Chris Christie on Merit Pay for Teachers

The True Cost of Public Education - CATO

Educational Theft? -or- Grocery School?

“In case you needed further proof of the American education system's failings, especially in poor and minority communities, consider the latest crime to spread across the country: educational theft“.

“These arrests represent two major forms of exasperation. First is that of parents whose children are zoned into failing public schools—they can't afford private schooling, they can't access school vouchers, and they haven't won or haven't even been able to enter a lottery for a better charter school. Then there's the exasperation of school officials finding it more and more difficult to deal with these boundary-hopping parents.

From California to Massachusetts, districts are hiring special investigators to follow children from school to their homes to determine their true residences and decide if they "belong" at high-achieving public schools. School districts in Florida, Pennsylvania and New Jersey all boasted recently about new address-verification programs designed to pull up their drawbridges and keep "illegal students" from entering their gates.

Other school districts use services like VerifyResidence.com, which provides "the latest in covert video technology and digital photographic equipment to photograph, videotape, and document" children going from their house to school. School districts can enroll in the company's rewards program, which awards anonymous tipsters $250 checks for reporting out-of-district students.

Only in a world where irony is dead could people not marvel at concerned parents being prosecuted for stealing a free public education for their children. “ (1)

Considering the above activity, one might find the answer to "educational theft" in a brilliant essay by Don Boudreaux entitled Grocery School:

“Suppose that we were supplied with groceries in same way that we are supplied with K-12 education.

Residents of each county would pay taxes on their properties. A huge chunk of these tax receipts would then be spent by government officials on building and operating supermarkets. County residents, depending upon their specific residential addresses, would be assigned to a particular supermarket. Each family could then get its weekly allotment of groceries for “free.” (Department of Supermarket officials would no doubt be charged with the responsibility for determining the amounts and kinds of groceries that families of different types and sizes are entitled to receive.)

Except in rare circumstances, no family would be allowed to patronize a “public” supermarket outside of its district.

Residents of wealthier counties – such as Fairfax County, VA and Somerset County, NJ – would obviously have better-stocked and more attractive supermarkets than would residents of poorer counties. Indeed, the quality of public supermarkets would play a major role in determining people’s choices of neighborhoods in which to live.

Of course, thanks to a long-ago U.S. Supreme Court decision, families would be free to shop at private supermarkets that charge directly for the groceries they offer; such private-supermarket families, though, would get no discount on their property-tax bills.

When the quality of supermarkets is recognized by nearly everyone to be dismal, the resulting calls for “supermarket choice” would be rejected by a coalition of greedy government-supermarket workers and ideologically benighted collectivists as attempts to cheat supermarket customers out of good supermarket service – indeed, as attempts to deny ordinary families the food that they need for their very survival. Such ‘choice,’ it would be alleged, will drain precious resources from the public supermarkets whose (admittedly) poor performance testifies to the fact that these supermarkets are under funded.

And the small handful of people who call for total separation between supermarket and state would be criticized by nearly everyone as being, at best, delusional and – it would be thought more realistically – more likely misanthropic devils who are indifferent to the malnutrition and starvation that would sweep the land if only private market forces governed the provision and patronizing of supermarket. (Some indignant observers would even wonder aloud at the insensitivity of referring to grocery shoppers as “customers”; surely the relationship between suppliers of life-giving foods and the people who need these foods is not so crass as to be properly discussed as being ‘commercial.’)

Does anyone believe that such a system for supplying groceries would work well, or even one-tenth as well as the current private, competitive system that we currently rely upon for supplying grocery-retailing services? To those of you who might think so, pardon me but you’re nuts.

To those of you who understand that such a system for supplying grocery-retailing services would be a catastrophe, why might you continue to count yourself in the ranks of those who believe that government schooling (especially the way it is currently funded and supplied) is the system that we should continue to use?” (2) (3)




Notes:

(1) The Latest Crime Wave: Sending Your Child to a Better School, 10/01/2011,Wall Street Journal, Michael Flaherty.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903285704576557610352019804.html?mod=opinion_newsreel

(2) Grocery School, Don Boudreaux, 04/22/2012.

http://cafehayek.com/2011/04/grocery-school.html

(3) also appeared in the Wall Street Journal as an op-ed under the title “Public Supermarkets”, 05/04/2011.

