Brown’s Budget Shuffle: Something From Nothing is Still Nothing

"Equal treatment for children in unequal situations is not justice"—Gov. Jerry Brown, California (quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle)

Gov. Brown is correct—funding poor schools the same as affluent schools is not only unjust, it is pedagogically irrational.  Poor children have greater educational needs, while their parents have far less to donate to school fundraisers. Funding them equally only guarantees unequal outcomes. Yet his solution—reallocating revenues from wealthier schools to poorer school—is neither just nor rational.

None of California’s schools currently receives adequate funding. The state has slashed over $20 billion from K-12 education over the past five years and none of this will be restored under the state’s new “millionaire’s” tax. Furthermore, basic aid school districts (the so-called affluent districts that receive only the “basic” aid from the state because they have higher than average property tax bases) have already lost 90% of the funding they once received from the state. Therefore, taking away scarce resources from these schools only serves to make them more like the state’s low income schools.

While it is true that affluent schools have fewer needs than lower income schools, they were not receiving sufficient funding from the state or local property taxes even before the economic meltdown and draconian budget cuts that followed. Consequently, they have relied on fundraising to make up some of the difference, something they can do with greater ease and success than lower income schools, since the parents tend to be wealthier and have more disposable income. Yet even this hasn’t prevented basic aid schools from losing counselors, librarians and nurses; increasing class sizes to 35 students per teacher (or higher); imposing out-of-pocket fees on teachers for health insurance; and freezing or cutting wages. Furthermore, even within basic aid districts there are often low income schools with student demographics similar to poor, inner city schools. Reducing their funding because they happen to be in an “affluent” basic aid district would end up harming the lower income students Brown’s plan is intended to help.

Of course it is important to provide low income schools with additional funding, over and above what the affluent ones receive, because of their greater needs. However, this must be accomplished through increased tax revenues, not by ripping off other schools. Yet increased school funding, alone, will not solve the myriad ways in which poverty impacts educational outcomes. To really close the achievement gap, poor kids in poor schools need relief from their poverty so they aren’t coming to school hungry and suffering from stress and untreated medical conditions. Their parents need relief from poverty before they even have children, since poverty increases the chances children will be born premature, with low birth weight, and suffer from stress, malnutrition and environmental toxins, each of which contribute to cognitive impairment and learning disabilities.

Short of this, low income schools need large infusions of cash—far more than they would receive under the Brown plan. They need enough revenue to lower class sizes and hire extra teachers and reading specialists. Low income schools need full-time nurses or on-site clinics to care for uninsured children and reduce the amount of class time lost to treatable and preventable illnesses. Low income schools need staff and resources to provide adult education and English language support for parents. They need extra funding for after school programs so that children aren’t watching television or getting into trouble or hurt when classes end. They need mental health specialists to help students suffering from stress, anxiety and other common mental health problems that often go undiagnosed or treated in poor children.

If the schools truly are public, then parents should not have to pay more out of pocket for fundraisers and benefits, in addition to what they contribute through their taxes. If they were adequately funded, there would be much less need for this.

This is another major problem with school finance. Affluent families are affluent, in part, because they can shelter much of their income from taxation (e.g., deductions and write-offs) and many do not want to pay a penny for the education of other people’s children. By maintaining tax rates at their current levels (which are far lower than they were during the Reagan era and earlier), the affluent can continue amass great quantities of wealth, while getting an excellent free education for their children at the exclusive public schools in their wealthy enclaves. They can then supplement their schools’ mediocre budgets with tax deductible donations that further lower their tax liabilities, while increasing the education quality gap to the benefit of their own children. Thus, they (and their legislators) are unlikely to accept Brown’s proposal (or the tax increases necessary to put a serious dent in the problem).

Bay Area Air Sickening and Killing Kids

Richmond, CA (image from Flickr, by bionicteaching)

The wonderfully clear and sunny days the San Francisco Bay Area experienced during January and early February were also “spare the air” days because of the high levels of smog—also typical of Bay Area winters (at least lately). This is because the Bay Area is home to several oil refineries in Richmond and West Contra Costa County, as well as numerous other polluting chemical and industrial facilities along the waterfront throughout the area.

