Criminalizing Concern

Jay Greene asks "Who's the Criminal?"

In Akron, Ohio a woman who put her children in a better public school was sent to jail when private investigators hired by the school found that she did not live in the district. Her father did and she sometimes stayed with him, but that was not enough to keep her out of prison for seeking a better education for her children.

Meanwhile, in Atlanta there is evidence of widespread cheating on standardized tests by teachers and administrators as well as a potential cover-up in the investigation of those accusations. No one has gone to jail (and no one ever will) for robbing children of a quality education and then lying about their true achievement by cheating on the state test to hide that fact.

If Linda Ichiyama (D) and Aaron Johanson (R) have their way (House Bill 875), concerned parents in Hawaii will face charges for aiding and abetting their children's escape from wretched DOE schools.

Establishes requirements for powers of attorney executed for student enrollment purposes. Expressly prohibits uses of powers of attorney to circumvent school enrollment requirements, and requires parents and guardians to certify that a power of attorney is not being used for those purposes.

Did He Mean It?

This morning, I went to the State Capital, seeking help in identifying the sponsors of HB 25. The Public Access Room distributes lists of legislators' committee assignments, office locations, e-mail addresses, and signitures. Capital guards directed traffic away from the public parking in the basement, reserving space for guests at Governor Abercrombie's State of the State address. I parked on Richards street and walked into the building. The Governor was a few sentences into his address when I walked into the Public Access Room.

Readers may decide for themselves how seriously the Governor intended the talk about facing financial reality and how much, on the other hand, he intended this:...

I expect collective bargaining negotiations to be conducted in good faith and with common goals in mind—to achieve savings without disrupting service to the public, to keep state employees on the job with paychecks for their families, and to exercise creativity and long-term thinking in the bargaining process to improve the work experience and achieve a resolution of the crisis of unfunded liabilities in pension funds and runaway health costs.

Rebutting the First Lady

Professor Ann Althouse quotes First Lady Michelle Obama: "We can teach ("our" children) to give others the benefit of the doubt, particularly those with whom they disagree. We can also teach our children about the tremendous sacrifices made by the men and women who serve our country and by their families. We can explain to them that although we might not always agree with those who represent us, anyone who enters public life does so because they love their country and want to serve it."

Althouse responds: "But that's quite obviously untrue! Some people seek power for the wrong reasons or go astray after they've reached power. We need to observe the government with a clear, active, and critical eye."

A loving mother can teach a normal child to read (decode the phonetic alphabet) before that child can speak. The infant ears, eyes, and brain function at a level sufficient to this task before the child can coordinate the diaphragm, larynx, and tongue. A loving mother, moving through the lessons at a crawl, can teach a normal child to compute (add, subtract, multiply, and divide integers, decimals, and fractions) by age 8 if she starts early. Once a child can read and compute, s/he can study independently with a coherent course of instruction crystallized in books. Most vocational training occurs more effectively on the job than in a classroom. State (government, generally) provision of History and Civics instruction is a threat to democracy, just as State operation of newspapers would be, and is in totalitarian States like Cuba and North Korea.

Professor Althouse explains that last point: "It would make more sense to teach creationism instead of evolution than to teach these wishful lies about government since children need to learn how to be effective citizens and lulling them into passive admiration of the government undermines the democratic process. Believing or not believing in creationism, by contrast, isn't going to change what happened in the grand expanse of evolutionary time."

What the State Can Contribute to the Education and Health Care Industries

From the Why Evolution Is True site...

MichieuxPosted January 1, 2011 at 4:34 pm

Would you you care to elaborate on the “serious defects” in the “standard arguments for state provision of health and education services”? That is, could you explain what you take those arguments to be, and provide some evidence not only for those arguments, but also how they are defective? Also, and perhaps more importantly, how would you measure a nation’s health?

I will sketch a skeletal outline. I admit numerous qualifications.

Why the State cannot make any useful contribution to the medical care industry or the education industry.

The government of a locality is the largest dealer in interpersonal violence in that locality (definition, after Weber). A law is a written threat by a government to kidnap (arrest), assault (subdue), and forcibly infect with HIV (imprison) someone, under specified circumstances. Individual A has a “right” to do X if the government has pomised not to interfere when A attempts to do X and, further, has promised to interfere with individuals B,C, etc. if they attempt to stop A when A attempts to do X. A State grants “title” to a resource X to an individual A when the State reecognizes the right of A to control X which includes the right to transfer control to other individuals B (to sell the resource) on terms mutually agreeable to A and B. Market-oriented policies combine title and contract law. Because barter and commerce benefit both sides of a transaction, markets unite control over resources with the incentive to use resources is socially benefiicial ways.

