Archive for category Education Facts & Policies
Primary Cause of Inflation
Posted by Tom in Centrally Managed Economy, Deficit, Economics, Education Facts & Policies, Entitlements, National Character, Nationalized Health Care on May 13, 2010
I’ve been on vacation this past week and enjoyed some interesting discussions during that time. One on inflation: it occurs strictly speaking from excessive demand or inadequate supply, push-pull inflation. With one of our friends graduating from Notre Dame this weekend it struck me that inflation in education is excessive, that is way out of line with general inflation.
Gordon Wadsworth’s article, Sky Rocketing College Costs, presents this data which is about a year old but conveys the messarg well:
Another area of significant above average inflation is medical care. John Commins post, Costs of Medical Care Outstrips Inflation, pegs hospital service inflation in the last 12 months at 8.6% almost quadruple the 2.3% increase in the overall CPI. Physicians services was up 3.2% and prescription drugs up 4.9% for comparable periods.
I submit that the major reason for the off the chart inflation in each of these areas is the government involvement in each. There is not a true market in either. If there were price increases would be more in line with general inflation.
The leftist progressives from Dewey on have mandated public education which has evolved to public employee unions, outrageous non-market compensation, and an uneducated public.
The leftist progressives from Roosevelt on have pushed socialized medicine subsidized with tax policy and out of control Medicare/Medicaid bureaucracies. Obamacare is the final nail in this coffin.
How have we allowed ourselves to get to this inflated entitlement oriented society? While I’m hesitant to use comments from foreign nationals, this one by Peter Lakatos from Hungary to Mark Toomey sadly seems to get to the heart of the matter:
“The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president.”
“The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America . Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president.”
Now back to education. For all its inflated costs how good is it? Would it be better if government were completely out of it? Would our society have more common sense? And, would that society be foolish enough to elect another Obama?
For the sake of our grandchildren’s future we need to get the monster government on a starvation diet and get it out of our lives!
NJ’s Chris Christie-”No More Road Down Which To Kick the Can”
Posted by Tom in Economics, Education Facts & Policies, State Finances, Unions on March 6, 2010
Another honest politician telling it like it is, Chris Christie told 200 of New Jersey’s mayors that the old game of tax and spend is over. See Ron Smith’s Baltimore Sun post, A leader opts for painful honesty in the Garden State.
“We have no time left,” said the governor, “We have no room left to borrow. We have no room left to tax. So we merely have time left to do this. We are all reaching the edge of a cliff. And it reminds me a bit of that part of ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’ where he had the seminal decision to make. So what did they do? They held hands and jumped off the cliff. We have to hold hands at every level of government, state, county, municipal, school board. We have to hold hands and jump off the bridge.”
“Governor Christie has wasted no time in implementing budget freezes through executive action. No doubt there will be a political firestorm in New Jersey as the pinch is felt by politically powerful entities such as the teachers, police and firefighters unions. Whether he can survive tackling the growing fiscal crisis with actual solutions is the question. He told the mayors to get ready for cuts in state aid in his upcoming budget, which will be presented March 16, but he promised he would give them a hand by implementing pension, benefit and arbitration process reform, something that will be bitterly opposed by the aforementioned unions.”
Ya gotta like this guy. We need a lot more like him–telling it like it it is. Hopefully voters will be smart enough to listen!
Tom Motherway
Tenure, Unions, Administrative Bloat=Public School Education
Posted by Tom in Education Facts & Policies, State Finances, Unions on February 22, 2010
Today’s WSJ editorial, No (Tenured) Teacher Left Behind, addressed the problem of tenure in our public school systems. Tenure, the contractual right not to face employment termination without just cause, has been used in colleges and universities to insure academic freedom. It’s used in the federal judiciary to guarantee judicial independence. It has become a handicap to competent jurisprudence and quality secondary public education.
While academic freedom at the university level can arguably be justified given the variety of disciplines and research orientation, there is no possible justification for tenure at the secondary level. At the university level tenure is earned by research and publication over several initial years of work; if not granted after a stated period it is never granted. At the secondary level public employee teachers are granted tenure as a matter of course, typically after three years. No real qualification is required other than not showing up on a police blotter during those initial years! Public school administrators typically find less than 2% of new teachers unsatisfactory even though students fail to meet basic academic standards year after year and even in LA where the drop out rate is 35% and growing. Finally, “academic freedom” at the primary and secondary levels is an oxymoron!
Tenure as fostered by the teachers unions begets the mediocrity for which unions are generally known. There is no striving for excellence only striving for conformity and strength in numbers. As I have said ad nauseam, public employee unions have no place in our political system; the unholy alliance between union members and politicians will bankrupt our society. This is especially true in education where we are dealing with our most precious resource, our future!
