Reading, 'Riting, and Group Psychology
One problem with K-12 public education is its obsession with fads. For example, building student "self-esteem" is considered a valuable pursuit of teachers and everyone else at school.

For example, the Boston Globe reports that there is a move for teachers to use purple pens rather than red ones for correcting papers. The reason? "if you see a whole paper of red, it looks pretty frightening," says one teacher.

While the tradition of red ink as a marking tool goes back to the 18th century, a teacher in Florida says ""Red has a negative connotation, and we want to promote self-confidence. I like purple. I use purple a lot."

One parent, though, expresses a contrary view as she reviews her childhood: "I hate red. But because I hate it, I want to work harder to make sure there isn't any red on my papers."

Meanwhile, the Sacramento Bee reports that concern for self-esteem (not to mention liability) is leading schools dramatically restructure recess, larding it with rules that ban "tag, dodgeball and any game involving bodily contact." Among the most ludicrous results: at one school, no student is allowed to help another out by giving her a push on the swing.

The article continues that "Experts say free play helps kids learn how to cooperate, socialize and work out conflicts." But by imposing various rules, and making sure that all play is intensely supervised, that learning process is short-circuted.

Of course, discipline problems become more acute when schools grow to the size of enormous, as is the case with one school noted in the story. It has 1,200 students!

Among the possible solutions to this odd state of affairs: give parents more flexibility over what kind of school environment they want, by increasing school choice.
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Altering "No Child" To Include Parental Satisfaction.
John Kerry suggests altering the provisions of the No Child Left Behind act to include parental satisfaction as a measure of public school progress.

That's fine as far as it goes. Presumably parental satisfaction would be measured by surveys. But how about a more direct measurement? Give parents vouchers or refundable tax credits that could be used at the school of their choice (not just the school assigned by their local district). That would be an even more accurate measurement of parental satisfaction.

Of course, the whole notion of federal law governing what has historically been a matter of the states and local governments is itself unfortunate. I fear that it will be used for mischief down the road.
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In Defense of Wal-Mart.
Everyone seems to hate Wal-Mart, except their customers. And John Hood, who writes a defense of the retailer here.

Jesse Jackson, ever looking for a colorful phrase, has said: "It's Kool-Aid and cyanide." "The Kool-Aid is the cheap prices. The cyanide is the cheap wages. The cyanide is the cheap health benefits."

Hood's college, George Leef, has this to say:

Wal-Mart hurts no one. There is no “issue” here; no threat to life, liberty, or property. But just like other successful companies and individuals who made targets of themselves simply because of their success—Michael Milken, Martha Stewart, Microsoft—Wal-Mart is now a target for our busybodies, meddlers, and parasites.
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Online News Sources: Who's Trustworthy?
The Online Journalism Review (a project of the University of Southern California) cites four reasons why blogs are developing some credibility as news sources.

* Niche expertise.
* Transparency in motives.
* Transparency in process. (Bloggers often link to source material.)
* Forthrightness about mistakes.

Says one media professiona: "It is our turn to open the shades, to reveal our process and prejudice, to engage in the conversation, to join in the community -- to be transparent. Shouldn't we, of all people and professions, be the most transparent?"
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Regulations to Help ... Businesses.
Business owners are keen to bash regulations--except when the regulations help their business.

I'm reminded of this again as I noted this entry in a local golf guide: "No coolers allowed on the course."

Now, a business ought to be able to set its own rules for what people do on the premises. But when it comes to alcoholic beverages, the rule is backed up by state law, which forbids customers to bring their own brews to the course. The beneficiary, naturally, is the golf course owner, who can charge $2 for a single can of Bud Miller.

By the way, the Institute for Justice does a great job of fighting unnecessary regulation that harms both businesses and consumers. A classic example: some states have decreed that a family can buy a casket only at a funeral home. The result: a huge mark-up for a disposable item. Check out the IJ website for stories about their battle on behalf of a small company that wanted to sell caskets at a discounted price. The topic becomes of greater interest now that big box retailer Costco is now selling caskets in its discount stores.
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Who Needs a Real Estate Agent?
Douglas Gantenbein argues that real estate agents do too little and take too much in commissions.