A society is free in proportion to the range of behaviors between compelled and forbidden. The advantages of freedom are obvious: how many times should you chew your next bite of apple? Should we conduct a nationwide vote on that? Each individual is the best judge of his own interests.

Separation of powers, federalism, and markets institutionalize humility on the part of government actors.

At this point, I invite critics of market economies to address two questions:
1. From a State presence in which industries does society benefit, beyond what the State contributes to markets generally (an original assignment of title and enforcement of contract law)? You may imagine either a) two categories: A = likely candidates for State operation or subsidy, and B = unlikely candidates for State operation or subsidy or
b) a continuum
(highly unlikely) -1_____._____+1 (highly likely).
2. What criteria determine an industry’s categorical assignment of position on the continuum?

Usual welfare-economic arguments for State intervention in an industry involve externalities, economies of scale, and information assymetries between buyers and sellers. In the case of the medical care and education industries, the information assymetry argument applies with greater force to remote State actors than to exchange between doctors and patients. Beyond a very low level, there are no economies of scale at the delivery end of the education industry as it currently operates. Education only marginally qualifies as a public good as economists use the term and the “public goods” (positive externalities) argument implies subsidy and regulation, at most, not State (government, generally) operation of school. The State cannot subsidize education without a definition of “education” and the State’s definition will then bind students, parents, real classroom teachers, and taxpayers to the State’s definition.

Similarly, the State cannot subsidize medical care without a definition of “medical care”. The taxpayers of one medium-sized US State could probably afford one band-aid and one aspirin for every person on Earth, but the entire Earth’s GDP is insufficient to keep even one person alive forever. Everyone dies. Barring a fatal accident, most of us will consume medical resources which we will never repay. In an unsubsidized market in medical services, relatives will face the decision: pull the plug on grandma and put braces on the kids, or sell the house, extend grandma’s life another six months, and declare bankruptcy. In a tax-subsidized market or a State-operated medical care industry, some State body will make the decision when to pull the plug (a “death panel”). Aggregation of resources and authority for control over resources into government hands contributes nothing to the performance of the medical care industry.

The “public goods” argument for subsidization of medical care or education has the logical hole I mentioned earlier, that oversight of corporate functions is a public good and the State itself is a corporation. Therefore, oversight of State functions is a public good which the State itself cannot provide. State assumption of responsibility for the provision of public goods transforms the free rider problem at the root of public goods analysis but does not solve it.

More later.

This was overlong, and the site owned complained, so I brought it here.

You Think You Have Problems?

Not even close...

Who Cares What a Liar Says?

Some people will believe anything. Secretary Duncan tells a self-selected audience at the American Enterprise Institute what they want to hear. Sorry. This man killed the DC voucher program. This man simultaneously opposes (ostensibly) seat-time as a measure of system performance and reductions in instructional time. In the presence of a friendly audience this man complains that school boards and district superintendents lack the courage to challenge employee unions. Like, this speech deserves the Medal of Honor? This man served a giant dollop of bailout money to the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel, and now says to the AEI audience that that was a one-time event. Will anyone risk money on a bet against the prediction that the Secretary and his boss will deliver more unaccountable (meaning that States and local agencies get to define success) money in 2012?
.

Go Here. Read This.

Go here.

...(A)n early study of 1400 middle-aged and elderly Swedish twins shows that the effect of upbringing on appreciation is very durable. If you make a loving and harmonious family, your children won't merely be grateful at the time. The memories you create for them will likely last a lifetime.

People often fear that the science of success will be misused. Twin and adoption research seem like handy excuses for lazy parents. But scaling back misguided investments isn't "lazy"; it's common sense. If your children's future success is largely beyond your control, riding them "for their own good" is not just wasteful, but cruel. The sentimental view that parents should simply cherish, encourage, and accept their children has science on its side. Modern parents need to calm down and reconceive family time as leisure, not work. Having fun with your children may not prepare them for the future, but there are few more rewarding ways to spend your time.

Don't You Wish You Could Write?

Don't you wish you could write? I wish I could. Hat tip, Kathy Shaidle.

Ideologues versus Opportunists

(Updated)
On the James Randi forum, a participant in a discussion of the US pre-college school system referred to free-market "ideologues" and "fairy tales about the magical properties of 'the market'". Earlier in that discussion, various participants argued whether Milton Friedman's views on tuition vouchers had changed between his 1955 essay and his death in 2006.