What about Nevada? We spend way in excess of inflation, a 48% increase in Nevada’s education spending from 2006 to 2009! Yet we consistently have test scores lower than the national average. (See the National Center for Education Statistics)
We need a system in which excellent teachers can be retained and financially rewarded. We need a system in which the deadwood, protected by tenure and teachers unions, can be discarded.
So when you hear cries against education cuts please remember that spending has grown dramatically beyond the combination of population growth and inflation over the last several years. Student progress as measured by test scores has not kept pace. So a logical conclusion would be to look for educational barriers elsewhere. I submit that tenure along with teachers unions would be good places to start.
Tom Motherway
Health Care, Public Education Employment Better Than Average!
Posted by Tom in Deficit, Democrats, Education Facts & Policies, Nationalized Health Care, Nevada on February 15, 2010
Did you ever wonder why the inflation rates in health care and public education are higher than general inflation? Simple answer is that some one other than the patient or student is paying the bill. In some cases this is called welfare in others loans and in still others grants. In all cases some one else is paying.
Who is that some one else? YOU, OF COURSE! Taxpayers are paying but not consuming. So who is checking to see that health and education services are delivered efficiently? NO ONE!
Here’s the data comparing employment costs: All workers 2005=100, December 2009=111.2, 2.8% per year. Health care hospitals 2005=100, December 2009=113.3. 3.3% per year. Education services 2005=100, December 2009=113.1, 3.3 per year. See the Bureau of Labor Statistics report here.
As in the case with other third party payers, the real consumers, the patients and the students, don’t shop options and question prices and charges. The providers know this and know with certainty that they can charge what the “market” will bear. There really is no true market in the sense of competitive pricing. Where public employee unions are involved the situation is exacerbated. Salaries and benefits are raised by the politicians who are supported by the unions whose members’ salaries and benefits are raised. A vicious and unholy alliance!
So, in the case of Obamacare, the unions elect the Democrats, the Democrats raise their salaries, wages and benefits creating deficit spending and unfunded liabilities, the Democrats then claim we have a problem with the costs of healthcare so they propose to exacerbate that problem with Obamacare adding to the deficits, national debt and unfunded liabilities. Hell of a deal for the taxpayers! And a worse deal for their grandchildren!
Tom Motherway
Entitlement Generation’s Generation…Our Schools Train Socialists But Not Much Else!
Posted by Tom in Economics, Education Facts & Policies, State Finances, Taxation, Unions on February 12, 2010
Our great grandparents ventured from the old world to settle this new world, risking, sacrificing, and working for a better life. Our grandparents braved grueling covered wagon treks across the plains, deserts, and mountains to stretch the boundaries of this new world while scratching out a better life for their families by sacrificing and hard work even though outcomes were none too certain. Our parents fought in foreign wars to maintain the freedom and livelihood that their families enjoyed in this new world and help establish those freedoms worldwide.
Sadly we, circa babyboom generation, became complacent. Things were handed to us. We expected them. When they weren’t there we got mad. We rebelled against authority. We had “rights.” In short, we were entitled!
Why work? Why pay tuition? Job, what’s that? The state will pay it and if it doesn’t we’ll protest. Our children are entitled to the best education free. They are entitled to reduced class size and private tutoring if need be. We are the entitlement generation.
And what we are and what we have spanned is an embarrassment to our heritage.
This from the Las Vegas Sun: “UNLV students let their voices be heard on proposed education cuts. Organized walkout of classes joined by president, chancellor.” Yes, UNLV President Neal Smatresk, Chancellor Dan Klaich, and Chairman of the Board of Regents Dean Leavitt participated in the protest.
And this today from the Las Vegas Review Journal: “Desert Oasis students walk out of class to protest budget cuts.” Over 400 students walked out to protest state budget cuts to education. Of course, they won’t be punished because they got permission from Principal Emil Wozniak before the walked out!
The leftist educators and their poorly educated students are “entitlees.” They don’t know the meaning of work, sacrifice, or individual responsibility. They are the embodiment of the leftist model. How will they compete in a world where people do understand those virtues?
Sadly, we have been spending our hard earned tax dollars to support the exorbitant costs in terms of salaries, pensions, and general waste of this public unionized system. Economically, it is unsustainable.
Tom Motherway
Nevada’s Constitutional Standoff-Governor Gibbons is Correct
Posted by Tom in Economics, Education Facts & Policies, Nevada, Politics, Social Security, Unions on January 11, 2010
The spend and spend Democrats in the Nevada Legislature and their SEIU and Teachers Union (NSEA) employers have bristled at Governor Gibbons proposal to put the state back on the track of fiscal responsibility and adopt his educational reform proposal.