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748704436004576299571015982098-lMyQjAxMTAxMDAwNDEwNDQyWj.html

　

　

　

　

　

Education Spending: Up 300% in Real Terms Since 1960

Public School Test Cheating: Extend and Pretend?

“Atlanta: Award-winning gains by Atlanta students were based on widespread cheating by 178 named teachers and principals, said Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal on Tuesday. His office released a report from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation that names 178 teachers and principals – 82 of whom confessed – in what's likely the biggest cheating scandal in US history.


This appears to be the largest of dozens of major cheating scandals, unearthed across the country. The allegations point an ongoing problem for US education, which has developed an ever-increasing dependence on standardized tests.”

‘The Atlanta cheating scandal also offers the first most comprehensive view yet into a growing number of teacher-cheating allegations across the US, reports of which reached a rate of two to three a week in June, says Robert Schaeffer, a spokesman for the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, which advocates against high-stakes testing.

It's also a tacit indictment, critics say, of politicians putting all bets for improving education onto high-stakes tests that punish and reward students, teachers, and principals for test scores.

"When test scores are all that matter, some educators feel pressured to get the scores they need by hook or by crook," says Mr. Schaeffer. "The higher the stakes, the greater the incentive to manipulate, to cheat." ‘ (1)


Testing is a High-Stakes Political Bet that Punishes or Rewards?

Sounds very straight forward does it not? That tests are too monumental regarding rewards and punishments and hence cheating occurs. That the system and processes themselves causes the problem. Open and shut case: remove the testing rewards and punishment and hence remove the cheating.


The Counterintuitive Proposition

Public school K-12 education is a late stage collectivist model delivered through monopoly. Late stage collectivist models, by their very nature, suffer from rampant shirk, enrichment of the power purveyors, and abysmal results. Its the nature of the beast.

The beast has become a magnet for reports regarding its many, many problems. The mounting number of reports threatens the continuation of the collectivist model delivered through monopoly.

Given there is no way to reverse rampant shirk due to the base collectivist model in its late stage, and there is no way to reverse abysmal results due to the nature of late state collectivist models, and monopoly delivery is the only way to protect enrichment of the power purveyors……the natural result is final late stage collectivism and the process of making-up results.

The cheating or made-up results, rather than being a school system or teacher reaction based upon reward/punishment, may well be an entire model reaction. Stated alternatively, the US public school model, being a last stage collectivist model delivered through monopoly, in reaction to criticism and constant finger pointing, must raise results or else the model finally gets replaced by a free enterprise model with monies assigned to students [voucher proposition] rather than monies assigned to institutions.

Hence in order to extend, one must pretend.

Below is a link to an additional report: Investigation into APS cheating finds unethical behavior across every level - Atlanta Journal Constitution

http://www.ajc.com/news/investigation-into-aps-cheating-1001375.html

Notes:

(1) America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta - Christian Science Monitor


http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2011/0705/America-s-biggest-teacher-and-principal-cheating-scandal-unfolds-in-Atlanta/(page)/2

An Educational Paradox: Collectivist Visions Delivered Through Collectivist Models

Horace Mann's grand collectivist scheme of "free education" also known as the K-12 scheme, also known as public schools. The “free” [taxpayer subsidized] scheme that costs hundreds of billions of dollars each year. Public universities are tax payer subsidized as well.

Enter Milton Friedman

Keeping K-12 and public universities in mind, consider this statement by Milton Friedman when considering the current taxpayer supported systems regarding the investment in education: "In a private market economy, the individual would get his return as his personal income, yet if the investment were subsidized, he would have borne none of the costs". (1)

An argument point to keep in mind

One might want to keep the following argument points in mind put forth by collectivists regarding the presumed need to funnel more and more and more tax dollars to public education: "children are our future", "we will have an educated and more productive society", “democracy is better served by the better educated”, etc..

Back to Friedman

One of the implicit and explicit assumptions in Friedman's 1955 essay The Role of Government in Education is that individual X increases his/her potential to earn a higher income through education and many times the potential actually translates into increased earnings. However, Friedman is pointing out the potential and actual earnings increase was largely subsidized by the exogenous taxpayer. When considering the now higher earnings of individual X, one must deliberate the fact that X did not pay for the total costs associated with the increased earnings.

