NZ 6yo killed by truck shouldn’t have been walking alone, coroner says

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A six-year-old girl killed by a truck outside her Gisborne home shouldn’t have been walking to school without an adult, a coroner has ruled.

Carla Neems was killed by a recycling truck outside her family’s Russell St home, as she arrived home from school on her scooter about 3pm on May 2, 2017.

Coroner Tim Scott ruled that Carla should have been accompanied by an adult on her journey home, inquest findings released today say.

Instead, Carla had two older sisters — aged 8 and 10 — and regularly travelled to and from school with them, the New Zealand Heraldreported.

However, on the day of her death she walked home with two other young children, and part of the way on her own, the report stated.

“Carla was not accompanied home from school by a responsible older person, preferably an adult and she should have been,” Coroner Scott said.

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When I was a kid, about the time of Noah's ark, all kids seemed to walk to school barefoot and unaccompanied.  I certainly did from Grade 1 on.  It was probably about a mile and I did cross a main road.  I reproduce below a story from a correspondent which closely echoes my experience:

"When six years old and from my second day at school in grade prep, I walked a mile to school and a mile home, and crossed several roads along the way.

I remember my mother and father walking me to the school before I started, pointing out the route and the noticeable landmarks along the way, like particular coloured letter boxes, fences, trees and a phone box, telling me which side of the road to walk on, to refuse any lift and run away if approached, and drilling me in properly crossing the roads only when no car was in sight, until I had it right.

I was a latch-key kid. Mum and Dad went off to work early in the morning and on the way took my two years younger sister Sarah to a local lady who looked after the neighbourhood kids.

From day two in school, in the morning I waited until the clock hands were in a certain shape (8.30am) then left home, locking the door and setting off for school, step by step as it had been drilled into me, and noticing all the landmarks along the way. I arrived home at 4pm and waited until the clock hands were straight up and down (6pm) when mum and dad would arrive home when the big hand had moved a little past the top.

When my sister Sarah started school I was only in grade two and we walked side by side to school, and held hands as we crossed the road, exactly as I was instructed to.

As I recall, the other children walked or rode their bikes or scooters to school too. I remember a stream of children walking out from school and along the streets towards their homes.

So I don't entirely agree with the Coroner. I think the little girl and her older sisters should have been drilled on exactly how to walk to school. As horrible as they are, though, accidents do occur, despite parents training their children well. Children do thoughtless things, and motorists may not see them. Parents at best can only reduce the chances of that happening."

There is an extensive coverage of the issues involved here







The Growth in Tuition Insurance
    
People buy insurance seeking protection from unanticipated events posing significant financial hardships. Most homeowners insure against their house being destroyed by fire or other natural calamities, and also against unanticipated illnesses or accidents requiring expensive medical treatment. An owner of a car worth, say, $15,000 or $20,000 usually has auto insurance providing protection from theft or destruction from an accident. Yet until fairly recently, most persons going to college did not even consider purchasing tuition insurance, even though a semester of fees (including room and board) at some schools costs far more than the value of a typical car. As college expenses become bigger, the case for purchasing insurance has grown.

With that in mind, a few days ago I chatted with Paul Richardson, an executive at a major national insurance company, Liberty Mutual, which entered into the tuition insurance business just a couple of years ago, motivated by increasing numbers of holders of other policies (e.g, auto or homeowners) inquiring about its availability. Mr. Richardson tells me a small number of companies sell their product directly to consumers, while others make arrangements with colleges to offer protection through the school.

What does tuition insurance protect the policyholder against? Mainly, dropping out of school in mid-semester owing to some totally unexpected circumstance, most prominently a health issue involving the student, or, in some cases, a parent providing substantial financial support. Most schools themselves provide modest protection; a student dropping out after only a few days at the beginning of the semester, for example, usually can get nearly a full tuition refund. While policies vary considerably from school to school, at most of them a student dropping out in the middle of the term, say, after seven or eight weeks, will get relatively little, maybe nothing, in refunds from the institution.

The risk to a typical healthy young person of unanticipated health issues is pretty small, and for affluent students who are not very risk averse, the cost of the insurance (perhaps around one percent of the tuition and fees) may not be worth it. But insurance is a way of providing some piece of mind as a significant amount of money is at risk.

I suppose disputes could arise. A student might get tired of school and want to run off with a friend on some adventure, for example, and claim that he/she is suffering from anxiety or depression or some mental health-related issue, requiring the insurance company to have the student examined medically. Or, the student is floundering academically and wants to cut his/her losses, so feigns an illness. But disputes of this sort are routine any time big amounts of money are involved, and insurance companies deal with them routinely, such as with damages to a home.