To refresh your memory from my January 7th post, the proposal embodied the following:
- Abolish collective bargaining. This has no place in government.
- Abolish the class-size reduction program, a make-work union rule. (There were 70 in my 3rd grade with one teacher!)
- Create a statewide school voucher system.
- Eliminate full-day kindergarten requirement.
- Repeal the prohibition against using student achievement data in teacher evaluations. Another union boondoggle rule!
Sensible, practical proposals for a state facing deficits, unfunded liabilities, and declining revenue this year and next at the very minimum. But the fat cat Democrats howled because their union bosses told them to howl!
So the Governor has asked the legislative leadership to draft bills along those lines for consideration in a special session. The Democratic leadership has refused. The Governor has contemplated a lawsuit against the legislature. Unfortunately this has echos of Guinn v. Legislature. Recall that was another phony, laughable suit filed by RINO Guinn and his then Attorney General Brian Sandoval against the legislature to compel action on the budget. Result: laughable decision derided nationally as reported in the WSJ and finally recanted by the same Supreme Court that issued it!
The Governor has correctly made his point. The Democrats have made theirs and shown who owns them–not the voters but the unions! The remedy for this constitutional standoff is at the ballot box, not in the Supreme Court. Simply, the Court cannot legally, constitutionally compel legislative action. The Democrats will have failed to do their Constitutional duty to consider legislation proposed to correct our fiscal insanity. Then, let the Nevada voters decide if they want the public servants making more money, with better benefits, and higher unfunded pensions that the average voters have. Let the Nevada voters decide if they want the state and local governments to be bankrupt while the fat cat Democrats laugh all the way to the bank.
Unfortunately, Brian Sandoval the Republican candidate opposing Governor Jim Gibbons for the party’s nomination, has shown himself to be the spend and spend RINO he was when he argued the Guinn v. Legislature lawsuit many years ago. He too opposes Governor Guinn’s very good proposals on education reform and fiscal sanity.
Tom Motherway
Kudos to Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons
Posted by Tom in Deficit, Education Facts & Policies, State Finances, Taxation, Unions on January 7, 2010
Finally, a conservative solution to help put fiscal sanity back into the state and improve the quality of education at the same time. Jim Gibbons announced his education plan yesterday with these highlights:
- Abolish collective bargaining. This has no place in governmental service.
- Abolish the class-size reduction program. A make work union rule.
- Create a statewide school voucher program.
- Eliminate full-day kindergarten requirement.
- Repeal the prohibition against using student achievement data in teacher evaluations. Another union boondoggle rule.
Predictably, Democratic candidate Rory Reid who like his father is owned by the unions opposes the suggestions.
Sadly, Brian Sandoval also panned the proposal. Methinks Sandoval is showing his true, liberal colors. Remember, Guinn v. Legislature? Brian like Guinn was a tax and spend RINO then; doesn’t look like he has changed!
Tom Motherway
Victory Through “Three Cups of Tea”
Posted by Tom in Education Facts & Policies, Foreign Policy, Military Policy on December 14, 2009
My friend Gene Humphrey, not short of combat experience or U.S. intelligence work, sent me an engaging little book, “Three Cups of Tea” by Greg Mortenson. It opens with the heartbreaking defeat of an attempt to summit K2 and continues with the comparable struggles to build schools in the dauntingly remote Himalayas of Northern Pakistan but these are victories indeed. Gene picks his reading recommendations well; “Three Cups of Tea” has become required reading for U.S. commanders and troops deploying to Afghanistan.
“We can drop bombs and hand out condoms and build roads or put in electricity but if we don’t educate children, and especially girls, nothing will change in society….I find it somewhat amazing how very nimble and small, poor organizations are able to exploit the lack of education very quickly and use ignorance to feed their own agenda. I think that’s why I feel that educating girls is so important. If you educate a boy, you educate an individual but if you educate a girl, you educate a whole community. There is a proverb in Afghanistan that, roughly translated, says that the ink of a scholar is holier than the blood of a martyr. And I believe that. Education is our greatest weapon.” Greg Mortenson author of “Three Cups of Tea” in an MSNBC interview on December 3rd.
This is an interesting concept. Is there any validity to it? According to an article in Pars Times by Golnaz Esfandiari, Dr. Said Peyvandi who follows Iranian education from Paris said the number of Iranian girl in the educational system is growing dramatically even following the 1979 revolution and Islamization of the educational institutions. “The remarkable educational progress of Iranian girls is the last decade should be considered a social phenomenon, because its implications for social relations, the labor market, and the status of women in society and in the family are very, very important in determining the future of Iran.” A good argument can be made that we are seeing the results of that societal progress in the current demonstrations and uprising against the illegitimate regime in control of Iran, Ahmadinejad and his mullahs.
