Wikipedia: Elīna Garanča (born 16 September 1976) is a Latvian mezzo-soprano.
2022/09/17
2022/04/08
A Comment on Nicole Asbury, "This school board can’t stop fighting. A Maryland bill aims to fix it", _Washington Post_(ymd = 2022-04-8)
The _Post_ article describes a contest to alter the governance structure of Prince George's County (MD) Public Schools.
Prince George's County is an interesting county. PGCPS is an interesting district. The US DOE NCES reports the following:
Maryland 2018-19 K-12 enrollment: 896,827
Maryland 2018 K-12 regular school districts: 24
Prince George's County (MD) Public Schools 2020 enrollment = 131,646
PGCPS 2018-19 revenue per pupil = $18,169
The County is 13% White, 62% Black, 18% Hispanic, and 4% Asian, with a median household income of $84,920
The school district enrollment is 4% white, 57% Black, 34.3% Hispanic, and 2,8% Asian
The _Post_ reporter relates political moves to change the Board from a hybrid elected/appointed Board to an elected Board. Nicole Asbury does not devote many words to the performance issues that motivate parents' or voters' attention.
My recommendation: change nothing except ... Mandate that all schools in PGCPS must hire parents on personal service contracts to provide for their children's education if (a) the parents apply for the contract and (b) the child is at or above age-level expectations on standardized tests of Reading (any language) and Math on or before the start of the contract year (i.e., the school year). Make the contract value equal some fraction 2/3 < a/b < 9/10 of PGCPS $18169 per pupil budget. Make payment contingent on performance at or above age-level expectations on standardized tests of Reading (any language) and Math on or before the end of the contract year.
2022/01/19
The Socialist Phenomenon
The Socialist Phenomenon by Igor Shafarevich considers the origins of the deeply seated and popular desire for authoritarian government. This post not a review of Shafarevich's book.
US taxpayers poured over $734 billion into the US K-12 credential industry in 2017-18, according to the US DOE NCES Digest of Education Statistics.
The $734 billion per year budget makes the US K-12 credential industry the second-largest (after China) command economy left on Earth. The $734 billion per year figure grossly understates the cost of the US State-monopoly credential industry. Costs of this system include:
1. The opportunity cost to students of the time that they spend in school.
2. The opportunity cost to society, in the form of lost production from student non-participation in the labor force.
3. The opportunity cost to society in the lost innovation in curricula and methods of instruction that a competitive market in education services would generate.
4. Losses due to crime and the cost of prison for the poor kids whose lives we trash. The "school-to-prison pipeline".
5. Life-long psychological damage: the legacy of K-12 slavery.
For every locality A the term "the government of A" names the largest dealer in interpersonal violence in that locality (definition, after Max Weber).
A law is a threat by a government to kidnap (i.e., arrest), assault (i.e., subdue), and forcibly infect with HIV (i.e., imprison) someone, under some specified circumstance.
An individual B has a right to engage in activity X within locality A if the government of A has promised not to interfere with B when B engages in activity X and, further, has promised to interfere with individuals C, D, etc. if they interfere with B when B engages in activity X.
An individual B has title to a resource Y within locality A if the government of A recognizes a right of B to control the resource Y which (right) includes the authority to transfer control to individuals C, D, etc on terms mutually acceptable to B, C, D, etc. (i.e., to sell the resource and transfer title).
A legal environment is called "market-oriented" to the degree that resources move between individuals through the system of title and contract law.
Federalism (subsidiarity, many local policy regimes) and competitive markets in goods and services institutionalize humility on the part of State (i.e., government, generally) actors. If a policy dispute turns on a matter of taste, federalism and competitive markets in goods and services leave room for the expression of varied tastes, while the contest for control over a State-monopoly provider must inevitably create unhappy losers (who may comprise the vast majority; imagine the outcome of a County-wide vote on the one size and style of shoes we all must wear. If a policy dispute turns on a matter of fact, where "What works?" is an empirical question, federalism and competitive markets in goods and services will provide more information than will a State-monopoly enterprise. A State-monopoly enterprise is an experiment with one treatment and no control group, a foolish experimental design.
After the fall of the Soviet State the British poet and historian of that State, Robert Conquest wrote that people in the West had incompletely learned two important lessons: (a) the limits to the amount of good that organized interpersonal violence (i.e., government) can accomplish and (b) the stultifying effect of bureaucracy, public or private.
Between "forbidden" and "compulsory" there's room for "we don't recommend it, but we won't stop you", "who cares?", and "we recommend it, but we won't make you".
Why is the State (i.e., government, generally) in the education business at all? This "Why?" question has three interpretations (answers below):
1. The historical "Why?" What motivated Massachusetts politicians in 1647 to introduce compulsory attendance laws? What motivated politicians of New England and Pennsylvania in the early decades of the 19th century put compulsory attendance laws on the books and to restrict parents' options for the use of the taxpayers' sub-adult education subsidy to schools operated by government employees?
2. The welfare-economic "Why?" What do children, parents, prospective suppliers of education services, or taxpayers get from a State role in the education industry that they would not get from a voucher-subsidized competitive market in education services or from an unsubsidized, minimally-regulated competitive market in education services?
One recent comment added a consideration to my understanding of the socialist phenomenon.
Hannah Natanson, "Va. parents file lawsuit, schools vow resistance against Youngkin’s order making masks optional", _Washington Post_ (ymd = 2022-01-18)
Comment thread ...
(Malcolm Kirkpatrick): " The CDC reported 444 deaths "with" the novel coronavirus between 2020-01-01 and 2022-01-01 to people in the age 5 to 17.99 cohort. The commute to school poses a greater threat to people in this age cohort.