly cost them something.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Friday, January 1, 2010
Outside the Box -- commentary
Success workshop gurus often admonish us to think outside the box. Just for fun, let’s think way, way outside the box. The belief that recalcitrant problems require radical solutions, and that the deficiencies in our public education have certainly proven to be recalcitrant inspires this excursion outside the box.
For some reason, we never think of our educational system for what it really is, mass media. It is a part of our system of distributing information to the masses. Public schools are a big player in this game. If schools are indeed a part of our mass media, what business does the government have owning them? Isn’t this a violation of the First Amendment which guarantees freedom of speech and of the press?
At the time the amendment was written, press had to do with printed material. As the broadcasting of words over air waves became common, the first amendment rights of free press and free speech were thought to apply to these new forms of mass media as well.
Because the airwaves are thought to be owned by everyone, there has been some minor regulation of broadcasting by the government, but basically the doctrines of free speech and free press apply. Apparently, no one thought to include the schools in these doctrines. But, if even a simple, ritualistic prayer at a school function threatens the first amendment, how much more is it threatened when government owns 95 per cent of a major mass media outlet?
What would be the public response if the government owned 95 per cent of the print and broadcast media? Yet government owns most of our schools, schools which may be the most powerful medium we have for passing on information.
Throughout much of our history, this didn’t really matter. Our schools were publically owned, but they were controlled by local school boards and as such, they reflected the communities that paid for them. Now they are overly regulated by federal and state governments and are part of a huge bureaucracy. And, they do what bureaucracies do best, produce mediocrity. Local school boards now have almost no control over their schools and the schools no longer reflect the neighborhoods that pay for them. This medium is now anything but free.
In a democracy, the government has a vested interest in its citizens achieving basic literacy so they can at least cast intelligent votes. Beyond that, education should be a private matter of those who want an education and those who want to hire educated people.
If this were so, all education beyond the eighth or ninth grade would be private and free of governmental control and thus be in compliance with the First Amendment. It would also solve other problems.
One of the big problems with public education is that it is so public. Because it is public, businessmen, school administrators, and special interest groups often have different agenda and they often conflict. In a pluralistic society, a monolithic system of education not only destroys free speech, it is often in conflict with the locale it attempts to serve. In one locale, school patrons want sex education taught. In another locale, patrons want sexual abstinence taught. Other locales want school to open with a prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance. There are many more such problems and they lead to the suspension of free speech for one group or another. Just as a newspaper chooses what it will print or a television station chooses what it will broadcast, a privately owned school would teach the content it chooses.
I can sense the questions building. Who is going to pay for this private education? My libertarian sense tells me those who benefit from it, as long as the schools aren’t government owned. Some will argue that every child has a right to an education. If I buy that argument, does it also mean a right to a publically funded one? Does the right to a free press also include a publically funded press? If I agree that every child has a right to a publically funded education, how many years does that right entail? The state’s only valid interest is until basic literacy has been achieved.
Business is the primary beneficiary of educated people beyond basic literacy. It is also the primary complainer of the mediocre product turned out by the public schools. They managed to pass the responsibility of educating workers onto the public at large and now don’t like the product they are getting. The only thing gained by public funding has been government ownership of schools. If you insist every child has a right to a publically funded education for 12 or 13 years, don’t also insist it has to be done in a government owned school.
For some reason, we never think of our educational system for what it really is, mass media. It is a part of our system of distributing information to the masses. Public schools are a big player in this game. If schools are indeed a part of our mass media, what business does the government have owning them? Isn’t this a violation of the First Amendment which guarantees freedom of speech and of the press?
At the time the amendment was written, press had to do with printed material. As the broadcasting of words over air waves became common, the first amendment rights of free press and free speech were thought to apply to these new forms of mass media as well.
Because the airwaves are thought to be owned by everyone, there has been some minor regulation of broadcasting by the government, but basically the doctrines of free speech and free press apply. Apparently, no one thought to include the schools in these doctrines. But, if even a simple, ritualistic prayer at a school function threatens the first amendment, how much more is it threatened when government owns 95 per cent of a major mass media outlet?
What would be the public response if the government owned 95 per cent of the print and broadcast media? Yet government owns most of our schools, schools which may be the most powerful medium we have for passing on information.
Throughout much of our history, this didn’t really matter. Our schools were publically owned, but they were controlled by local school boards and as such, they reflected the communities that paid for them. Now they are overly regulated by federal and state governments and are part of a huge bureaucracy. And, they do what bureaucracies do best, produce mediocrity. Local school boards now have almost no control over their schools and the schools no longer reflect the neighborhoods that pay for them. This medium is now anything but free.
In a democracy, the government has a vested interest in its citizens achieving basic literacy so they can at least cast intelligent votes. Beyond that, education should be a private matter of those who want an education and those who want to hire educated people.
If this were so, all education beyond the eighth or ninth grade would be private and free of governmental control and thus be in compliance with the First Amendment. It would also solve other problems.