There were 11,000 hospital admissions in 2010 for asthma-related disease in California (according to a recent report by Inside Bay Area), but in Alameda Country (which includes Oakland and Berkeley) the rate was nearly twice the state average (20.3 hospitalizations for every 10,000 children)—higher than any other country except Fresno and Imperial Counties, which suffer from severe agricultural pollution. Particularly hard hit have been Oakland, Emeryville (Alameda Country), and Richmond and Pittsburg (Contra Costa County).

Severe asthma is potentially deadly (though this is rare). However, even for the majority of children who do not die from their attacks, there can be long-term or permanent health effects if not treated and controlled, as well as long-term social consequences, as the illness can cause them to fall behind at school due to their absences.

While there is ample evidence that indoor (e.g., tobacco smoke) and outdoor air pollution exacerbate asthma, what is less well understood is why asthma has been on the rise, now affecting nearly 10% of all U.S. children. Particularly hard hit have been African American children, who have seen a 39% increase in their rate of asthma. One hypothesis is that poverty in a contributing factor, since poor people are more likely to live in areas with high levels of air pollution and in substandard housing that is prone to mold—both of which are known to aggravate asthma.

80-90% of the childhood hospitalizations for asthma can be prevented with proper therapy and intervention, according to Dr. Ted Chaconas, who was quoted in the Inside Bay Area article. However, this often does not happen in poor communities, where children may lack health insurance or easy access to medical care, while also being exposed to higher levels of environmental pollutants.

Considering that many of the pollutants that contribute to asthma come from sources that are also spewing high levels of carbon into the atmosphere, the most rational approach to reducing the incidence and severity of asthma is to reduce or abolish as many of these factories as possible. This would not only reduce the number of missed school days, hospitalizations and costs of treatment, but it would help reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere and, hopefully, help reverse global warming, which is already responsible for thousands of deaths worldwide due to extreme weather, crop failure, flooding and infiltration of fresh water supplies and the increased spread of infectious disease. Furthermore, particulate air pollution itself is deadly. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), air pollution is responsible for 1 million preventable deaths each year.

Influenza: Vaccinating Kids Could Save Thousands of Infants and Seniors

Adapted from Flick Image by Immer_Lebend

Flu season arrived early this year and is turning out to be a particularly bad one, with several states (including New York) having already declared public health states of emergency. As usual, only a small fraction of Americans have been vaccinated. Yet seasonal influenza continues to be one of the deadliest diseases in the world, killing an average of 35,000 people per year in the U.S. alone, while every 20-40 years, a particularly deadly new pandemic variety of influenza evolves killing far more than this. The 1918 pandemic was the worst, with worldwide mortality estimated at 50 million.

A similar deadly outbreak could happen again at any time and scientists predict that such an outbreak is inevitable. Some believe it could be far worse than in 1918, as it is much easier to travel long distances to spread the disease and there are far more large crowded slums in which germs can easily spread from person to person and far more malnourished individuals with weakened immune systems. There are also more people selling and buying at “wet markets” where highly infectious avian strains of influenza sometime proliferate. Furthermore, there are several deadly avian strains still circulating among wild birds for which we have little or no immunity. Scientists have recently shown that it would only take a few random mutations to make one of these strains (H5N1) easily transmissible between people.

With seasonal flu, the majority of deaths occur among the elderly, infants and immune-compromised (including the malnourished). However, even for the majority of those who get the disease and survive, the consequences are serious, including costly hospital and doctor’s visits, lost income and missed school days. It is estimated that the U.S. loses $10 billion per year due to influenza.

There is no reason why so many people must die from this disease or even be sickened from it. Contrary to the delusions of the anti-vaccination movement, seasonal flu vaccines are generally quite effective, especially when 70-80% of community members are vaccinated, as this leads to “herd” immunity which protects those who have not been vaccinated as well as those who received the vaccine but still did not get immunity. Furthermore, serious side effects from flu vaccines are rare, while mild side effects are generally quite mild (e.g., soreness, headache, fever).

While the oldest and youngest members of our society are the most vulnerable to influenza deaths, school-age children continue to be the most fertile incubators of the virus, spreading the germ at school and day care centers with their peers and then bringing the germ home to share with their families and neighbors. Not only do small children tend to put their fingers in their own (and each other’s) noses, eyes and mouths more often than adults (and wash less frequently), they are also “super-spreaders,” according to a recent piece in Scientific American, since they “shed” more virus particles for longer periods of time than do adults.

