Tag: education

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education and schooling general freedom ideological culture moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies too much government

Grading Democracy on the Curve

public schools, education, democracy,, propaganda, ignorance

Voters, we are told, are amazingly ignorant. So, what to do?

“Ultimately, the ideal democracy is one in which as many citizens as possible vote,” writes Dambisa Moyo at The Guardian, “and the voters are armed with the most objective information. Yet today only a fraction of the electorate are voting, and many are armed with a diet of hyped-up statistics and social media propaganda.” Among her proposals is a voting booth access test: “why not give all voters a test of their knowledge?”

I can think of a whole bunch of reasons, as can Ilya Somin, over at Volokh Conspiracy, who considers just a few. One of the more interesting is this: whereas Moyo has no wish to shove poor people out of the voting booth, and so envisions public schools to teach to the test — “the knowledge needed should be part of the core curriculum” — Somin quotes John Stuart Mill about the very political dangers of the very idea of public schooling: “A general State education,” wrote Mill in On Liberty, would inevitably be devised to please and serve “the dominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, an aristocracy, or a majority of the existing generation” and must constitute “a despotism over the mind.”

Though Moyo does observe incumbency and political careerism as big problems, she is innocent of the more fundamental issues.

Indeed, she does not consider the obvious: today’s voter ignorance of politics and government is in no small part the result of government schools.

For politicians, general ignorance is not a bug, it’s a feature.

Let’s look for solutions to political problems that do not give politicians more power.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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crime and punishment education and schooling ideological culture media and media people moral hazard national politics & policies

Bias and Blindness

GAO, racism, race, boys, Roseanne, schools, education, bias

Neither stretching the truth nor ignoring it helps beat back implicit or explicit racism.  Yesterday, my Townhall.com column took the Washington Post to task for misstating the results of a recent GAO report.

The GAO noted wide discrepancies between the percentage of students facing disciplinary actions who are black, male and disabled and the relative percentages of these groups in the overall student population. Yet, the report also specifically stated: “Our analyses of these data, taken alone, do not establish whether unlawful discrimination has occurred.”

Nonetheless, the Post headline told readers: “Implicit racial bias causes black boys to be disciplined at school more than whites, federal report finds.” The article claimed that “a government analysis of data . . . said implicit racial bias was the likely cause of these continuing disparities.”

The same discrepancies regarding boys of all races? And students with disabilities? Even the crickets had no comment.

In the Post’s Outlook section, yesterday, readers were treated to further edification on race — this time via C. Nicole Mason with the Center for Research and Policy in the Public Interest. “I feel alienated and slightly betrayed by the reboot” of the sitcom Roseanne,” she writes.

The title of her piece proclaims why: “‘Roseanne’ was about a white family, but it was for all working people. Not anymore.”

The “not anymore” refers to Roseanne’s support of (and Mason’s derangement syndrome over) President Trump. Interestingly, a more legitimate “not anymore” angle was completely missed — or ignored. The Connors now have a black granddaughter. The new show isn’t “about a white family,” but a racially mixed family.

When racism is finally extinguished from this planet, someone remember to tell the race-hustlers.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability crime and punishment education and schooling folly general freedom moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies too much government

Leave Them Kids Alone

education, school, panic, hysteria, play, gun, toy, private, competition

This just in: oblivious little boys still play cops and robbers.

Just as in days of old.

Wait. Hold on. Breathe. Just breathe. This sociological fact doesn’t mean that we’re a nation of incipient international terrorists but for the galumphing grace of grumpy zero-tolerant schoolmasters.

Common sense says you don’t suspend toddlers from school for wiggling their fingers as if wielding a gun, or for sculpting a “gun” out of a slice of Wonder Bread or Freihofer’s. Yet evidence continues to mount that all too many teachers and administrators are immune to considerations of reasonableness when it comes to kids who misbehave. (Or “misbehave.”)

Such enemies of childhood innocence must be hindered. So let’s give two and a half cheers to Ohio lawmaker Peggy Lehner, who proposes to legislate an end in her state to suspending children in the third grade or younger who aren’t threatening anybody. (I’m not sure why kids in grades later than third can’t catch the same break.)

A new, probably imperfect government regulation is not the only way to counter blunderbuss government-school policies. The most fundamental alternative is the free market.

Ideally, no public-school monopoly plagued by mandatory insane rules would exist. Ideally, all K-12 (and university) educational offerings would be provided by an unregulated market economy, making it much easier for families to drop insane schools and patronize sane ones. The pressures of market competition would encourage school officials to become students of common sense.

We are not there yet.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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education and schooling folly general freedom ideological culture moral hazard nannyism responsibility

The Common School Agenda

Evergreen, students, protest, Heying, Weinstein

The rise of campus radicalism, write Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein in the “Washington Examiner, appears to “validate every fantasy the Right ever had about the Left.”*

Heying and Weinstein, who have resigned their positions at Washington State’s public liberal arts college, Evergreen, detail what went wrong at the college they “loved.”