One of the big problems with public education is that it is so public. Because it is public, businessmen, school administrators, and special interest groups often have different agenda and they often conflict. In a pluralistic society, a monolithic system of education not only destroys free speech, it is often in conflict with the locale it attempts to serve. In one locale, school patrons want sex education taught. In another locale, patrons want sexual abstinence taught. Other locales want school to open with a prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance. There are many more such problems and they lead to the suspension of free speech for one group or another. Just as a newspaper chooses what it will print or a television station chooses what it will broadcast, a privately owned school would teach the content it chooses.
I can sense the questions building. Who is going to pay for this private education? My libertarian sense tells me those who benefit from it, as long as the schools aren’t government owned. Some will argue that every child has a right to an education. If I buy that argument, does it also mean a right to a publically funded one? Does the right to a free press also include a publically funded press? If I agree that every child has a right to a publically funded education, how many years does that right entail? The state’s only valid interest is until basic literacy has been achieved.
Business is the primary beneficiary of educated people beyond basic literacy. It is also the primary complainer of the mediocre product turned out by the public schools. They managed to pass the responsibility of educating workers onto the public at large and now don’t like the product they are getting. The only thing gained by public funding has been government ownership of schools. If you insist every child has a right to a publically funded education for 12 or 13 years, don’t also insist it has to be done in a government owned school.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Pollyanna -- commentary
Sometimes life’s experiences and a good book complement each other. So it was for me as I finished reading my mother’s favorite book from her childhood: “Pollyanna.” Mother is 91-years-old and lives in an assisted living home. In spite of being blind, diabetic, and wheel chair bound, she maintains an optimistic view on life.
For you who have never read Pollyanna, the main character, after whom the book is titled, is orphaned and sent off to live with an aunt. The aunt takes in the orphan only out of a sense of duty and does little to make her feel at home.
Pollyanna has a game she loves to play which she learned from her Pastor father. Whenever she encounters negative circumstances, she looks for something in them that she can be glad about. She calls it the glad game.
She is talkative and gregarious to a fault and so positive she makes Norman Vincent Peale look like a Sunday school kid. (It was Peale’s “Power of Positive Thinking” that helped shape me as a boy.) She has soon befriended every miserable, negative person in town and has them playing her glad game. Of course it transforms the community. The book was written a century ago, and over time, her name has become a synonym for optimism.
No philosophy is worth much until it has been tested.
For Pollyanna, the test comes when she is hit by a car and paralyzed from the waist down. Can she still play the game?
As I write this, it is the anniversary of my own collision with a car which left me in the hospital for 60 days and unable to walk. Can I play the glad game?
To begin with, I’m glad God made bodies that can heal themselves and, though a bit lame, I can now walk a mile and a half fairly comfortably, ride a bicycle much longer distances, and carefully wade in Spring River to fly fish.
I’m glad the need to rehabilitate my legs has gotten me back into a regular exercise routine. Over the years, I had paid attention to my physical health, but when I retired from the Army National Guard seven years ago, at age 60, I no longer had the need to pass the annual Army physical test. My motivation had disappeared and I had quit all regular physical exercise, put on weight, and was no longer in top physical condition. I am now back to regular physical exercise and again in good physical health. Sometimes we need an external motivator to help us do what we know is good for us.
One thing President Obama stresses as he campaigns for health care reform is the need for prevention. He is right about this. One of the best things any of us can do for our health is routine exercise.
I had a pastor friend one time who did much pastoral counseling. However, he would not counsel anybody long term who would not get involved in regular exercise. He claimed the evidence is conclusive that people who exercise regularly respond better in counseling. Since he did not charge for his counseling services, he felt exercising was the least a person could do on their own behalf.
Doctors tell us one of the best things we can do for our health is to walk 30 to 45 minutes three times a week. My grandfather took this advice and was still walking two miles a day well into his 90’s. There have been studies done that show if you add a little weight lifting to the regime, even for those in their 70’s and 80’s, the body will respond positively.
I wish our President well in this wellness endeavor, but what will he use for an external motivator for those who won’t exercise? The more we can individually do to reduce the cost of health care, the better.
There is a lesser thing for which I am glad. Before my accident I was on Cymbalta to control a neuropathy that caused severe pain in my right foot toes. After the accident, the pain never reappeared and I no longer take the Cymbalta. Anytime I can quit taking a pill, I’m glad, and I’m now down to just one prescription.
So, did Pollyanna’s philosophy pass the test? Even though it is nearing its hundredth birthday, it is still a good read, so I’ll let you find the answer. Though it will probably not appear on anybody’s best seller list anytime soon, you can still find copies. If your local library doesn’t have it, Google “free e-books” and download it from one of the websites listed. I’m positive you will enjoy it and maybe you too can get in the glad game.
For you who have never read Pollyanna, the main character, after whom the book is titled, is orphaned and sent off to live with an aunt. The aunt takes in the orphan only out of a sense of duty and does little to make her feel at home.
Pollyanna has a game she loves to play which she learned from her Pastor father. Whenever she encounters negative circumstances, she looks for something in them that she can be glad about. She calls it the glad game.