Image from Flickr, by MilitaryHealth

 Consequently, the most effective way to protect seniors, as well as the rest of us, is to vaccinate children. According to the Scientific American article, studies indicate that immunizing 20% of children in a community is more effective at protecting seniors than immunizing 90% of the seniors, while immunizing 70% of schoolchildren may protect everyone in the community (including the elderly).

There is actually hard evidence to support this. One of the last deadly flu pandemics occurred in 1957 (there was another deadly one in 1968 that killed 500,000 worldwide). In response, the Japanese launched a mandatory vaccination program for all schoolchildren that lasted for the next ten years (1957-1967). During this time, excess deaths from influenza and complications related to influenza fell by half. Once the program ended, however, vaccination rates declined and death rates increased significantly, Scientific American reports.

Requiring mandatory flu vaccines is not likely to happen in the U.S. (except for health care workers), even though other vaccinations (e.g., measles, mumps, polio) are required before kids can go to school and despite the fact that so many lives could be saved by initiating such a program. Anti-vaccination propaganda and misinformation continue to fuel a hysteria that has resulted in a powerful lobby against vaccinations. Furthermore, flu vaccines must be reconfigured each year, which means that, unlike polio and measles vaccines, one must receive a new flu inoculation each year. Lastly, only a couple of companies are currently producing flu vaccines in the U.S. and few are willing to start because of fears of liability and low profitability (they must produce the vaccine well in advance of flu season based on scientific predictions and models and then hope that enough consumers will later purchase the vaccine).

Nevertheless, sufficiently high immunization rates can be obtained through voluntary community programs centered on schools, particularly with an effective outreach program. Some schools already offer FluMist nasal spray free of charge to students. In one district in Florida, vaccination rates have reached 65% as a result of their free immunization program, while the incidence of influenza over the last two years has been reduced to nearly zero. The consequences for kids are far fewer absences and more time in school learning. For the rest of us, it means fewer days lying in bed with fevers and chills, and fewer hospital visits and deaths for our infants and grandparents.

Schools, a Deadly Scourge--Stick a Child and Save Lives!

Monster at the Door? Seed of the Next Pandemic? (Image from Flickr, by Olaf)

Flu season is quickly approaching and, as usual, only a small fraction of Americans will get vaccinated. Yet seasonal influenza continues to be one of the deadliest diseases in the world, killing an average of 35,000 people per year in the U.S. alone, while every 20-40 years, a particularly deadly new pandemic variety of influenza evolves killing far more than this. The 1918 pandemic was the worst, with worldwide mortality estimated at 50 million.

A similar deadly outbreak could happen again at any time and scientists predict that such an outbreak is inevitable. Some believe it could be far worse than in 1918, as it is much easier to travel long distances to spread the disease and there are far more large crowded slums in which germs can easily spread from person to person and far more malnourished individuals with weakened immune systems. There are also more people selling and buying at “wet markets” where highly infectious avian strains of influenza sometime proliferate. Furthermore, there are several deadly avian strains still circulating among wild birds for which we have little or no immunity. Scientists have recently shown that it would only take a few random mutations to make one of these strains (H5N1) easily transmissible between people.

With seasonal flu, the majority of deaths occur among the elderly, infants and immune-compromised (including the malnourished). However, even for the majority of those who get the disease and survive, the consequences are serious, including costly hospital and doctor’s visits, lost income and missed school days. It is estimated that the U.S. alone loses $10 billion per year due to influenza.

There is no reason why so many people must die from this disease or even be sickened from it. Contrary to the delusions of the anti-vaccination movement, seasonal flu vaccines are generally quite effective, especially when 70-80% of community members are vaccinated, as this leads to “herd” immunity which protects those who have not been vaccinated as well as those who received the vaccine but still did not get immunity. Furthermore, serious side effects from flu vaccines are rare, while mild side effects are generally quite mild (e.g., soreness, headache, fever).

While the oldest and youngest members of our society are the most vulnerable to influenza deaths, school-age children continue to be the most fertile incubators of the virus, spreading the germ at school and day care centers with their peers and then bringing the germ home to share with their families and neighbors. Not only do small children tend to put their fingers in their own (and each other’s) noses, eyes and mouths more often than adults (and wash less frequently), they are also “super-spreaders,” according to a recent piece in Scientific American, since they “shed” more virus particles for longer periods of time than do adults.