When tuition insurance was brought to my attention, I immediately thought of the multitude of unintended consequences the federal student financial assistance programs have had. The government makes low-interest loans available on terms no private lender would consider, enhancing the demand for colleges, which respond by vigorously raising their tuition fees. College financing becomes a much bigger issue in the lives of Americans, and that, in turn, spawns secondary impacts, such as the rise of tuition insurance.

There are other risks associated with attending college, most notably the possibility of dropping out—about 40% of students fail to graduate in six years. The financial consequences of this are potentially nearly devastating—no degree and perhaps $50,000 in college loan debts. In recognition of this, new forms of financing college are evolving, notably income share agreements, which shift most of the financial risk of college attendance from the student borrower to a professional investor who hopes to profit from the student’s postgraduate earnings. This is an idea whose time has come, and its use is growing.

Will the tuition insurance business grow and become a standard expenditure made with respect to college? Possibly. It appeals to the risk-averse and those attending more expensive schools—probably fewer insure over lost tuition fees at low-cost community colleges. Insurance companies, however, must face one reality: college enrollments are actually in decline and the pool of 18- to 22-year-olds will probably be smaller in 15 years than it is today.

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3 Improvements to Career and Technical Education Funding

Just this month, the Department of Education updated a key funding program for career and technical education (CTE)—Perkins V. But while Perkins offers new opportunities for innovation and student success, educators should also consider the value of launching CTE without Perkins’ support.

Thirteen-year-old Layla is one of 11 million students studying science, technology, healthcare, manufacturing, and more through CTE programs.

“If all goes as planned,” Layla’s father Gregory Seaton wrote, “Layla will graduate from high school with a certification as a laboratory technician and some college credit from dual-enrollment courses as well as her high school diploma. When she graduates, Layla will immediately be able to earn about $40,000 a year as a lab technician.”

The Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act, or Perkins V, provides $1.3 billion to support CTE programs like Layla’s. The program also takes three key steps to fuel CTE innovation and position CTE to fill jobs:

1. Expands Flexibility in CTE Spending

For years, CTE innovation took a back seat to Department of Education spending priorities. Under Perkins IV for example, grant recipients had to fund nine federally-approved projects. And remaining funds had to go to one or more of 17 federally-approved CTE projects, leaving little room for alternative thinking.

Perkins V offers CTE innovators more flexibility. The program requires that grantees fund only 5 federally-approved projects and allows grantees to invest remaining funds in one or more of 25 possible CTE options, including an option for “other activities that improve career and technical education programs”— a near catch-all that applicants can use to direct funding to a greater breadth of CTE projects.

By cutting back on spending requirements and expanding funding opportunities, Perkins V gives grantees greater freedom to shape innovative programs that provide the most opportunity for students.

2. Calls for Industry Involvement

One challenge CTE programs face is a severe misalignment with industry needs. A 2019 study from the Foundation for Excellence in Education and Burning Glass Technologies, for example, found that half of the states it studied are not collecting the information they need to know regarding whether or not their CTE programs are aligned with market demands. Worse yet, no state was highly aligned in terms of high school credentials earned and the demand for those credentials in the job market.

Perkins V addresses these challenges by requiring that applicants assess whether CTE programs meet labor market demands, consult with business and industry representatives, and spend grant funds to meet the needs identified in the assessment.

3. Reduces Government Oversight

Previous Perkins laws have also required significant federal oversight of in-state CTE development. Perkins IV, for example, mandates that states negotiate with the Department of Education to set CTE performance standards.

According to a study by RTI International, a significant minority (15-23 states depending on the year and education level), reported having somewhat to very difficult negotiation experiences.

“It’s not really clear what methodology the Department of Education is [using to select] a target,” one CTE administrator shared,  “If it was more transparent [and] . . . we knew what their goal was, we. . . could figure out what to do....”

Other administrators said the negotiation process left them little room to include the measures of success that were important to them.

“There are only two colleges in the state that negotiated. . .” one negotiator said, “we got the pretty clear message that there wasn’t much room [for negotiation].”

Perkins V takes first steps toward reducing these frustrations by limiting federal involvement. Although Perkins V still requires that the Department of Education approve CTE performance standards, it allows states to develop those standards themselves, thus empowering an entity closer to the students and programs to establish measures of success that make sense for them.

While grantees benefit from these updates to the Perkins program, they need not depend on Perkins support to make CTE possible. Despite its improvements, Perkins still limits CTE design and function and funnels resources to federal priorities over what may be best for local families.

Meanwhile, study after study suggests that CTE improves high school graduation rates, and better equips students, and especially minority students, to earn post-secondary credentials, jobs, and high wages.

“As an African American, first-generation college graduate,” Seaton wrote, “I have slowly come to recognize the competitive advantage that a lab tech CTE program will provide my daughter. I had my reservations, based on the history of African Americans and vocational education, but could not argue with the outcomes or options.”

If schools are serious about investing in the future of their students, they should consider Seaton’s example and CTE’s return on investment and consider budgeting for CTE themselves.

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