She is talkative and gregarious to a fault and so positive she makes Norman Vincent Peale look like a Sunday school kid. (It was Peale’s “Power of Positive Thinking” that helped shape me as a boy.) She has soon befriended every miserable, negative person in town and has them playing her glad game. Of course it transforms the community. The book was written a century ago, and over time, her name has become a synonym for optimism.
No philosophy is worth much until it has been tested.
For Pollyanna, the test comes when she is hit by a car and paralyzed from the waist down. Can she still play the game?
As I write this, it is the anniversary of my own collision with a car which left me in the hospital for 60 days and unable to walk. Can I play the glad game?
To begin with, I’m glad God made bodies that can heal themselves and, though a bit lame, I can now walk a mile and a half fairly comfortably, ride a bicycle much longer distances, and carefully wade in Spring River to fly fish.
I’m glad the need to rehabilitate my legs has gotten me back into a regular exercise routine. Over the years, I had paid attention to my physical health, but when I retired from the Army National Guard seven years ago, at age 60, I no longer had the need to pass the annual Army physical test. My motivation had disappeared and I had quit all regular physical exercise, put on weight, and was no longer in top physical condition. I am now back to regular physical exercise and again in good physical health. Sometimes we need an external motivator to help us do what we know is good for us.
One thing President Obama stresses as he campaigns for health care reform is the need for prevention. He is right about this. One of the best things any of us can do for our health is routine exercise.
I had a pastor friend one time who did much pastoral counseling. However, he would not counsel anybody long term who would not get involved in regular exercise. He claimed the evidence is conclusive that people who exercise regularly respond better in counseling. Since he did not charge for his counseling services, he felt exercising was the least a person could do on their own behalf.
Doctors tell us one of the best things we can do for our health is to walk 30 to 45 minutes three times a week. My grandfather took this advice and was still walking two miles a day well into his 90’s. There have been studies done that show if you add a little weight lifting to the regime, even for those in their 70’s and 80’s, the body will respond positively.
I wish our President well in this wellness endeavor, but what will he use for an external motivator for those who won’t exercise? The more we can individually do to reduce the cost of health care, the better.
There is a lesser thing for which I am glad. Before my accident I was on Cymbalta to control a neuropathy that caused severe pain in my right foot toes. After the accident, the pain never reappeared and I no longer take the Cymbalta. Anytime I can quit taking a pill, I’m glad, and I’m now down to just one prescription.
So, did Pollyanna’s philosophy pass the test? Even though it is nearing its hundredth birthday, it is still a good read, so I’ll let you find the answer. Though it will probably not appear on anybody’s best seller list anytime soon, you can still find copies. If your local library doesn’t have it, Google “free e-books” and download it from one of the websites listed. I’m positive you will enjoy it and maybe you too can get in the glad game.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Sacred Words -- commentary
School board members must take six hours of continuing education each year, so there I was at the annual school board members’ conference where once again I heard those currently in vogue, sacred words being intoned by the then Commissioner of Education Dr. Ken James: “research based.”
I’m cynical about these words in that the educational landscape is cluttered by research based programs that didn’t live up to their promise; so much so, that many veteran teachers, when a new program is announced, just roll their eyes and think, “here we go again.” What happens between the research and the promise is a guess, but here’s mine.
Research works well in the hard sciences. You set up your experiment and repeat it many times. If you keep getting the same results, you have proved your hypothesis. It does not work so well in the soft sciences. When doing research on human behavior, there are too many variables that can change between the research and the real classroom. Is it even possible to set up exactly the same experiment time after time?
The educational experts doing research in our graduate schools of education are the people to whom law makers turn when making decisions about our public schools, but does their research really tell them more about what needs to be done and how to do it than classroom teachers who work daily with a given set of students?
I’ve never studied in a school of education so I’m going to validate my opinion with the insights of one who has and who teaches in such a school. Here are some notes from “The Classroom Crucible,” by Edward Pauly of Yale University. He’s quoting his colleague Harvey Averch of the Florida International University: “The literature contains numerous examples of educational practices that seem to have affected students’ outcomes. The problem is that there are invariably studies … that find the same educational practices ineffective. … Research has found nothing that consistently and unambiguously makes a difference in students’ outcomes.”
Pauly writes, “When a prescriptive policy tells teachers and students what to do and how to do it, the important differences among classrooms are ignored and even suppressed.”
He gives the following as the First Law of Education Policy: “Policies that prescribe teachers’ and students’ classroom activities do not produce sustain improvements in students’ achievement. To be effective education policies must give up the attempt to prescribe teachers’ and students’ actions.”
His second law states, “Policies applied to classroom activities are thoroughly reformulated by the actions of teachers and students in each classroom.”
Finally he writes, “Prescriptive policies record of failure suggests the need for a Third Law of Education Policy: Education policies should be designed to achieve their effects despite being changed by the choices and responses of teachers and students.”