"Ideological" is an uncomplimentary way to say "systematic" or "principled". Antonyms include "scatterbrained" and "unscrupulous".

Individual humans have individual wants and goals. Aggregation of preferences of several individuals presents problems. For example, one process which aggregates dietary preferences produces stew (mix all preferred ingredients together), which may be on no one's preferred menu. Individuals prefer shoes that fit. No process that aggregates individual preferences in shoe size will generate a shoe size that fits anything close to a majority. Neither direct democratic processes nor representative democratic processes nor authoritarian processes will come close to market processes in fitting shoes to feet, food to palates, or curricula to children.

Friedman makes his policy preferences pretty clear. He wants parent control of education. People interested in the evolution of Friedman's school policy preferences can watch that evolution unfold by reading in sequence:
The Role of Government in Education (1955),
"The Role of Government in Education" (Capitalism and Freedom, 1962),
"Public Schools; Make them Private", (1995)
a Reason interview (1995),
and his notes to Liberty and Learning: Milton Friedman's Voucher Idea at Fifty (Enlow and Ealy. Cato. 2006).
It's not a mystery what Friedman wants.

It's also not a mystery why free marketeers think markets outperform command economies. Ludwig von Mises spelled it out in Socialism, (1922), Friedrich Hayek explained it again in The Use of Knowledge in Society (American Economic Review, 1945), and again in The Road to Serfdom,
and Friedman again in 1962.
Sheldon Richman (What Education Needs) finds scientific anticipation of an Austrian view of the education industry in the writings of Joseph Priestley.

Briefly, the government of a locality is the largest dealer in interpersonal violence in that locality (definition, after Weber). A law is a written threat by a government to kidnap (arrest), assault (subdue), and forcibly infect with HIV (imprison) someone, under specified circumstances. Individual A has a "right" to do X if the government has promised not to interfere when A attempts to do X and, further, has promised to interfere with individuals B,C, etc. if they attempt to stop A when A attempts to do X. "Title" to a resource is a grant by a government to an individual of control over that resource which includes the power to transfer control (to sell the resource). Market-oriented policies combine title and contract law. As Adam Smith explained (I have not read this one), markets unite control over resources with the incentive to use resources is socially beneficial ways.

For those who approve the current policy which prevails across most US States, which reserves to schools operated by government employees an exclusive position in receipt of the taxpayers' K-12 education subsidy, a thought experiment.
Compose answers to the following questions:...

1. From State operation of what industries does society as a whole benefit? You may suppose either a dichotomous classification:
A = unlikely candidate for State operation = {........}
B = likely candidate for State operation = {.........}
or a continuum:
(highly unlikely) -1________.________+1 (highly likely).
2. Now consider the further question: What criteria determine an industry's categorical assignment or position on the continuum?

To what industries can organized violence and the threat of organized violence make a positive contribution, beyond what it contributes to minimally-regulated industries in a market economy (an initial assignment of title and enforcement of contract law)? Are we naked because the State does not operate textile mills and clothing stores? Are we starving because the State does not operate collective farms, grocery stores, and restaurants? Why make an exception for the education industry?

A society is free in proportion to the range of behaviors not included in "compelled" and "forbidden". Separation of powers, federalism, and markets institutionalize humility on the part of government actors.

A widely-beloved fairy tale asserts the beneficent power of organized violence. Markets institutionalize non-violence. If a policy dispute turns on a matter of taste, federalism and a market economy allow for the expression of varied tastes, while the contest for control of a State-monopoly provider must inevitably create unhappy losers. If a policy dispute turns on a matter of fact, where "What works?" is an empirical question, local control of policy and competitive markets will generate more information than will a State-monopoly provider of goods and services. A State-monopoly provider is like an experiment with one treatment and no controls; a retarded experimental design.

In The Road to Wigan Pier, George Orwell speculates that socialism originates in a hypertrophied sense of order, like those compulsive people who rearrange the socks in the dresser and the dishes in the cupboard ten times a day. Elsewhere ("Raffles and Mrs. Blandish", "Inside the Whale"), he speculates that a vicarious sadism generates a preference for authoritarian politics. Ludwig von Mises suggested something similar; that socialism expresses a primitive revenge fantasy. It looks to me that people who defend State operation of industry enjoy a self-congratulatory power fantasy: what a wonderful world it would be if I ran it. Supporting the government school system or government-operated health care is like buying a movie ticket or a lottery ticket. With the movie ticket you get to imagine yourself in Steven Segall's place, or Bruce Willis' place for a couple of hours. With a lottery ticket, you get to imagine how your life will change when you win $$$. The price of the fantasy is the price of the ticket. The difference with the State school system is it costs taxpayers more than $500 billion per year, as well as the opportunity cost to students of the time they spend in school.