Consequently, the most effective way to protect seniors, as well as the rest of us, is to vaccinate children. According to the Scientific American article, studies indicate that immunizing 20% of children in a community is more effective at protecting seniors than immunizing 90% of the seniors, while immunizing 70% of schoolchildren may protect everyone in the community (including the elderly).

There is actually hard evidence for this. One of the last deadly flu pandemics occurred in 1957 (there was another deadly one in 1968 that killed 500,000 worldwide). In response, the Japanese launched a mandatory vaccination program for all schoolchildren that lasted for the next ten years. During this time, excess deaths from influenza and complications related to influenza fell by half. Once the program ended, vaccination rates declined and death rates increased significantly, Scientific American reports.

Requiring mandatory flu vaccines is not likely to happen in the U.S., even though other vaccinations (e.g., measles, mumps, polio) are required before kids can go to school and despite the fact that so many lives could be saved by initiating such a program. Anti-vaccination propaganda and misinformation continue to fuel a hysteria that has resulted in a powerful lobby against vaccinations. Furthermore, flu vaccines must be reconfigured each year, which means that, unlike polio and measles vaccines, one must receive a new flu inoculation each year. Lastly, only a couple of companies are currently producing flu vaccines in the U.S. and few are willing to start because of fears of liability and profitability (they must produce the vaccine well in advance of flu season based on scientific predictions and models and then hope that enough consumers will later purchase the vaccine).

Nevertheless, sufficiently high immunization rates can be obtained through voluntary community programs centered on schools, particularly with an effective outreach program. Some schools already offer FluMist nasal spray free of charge to students. In one district in Florida, vaccination rates have reached 65% as a result of their free immunization program, while the incidence of influenza over the last two years has been reduced to nearly zero. The consequences for kids are far fewer absences and more time in school learning. For the rest of us, it means fewer days lying in bed with fevers and chills, and fewer hospital visits and deaths for our infants and grandparents.

55% of Oakland’s African American Males At Risk of Not Graduating

New research by the Urban Strategies Council of Oakland found that 55% of African American male students in the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) were at risk of not graduating due to high suspension rates, chronic absences and poor academic performance. This compares with a still high rate of 37.5% for the general student population, according to the Bay Citizen.

Of those who were not on track to graduate on time, 73% were chronically absent in elementary school, missing at least 10% of school days. This parallels findings from a Baltimore study (see here). The same percentage had been suspended at least once in middle school.

It is easy to blame schools, teachers and parents for the problem. Indeed, the Bay Citizen quoted Hedy Chang, director of Attendance Works, who said that “five-year-olds don’t miss school without an adult knowing at home,” as if the parent was keeping the child home for illegitimate reasons. Yet, high absenteeism is not primarily due to irresponsible parents who simply keep their kids home or don’t monitor their attendance. Rather, high absenteeism correlates with poverty and lack of health insurance or access to affordable care, suggesting that poor kids stay home more because they are not receiving preventative or prompt curative care, leading to longer and more severe infectious and chronic illnesses.

Of course, at the higher grades, students sometimes cut class for other reasons, like preferring to be out on the streets or with friends, to avoid gangs or bullies, or because they are so behind in grades or academic skills that school has become a traumatic and unpleasant experience for them.

Most of these problems, likewise, cannot be directly blamed on parents, teachers or even the students themselves. Poverty creates an achievement gap before children have even entered kindergarten (see here and here). The achievement gap only gets worse as children progress through the system, with affluent students continuing to reap benefits like summer travel, enriching extracurricular activities and better health and nutrition that are denied to their lower income peers. Failure and frustration are thus built into the system and routine for many students and cutting class could be seen as a rational response to the embarrassment, powerlessness or frustration of being stuck in classes in which one is lost, confused and has little chance of passing.

Gangs are also a product of socioeconomic conditions and a problem that can be significantly reduced or eliminated by eradicating poverty and providing jobs and extracurricular activities for youth. Until that happens, students who must cross through rival gang territory in order to get to school could be provided with transportation alternatives that bypass the dangerous turf or reassigned to other schools.

