news
By Phil Power Whenever things are com-
plicated or confusing, it’s always much easier to believe there is some “silver bullet” that will miraculously cure ev- erything.
Our political system regu-
larly falls prey to this kind of magical thinking. Today, on the right, it’s the notion that cutting taxes will automatical- ly result in a prosperous econ- omy. On the left, it’s the idea that there is always one more government program that will make everything better.
But the subject that seems
to call forth the most silver bul- lets is our troubled schools.
A quick list: Our public schools are mo-
nopolistic and therefore bad. The silver bullet solution? Lots and lots more charters.
Our schools are underfund-
ed. The solution? Lots and lots more money.
Our schools are badly gov-
erned. The solution (especially in Detroit)? Mayoral control.
Our schools are bad be-
cause teachers are poorly trained. The solution? (a) abolish or (b) improve colleges of education.
Our schools are bad be-
cause we don’t have a good way of measuring what kids learn. The solution: More standardized tests.
Or conversely: Our schools
are bad because teachers are teaching to the test. The so- lution: Fewer standardized tests.
One silver bullet proposal
particularly in fashion now — merit pay for teachers. In other words, teachers should get bonuses if their students can be shown to be learning a lot.
However, that’s not as
simple as it seems. There are lots of complications. For example: Should it be just one teacher or the entire school? How do we mea- sure what “learn a lot” really means? Can we really sort out the impact of one teacher from the rich trove of variables within any given school?
But the core of the notion
seems sensible. Teachers teach, and good teachers should be rewarded. For years, teachers’ unions were crazy
w i t h hostility towards the idea. But one measure of
the Phil Power
general a c c e p - t a n c e of merit pay is that the Ame r i - can Fed- e r a t ion of Teach- ers seems
to be gradually becoming rec- onciled to it.
Yet does it work? We now
have some hard data, cour- tesy of the National Center on Performance Incentives at Vanderbilt University. They’ve just announced the results of a study that looked at the hy- pothesis that large monetary incentives would cause teach- ers to find ways to be more effective and boost student scores.
The conclusion: In the case
of 300 middle-school math teachers in Nashville, the pay program “did not set off sig- nificant negative reactions of the kind that have attended the introduction of merit pay elsewhere. But neither did it yield consistent and lasting gains in test scores. It simply did not do much of anything.”
Sigh. Another silver blank,
evidently. One other common-sense
idea also keeps coming up: Pre- kindergarten exposure to education. Without any doubt, scientific research has dem- onstrated that kids learn best from birth to age five.Sadly, given the usual disconnect between what we know and what we do, we start kinder- garten in America at age five. There is now a movement to get kids into pre-kindergarten programs, on the grounds that they help them prepare for regular school.
The theory is that “pre-K”
programs are one of the best ways to improve schools. Much research has been done on these programs, and here, we do have definitive and en- couraging numbers. Finan- cially, the return on invest- ment — counting academic performance, as well as re- duced criminality, mental ill- ness and alcoholism and lots
THE MICHIGAN CHRONICLE
October 13-19, 2010
Page A-7
Helping teachers, teach Avastin showdown: The fight for a cancer fighter
of other factors — ranges from eight to 17 times. Michigan saved $1.1 billion last year alone because of school readiness efforts since 1984, according to the ECIC, the Early Childhood Investment Corporation. Their survey of Michigan kindergarten teach- ers found that on average, 35 percent of the approximately 150,000 Michigan children en- tering kindergarten each year are not ready to learn. The main culprit?
That’s right. Teachers be-
lieve that the lack of oppor- tunity to attend a preschool program is the main reason so many start school trailing their peers. According to the newly formed Children’s Lead- ership Council of Michigan, ap- proximately 40,000 Michigan children don’t receive publicly subsidized preschool educa- tion, even though they qualify for it. The National Institution of Early Education Research says it costs nearly $4,300 per child enrolled in preschool.
Do the math and you find
that enrolling those 40,000 kids would cost around $173 million. That’s a lot of money, but compared to the $13 bil- lion or so we spend on K-12 schools, it’s a pittance. When you think of the billions we are likely to get back, it sounds criminal not to make this in- vestment.
The Center for Michigan’s
meeting on schools drew 300 people. We asked them: If we had an extra $100 million to spend on our schools, what should we do with it?
A majority favored putting
it into “pre-K” programs. But since we don’t have much extra money now, a simpler idea might be to take $200 million out of the $13 billion budget for our public schools — a drop in the bucket, really — and reallocate it to pre-kin- dergarten programs. Silver bullet? Not at all. But better than anything else in our am- munition pouch.
