September 2007

Sept. 27, 2007
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Sept. 24, 2007)

Loaded pistol on the nightstand…

In an obscure little legislative committee hearing last week, Kansas Commissioner of Education Alexa Posny dropped a bombshell.

By next spring, maybe a little later, the state Department of Education will be able to blend two computer programs—one that records the progress of students, one that keeps track of the state’s schoolteachers.

The bombshell? It’s that the two heretofore separate silos of information will be able to communicate, so that the state, but more important, local school boards will be able to track the progress made by students who were taught by individual teachers.

What’s that mean? That, intelligently used—and that is a big deal right there—school boards will be able to know which teachers produce the most education for the district’s children.

The most logical result of that new information, again if properly used, will be that school districts can finally pay the best teachers more money because they produce the smartest kids.

Toting up the test scores of each teacher’s pupils and converting that into some sort of merit pay plan for schoolteachers would be relatively simple but is exactly the wrong way to use that information that will be available maybe next spring, but more likely in teacher contract negotiations in 2009.

Properly used, if it is used at all by school districts in negotiating contracts with the local schoolteacher union, it’s going to require not only just toting up how well the pupils did on standardized tests under the guidance of an individual teacher, but figuring out just what sort of pupils the teacher is teaching.

What?

Consider two cases. A teacher with a classroom dominated by at-risk pupils, pupils with troubled homes and little parental support for learning, or who maybe are just learning English. The other? How about a prosperous high school, where the kids tend to drive Volvos to school and are all college-bound?

Producing a 2 percent or 3 percent improvement in standardized test scores for a classroom of kids who are at-risk is going to be a lot harder than producing an even larger percentage improvement for prosperous, savvy kids who clearly are not at risk for absorbing new information.

Which is the better teacher who deserves a bigger paycheck? Not hard to figure, is it? 

It’s clearly going to require some fairly complicated and well thought-out procedures to assess the skills of teachers based on the pupil base they are assigned. That complication is why measuring pupil performance and attributing it to a teacher as a way to set salaries is generally opposed by teacher unions. It is just unfair. Especially unfair in a time when the federal No Child Left Behind  test scores are important to school districts, and teaching the children who aren’t performing well on those standardized tests is more important than ever. And, practically, wherever pupils wind up on the scale of making satisfactory annual progress on those tests, those kids are going to be our neighbors and workers and friends and a vital part of our economy.

The blending of those two databases—pupil performance and teacher names—holds the possibility of a new battleground in the K-12 education industry in determining what teachers should be paid. Used thoughtfully, it sounds like a valuable tool to be used in encouraging the best of teachers with difficult pupils to stick with their jobs. Maybe, just maybe, it might make fiscal sense to some to assign so-so teachers to classes where lower skill levels are necessary for pupils to make good educational progress.

Everything becomes complicated in a hurry. Merit pay proponents get information that, wisely used, could be a great tool. But until it becomes apparent that the information is being wisely used, you wouldn’t want your union to sign on to it, would you?

Sept. 20, 2007
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Sept. 17, 2007)

A little issue…

Of the hundreds of issues to face the Kansas Legislature next session, that election-year session, dozens will become headline-level topics.

Of those headline-level issues, count on most to deal with emotional topics such as abortion, count on some to deal with budget issues such as school finance, on tax cuts and such, and then count on some issues to be dealt with primarily by “bullet” if they’re covered at all.

Those “bullets”? The paragraph or maybe two at the bottom of a story, part of the “what else” a bill does, or some facet of a bill that a reporter or editor finds interesting.

Unless things change dramatically next legislative session, look for nursing home placement of thousands of the state’s poor and ill and frail to wind up as a “bullet.”

The issue of placement of Medicaid clients, those who can’t be just sent home to take care of themselves as they heal—or who just aren’t going to heal—is a powerful one.

Thousands of elderly, frail Kansans live in nursing homes where they get care and comfort that they need and that Kansans want them to have. That’s not the issue.