So, if research doesn’t guarantee much, what are we to do? Years ago, I read an article on psychological counseling and what modality was most appropriate. The writer said that when you subtract the amount of harm done in counseling from the good done, you are lucky if you wind up with at least a zero.
However, he said without these three don’t even begin: total integrity, accurate empathy, and non-possessive warmth. He concluded that if counselors have these three attributes, their modality won’t make much difference.
I suspect the same is true with teaching. Students appreciate and respect a teacher who has total integrity and they trust her. Trust between the teacher and student is essential to learning.
Accurate empathy is also a critical aspect of teacher and student respect. Empathy plays a role in how a teacher relates to students from day to day. Many times I have had teachers tell me that when they saw what a student’s home life was like, it changed how they related to that student. They did not let the student get away with more, but if the student came to school grouchy, for instance, they would understand and maybe avoid a confrontation or respond with some understanding.
Finally, non-possessive warmth means you have nothing personally at stake in your students’ success so you are warm toward them when they are doing well and when they are doing poorly. A student who knows he is cared for will respond more positively than one who feels the teacher would rather he weren’t there or only cares for him when he is doing what she wants.
If a teacher possesses these attributes, it will not make much difference whether her methods are research based or not. Her classroom will be a secure environment where students will learn. Without these three, the teacher’s style or the program used will make little difference.
I’m cynical about these words in that the educational landscape is cluttered by research based programs that didn’t live up to their promise; so much so, that many veteran teachers, when a new program is announced, just roll their eyes and think, “here we go again.” What happens between the research and the promise is a guess, but here’s mine.
Research works well in the hard sciences. You set up your experiment and repeat it many times. If you keep getting the same results, you have proved your hypothesis. It does not work so well in the soft sciences. When doing research on human behavior, there are too many variables that can change between the research and the real classroom. Is it even possible to set up exactly the same experiment time after time?
The educational experts doing research in our graduate schools of education are the people to whom law makers turn when making decisions about our public schools, but does their research really tell them more about what needs to be done and how to do it than classroom teachers who work daily with a given set of students?
I’ve never studied in a school of education so I’m going to validate my opinion with the insights of one who has and who teaches in such a school. Here are some notes from “The Classroom Crucible,” by Edward Pauly of Yale University. He’s quoting his colleague Harvey Averch of the Florida International University: “The literature contains numerous examples of educational practices that seem to have affected students’ outcomes. The problem is that there are invariably studies … that find the same educational practices ineffective. … Research has found nothing that consistently and unambiguously makes a difference in students’ outcomes.”
Pauly writes, “When a prescriptive policy tells teachers and students what to do and how to do it, the important differences among classrooms are ignored and even suppressed.”
He gives the following as the First Law of Education Policy: “Policies that prescribe teachers’ and students’ classroom activities do not produce sustain improvements in students’ achievement. To be effective education policies must give up the attempt to prescribe teachers’ and students’ actions.”
His second law states, “Policies applied to classroom activities are thoroughly reformulated by the actions of teachers and students in each classroom.”
Finally he writes, “Prescriptive policies record of failure suggests the need for a Third Law of Education Policy: Education policies should be designed to achieve their effects despite being changed by the choices and responses of teachers and students.”
So, if research doesn’t guarantee much, what are we to do? Years ago, I read an article on psychological counseling and what modality was most appropriate. The writer said that when you subtract the amount of harm done in counseling from the good done, you are lucky if you wind up with at least a zero.
However, he said without these three don’t even begin: total integrity, accurate empathy, and non-possessive warmth. He concluded that if counselors have these three attributes, their modality won’t make much difference.
I suspect the same is true with teaching. Students appreciate and respect a teacher who has total integrity and they trust her. Trust between the teacher and student is essential to learning.
Accurate empathy is also a critical aspect of teacher and student respect. Empathy plays a role in how a teacher relates to students from day to day. Many times I have had teachers tell me that when they saw what a student’s home life was like, it changed how they related to that student. They did not let the student get away with more, but if the student came to school grouchy, for instance, they would understand and maybe avoid a confrontation or respond with some understanding.
Finally, non-possessive warmth means you have nothing personally at stake in your students’ success so you are warm toward them when they are doing well and when they are doing poorly. A student who knows he is cared for will respond more positively than one who feels the teacher would rather he weren’t there or only cares for him when he is doing what she wants.
If a teacher possesses these attributes, it will not make much difference whether her methods are research based or not. Her classroom will be a secure environment where students will learn. Without these three, the teacher’s style or the program used will make little difference.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
What Profits? -- commentary
This headline in the October 26 edition of The Jonesboro Sun grabbed my attention: “Health insurer profits not so fat.” I wondered how long it would be before some aspiring reporter discovered this fact. It was an AP story.
I have stayed out of this health care debate, mostly because I have a lot of opinions but no answers. But, the afore mentioned article brings back some memories that do have some bearing on the debate.