While the Internet has had some downward pressure on agent fees, agents have one key tool of leverage: the multiple listing service (MLS). Gantenbein, a correspondent for the Economist magazine, says that the Department of Justice has expressed some interest in possible antitrust violations of the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

While Gantenbein prefers a FSBO (For Sale by Owner) world, real estate agents can have some value. As a buyer, I used an agent on my last real estate transaction. The property was a FSBO. Deep into the deal, I found myself unsatisfied with some parts of the transaction. Had the seller been using an agent with a reputation to protect before fellow agents, I'm sure (or would like to think) that the agent would have counseled the seller not to take some corners. As it was, the damage I suffered was more of an annoyance than anything else, so I let it slide.

But the episode illustrates one little fact about economics and sociology: the more likely people are to interact with each other in the future, the more honest they tend to be. Well, that's the theory.
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Quotas for Cops?
You may have long suspected that many police departments have a quota on the number of tickets they must hand out. The Substandard points to an article detailing the policy in one Virginia town. The chief reason why this is a bad idea: it breeds cynicism about law enforcement.
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Death of a Golf Course.
Much of public policy revolves around this simple fact: when two people make an agreement, a third party that doesn't like that arrangement tries to get some level of government to get involved in some way. I've seen that action of late, however.

Locally, the number of golf courses got out of hand; in terms of econ 101, supply began to exceed demand. At the same time, the growth in the number of new households has increased the demand for housing. The the supply of land is (to date, mildly) constrained by government policy (think of it as a weak form of an urban growth boundary), so its value keeps increasing. A course owner can sometimes make a lot more money selling off the business than trying to operate in a market of soft demand. The result is a recipe for golf course conversion into housing developments.

Naturally, people who own housing next a course strenuously object to changing an "open space." Regardless of whether their own house has "destroyed" open space, they now want to prevent someone else from doing the same. Recently, such a crowd convinced the city council to deny a developer's zoning application to develop a course. (The family that owns the course claims that it has been a perpetual money-loser.)

A few miles south, however, a second course is soon going to be developed. It's a shabby course without much to commend it except for the fact that it's been very easy for me to play it without a tee time.

This morning I went there, thinking I had one or two sessions left; the bulldozers have been expected to arrive at the end of the season.

I was off a few days, as it turns out. Though I was able to play through, work has already begun. The signage, yardage markers, cleaning equipment, etc., were auctioned off yesterday. I was invited to walk the course (free of charge!) while the surveying crews started marking where gas lines and roads would go. Since the flags were already gone, I had to rely on my memories of past rounds to know where to aim. Inconvenient? Yes. But what a bargain!

All in all, it was a fine round. Naturally, it was also sad to know that the long fairway of a par 5 was soon going to be another road in another treeless development of cookie-cutter mini-mansions. Sigh.

But you know what? I can live with it. There's no need for this third party to intervene between the old landowner and the new one, seeking the power of the law to protect my preferences. I have no right to control the use of the land. Though I'm disappointed, the loss to this and other golfers does not rise to the level of government intervention.

At least we'll have some memories.
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A Public Radio Monopoly?
Public radio is the pure alternative to commercial radio, and barely hanging on. Well, not exactly.

Minnesota Public Radio has paid a small, liberal arts college $10 million for its radio station.

And for this we need taxpayer subsidies?
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Secede to Succeed.
A dispute over school funding formulas has left many towns in Vermont unhappy, and one town threatening to leave the state.

Killington, Vermont, voted to leave Vermont for New Hampshire. The town has since encouraged other towns to do the same. Playing heavy into the calls for a move: dissatisfaction with school financing laws that send money from "property-rich" towns elsewhere. (See the Vermont-based Ethan Allen Institute for some information on "Act 60.")

In response to Killington's call, the New Hampshire-based Josiah Bartlett Institute says (PDF) come on in. The institute argues that "in most cases the mere threat of secession would create a new awareness of the level of discontent and lead to productive dialogue."

The threat would be taken more serious if mechanisms for secession were actually in place (currently it would require the approval of both states, as well as Congress) to facilitate such a transition. Barlett calls for states to ensure that a petition to secede "come[s] from an existing town and not just some neighborhood subset and receive a supermajority fraction of the vote."

