Mike Petrilli Buys into Hope and Change

May 13, 2009

Pollyanna

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

Yesterday, Mike Petrilli posted that he has “hope” some good will come from the giant geyser of money that the federal government is blindly spewing into the government school system under the “stimulus” bill.

I would let it slide, but I owe Mike a good ribbing for this. So . . .

Mr. Sulu, you have the bridge. Mr. Spock, Mr. Checkov, you’re with me. Set phasers to snark.

Mike’s “hope” comes from the fact that he attended a meeting with some state-based reform leaders and heard some stories about how states are going to do great things in order to qualify for some of the relatively tiny portion of stimulus funding that has been set aside to reward good behavior (the so-called “race to the top” funds).

He actually calls these tales “bona fide stories of state legislatures contemplating” reform. Amazing – they’re contemplating reform!

To substantiate his point, he says that because Arne Duncan said he “may” withhold some of the tiny race-to-the-top portion of stimulus funds from states that limit charter schools, Maine is “considering” enacting a charter law. What kind of charter law we might expect to get under such conditions is a question Mike doesn’t raise. Plenty of states have charter laws that effectively block the creation of any charters that might actually produce change. The purpose of the law is for state legislators to be able to claim they have a charter law. Such laws do much more harm than good, since they siphon off political capital for reform and create a few phony, lousy charters which can then be held up and pilloried to discredit further reform efforts. You think that might happen in Maine?

“Mr. Spock, is all this . . . what I think it is?”

“Tricorder readings confirm we are witnessing the phenomenon known as ‘kabuki,’ Jim. Judging by the crudity of the performance, I would estimate that this particular specimen is at a very low stage of development.”

I’ll agree with Mike on one thing, though. The stories he heard are ceratinly “bona fide stories.” That is, they clearly are stories. What kind of stories is a question worth pondering.

Ironically, Mike wrote his post in response to an earlier post yesterday from Fordham’s Andy Smarick, which adduces with devastating clarity just some of the many reasons why we have no right to even hope for good results from the edu-stimulus:

First, although the application requires the governor to sign assurances promising to make progress in four areas, remarkably, it requires neither a plan for accomplishing those goals nor details on how these billions of dollars will be spent.  The states that have applied so far have obliged, including none of this relevant information in their packages.

Second, the Department sent a letter to states on April 1 saying that states don’t have to demonstrate progress on the assurances to get the second batch (~$16 billion) of stabilization funds.  They only have to have systems in place to collect data.

Third, governors lack the power to require districts to use these funds wisely.  From the guidance released in April:

III-D-14.  May a Governor or State education agency (SEA) limit how an LEA uses its Education Stabilization funds?

No.  Because the amount of Education Stabilization funding that an LEA receives is determined strictly on the basis of formulae and the ARRA gives LEAs considerable flexibility over the use of these funds, neither the Governor nor the SEA may mandate how an LEA will or will not use the funds. 

Finally, the only leverage the Department seems to have is threatening to make states ineligible for Race to the Top funds if this money isn’t wisely spent.  But states, not districts, are the only eligible applicants for the Race to the Top funds, and, as the guidance makes clear, states can’t force districts to behave.  So the threat is misdirected.

Game, set, match – Andy.

Looks like we’re done here. Mr. Scott, three to beam up.

4 Comments | charter schools, money myth, politics | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster

Union Busting — Good for the NYT, Bad for Everyone Else

May 4, 2009

The NYT has threatened to shutter its Boston Globe subsidiary in 60 days if its unions don’t agree to various cuts.  According to the Times’ own coverage:

“The company has said since early April that unless the unions make wide-ranging concessions, it will close The Globe…”

Hmmm….  What would the New York Times say if someone else, like let’s say Walmart, threatened to close down its units because unions would drive costs too high.  Oh, wait, they did write an editorial about that on August 16, 2008.  It begins:

“It is hardly news that Wal-Mart will do whatever it takes to keep unions out of its stores, from closing down a unionized outlet to firing pro-union workers.”

I guess it is hardly news that the New York Times would engage in the same practices that they find deplorable if allegedly done by others.