A sociologist was hired as college president, and he systematically bred an activist movement reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution. That’s how our two extremely popular professors found themselves defending free speech and non-compliance against angry crowds of students spurred on by college administrators and “equity” officers.

Heying and Weinstein plausibly assert that these protests arise directly from the “‘equity and inclusion’ movement, cloaked in words that sound benevolent and honorable” but serve as little more than “a bludgeon.” And definitely “not like protests many readers will remember from their own college days.”

But are they really that surprising?

Government-run and -funded education hit these United States in a big way with the 19th century’s Common School movement. And not primarily to ensure “proper education.” The rationale was political . . . to more-than-nudge immigrant children to assimilate to our republican way of life.

The political element from our schools never left — and became more Left with each and every “revolution” in educational methods, and each increase in government involvement.

So, does training students to become violent mob activists bent on suppressing ideas they don’t approve of seem out of place?

It certainly is expensive. In more than one way.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* And note that this piece did not appear in the left-of-center Washington Post — echoing the hesitance the mainstream and leftstream press have shown towards Bret Weinstein’s story in the first place.

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Accountability education and schooling folly general freedom moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies responsibility too much government

Eternally Postponing Responsibility

responsibility, Denmark, education, welfare, socialism, Bernie Sanders, freedom

There is a common sense element to economics. We ignore it at our peril. So let’s take a cue from the Democratic Party’s current and de facto leader, Bernie Sanders.

Turn to Denmark for a model.

The Nordic state has what Bernie wants: higher education “free for all.” But there are . . . costs involved.

It turns out that “some Danes, especially older citizens already in the labor force,” explains Business Insider, “say the extra freedom can eliminate a crucial sense of urgency for 20-somethings to become adults. The country now deals with ‘eternity students’ — people who stick around at college for six years or more [not to mention advanced degree work] without any plans of graduating, solely because they don’t have any financial incentive to leave.”

Hardly a shock. Young Danes would not be the first to see in college life what satirist Tom Lehrer identified as the prolongation of “adolescence beyond all previous limits.”

Give young people an incentive to suck up resources year after year, and some will certainly take you up on that.

It’s hard to counter, too. The Danish “eternity student” problem remains even after taking policy steps to discourage it.

Business Insider ends its report by quoting an expert who insists that “motivation to succeed in your studies is in no way linked to whether you’re paying for your tuition or not.”

Yup, that’s what proponents of “free” education keep telling us. But there is more at play here.

Responsibility is on the line. Adulthood is about responsibility. Free tuition is about postponing responsibility.

Do we really want to go further in that direction?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability education and schooling free trade & free markets general freedom local leaders national politics & policies responsibility too much government

SEZ Ed

education, free trade zone, Shenzhen, Chicago, Detroit, regulations, reform

The great barrier to educational advance in our time is the federal government. The second great barrier? Your state government. The third great barrier? Your local government.

Proposals to break up government-subsidized and -enforced school monopolies have ranged from tax credit proposals and voucher programs to charter schools and (the biggest success so far) home schooling.

But it may be time to advance something a little . . . more daring. Break the stranglehold of government on dysfunctional schooling.

How?

Apply the “free trade zone” (FTZ) idea to education.

We remember the FTZ proposal because of its rise in popularity amongst academics and policy wonks in the 1980s and 1990s. But the notion is an old one. And in China, where they are called “special economic zones” (SEZs) — and it is this term that is catching on — they have been amazingly successful, the former fishing village of Shenzhen being the most obvious example.

What about America? Take a devastated region, like inner-city Chicago or Detroit,* and simply nullify the regulations and rules. (This probably would require federal enabling legislation on top of state leadership.) With the ensuing freedom and opportunity, entrepreneurs, established businesses and schools, teachers, community groups and activists could cook up new solutions to the oldest schooling problem there is:

actual education.

I’ve heard whispers of this Educational SEZ idea for some time now.

It is time for rational and quite public discussion.

And then the shouting.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Of course, any area could work. The reason to focus on demonstrably failed educational regions is that such areas have lost hope, and thus the politically resistant are likely to give in and allow it.

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Accountability education and schooling folly responsibility

Only Make Believe

schools, education, students, standards, suspension, punishment, discipline

Problems can be solved. But for those lacking the merest clue how to solve a given problem . . . alternatives exist.

Books can be cooked to pretend the problem no longer exists. And perhaps to fool others.

A series of articles in the Washington Post highlights the effort to reduce the rate by which city schools suspend students for misbehavior. The good news? “D.C. Public Schools has reported a dramatic decline in suspensions at a time when school systems around the country have been under pressure to take a less punitive approach to discipline.”

Results? A whopping 40-percent decline.

The bad news?

A Post investigation found that “at least seven of the city’s 18 high schools have kicked students out of school for misbehaving without calling it a suspension and in some cases even marked them present.” In those schools, “most suspensions were not reported.”*

The Post further uncovered documentation showing that “DCPS officials knew students were being sent home without documentation at least as early as 2010.”

It brings to mind the recent scandal in Prince George’s County (Maryland) Public Schools, where a dramatic announcement that the county increased its student graduation rate faster than any other county . . . was followed by an investigation into grade tampering by school administration officials, which numerous teachers have alleged.