When working as an insurance agent, I sold a rather large group health insurance plan to one of the Alaska Native Corporations. Because I sold the plan, I got to sit with the insurance executive as the plan was being put together. To my amazement, he began his model by assuming a two per cent profit. As part of the plan, the company insured itself against any catastrophic claims. In effect, all the underwriting company did was shuffle paperwork for their two per cent profit and assume the minor risk of routine claims which they paid out of premium dollars. Even at that, though, they lost money on the contract since there was no fat.
There is money to be made in insurance, but not health insurance. The public assumes the insurance companies are making huge profits because premiums keep rising. However, premiums are always a reflection of claims. As claims go up, premiums must follow. The key to controlling insurance costs is to find out what is driving up the costs of health care and reverse the trend if possible.
As a side note, one might ask why an Alaska Native Corporation wanted to pay thousands of dollars a month for a health insurance contract when they were all covered free under the Public Health Service, a government plan.
Health insurance companies are too often portrayed in this debate as making obscene profits. What is an obscene profit? When talking to students about capitalism and profits, I often set up the following scenario: If you had a million dollars of capital setting in a secure investment and paying you five per cent annually, which would be $50,000 a year, how much profit would you have to make to take it out and invest it in a business? Remember, once you invest it in a business, you have put it all at risk. Would you do it for 6 per cent profit? For 8per cent?
Before you answer, remember that while the money was setting in your secure investment, you did not have to do anything. It made that money whether you slept all day or didn’t. You didn’t have to be responsible for employees, put up with people who were incompetent, wanted the day off, called in sick, and so on. Also, you did not have to put up with government inspectors, regulators, and tons of paper work, and nothing was at risk. You didn’t need to hire a CPA or a tax lawyer. So, how much profit are you going to have to make before you will take your money out of that secure investment and risk it in a business?
I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t do it for 10 or even 15 per cent. The sad truth is; however, very few small business people make a ten per cent return on their investment. The article said that even of these big health insurers “profit margins typically run about 6 per cent, give or take a point or two.” However, ... “Profits barely exceeded 2 per cent of revenues in the latest annual measure.”
One step that ought to be taken in the health care debate is to quit using the term insurance. We are not talking about insurance; we are really talking about prepaid health care. Insurance is a financial instrument that helps people manage catastrophic risk. When we start talking about low deductibles or first dollar payments, we are no longer talking insurance.
People, who readily accept $500 deductibles for auto or homeowner’s insurance, want $50 deductible for health coverage with no co-payments. They insist on maternity coverage even though maternity costs can be planned and budgeted for. Many people run to the doctor for little things that they would not bother with if it weren’t for the insurance or if they had a co-payment. Others wake up sick on Thursday, but don’t go to the doctor. By Saturday, when the doctor’s office is closed, their problem has escalated and they run off to the emergency room. These things create unnecessary costs which in turn drive up the premiums.
Consumers of health care could do a lot to control costs if they would use common sense. Admittedly, claims are also higher because of some real positive things such as technology and modern drugs. I don’t think any of us want to go back to the health care of 50 years ago.
We already have close to universal health care, but it has been put together piece meal because it has been done incrementally by those who couldn’t get the whole package passed into law. Though I do not favor government health care, it looks like we are going to get it, and it would be better if it were carefully planned rather than done piece meal. It now looks, though, like there may be too many cooks preparing this broth.
I have stayed out of this health care debate, mostly because I have a lot of opinions but no answers. But, the afore mentioned article brings back some memories that do have some bearing on the debate.
When working as an insurance agent, I sold a rather large group health insurance plan to one of the Alaska Native Corporations. Because I sold the plan, I got to sit with the insurance executive as the plan was being put together. To my amazement, he began his model by assuming a two per cent profit. As part of the plan, the company insured itself against any catastrophic claims. In effect, all the underwriting company did was shuffle paperwork for their two per cent profit and assume the minor risk of routine claims which they paid out of premium dollars. Even at that, though, they lost money on the contract since there was no fat.
There is money to be made in insurance, but not health insurance. The public assumes the insurance companies are making huge profits because premiums keep rising. However, premiums are always a reflection of claims. As claims go up, premiums must follow. The key to controlling insurance costs is to find out what is driving up the costs of health care and reverse the trend if possible.
As a side note, one might ask why an Alaska Native Corporation wanted to pay thousands of dollars a month for a health insurance contract when they were all covered free under the Public Health Service, a government plan.
Health insurance companies are too often portrayed in this debate as making obscene profits. What is an obscene profit? When talking to students about capitalism and profits, I often set up the following scenario: If you had a million dollars of capital setting in a secure investment and paying you five per cent annually, which would be $50,000 a year, how much profit would you have to make to take it out and invest it in a business? Remember, once you invest it in a business, you have put it all at risk. Would you do it for 6 per cent profit? For 8per cent?
Before you answer, remember that while the money was setting in your secure investment, you did not have to do anything. It made that money whether you slept all day or didn’t. You didn’t have to be responsible for employees, put up with people who were incompetent, wanted the day off, called in sick, and so on. Also, you did not have to put up with government inspectors, regulators, and tons of paper work, and nothing was at risk. You didn’t need to hire a CPA or a tax lawyer. So, how much profit are you going to have to make before you will take your money out of that secure investment and risk it in a business?