And who could forget this gem of an editorial by the Times on December 28, 2008?  Just a few months ago the Times seemed to think that expanding union power was great because it would raise wages, which was necessary for economic recovery:

“Even modest increases in the share of the unionized labor force push wages upward, because nonunion workplaces must keep up with unionized ones that collectively bargain for increases. By giving employees a bigger say in compensation issues, unions also help to establish corporate norms, the absence of which has contributed to unjustifiable disparities between executive pay and rank-and-file pay.

The argument against unions — that they unduly burden employers with unreasonable demands — is one that corporate America makes in good times and bad, so the recession by itself is not an excuse to avoid pushing the bill next year. The real issue is whether enhanced unionizing would worsen the recession, and there is no evidence that it would.

There is a strong argument that the slack labor market of a recession actually makes unions all the more important. Without a united front, workers will have even less bargaining power in the recession than they had during the growth years of this decade, when they largely failed to get raises even as productivity and profits soared. If pay continues to lag, it will only prolong the downturn by inhibiting spending.”

  Come on NYT!  Can’t you follow your own advice?  Do your part for the economy and raise those Boston Globe wages higher rather than slashing them.

(edited for typos)

5 Comments | economics, politics | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

Truth in Advertising on the Newspaper Bailout

April 8, 2009

pravda

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

You may have heard that Sen. Benjamin Cardin is proposing a government bailout of the newspaper industry.

Some enterprising legislator who loves free speech should propose an amendment to the bill stating that any newspaper accepting its terms shall be required to change its name to PRAVDA. Truth in advertising!

Actually, “bailout” may not be technically the right term. Cardin swears his plan involves “no infusion of federal taxpayer money.”

Note the word “federal.”

Instead of handing out cash, which would make government the de facto owner of America’s newspapers (as the examples of GM and AIG show all too clearly), Cardin would allow newspapers to reorganize as nonprofit “educational” institutions. But since the law already allows nonprofits to publish and distribute their own newspapers if they want to, the only possible rationale for Sen. Cardin’s proposal is that it allows newspapers to continue charging money to cover their costs while also recieving tax-free subsidies.

And who would be doing the subsidizing? Even if government (at the state and local level) doesn’t do it directly, it’ll do it indirectly. Politicians have lots of wealthy friends who would love to have their own pet newspapers.

In fact, Cardin’s proposal is actually worse than a direct government subsidy. At least a direct subsidy would be on the books and subject to disclosure, oversight, and some level of accountability.

Cardin invokes the old Jeffersonian saw that it would be better to have newspapers without government rather than government without newspapers. Yes – but either of those would be better than having government newspapers.

Even though the proposal is obviously going to go nowhere because it fails the laugh test, you’ll still get a lot out of reading Michael Kinsley’s deconstruction of it:

Few industries in this country have been as coddled as newspapers. The government doesn’t actually write them checks, as it does to farmers and now to banks, insurance companies and automobile manufacturers. But politicians routinely pay court to local newspapers the way other industries pay court to politicians. Until very recently, most newspapers were monopolies, with a special antitrust exemption to help them stay that way. The attorney general has said he is open to additional antitrust exemptions to lift the industry out of today’s predicament. The Constitution itself protects the newspaper industry’s business from government interference, and the Supreme Court says that includes almost total immunity from lawsuits over its mistakes, like the lawsuits that plague other industries.

Kinsley notes that just as capitalism built newspapers, it’s now destroying them in order to build something better:

But will there be a Baghdad bureau? Will there be resources to expose a future Watergate? Will you be able to get your news straight and not in an ideological fog of blogs? Yes, why not — if there are customers for these things. There used to be enough customers in each of half a dozen American cities to support networks of bureaus around the world. Now the customers can come from around the world as well.

There’s a good Michael Kinsley who writes about issues and an evil twin Michael Kinsley who smears his opponents with reckless disregard for truth; this column is  about as good as the good Kinsley gets.

Leave a Comment » | economics, journalism, politics | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster

Obama Compares AIG to Suicide Bombers

March 20, 2009

obama

Photo from the LA Times

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

A while back, a certain secretary of education compared the teachers’ unions to terrorists and got in super-major hot water. Remember?

I just wanted to put that on the table so everybody bears in mind the standard for civil discourse that was established during that episode. Of course that standard would apply equally to both parties, right?

The LA Times is reporting that at a California town hall meeting, President Obama compared AIG to a suicide bomber:

Well, OK, that all made sense, but then he compared AIG to a suicide bomber, and at that, we really perked up.