It’s good to know that the U.S. continues its support of education in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Perhaps victory will eventually come.
Tom Motherway
Out of Step, A Bit Perhaps, With America?
Posted by Tom in Education Facts & Policies, Law, Morality & Religion in the Public Square, National Character on December 11, 2009
Obama has made some dumb appointments, like Charles Freeman as Chairman of the National Intelligence Council; remember the guy with ties to China who downplayed China’s brutal suppression of dissent and ties to Saudi Arabia who bashed Israel. Or Green Jobs Czar Van Jones the black nationalist, anti-capitalist, and self-declared Communist revolutionary. The list is long including some still serving like a Secretary of the Treasury who knowingly refused to pay taxes. But by far one of the most out of step is Kevin Jennings who is Obama’s “safe school czar.”
Kevin Jennings founded the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) in 1990; he had to take a cut in pay from that organization when Obama appointed him to run the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools in the Education Department. In all fairness he worked in the Obama campaign and was very successful in fundraising co-chair for the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered) community. Now political paybacks are fine, but couldn’t Obama have found a better job for this guy?
According to a December 9th editorial in the Washington Times, Obama’s Risky-sex Czar, Jennings was involved in teaching 13-year-olds strange sex techniques! This at a youth conference at Tuffs University in March 2000. There are evidently tapes of some of the sessions which are nothing but vile smut. Things like oral sex and “fisting” were discussed with these youngsters. Evidently Jennings is also a big supporter of Harry Hay and the North American Man Boy Love Association.
Talk about the role of government. It can be open to wide dispute on many issues. But I doubt the dispute would be wide at all when it comes to teaching children about kinky sex. As the Times editorial states, “Teaching children sexual techniques is simply not appropriate.” Indeed!
I for one (with six grandchildren) don’t want Kevin Jennings anywhere around an educational system, here or elsewhere! Maybe you could find something for Kevin in the prison system, Mr. President. There at least he could do less harm!
Oh, and by the way, you previously said to judge you by your appointments…so far that judgement is that you are either “one brick short of a load” or more than a little out of touch with America. Neither of these makes one feel sanguine for America while you’re at the helm!
Tom Motherway
Labor In Control-Obama v. Calderon, Reagan, Common Sense
Posted by Tom in Education Facts & Policies, Politics, Statism, Unions on October 19, 2009
When I was a kid I was lucky enough to get construction jobs during my summers to pay for college and law school tuition. One requirement was a union card from the laborers and hod carriers local union. The card and dues were a minor drag, a tax, on the ability to earn enough to pay for the schooling. I appreciated the union because the job paid well. There was really no apprentice program as a laborer, no school on how to shovel or wield a pick but there was “union scale” for which a share out of my paycheck for that “scale” seemed a reasonable price.
What I didn’t understand in my early years was the social and economic price exacted for the union control in the industry. Each summer I started and worked hard. Each summer I was told to “slow down, kid, ‘ya don’t wanna work us out of a job….and that’ll hurt you back when you’re my age!”
Unions promote not work productivity but work continuation. Unions promote not uniqueness or excellence, but mediocrity. Sad to say but teacher unions now control our education. Recall Orwell’s Animal Farm, “All of us are equal, some are more equal than others.” The pigs’ leader was Napoleon.
Mary Anastasia O’Grady pens an excellent opinion in the March 19th WSJ. In it she tells how big labor elected Obama and how he has started to repay the debt, Chrysler unions ahead of creditors, steel workers ahead of China our largest creditor. We see his efforts at “card check” unionization and union board membership of GM. All just down payments on the votes to come. Poor kids in DC without vouchers and without education pale in significance to Obama votes!
O’Grady contrasts Obama to Calderon in Mexico who has just ordered the federal police to take over operations of the state-owned electricity monopoly and fire 42,000 union electricians; only 8,000 are needed to do the work! She also recalls Reagan firing the air traffic controllers. Both gutsy moves from principled presidents. No doubt that Calderon has big cajones.
Bottom line here is that we have a dangerous vicious circle taking deep root at the federal level. It has grown at the state level in the public union sphere over the last decades. It will doom us to serfdom in the end. Unions elect politicians, politicians promote unions. Jobs and productivity limiting work rules abound; excellence, innovation, entrepreneurship and individuality suffer. The vicious circle feeds upon itself to ultimately disastrous ends.
So far the state and local results are untenable budget deficits on a universal basis and unfunded pension fund obligations that will drive taxpayers to indentured servitude. The national results will be much worse.
Well we now have a new Napoleon in the White House. We are just starting to suffer for it. God save us.
Tom Motherway