I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t do it for 10 or even 15 per cent. The sad truth is; however, very few small business people make a ten per cent return on their investment. The article said that even of these big health insurers “profit margins typically run about 6 per cent, give or take a point or two.” However, ... “Profits barely exceeded 2 per cent of revenues in the latest annual measure.”
One step that ought to be taken in the health care debate is to quit using the term insurance. We are not talking about insurance; we are really talking about prepaid health care. Insurance is a financial instrument that helps people manage catastrophic risk. When we start talking about low deductibles or first dollar payments, we are no longer talking insurance.
People, who readily accept $500 deductibles for auto or homeowner’s insurance, want $50 deductible for health coverage with no co-payments. They insist on maternity coverage even though maternity costs can be planned and budgeted for. Many people run to the doctor for little things that they would not bother with if it weren’t for the insurance or if they had a co-payment. Others wake up sick on Thursday, but don’t go to the doctor. By Saturday, when the doctor’s office is closed, their problem has escalated and they run off to the emergency room. These things create unnecessary costs which in turn drive up the premiums.
Consumers of health care could do a lot to control costs if they would use common sense. Admittedly, claims are also higher because of some real positive things such as technology and modern drugs. I don’t think any of us want to go back to the health care of 50 years ago.
We already have close to universal health care, but it has been put together piece meal because it has been done incrementally by those who couldn’t get the whole package passed into law. Though I do not favor government health care, it looks like we are going to get it, and it would be better if it were carefully planned rather than done piece meal. It now looks, though, like there may be too many cooks preparing this broth.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Opposing Forces -- commentary
Teachers who truly want to teach, especially core academic subjects, must overcome often two opposing forces, one from educational elitists who affect educational policy and the other from students who resist the work necessary for genuine learning.
Professor George Cunningham says in his article "Teaching Teachers How Not to Teach:" "… the great problem is that most of the American public holds to one view of the role of schools, while most of the education elite ... hold a very different view. The public overwhelming believes that the function of schools should be mainly academic ... If you accept that view, then schools succeed only if their students graduate with a high degree of literacy, with proficiency in mathematics, with a good working knowledge of science, history, our social institutions, and so forth.”
"On the other hand, the dominant view among those who run and teach in our education schools is that the key role of schooling is to achieve various social objectives. In their opinion, it's more important for teachers to properly adjust students' outlook on life and society than to instruct them in 'mere' knowledge and facts."
These elitists see the public schools as places of cultural adjustment, places for shifting from the failed cultures of the home to one envisioned by them. As a result, schools now provide food services to ensure acceptable nutrition, health screenings of all types, values clarification, driver's education, instruction in how to raise a family, sex education, career guidance, sensitivity training, self esteem development, anger management, and on, and on. The public schools have become the providers of many social services.
An ex-teacher called into a talk show recently and expressed how this elitist thinking effected his life as a New York City public school English teacher. He said he was reprimanded for correcting students’ grammar on the grounds that doing so leads to lower self esteem.
The elitists who influence educational policy have an agenda different than that of the general public. How else do you explain the following comment in an article discussing experiments being done with smaller schools using military style discipline. Though the academic grades were showing marked improvement, a professor was quoted as saying, "It is setting education back thirty years."
So, how are you going to evaluate the success of teachers? Say I'm an English teacher and my students are well adjusted, can work co-operatively, and have great self esteem but can't write a decent paragraph. Am I a failure or a success? What if my students are maladjusted but write great prose? Am I a success or a failure?
Not only is the teacher who truly wants to teach core academics up against the opposing influence of the elitists, he faces students who come with a very different outlook. In a different article, another professor points out that there is a drastic difference between the way the teacher and the average student look at education. The teacher actually wants to teach students something and help them achieve mastery of the subject. The student, on the other hand, sees education as a game. Their main interest is one of scoring a grade. I was in Duluth, Minnesota, visiting old friends from Alaska. A college professor friend of theirs joined us. In the conversation, he related how a student who had not made it to a single class the entire semester, showed up in his office a couple of weeks before the end of the semester and explained to him how she just had to have an A in the class because she needed a four point average to get into the graduate school she wanted to attend.
Okay, so this example is a bit extreme, it does illustrate the point. Another extreme example happened a few years back when a group of Asian students went on strike for the right to cheat. While our students haven’t yet gone on strike for that right, all too many of them feel cheating is justified if it helps you score the desired grades. There is a commercial out by the Mormon Church where a girl’s mother catches her copying another student’s paper. The girl explains that it is sharing, not cheating. Though most students don’t cheat, at least not regularly, most of them see the end goal as scoring grades, not learning.
So, if a student has learned how to score an A in my class, but has only mastered the facts long enough to pass the test, can I really feel good about my work as a teacher?
When I look at these kinds of problems in education, I can’t imagine anything politicians might do that will help, mostly because so few of them really understand the problems. The solutions are found in the attitudes and expectations of those involved in the process, not in politics.