“Same thing with AIG,” Obama said. “It was the right thing to do to step in. Like they’ve got a bomb strapped to them and they’ve got their hand on the trigger, you don’t want them to blow up, but you’ve got to ease them off the trigger.”

And the president held out his arm and pantomimed a hand on a trigger, and we were rapt, waiting for what would happen next.

But then he called for a final question from the crowd.

HT Campaign Spot.

When he’s off the teleprompter, he’s really off the teleprompter.

Steyn is telling Hugh Hewitt that now he’s recycling all the jokes Frank Sinatra used to do about Bob Hope’s reliance on cue cards as Obama teleprompter jokes, and they’re going over really well.

3 Comments | economics, politics | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster

Saudi Arabia versus al Qaeda

March 12, 2009

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

Must read article by Stratafor.

Leave a Comment » | politics | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by matthewladner

The Rhetorical Rights and Wrongs of the Obama Speech

March 11, 2009

 (Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

I agree with both Jay and Greg about Obama’s speech- first, that it is symbolically important. The endorsement of merit pay and charter schools is very encouraging. Jay is correct however to ask…

There are a couple of items in the President’s speech, however, that I think he’s off base on. For instance, the idea that everyone needs to attend college. In the Carnegie Foundation’s publication Change, Paul Barton wrote that the notion that the U.S. has a dire need for an ever increasing number of college graduates is a myth. “Confusion about the demand for college graduates runs throughout discussions of national workforce needs,” Barton wrote.

According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, only 29 percent of all jobs actually required a degree in 2004. The Bureau projects that of the top ten occupations with the largest growth from 2004 to 2014, seventy percent won’t require a college education.

Interestingly, the U.S. Department of Education’s National Education Longitudinal Study reports that 40 percent of its sample attained a two- or four-year degree or higher. Therefore, many people with college degrees have jobs that don’t require them. So it really might be true when your cabbie says he has a Ph.D.

Barton’s clear-eyed presentation of the data reveals a job market far more complex than simply an unmet demand for college-educated job applicants. For example, proponents of greater higher education funding often point to an increasing wage gap between the college educated and those who aren’t.

Barton, however, notes that the wage gap is due largely to the falling earnings of high-school graduates and dropouts rather than to higher earnings for college graduates.

Second, the President’s call for the expansion of preschool programs isn’t supported by the weight of empirical evidence, which generally show small academic gains that quickly fade out.

Overall, however, it was a better speech than I could have dared hope for, demonstrating at least a rhetorical independence from the reactionary forces of the status-quo. Let’s see if the President gets around to backing his fine words with actual reform.

5 Comments | politics | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by matthewladner

Symbols Matter

March 11, 2009

wingdings

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

Jay points out that the president’s speech on education yesterday doesn’t resemble his legislative agenda. But it’s worse than that. There are things Obama could do to promose these good reform ideas even without legislation or budget changes, but won’t.

He calls on states to lift their charter caps. But what does he plan to do about charter caps? Even without extending federal authority over the states on charter policy, there’s plenty he could do, as Jay Matthews points out:

Will the Obama Education Department prepare and publicize a list of all the charter school cap laws in the country? Will Duncan call the governors, and legislators and school boards responsible for them and ask them to remove those restrictions on new charters, and find a way to get rid of bad charters?

Is the pope Muslim?

So on pretty much all fronts, the president’s “plan” for education is just symbolism.

But you know what? Symbols matter! The president is using his position in the spotlight to endorse choice and competition (as he did during the campaign) and rewards for performance, the two indispensable principles of sound educational reform. Even if he’s only doing it because Democratic constituencies other than the education unions expect it, it matters that the president has chosen to align himself with those constituencies rather than the unions. He could easily have taken the old line and kowtowed to the unions. But he didn’t, and that counts for something. So let’s give the president his due.

Now if only he had stopped his pals in Congress (who look an awful lot like his bosses these days) from kowtowing to the unions on vouchers.

Leave a Comment » | charter schools, politics, teacher pay, teacher union, vouchers | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster

Caught in a Trap…

February 27, 2009

briscocountyjrunderpressure

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

Fox’s tragically under appreciated early 1990s western comedy The Adventures of Briscoe County Jr. had an episode where the heroes teamed up with a sheriff to pursue a group of bad guys into a local mine. The bad guys gave the good guys the slip, and then closed entrance to the mine with dynamite. The sheriff, who just happened to look and dress like a circa 1972 version of Elvis Presley declared in a Tupelo drawl:

“We’re caught in a trap! Can’t walk out!”

