March 27, 2009
Our parents walked to school, so can’t today’s kids?
Because of today’s suburban sprawl, probably not many. But for a town in Italy where walking is practical, having kids walk addresses traffic congestion, pollution and childhood obesity all at once.
It’d be nice if more metro area parents made their kids at least take the bus, which in itself could reduce the choking traffic and resulting bad air quality.
March 25, 2009
The dreaded “pre-existing condition” has forced many people to go without health insurance or pay massive premiums if they could even find a carrier to accept them. For the most part, only healthy people can buy private health insurance.
Now, insurers are saying they’ll write policies for people with pre-existing conditions if the federal government requires insurance for everyone, much like the Massachusetts model. Of course, the private insurers would stand to gain considerably from a law requiring everyone to have personal health insurance, with a large pool to spread the risk.
Out of control health care costs are the underlying problem, yet it is the health insurance industry that shares a healthy portion of the blame for allowing these costs to explode over the decades. Can more health insurance for everyone actually reduce costs while making people healthier?
There’s discussion now of an expanded Medicaid program for all citizens that would compete with the private insurers. If that happens, the point of excluding people with pre-existing conditions would be moot. Nevertheless, this exclusion would let a lot of families breath a little easier.
March 17, 2009
Sorry for the sporadic posts. We’ve had nothing but bad news, it seems, for so long that I’ve decided that I’m only going to post items that are positive or hopeful.
This story on MSNBC.com highlights people whose careers have been upended, but perhaps their stories – and those of the kids they teach – will have happier endings. Teachers in Georgia get a lot of the blame for poor student performance, which for most is unfair. On the other hand, if more of our best and brightest who become castoffs in the economic meltdown start teaching our kids, perhaps there’s reason to feel positive about the future.
March 13, 2009
Gov. Perdue has put together a website for tracking the state’s accountability of how it spends federal stimulus funds, or the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).
The website includes a video of Governor Perdue’s directives to state agency leaders given during a meeting last month. Direct links with contact information to each state agency are provided so that anyone can ask questions regarding funding, timelines, the grant process and other issues for a specific agency.
For example, here is a link showing a grant to the Dept. of Community Health.
There are also links to federal and local governments and associations that will play a role in receiving stimulus dollars.
Georgians can also report fraud and abuse to the Office of the State Inspector General.
March 11, 2009
Absent of hard details , President Obama’s speech yesterday (3/10/09) outlined an education reform program that places emphasis on expansion of charter schools and incentive pay for outstanding teachers. Less pronounced is the planned increase added investment to early learning, yet this could provide the foundation for the entire program’s success.
The full text of the president’s speech in pdf format is available here.
March 4, 2009
The following message was sent March 3, 2009 to board members and supporters of the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education (www.gpee.org), a policy think tank, development and advocacy group founded by the Georgia Chamber of Commerce and Georgia Economic Developers Association in 1990 to improve educational outcomes.
These people actually know about education and how it can be improved, yet state legislators seemingly don’t avail themselves to this resource. What follows is a repudiation of a school voucher initiative in the General Assembly.
In these turbulent times, when money is tight and expectations are high, practitioners and policymakers often look for innovative strategies that will result in educational improvements. One strategy that continues to emerge in discussion and legislation is the use of school vouchers. You will find it discussed in our annual Top Ten Issues to Watch report.
Based upon a thorough review of research, political history, and policy implications, the Georgia Partnership believes that vouchers are not the silver bullet reform mechanism for which some policymakers are searching. Georgia’s students need a commitment from policymakers and practitioners to focus on systemic reforms that will bring the promise of educational excellence to every classroom in the state.
The Partnership relies on research to evaluate policies and drive decision-making. However, despite the theory that competition and parental choice should improve the public education system, empirical research about the impacts of voucher programs generates as many questions as definitive answers. To date there is no consensus among researchers that vouchers significantly improve students’ academic opportunities or outcomes.
In 2008, researchers from Princeton University and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago conducted a review of existing research on the impact of education vouchers on student achievement and concluded that “the best research to date finds relatively small achievement gains for students offered education vouchers, most of which are not statistically different from zero.”
In recent years, increased school accountability and the rise of business-inspired educational practices have brought private-sector expectations for performance and accountability for results to the forefront of the public school arena. Consequently, it would be expected that any new legislation concerning vouchers would require that private schools receiving taxpayer dollars adhere to the following practices: employ fully certified teachers; administer standardized tests used by the state to measure student achievement and report the results to the public; and publish the manner in which they expend the public monies they receive.
Voucher legislation that does not address these three concerns should not be supported. Georgia has made great strides in the quest to provide an excellent education for all its youth, and now is not the time to derail our progress by enacting single-issue reforms. To build a world-class education system and workforce, we must collaborate and focus our efforts on a comprehensive plan for school success – a plan that replaces random acts with a focus on the interconnectedness of issues impacting our student achievement.