Professor George Cunningham says in his article "Teaching Teachers How Not to Teach:" "… the great problem is that most of the American public holds to one view of the role of schools, while most of the education elite ... hold a very different view. The public overwhelming believes that the function of schools should be mainly academic ... If you accept that view, then schools succeed only if their students graduate with a high degree of literacy, with proficiency in mathematics, with a good working knowledge of science, history, our social institutions, and so forth.”
"On the other hand, the dominant view among those who run and teach in our education schools is that the key role of schooling is to achieve various social objectives. In their opinion, it's more important for teachers to properly adjust students' outlook on life and society than to instruct them in 'mere' knowledge and facts."
These elitists see the public schools as places of cultural adjustment, places for shifting from the failed cultures of the home to one envisioned by them. As a result, schools now provide food services to ensure acceptable nutrition, health screenings of all types, values clarification, driver's education, instruction in how to raise a family, sex education, career guidance, sensitivity training, self esteem development, anger management, and on, and on. The public schools have become the providers of many social services.
An ex-teacher called into a talk show recently and expressed how this elitist thinking effected his life as a New York City public school English teacher. He said he was reprimanded for correcting students’ grammar on the grounds that doing so leads to lower self esteem.
The elitists who influence educational policy have an agenda different than that of the general public. How else do you explain the following comment in an article discussing experiments being done with smaller schools using military style discipline. Though the academic grades were showing marked improvement, a professor was quoted as saying, "It is setting education back thirty years."
So, how are you going to evaluate the success of teachers? Say I'm an English teacher and my students are well adjusted, can work co-operatively, and have great self esteem but can't write a decent paragraph. Am I a failure or a success? What if my students are maladjusted but write great prose? Am I a success or a failure?
Not only is the teacher who truly wants to teach core academics up against the opposing influence of the elitists, he faces students who come with a very different outlook. In a different article, another professor points out that there is a drastic difference between the way the teacher and the average student look at education. The teacher actually wants to teach students something and help them achieve mastery of the subject. The student, on the other hand, sees education as a game. Their main interest is one of scoring a grade. I was in Duluth, Minnesota, visiting old friends from Alaska. A college professor friend of theirs joined us. In the conversation, he related how a student who had not made it to a single class the entire semester, showed up in his office a couple of weeks before the end of the semester and explained to him how she just had to have an A in the class because she needed a four point average to get into the graduate school she wanted to attend.
Okay, so this example is a bit extreme, it does illustrate the point. Another extreme example happened a few years back when a group of Asian students went on strike for the right to cheat. While our students haven’t yet gone on strike for that right, all too many of them feel cheating is justified if it helps you score the desired grades. There is a commercial out by the Mormon Church where a girl’s mother catches her copying another student’s paper. The girl explains that it is sharing, not cheating. Though most students don’t cheat, at least not regularly, most of them see the end goal as scoring grades, not learning.
So, if a student has learned how to score an A in my class, but has only mastered the facts long enough to pass the test, can I really feel good about my work as a teacher?
When I look at these kinds of problems in education, I can’t imagine anything politicians might do that will help, mostly because so few of them really understand the problems. The solutions are found in the attitudes and expectations of those involved in the process, not in politics.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Generational Despair -- commentary
It seems that every generation despairs for the one that will follow. Yet, the one that follows always seems to move the ball forward. Up to now, I have resisted the temptation to despair, but for the generation now growing into young adulthood, I wonder.
I began to have my doubts when going back into the classroom after several years of retirement. I was hit with a barrage of run on sentences and comma splices in student writing. There has always been some of this, but nothing like what I am now seeing. While at a recent workshop, this subject came up and I asked, “Where is this was coming from?” The immediate and emphatic answer was “text messaging.” No surprise here. The increased frequency of text messaging among teen agers is staggering, and it corrupts the language because they use a sort of written pidgin English.
I doubt that a culture can withstand the total denigration of its written and spoken language. Remember Goerge Orwell’s novel “1984?” The corruption of the language was key in subjugating the masses. The fight to maintain an acceptable language standard can become too great for the language arts teacher to win, and we are approaching a tipping point.
A thing that makes teaching our language so difficult is that all students come to school with a language structure already in place. They don’t come to school with a math, social studies, or science structure already in place, just language. The English teacher is in the business of breaking bad habits which are already in place and replacing them with standard language patterns, the patterns used in business and academia.
Over the past half a century or so, the general usage of language in America has been in a decline, and we live in a time when technology is speeding most things up exponentially, including the depreciation of language. I predict the decline will leave us with a generation unable to communicate in any intelligible, accurate way. It will be a post literate society with the return of an elite class of scribes who will provide the written communication for business and government.