Affirmative Action, Baby!

Where's the evidence that Barak Obama is an intellectual? Granted, the President extemporaneously can string appropriate cliches together with the fluency of a street-corner evangelist reciting his catechism. Was the last person to hand you a copy of some religious tract an intellectual? In this case, absence of evidence is evidence of a vacuum. Beyond some wretched poetry about aquatic baboons and two apparently ghost-written books, where's the evidence? James Taranto has noticed.

Occam's razor suggests that Obama is a mere conformist--someone who absorbed every left-wing platitude he encountered in college and never seems to have seriously questioned any of them. Kloppenberg characterizes Obama as a skeptic, not a true believer. We're not sure he has an active enough mind to be either one.

Marxism Test

Take the test.

"Your score is 90%."

Josiah Gray would score 100% and he's no Marxist. This requires basic literacy.

Physics Test

Take the quiz.

"Your Total Score is 87.5%."

Oops.

I've been on a Biology kick lately: Matt Ridley, The Agile Gene and Genome, M. J. Benton, When Life Nearly Died (the Permian mass extinction). I have two in the air: Stringer and McKie, African Exodus (human evolution) and Marc Van De Mieroop, A History of the Ancient Near East (c.a. 3000-323 bc). Next up: review basic Analytic Geometry (conic sections) and Calculus. Then I'll have time to review basic mechanics and thermodynamics. Why does the equilibrium temperature of a body (such as the Earth) in orbit around the Sun depend on anything other than residual kinetic energy of formation, heat from fission in the interior, solar output, and the radius of the Earth's orbit? I have questions but no answers. How can "greenhouse gasses" make any difference? The experts say so, so I'll believe, but, as the Marquis De Sade said "It is impossible for a man to believe in something he does not understand" (from memory, so it's not exact).

C'mon; my last Physics class was 40 years ago.

Another Poitical Quiz

Take the quiz.
You are a Social Liberal (60% permissive) and an Economic Conservative (81% permissive). You are best described as a Capitalist.

"Free Marketeer" or "19th Century Liberal", more like.

Public Sector Pensions

The Honolulu Star-Advertiser endorsed two of the most fiscally irresponsible candidates on the menu: Dan Inouye for US Senate and Neil Abercrombie for Governor.
Hawaii's public-sector pension system is under-funded. It appears that California is headed for bankruptcy. Hawaii to follow. We will return to this topic with updates and comments.

Political Quiz

Take the political quiz.

"You scored the following on the PoliticsMatch questions:
Personal Score 75%
Economic Score 81%

Where You Fit In

Where your Personal score meets your Economic score on the grid below is your political philosophy. Based on the above score, you are a Conservative-Leaning Libertarian."

Now, if population control and immigration had appeared among the questions the results would have differed from the above.

Why Study History?...

So you won't make an ass of yourself, like Gwen Ifil...

Lucky Guess

Civic Literacy
"You answered 32 out of 33 correctly — 96.97%."

Politicians are retarded.

Hat tip: Blond Sagacity.
(Update) My homeless house-sitter: "You answered 33 out of 33 correctly — 100.00 %".

Stepping into the Ring

Here, we tangle with a professional. This guy has credentials and, no doubt, citations up the Wazoo. I may wind up looking silly.
(Update) Something more here and here and here.
(Update) Elswhere, here (no professionals).

Dump the Incumbent

Kim Coco Iwamoto recommends a level of funding for the Hawaii DOE at the level (per pupil) of the Department of Defense schools: "The Feds and State should be mandated to follow the US Department of Defense funding formula for public education. The DOD applies Government Accountability Guidelines to compute how much it invests each year into the public education systems they operate abroad. In 2009, the DOD spent $23,496 –$25,968/ student."

This would support a two-to-one student:teacher ratio, if the DOE were so inclined. This expresses an utterly irresponsible attitude toward her fellow citizens, who pay the bill for unscrupulous pandering to the public-sector unions.

As Andrew Coulson observes, beyond a very low level, budget bears no relation to system performance.

Iwamoto cites membership on the Teacher Standards Board as "civic or community service". Unless she worked toward repeal of this destructive institution, her participation degraded system performance.

Homeschooling by the Numbers

Let's see if this code works:...
Nope. Well, the sidebar abbreviates it. Go here.