Bullying is also a societal problem. It occurs at home and in the streets and playgrounds. Politicians, bosses and community leaders also engage in it. Until it as addressed at these levels, children and adults will continue to see it as a normal (and effective) way to interact and achieve one’s goals and the problem will persist. However, schools can do a lot more to reduce bullying on campus by better educating their staffs and creating and enforcing disciplinary policies that treat it as a serious offense.

High suspension rates are also related to socioeconomic factors. While racial bias probably plays a role in the higher suspension rates for African American males among certain teachers and administrators, it is unlikely the main cause (see Parsing the Black-White Suspension Gap for more analysis of this topic). Rather, lower rates of academic success (remember, the achievement gap is already in place before students even start school) likely create a frustrating academic experience that contributes to disruptive behavior. Also, the middle class culture, mores and expectations of school often come into conflict with the culture, mores and expectations of lower income and non-white communities, leading to the unnecessary escalation of conflicts and more severe punishment for students.

Oakland students of color, particularly black males, indeed have an appallingly high risk of not graduating on time from high school. However, if we really want to see improvements, we need to stop scapegoating the parents, teachers and children themselves and start addressing the socioeconomic factors that are the primary cause of the problem.

8th Grade Literacy & Poverty Predict HS Grad Rates

Image by monado

Thanks to Rachel Norton, San Francisco School Board member, for her recent blog post: “Who is likely to finish HS? You can tell in 8th grade,” and Kathryn Baron, from the Topics in Education blog, for her recent post: Poverty + poor reading = dropout.

According to a recent study, which examined nearly 2.6 million student records from urban districts across the country, two factors determine whether 8^th graders will go on to graduate from high school: having a GPA over 2.0 and an attendance rate over 87.5%. Impressively, 89% of students who had both and who passed all their academic core courses (math, English, social studies or science) graduated in four years.  However, simply passing all core classes was insufficient. 55% of students who had either poor attendance or low GPAs failed to graduate from high school in 4 years, even if they passed their core classes, while only 24% of students graduated on time if they possessed both risk factors.

Unfortunately, Norton did not provide the title or authors of the study, but there are numerous other studies that have replicated these results. For example, Allenworth and Easton¹ found a strong correlation between GPA and graduation. Students with a 1.5 GPA had a 62% chance of graduating on time. Those with a 2.0 GPA had a 74% chance of graduating and those with a 2.5 GPA had an 86% chance. They also found a strong correlation between attendance and graduation rates, with only 64% of students graduating high school on time if they missed five to nine days during the ninth grade. The number went up to 87% if they missed less than five days. A study by Martha A. MacIver² found that 80% of students graduated on time if they were in class at least 95% of the time during the 9^th grade, whereas less than 20% of students graduated on time if their attendance was below 70%. (Click here to view the policy brief) There was also a study of Baltimore school children³ in which high school drop-outs averaged 27.6 absences per year, while graduates averaged only 11.8. In a prior study⁴ the same authors found that low test scores and report card grades in first grade were a reliable predictor of later high school success.

This is probably not news to most teachers, as we have all experienced students who failed due to poor attendance. Many of us routinely have students who are absent 20-30% of the time (or more). While it is tempting to blame the schools for this problem, since they could always implement tougher attendance rules and consequences for unexcused absences, it would not solve the problem. There are a host of societal and familial problems that contribute to both absenteeism and low GPAs. For example, low income students are much more likely to be absent due to illnesses that go untreated and worsen due to lack of health insurance. They are also more likely to miss school in order to help with familial responsibilities like caring for a sibling or sick relative. According to the 2001 study by Alexander, et. al.³, students of lower socioeconomic status were four times more likely to drop out of high school than their wealthier counterparts.

It is true that high school graduation can be fairly accurately predicted by absences and GPA in 8^th grade (or even 1^st grade, according to Alexander, et. al. 2000³). However, these factors are not necessarily the cause of high school failure. Rather, low graduation rates and poor attendance could both be symptoms of a larger problem: poverty. Certainly a few Ds and Fs early in one’s academic career could set a student so far back that it is difficult or impossible to catch up and graduate on time. Likewise, one bad health year (e.g., injury, whooping cough, pneumonia) could cause a student to get so far behind in all classes that the entire year must be repeated. However, kids who are absent a lot in 9^th grade are generally absent a lot in all grades. Richard Rothstein says that poor children have 40% more absences than middle class kids. Similarly, students often have poor report cards throughout their academic careers for numerous reasons like low self-efficacy, difficulty focusing for extended periods of time, learning disabilities, or stress and anxiety at home.