Arizona’s legislators today find themselves caught in a trap that they won’t easily be able to extricate themselves from as well. Former Governor Napolitano drove the legislature to make a series of truly reckless budgets, driving state spending up at a rate far faster than state income growth. As real estate bubble revenue came pouring in, Arizona lawmakers made long term spending commitments with short term revenue sources.

The trap? Republicans now have the governor’s office and legislative majorities. Napolitano joined the Obama administration. Republicans are now in a position of either rolling this spending back to match revenues, or increasing taxes to preserve Janet Napolitano’s reckless legacy of expanding government. The beauty of the trap for Napolitano: she can watch the Republicans step on these bear traps from the safe distance of Washington DC.

These use of the plural in describing traps is deliberate. The Republicans have already enraged the state spending lobbies by fixing the badly imbalanced budget Governor Napolitano passed last year. The question is, having stepped on that trap, will they panic and stumble onto the next trap, which would be to raise taxes. This would incur the wrath of those of us who prefer low taxes and a smaller government.

In short, there are no easy options here, but some options are even worse than others. In fiscal year 2004, the Arizona general fund spent $6.5 billion. In 2007, that went up to $10.2 billion. The party was fun while it lasted, but our revenues are on a collision course with 2004, our spending needs to be as well. Napolitano’s mastery of Arizona’s Republicans will be complete if she forces the them to raise taxes in order preserve her vision of progress through bigger government from thousands of miles away. The whipped up hordes of the spending lobbies will not give them any credit, and principled small government conservatives and libertarians will be outraged as well.

1 Comment | politics | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by matthewladner

Assassination for D.C. Vouchers?

February 25, 2009

the-assassin

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

In case you haven’t heard, it’s been discovered that the Democrats snuck a provision into the “stimulus” “omnibus”* bill that assassinates the D.C. voucher program.

Dan Lips and Robert Enlow have the story on NRO today; the link on the front page is broken as of this writing, but you can get the story here.

I’m not sure what’s most disgusting – that the Dems are putting union politics ahead of children’s lives, that they’re doing it in this cowardly way, or that the president broke his promise to make the text of the bill available to legislators and the public with plenty of time to review the contents and justified his decision by saying that we had to pass the bill immediately to avert a catastrophe.

What did the president know, and when did he know it? Seems like there’s no answer to that question that makes him look good.

*UPDATE: Thanks to the commenters for correcting my mistake. How could I possibly mix up the “stimulus” bill with the “omnibus” bill? I mean, other than the fact that they’re both nothing but special interest porkapaloozas, they’re so completely different! Even so, I’m leaving in my comment about the president having broken his word on making the text of the stimulus bill available, because he did break his word and it was wrong. And the question of what the president knew about the voucher assassination attempt and when he knew it still seems 1) relevant and 2) not to admit of answers that make him look good.

4 Comments | politics, vouchers | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster

Now She Tells Us

February 18, 2009

randi-weingarten-at-obama-rally

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

Randi Weingarten explained this week that, contrary to the outrageous slander that the unions are against education reform, she’s actually in favor of having the federal government create rigorous national academic standards for public schools, and will remain in favor of it as long as the Democrats are in power. (I’m paraphrasing.)

She writes: “Should fate, as determined by a student’s Zip code, dictate how much algebra he or she is taught?”

So the AFT now endorses the principle that a child’s education should not be determined by Zip code? When did that happen?

And if a child’s Zip code shouldn’t determine how much algebra he or she is taught, why should that determination be made in Washington instead? Apparently the amount of algebra you learn should be determined not by your Zip code, but by your international dialing code.

At least with Zip codes, some families can exercise school choice by moving to a different neighborhood. Yes, it’s an unfair system, since not all families are equally mobile; apparently Weingarten thinks the fair thing to do is to take away the freedom now enjoyed by some parents, so that there will be an equality of unfreedom.

Here we see the real modus operandi of the Left – achieve equality by leveling downward.

1 Comment | politics, residential school choice, school accountability, teacher union, vouchers | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster

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