A great analogy by economist Don Boudreaux:
Suppose that groceries were supplied in the same way as K-12 education. Residents of each county would pay taxes on their properties. Nearly half of those tax revenues would then be spent by government officials to build and operate supermarkets. Each family would be assigned to a particular supermarket […]
Archive for the 'Education' Category
Dec19th2011
Oct25th2011
This John Stossel series is a great watch and touches on most of the fundamental points driving the education debate:
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Aug26th2011
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Stanford political science professor Terry Moe gives a primer on teachers unions and their influence in blocking education reform.
Jul22nd2011
Republican States Have The Best Public Schools
Published by in Economics, Education and Unions. 6 CommentsMore evidence that teachers unions are an impediment to education reform:
When it come to excellence in education, red states rule—at least according to a panel of experts assembled by Tina Brown’s Newsweek.
Using a set of indicators ranging from graduation rate to college admissions and SAT scores, the panel reviewed data from high schools all […]
Jun30th2011
“The recipe sounds familiar: merit pay for teachers, rigorous testing, national academic standards. Is it a school turnaround effort in New York City, New Orleans, or Los Angeles? No, it’s happening in Shanghai. Over the past decade authoritarian China has been able to achieve what has eluded generations of educators in the […]
May16th2011
“I find it maddening how many upper middle class parents energetically “support public education” against the depredations of vouchers and other reforms, while moving their own children into better school districts or better programs. Especially parents in Manhattan and a few areas of Brooklyn who proudly note that their experience shows […]
May7th2011
The Leftist View Of The World
Published by in Education, ModernPolitics, Personal and Vouchers. 6 CommentsReaders of my blog, especially those who comment frequently, know my good friend Jon. He’s a recent convert to the left and believes in it passionately. A common theme of his world view, and those on the left in general, is the tug of war between the rich and the poor. The powerful and the non-powerful. […]
Apr9th2011
News reports are a buzz about the ‘last minute deal that averts shutdown’, but the more important news, atleast to me, is that thanks to the very hard work and arm twisting of Republicans, Democrats were forced to agree to reauthorize the DC voucher program:
Re-establishes a school voucher system for the District of Columbia, […]
Mar8th2011
The Charter School Revolution Moves To Compton
Published by in Education, Hispanics (Minority Issues) and Vouchers. 0 CommentsYou need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video
A moving short video of the affect the “Parent Revolution” is having in Compton, California. I’m curious: to those who dislike charter schools and vouchers, what do YOU have to say to parents stuck in these failing public schools? Please support the Parent Revolution […]
Feb24th2011
“The question for states and cities is not whether “collective bargaining” is a basic undeniable right, but how much union power in the public sector is too much. Progressives talk as though it can never be enough–or, at any rate, that no union privilege, once extended, should ever be withdrawn. Conservative […]
Feb4th2011
Their similarities:
The parallels are obvious: In both fields (1) we have systematically suppressed normal market forces; (2) the entity that pays the bill is usually separate from the beneficiaries of the spending; (3) providers of the services see the payers, not the beneficiaries, as their real customers and often shape their […]
Jan28th2011
That is what our education system has come to:
Kelley Williams-Bolar is serving 10 days in jail for using her father’s address to enroll her two children in a high-performing school in a suburban district instead of her neighborhood school in Akron, Ohio. She refused the district’s demand to pay $30,000 in back tuition, […]
Nov30th2010
In Defense Of For-Profit Colleges
Published by in (modern day) Liberalism, Academia, Education, General, Hispanics (Minority Issues), ModernPolitics, Personal and University. 1 CommentOne of the biggest blind spots of policymakers and pundits is the inability to take target market into account. For example, you can’t just compare the wages of employees at Hilton Hotels vs Motel 6’s and conclude that Hilton Hotels are superior because the employees are paid more. You have to take the companies vastly […]
Oct11th2010
“He ends up taking some odd directions with it, but I think the main thrust of Rick Hess’ article on making school choice actually work is mostly brilliant. His core point is that for the provision of extra options to drive major improvements in quality, you need a much more complete market […]
Sep25th2010
“The right way to think about teacher compensation, I think, is this. You could have a system in which all teachers are paid the same amount. But we don’t have that system. Instead we have a system where veteran teachers are paid much more than novice teachers, and teachers with master’s degrees are paid more […]
Sep11th2010
What a great response:
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