Back to the more productive society

The implicit assumption in slogans such as "children are our future", "we will have an educated and more productive society", “democracy is better served by the better educated”, is that a social benefit of some undefined sort accumulates. However, we also know that increased earnings accumulate. In other words, are collectivists unknowingly implying that Adam Smith’s invisible hand is at work [increased earning and increased social benefit]?

The exogenous taxpayer and subsidized increased earnings

If taxpayers A-Z are forced into a system of subsidizing the potential and many times actual increased earnings of public school and public university students, shouldn’t taxpayers A-Z demand an efficient trade-off for the forced subsidization. Stated alternatively, taxpayers A-Z who are compelled to subsidize, should not taxpayers A-Z demand that the forced subsidization of increased earning be done in a manner that produces the most efficient, least expensive, and best average output?

Is not the subsidization of potential and actual increased earnings yet another argument for the voucher system? If taxpayers A-Z are compelled to subsidize potential and actual increased earnings then why is the subsidization not delivered through the most efficient, least expensive, and best average output system? Why is the subsidization conveyed through a collectivist model delivered through monopoly [K-12] and a top heavy administration system based on tenure [public universities]. That is, the subsidization is being delivered through a late stage collectivist model suffering from rampant shirk, enrichment of the power purveyors [administrative bureaucracy], and suffering from abysmal and declining output.

The current delivery system is counter collectivist. Oh yes! If the collectivist vision unknowingly implies that Adam Smith’s invisible hand is at work [increased earning and increased social benefit], then any accrued social benefit is left un-maximized. Hence the collectivist vision delivered through collectivist models becomes a paradox.

Notes:

(1) The Role of Government in Education, Milton Friedman, 1955, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1173402/posts

Public school education system dismal output: a counterintuitive proposition.

When researching the dismal output results of the public school education system in the United States one finds that over the past 40 years a 200% real dollar increase in spending on public school education (K - 12) has occurred. Yet the quality of output has remained constant or slightly declining.

Applying economics to the dismal results, given the massive increase in funding inputs, yields the conclusion that one is merely finding, viewing, experiencing the classic attributes produced by a late stage collectivist model delivered through monopoly. Hence the economic conclusion is that the increase in inputs have not increased quality of output due to the general output attributes of late stage collectivism.


However, here is a counterintuitive proposition: what if the 200% real dollar increase was never intended to be output related?

Skip by the concept of a collectivist model delivered through monopoly suffering declining output in its later stages and move to the more insidious concept of direct enrichment of the collectivist players. Set aside the output issue for a moment and concentrate on the input. Has the 200% real dollar increase (input) caused a maximization of the wage/benefit of the members of the collectivist model? Yes. Was the enrichment a blanket enrichment to all players in the collectivist model or was the enrichment skewed within the model toward the central planning power purveyors within the collective (administration/bureaucracy hierarchy)? Yes.

If the 200% real dollar increase is the more insidious concept of direct enrichment of the collectivist players, why and how would it happen? The "why" is related to politicos using taxpayer dollars to build a dependent political constituency. That is, politicos found that by increasing funding to public school education they built a political constituency that they could depend upon to vote for, campaign volunteer, and make political campaign contributions to the particular politico or group of politicos.

Directly related, the now dependent political constituency (dependent on the flow of taxpayer dollars) obtained leverage with the particular politicos or group of politicos to further accelerate the flow of tax payer dollars. The "how" is that the flow of taxpayer dollars, increasing at an increasing rate, was never intended for output it was intended for political constituency building. Hence the recipient of taxpayer dollars enriched themselves as the dependent political constituency of the politico. That is, the politico or group of politicos sending ever increasing taxpayer dollars to strengthen and solidify their dependent political constituency were in fact sending the money for the enrichment of their particular constituency and had no intention to send the money as an output related item.


If the counterintuitive proposition is correct then politicos have funded a dependent political constituency at no direct cost to them by merely funneling taxpayer dollars to a recipient class. The recipient class aka the dependent political constituency then enriched themselves with the flow of tax payer dollars. The flow of taxpayer dollars never reached, arrived at, nor are associated with educational output.