Phil Power is the founder
and president of The Center for Michigan, a bipartisan centrist think-and-do tank which is sponsoring “Mich- igan’s Defining Moment,” a public engagement outreach campaign for citizens. He can be reached at ppower@the-
centerformichigan.net.
By Peter J. Pitts One more day, or week,
or month, or perhaps even a year.
It may not seem like much
time, but patients with incur- able cancer know better.
For Christi Turnage of Mis-
sissippi, who lives with stage IV breast cancer, it means seeing her daughter start kindergarten, celebrating her 27th wedding anniversary, and watching her sons graduate from college.
Her family and her oncolo-
gist credit her quality of life for the past two years to the drug Avastin, a biologic that combats cancer by cutting off the blood supply to tumors.
But advanced breast cancer
patients like Turnage have been forced to spend precious time battling something else: the possibility that federal regulators will vote to remove approval of Avastin for their treatment.
If officials with the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration are wise, they will overrule the agency’s cancer-drug advisory panel, which voted 12-to-1 in July to recommend denying a valuable clinical option to advanced breast cancer pa- tients.
According to the Depart-
ment of Health and Human Services, an estimated 40,000 women die from breast cancer each year.
The panel concluded that
the costly drug doesn’t eke out enough extra lifetime among breast cancer patients to justify its use and risks. This ignores all the “super re- sponders” — the patients who reap significant benefits from Avastin.
Indeed, the Susan G. Komen
for the Cure and Ovarian Cancer National Alliance re- cently sent a joint letter to the FDA urging the government to keep it as a choice best made by a woman and her doctor.
The groups also warned
that if the FDA de-lists Avas- tin for breast cancer, it would only discourage future drug development.
If the FDA does remove ap-
proval of Avastin for breast cancer, doctors conceivably could write prescriptions for it anyway, going “off label.”
But it’s likely that Medicare
and private insurers would not cover the cost of what is one of the world’s most expensive drugs. Patients could contin- ue Avastin only if they could afford $8,000 a month out of pocket.
Avastin is a better alterna-
tive than the status quo for breast cancer patients, and can be truly transformative for some.
No wonder Avastin-users
are desperately writing let- ters, circulating petitions and, like Turnage’s 19-year-old son Josh, posting videos on YouTube (
http://bit.ly/bXlUFA) pleading their case.
Avastin is their last hope. The FDA should make sure
it is not their lost hope. Peter J. Pitts is president of
the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest and a former FDA associate commissioner.
NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING
Michigan Department of Human Services is holding a public hearing on a proposed amendment to the U.S. Department of Energy State Plan for the Weatherization Assistance Programfor Low-Income Persons funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. A public hearing is scheduled to receive comments from interested people on October 22, 2010, from 1:30-3 p.m. at Michigan Department of Human Services, 1st Floor - Dempsey Room, 235 South Grand Avenue, Lansing, Mich. The hearing is in an accessible and barrier-free location. A copy of the plan amendmentmay be obtained by calling (517) 373-8896. This amendment to the state plan includes the following changes in the ARRA Weatherization Program:
• The allocation of new ARRA funding for the Sustainable Energy for Residential Consumers programtoMuskegon-Oceana Community Action Partnership, Inc., and to Oakland Livingston Human Service Agency.
Written comments regarding the plan will be accepted until October 25, 2010, and should be sent to Stacie Gibson, Director, Bureau of Community Action and Economic Opportunity, Department of Human Services, Suite 204, P. O. Box 30037, Lansing, Michigan 48909, Fax (517) 335-5042.
(1103-4)
TURN YOUR HOME INTO THE DREAMS
HOME OF YOUR
A CITIZENS BANK HOME IMPROVEMENT LOAN is a simple way to make the improvements* you need, when you need them. With unsecured options available, that new bathroom could be closer than you think.
Stop by and talk to a Citizens Banker today about the home improvement loan that’s right for you or call (866) 831-3105.
*Home repairs are classified as permanent improvements to real estate. Borrower must be 18 years of age and the owner of the property. Loans in excess of $7,500 must be secured. Normal credit criteria apply. Ownership includes a deeded interest or land contract purchaser’s interest in the property. Rates vary by borrower and
depend on the borrower’s credit score and loan amount. To qualify for a .25% interest rate deduction, client must enroll in automatic payment using a Citizens Bank checking account.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32