Letters on Project Access, spending cuts, GMO labeling, unlicensed teachers, same-sex marriage

Project Access is making difference

It is well-known that thousands of people who reside in Sedgwick County cannot afford basic health care, and that this has been true for many years. A group of local physicians, dentists, pharmacies and hospitals got together 16 years ago to launch Project Access, a program that gets quality health care to people in poverty. Check out the website at www.centralplainshealthcarepartnership.org.

Participating physicians and dentists work for free, and the project’s operating staff arranges for free, or low-cost, prescriptions and supplies. Additional in-kind support comes from community clinics and from Kansas Department for Children and Families workers located in these clinics. Financial support has come from United Way of the Plains ($280,000), the city of Wichita ($200,000) and Sedgwick County ($200,000).

The results are impressive, with $15 million in donated services reaching 1,500 patients annually. Few programs achieve this high benefit-cost ratio.

There are clouds in the sky, however, with Sedgwick County announcing that its financial support will be discontinued.

I urge you to contact the Sedgwick County commissioners and tell them your view of their plan.

At what cost?

Government officials on all levels are to be commended for trying to cut costs and reduce taxes.

Having firsthand experience, I know it is not easy. However, quite often those actions create problems for people far greater than money.

It takes a long time to develop programs, institutions and policies that satisfy the needs of people – real, live humans. The creativity from many people in the past was usually rewarded by grants and entitlements from governmental agencies. Life becomes good with improved quality of life for everyone. Young lives especially are filled with new experiences and learning that carry them to become societies’ greatest leaders.

Reducing taxes and cutting costs leaves many of those profound programs underfunded and occasionally causes devastating results.

Perhaps we should applaud our county and state leaders for finding a way to save money, but at what cost? Is it really worth saving a few dollars to deny the youth of today the same chances to excel that our leaders had when they were young?

Need labeling

Last year, a National Academic League (a type of quiz bowl for middle school students) topic was genetically modified organisms, more commonly known as GMOs. The students concluded that perhaps the GMOs were not inherently bad but should be labeled as such so consumers would know what they were purchasing.

When I read the headline “GMO labeling bill clears House, heads to Senate” (July 24 Eagle), I was glad that we were going to have such labels. Reading the article, I discovered that was not the case.

Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Wichita, and his colleagues had successfully convinced the House that mandating of food labeling was costly and unnecessary. Their bill is called, ironically, the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act, yet it does just the opposite – preventing state and local governments from requiring labels on genetically modified foods. It passed 275-150 in the House, and now moves on to the Senate.

It seems odd to me that seventh- and eighth-graders can see a need for consumers to know what they are eating and feeding their families, while our legislators seem oblivious.

Flawed theory

Gov. Sam Brownback and State Board of Education member Ken Willard promote hiring non-trained professionals to teach in public schools (“New policy benefits students,” July 22 Opinion). Their theory is flawed. About 40 to 50 percent of professionally trained teachers leave the profession in the first five years. There would be more turnover by utilizing untrained personnel. This is not cost-effective.

Brownback and Willard noted that engineers with doctorates can teach at state universities but not in local high schools. But many college professors, especially those in engineering and sciences, are more interested in research and being published than teaching. They let their assistants teach the lower-division classes, which is what the public schools will offer.

Those who do teach are mainly lecturers, which has been proved to be a less effective method of teaching. The former professional will be held accountable for the students’ test scores, unlike in college, where the student is responsible.

The average teacher salary that they quoted ($54,907) includes both salary and benefits. A first-year teacher with a doctorate might earn about $45,000 in salary. Why would a professional with a salary of more than $100,000 want to take that type of a pay cut?

This will be another one of Brownback’s failed experiments.

Good for state?

The article about how the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage may mean millions of dollars for Kansas (July 20 Eagle) was a joke. What other wrongful, depraved, unchaste, wanton, promiscuous, loose, shady deed can we pass to save our economy and country?

This story was originally published July 27, 2015 at 7:04 PM with the headline "Letters on Project Access, spending cuts, GMO labeling, unlicensed teachers, same-sex marriage."