By far the majority of kids today text message, using self created forms of shorthand that do not lend themselves to exactness such as ”LOL” which could mean lots of love, lots of luck, or lots of laughs. The quantity of texting is incomprehensible to people of my generation. One father told me that his daughter, sitting in the front passenger’s seat, was busily texting the girl sitting in the back seat. I had a student tell me recently that her phone plan only allowed 400 text messages a month, but she kept going over that. I was substituting in a class a couple of years ago when a girl let out a groan of frustration. She had been checking her text messaging bill and it had exceeded $485, and she knew she was in trouble when she got home. These examples are not extreme, but rather close to the norm. When kids spend this much time with a debased language structure, there is little a language arts teacher can do to keep the ball moving down field.
There are those who argue that technology will solve this problem with such things as spell check and grammar check. The problem with spell check and grammar check is that they only flag what might be a problem. It is still up the writer to make the judgment as to whether a problem really exists. This requires an adequate working knowledge of the language and the desire to write correctly, two things that are missing.
The problem is further exacerbated by the purposeful actions of advertisers and political spin: things like lite for light, kidz for kids, and politicians calling expenditures investments. One of my pet peeves every school year is the red ribbon, drug free campaign. During that week, all the students and faculty who are drug free are suppose to wear a red ribbon which has “I’m Drug Free” emblazoned on it. It seems innocent enough, except the language is inexact. The principal at one such school told me close to 50 per cent of her students were on some type of prescribed drug. Are they drug free? I know the message is suppose to communicate that the student is free of drug abuse or free from the illegitimate use of drugs, but that is not what the ribbon says. If language is important, then school is the one place where it ought to be used correctly.
What is a parent to do if they want their kids to be among the literate elite when they grow up? An obvious response is to quit funding your kid’s phone. It costs money to text message and rarely is anything being communicated that is worth the cost. Maybe by the time the kids can afford the toy on their own, their language structure will be secure. Your kids are lucky to live in a time when it is not hard to be above average, so help them capitalize on this opportunity by saying no to their every wish.
I began to have my doubts when going back into the classroom after several years of retirement. I was hit with a barrage of run on sentences and comma splices in student writing. There has always been some of this, but nothing like what I am now seeing. While at a recent workshop, this subject came up and I asked, “Where is this was coming from?” The immediate and emphatic answer was “text messaging.” No surprise here. The increased frequency of text messaging among teen agers is staggering, and it corrupts the language because they use a sort of written pidgin English.
I doubt that a culture can withstand the total denigration of its written and spoken language. Remember Goerge Orwell’s novel “1984?” The corruption of the language was key in subjugating the masses. The fight to maintain an acceptable language standard can become too great for the language arts teacher to win, and we are approaching a tipping point.
A thing that makes teaching our language so difficult is that all students come to school with a language structure already in place. They don’t come to school with a math, social studies, or science structure already in place, just language. The English teacher is in the business of breaking bad habits which are already in place and replacing them with standard language patterns, the patterns used in business and academia.
Over the past half a century or so, the general usage of language in America has been in a decline, and we live in a time when technology is speeding most things up exponentially, including the depreciation of language. I predict the decline will leave us with a generation unable to communicate in any intelligible, accurate way. It will be a post literate society with the return of an elite class of scribes who will provide the written communication for business and government.
By far the majority of kids today text message, using self created forms of shorthand that do not lend themselves to exactness such as ”LOL” which could mean lots of love, lots of luck, or lots of laughs. The quantity of texting is incomprehensible to people of my generation. One father told me that his daughter, sitting in the front passenger’s seat, was busily texting the girl sitting in the back seat. I had a student tell me recently that her phone plan only allowed 400 text messages a month, but she kept going over that. I was substituting in a class a couple of years ago when a girl let out a groan of frustration. She had been checking her text messaging bill and it had exceeded $485, and she knew she was in trouble when she got home. These examples are not extreme, but rather close to the norm. When kids spend this much time with a debased language structure, there is little a language arts teacher can do to keep the ball moving down field.
There are those who argue that technology will solve this problem with such things as spell check and grammar check. The problem with spell check and grammar check is that they only flag what might be a problem. It is still up the writer to make the judgment as to whether a problem really exists. This requires an adequate working knowledge of the language and the desire to write correctly, two things that are missing.
The problem is further exacerbated by the purposeful actions of advertisers and political spin: things like lite for light, kidz for kids, and politicians calling expenditures investments. One of my pet peeves every school year is the red ribbon, drug free campaign. During that week, all the students and faculty who are drug free are suppose to wear a red ribbon which has “I’m Drug Free” emblazoned on it. It seems innocent enough, except the language is inexact. The principal at one such school told me close to 50 per cent of her students were on some type of prescribed drug. Are they drug free? I know the message is suppose to communicate that the student is free of drug abuse or free from the illegitimate use of drugs, but that is not what the ribbon says. If language is important, then school is the one place where it ought to be used correctly.
What is a parent to do if they want their kids to be among the literate elite when they grow up? An obvious response is to quit funding your kid’s phone. It costs money to text message and rarely is anything being communicated that is worth the cost. Maybe by the time the kids can afford the toy on their own, their language structure will be secure. Your kids are lucky to live in a time when it is not hard to be above average, so help them capitalize on this opportunity by saying no to their every wish.
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