But many of those frail Kansans could be living with assistance in less-than-nursing-home settings, in assisted living programs or in their own homes where professionals visit frequently to ensure their welfare. Those assisted living arrangements are proven. Hundreds of Kansas’ elderly and infirm are getting good care in less-than-nursing home arrangements after a brief nursing home stay, whether it is a boarding facility where the state pays for the lower level of services the clients want, or at home, where caregivers visit and the clients are able to live in the emotionally comforting surroundings of their own homes.

That sounds like a pretty simple choice—that presumably ought to be up to the client who is mentally competent to make the decision: To choose where he/she wants to live and receive the care that is necessary.

But watch what seems to be a relatively simple issue become complicated when the Legislature considers it next session.

What happens if, say, residents of a nursing home decide they want to go home with assistance or to a facility that is considerably less restrictive and ordered than a nursing home? The nursing home loses a client and the independent living facility or maybe area in-home care providers pick up a client. The nursing home owner loses the monthly payment, which means there is less cash flow from which to pay the overhead for the remaining clients, the mortgage, the light and gas bills, the salaries of workers who are still needed but have just a little less to do. In some towns, the local nursing home can be a major employer.

Ultimately—and it doesn’t sound politically correct or humane—the state’s frail elderly who need assistance become a commodity, hopefully a well-cared-for commodity, but a balance sheet entry.
Last session? The independent living folks got the Senate to agree to lift an 80-a-year rule capping the shift of nursing home residents to independent living arrangements. They lost the provision in a House-Senate conference committee on an appropriations bill with nary a mention by most of the press. For the upcoming session? Who knows?

At some point, the issue becomes one of just money. Yes, there are the lives and care of the state’s frail at stake, but it comes down to a money issue.

Not sure that’s what should decide this issue, but it has in the past and it also is one of those “little” issues to those who aren’t involved in it, that get debated when there aren’t a lot of people around and when the politics of the issue often don’t emerge from appropriations committee hearings rooms.

It will be one of those hundreds of issue that most people will never hear about.

Sept. 3, 2007
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Aug. 30, 2007)

No politics here

There’s government, and then there’s politics, and the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission is going to extreme measures to make sure that the two don’t marry, or even date…

The issue gets increasingly complicated as technology outstrips the TV, radio and newspaper advertisements, direct mailings and even those “robo calls” that dial up voters’ telephones and unleash a campaign advertisement.

The new venue? The Internet and politicians’ websites, where accomplishments, honors and, oh yes, a chance to contribute to a reelection campaign are there for the viewing of potential voters.

The Ethics Commission has been spending time to make sure that politics and government information don’t mix. Earlier this year the commission pruned the official on-line profiles of candidates of any mention that they may be seeking reelection.

Those government websites basically have a generally nice photo; a list of committee assignments, telephone numbers and addresses, and the official state e-mail address for members of the Legislature.

A year ago, those pretty straightforward listings of the House and Senate membership rosters also allowed a “hot link” to the office-holder’s personal e-mail account and website, where some were bashful and some not about soliciting campaign contributions.

This year, those “hot links” which put campaign information just a mouse click away from the government-funded roster were eliminated.  They gave the impression that taxpayer money which funds the generic legislative website was being used to direct users to campaign material. Now, we guess, you’d have to call the office-holder and ask for the website address, or maybe Google ‘em.

While the Internet is the hot way to communicate, Ethics is also watching the state’s postage-paid newsletters, too. Each House member gets $952 and each Senate member $2,858 (remember, there are just 40 Senate districts and 125 House districts, so the Senate gets about three times what the House gets for mail).

Those government-paid mailings also are going to be strictly business, or as close as Ethics can make them come.

Even the names of legislators’ websites are going to have to be pretty generic if they ever get written on a newsletter that is paid for by, or mailed with, government-bought postage.

“SenJoe Jones.com,” swell, “Re-elect SenJoe Jones.com,” no, according to Ethics. Real question of course will be how Ethics defines “HowaboutthatJones.com,” whether that’s electioneering by domain name or not.

Even street addresses listed on government-mailed newsletters have to follow similar non-endorsement guidelines.

Ethics may have gotten a little too fussy for its own good on this one but we’ll give it some time and probably some poor devil being hauled into Topeka for a hearing before we know for sure…