It is also reminscent of the systematic cheating on standardized tests in Atlanta — and across the nation.

Hiding the truth, cheating on tests, lying about results . . . not the actions of a system teaching kids a love of truth.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Seven schools’ emails show that students spent a total of 406 days in suspension in January 2016. Officially recorded? Only 15 percent.

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Illustration based on a photo by Tod Baker

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Accountability education and schooling folly local leaders moral hazard

Ugly Scrutiny

Prince George’s County Public Schools, grading, education, incentives,

Prince George’s County Public Schools have increased their graduation rates faster than all other schools in Maryland. Measuring from 2013 to 2016, the graduation rate jumped from 74.1 percent to 81.4 percent.

Great! 

Well . . . a fly has stuck itself into the soothing salve of their success — what county principals called an “unfair, ugly scrutiny.” Said scrutiny came from the Old Line State’s Board of Education, which voted to pursue an investigation* into what the Washington Post described as “grade tampering” to “drive up graduation rates.”

Keith Maxwell, the county schools’ CEO, says he welcomes the investigation. 

Dozens of whistleblowers have reportedly come forward. Several spoke with the Post, anonymously, for fear of retaliation: 

  • “We knew that it wasn’t real,” said a teacher at a high graduation rate school. “It’s just common knowledge that they push kids through who shouldn’t be pushed through.”
  • “I’m not averse to helping a student pass,” one educator explained. “But when people are pressuring you to do it, when it happens behind your back, that’s when it’s problematic.”
  • “For a child not to come to class — maybe been in class three days in a whole quarter — and you’re going to change their grade?” questioned another teacher. “It’s not right. If they don’t come to school, and they don’t do the work, they deserve to fail.”

She added, “It doesn’t help them.”

Which is the point: the students are being cheated. If graduation doesn’t mean anything, then . . . their diplomas don’t mean anything.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

*The investigation had been requested by Governor Larry Hogan.

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Accountability education and schooling free trade & free markets national politics & policies responsibility

The Leading Edge of Higher Ed

apprentice, Praxis, education, training, skills, college, costs

“People are paying tons of money to be kept out of the real world . . . being taught by people most of whom have never even worked in the business world. It’s kinda crazy.”

Well, yeah. There’s a lot of crazy in modern college life.

Which is one reason to work around it. That’s what Isaac Morehouse — quoted above — has done.

Morehouse is the founder of Praxis. You may have heard him on The Tom Woods Show or seen him interviewed on Fox News. “The mindset of ‘obey the rules, follow procedures, chase credentials, chase grades, and wait to be told what to do and you’ll be handed this magical ticket to a job,’” Morehouse told Fox’s Tucker Carlson, “it’s just not true.”

His alternative is simple: leverage the apprenticeship idea, combine it with counseling and instruction, and arrange with participating companies a guaranteed job at program’s end.

Our college system deserves a failing grade. Colleges sponge away fortunes (often borrowed) from students, while neglecting to train them to do much of anything but . . . college work.

This means not only that college grads have trouble finding work, but, as Mr. Morehouse discovered before he hit upon the Praxis idea, there are many, many companies trying to hire competent workers, but unable to find them.

A market opportunity!! Praxis unites demand and supply, connecting companies needing smart, energetic, cooperative workers with willing, eager young folks seeking meaningful (and well-paid) employment.

You can find a good overview of his effort — and a way to sign up! — at discoverpraxis.com.

Praxis’s testimonials are inspiring.

As the future should be.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability education and schooling general freedom ideological culture national politics & policies

Parents in Context

education, parents, children, Virginia, freedom

Consider the intersection of freedom and decontextualized fragments.

The specific “decontextualized fragments” in question appear in great and not-so-great works of literature, assigned in public schools for young adults to read: a graphic rape scene in Toni Morrison’s Beloved; racial slurs in Huckleberry Finn; sex, violence.

“Virginia regulators are drafting rules that would require school districts to red-flag objectionable teaching material and make it easier for parents to control what books their children see in the classroom,” reports the Washington Post.

Those regulations won’t be finalized for a year or more (because government bureaucracies are painfully slow). Yet an “earlier version of the language released on a state website drew hundreds of comments from the public,” the Post informs.

“Most parents were supportive of the change. . . .”

Teachers? Against.

Stafford County Public Schools literacy coordinator Sarah Crain worries about literature being wrongly labeled “sexually explicit.” To “reduce a book or a work down to something that is a mere decontextualized fragment of the work,” she argues, “actually impedes the ability for teachers and parents to have informed conversations.”

What about freedom?

Well, public schools aren’t primarily about freedom.

Teachers have a job to do; students follow instruction.

And it is pretty easy to see one reason for the opposition by “the professionals”: the new rules would entail more work.

Nonetheless, parents and their kids deserve as much choice as can be provided. And in every context.

Here, freedom means acknowledging the right of parents to decide. Not experts. Parents.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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education, parents, children, Virginia, freedom

 

Original photo credit: wealhtheow on Flickr