Kathryn Baron’s post, like Norton’s, focuses on predictors of high school graduation rates. Her piece looks at a new longitudinal study that shows a direct link between third grade reading and high school graduation. Double Jeopardy: How Third-Grade Reading Skills and Poverty Influence High School Graduation, which followed almost 4,000 students born between 1979 and 1989, found that third-graders who are poor readers are four times more likely to drop out of high school as those who are proficient readers.

Again, there is nothing surprising here. Poor literacy not only makes it difficult for students to comprehend test questions, homework assignments and textbooks, it can lower their self-efficacy and make school so frustrating that they stop trying. The more interesting part of the study was the observation that poverty could override the future benefits of reading proficiency. Students who were good readers, but who had lived at least one year in poverty, were just as likely to drop out as children who were poor readers but who had never experienced poverty.

While affluence can counter some of the effects low literacy, the majority of poor readers are also economically disadvantaged. Baron says that 83% of 4^th graders receiving free or reduced lunch are also reading below grade level, while 70% of high school dropouts are economically disadvantaged.

There are numerous interventions that can help some low income kids succeed in school. For instance, encouraging low income parents to read to their babies and to use more complex language at home can help counter the vocabulary and pre-literacy gap that exists by the time children are three (see Hart and Risley and David Burkam and Valerie Lee). Some children just need better health care or even eyeglasses, while others could make big gains with tutoring or support for undiagnosed learning disabilities.

However, there are additional consequences of growing up poor that cannot be remediated so easily and that contribute to poor literacy, absenteeism and poor academic achievement. Iron-deficiency anemia, which can impair cognitive ability, is twice as common among poor children, while an estimated 10% of poor students have dangerous levels of lead in their blood, which can lead to learning disabilities and decreased intelligence. Poor kids are more likely to be born premature and with low birth weights, which can also cause learning disabilities and impaired cognitive development. Simply living in a family that is experiencing financial uncertainty can create stress and the overproduction of the hormone cortisol, which can damage memory and lead to chronic health consequences that increase absenteeism. Financial uncertainty also increases the likelihood of having to move and change schools. A 1994 report by the General Accounting Office found that 41% of students who changed schools frequently were below grade level in reading and 33% were below grade level in math, compared to 26% and 17%, respectively, for those who remained at the same schools. Poor children are also less likely to have a safe, quiet place to study when they get home or to have someone who can help them with their work. During summer, they are less likely to go on intellectually stimulating vacations, take enriching classes and workshops, or play organized sports.

While it is true that some poor kids do beat the odds and succeed in school, it is these hard to remedy problems that explain why so many other poor kids continue to fail in school despite all the interventions, supports and reforms that educators have implemented. It is time to stop glorifying the few schools that have supposedly beaten the odds by getting poor kids to succeed. Even with all the extra funding and the ridiculously long hours their teachers are expected to work, the majority of poor kids are still going to slip through the cracks, because they are still poor, malnourished, untreated for their health problems, poisoned by the toxins in their homes and neighborhoods and stressed by their family’s financial insecurity. If we really want to close the achievement gap, then we need to start by closing the wealth gap.

References

1. Allensworth, E. M., & Easton, J. Q. (2007). What matters for staying on-track and graduating in Chicago Public High Schools: A close look at course grades, failures, andattendance in the freshman year. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, Consortium on Chicago School Research. http://ccsr.uchicago.edu/publications/07%20What%20Matters%20Final.pdf
2.  MacIver, Martha A. (2011) Moving Forward to Improve Graduation Rates in Baltimore City, Baltimore Education Research Consortium, Baltimore, Md. April 2011
3. Alexander, Karl L., Entwisle, Doris R., and Kabbani, Nader (2001), “The Dropout Process in Life Course Perspective: Early Risk Factors at Home and School,” Teachers College Record
4. Alexander, Karl L., Entwisle, Doris R., and Kabbani, Nader (2000), “The Dropout Process in Life Course Perspective: Part I, Profiling Risk Factors at Home and School,” Balitmore, MD. John Hopkins University.