While past American efforts at secession were spectacularly disastrous, the institute cites a recent case from Switzerland. As Barlett concludes, "An organized policy that allows towns the right of voluntary association will make government both more accountable and more responsive to its citizens."
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In Defense, More or Less, of Mourning Dove Hunting.
For some reason, questions about hunting arouse unusually strong passions, especially from the anti-hunting side.

Thomas Bray, a Detroit News columnist, expresses many of my thoughts on Michigan's recent move to open up selected counties to a mourning dove season.

"Personally, I have no interest in hunting doves — or turkeys, deer or any other land-dwelling animal. I don’t own a gun. But it’s not an emotional thing. I like to fish, and it’s not clear to me why hunting a mourning dove — which is not classified as a songbird despite its lovely call — deserves more consideration than, say, a rainbow trout."

Of course, in centuries past, we would all have a keen interest in hunting and fishing: it would be necessary for survival. Wealth has given us the luxury of fretting about the morality of hunting and fishing.

Concludes Bray:
"[It] appears the movement to bar dove hunting has more to do with growing scorn among urban and suburban elites for anything to do with guns, hunters and the notion that humans are a legitimate part of the environment than with concern for doves."
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Government Can't Trust Government ID.
One problem facing former prisoners who re-enter society is finding a way to provide identification to employers and landlords. And some of that problem comes from the government that incarcerated them.

A story in the Booth Newspapers syndicate in Michigan starts out this way:

"First as a foster child, then as an inmate, Steven Harbin has been under the watch of a state agency for most of his 32 years.

So he says he was surprised and frustrated when he was released from prison June 10 -- after serving 13 years for breaking and entering and a subsequent prison escape -- and he couldn't get a driver's license or birth certificate.

His Catch 22: To get identification, he needed to prove his identity, and state agencies wouldn't accept his prison ID and Social Security card."

If a state that has controlled a man's life for 13 years can't vouch for him, why would anyone else? WIth all the money spent on "rehabilitation," it would seem that providing a solid ID would be within the core tasks that a state would do right.
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Who is Your Teacher Union Hanging Out With?
It's hard to imagine that the National Education Association (NEA) will ever say "Stop. Now there is enough money for schools."

So it's no surprise that the union collaborates with other groups as it seeks to win more taxpayer dollars for its members. But the NEA's choice of partners in a new coalition should give everyone outside the radical left a pause.

David Hogberg finds that the NEA is bringing some unusual groups to its National Mobilization for Great Public Schools.

They include MoveOn.org, the hyperactive group that has compared President Bush to Adolph Hitler. ACORN, another group, pioneered the claim that taxpayer support of individuals (welfare) is not only an entitlement, but a right. It has also sought to "force a radical restructuring of America's unjust capitalist economy." Campaign for America's Future, a third participant, has played together with (figurative) bomb-thrower and polemicist Michael Moore.

Obviously the NEA can't control the actions or attitudes of groups that agree with it. But it does have the choice of whether to accept their encouragement. Unfortunately, the union that is so influential in setting education policy has chosen to join forces with extremists.
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A CRASH Course in Light Rail.
Houston has had a 7.5-mile long light rail system for less than a year -- and it has racked up 50 train/car crashes in that time.

The light rail authority blames drivers, but has also changed some lighting along the route, as suggested by the the Texas Transportation Institute.

The safest route would involve grade separation--elevating the tracks.
The authority blames some of the crashes on suburban congressmen who fought against additional money; the authority built the system at grade level to save money. That, of course, brings up the question of how much safety would have been purchased for the additional money required to build an elevated system. I don't know the answer, and would welcome any pointers on readers who can find a place to calculate the cost-per-accident avoided.

Based on current trends, the route is expected to carry 1 percent of local traffic by the end of 2004.
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NASCAR: The Latest Sport on the Taxpayer Dole.
Auto racing has grown to be the biggest sport in the country (in terms of attendance), largely without depending on taxpayers.

Unfortunately, that may be changing. From the home of racing, the Kinston (North Carolina) Free Press laments the development.

"The other day, Gov. Mike Easley signed a bill appropriating $4 million to pay for the design and planning of a testing complex in conjunction with the motor sports engineering program at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Easley had originally sought $15 million for the test track."

The $4 million, however, will likely be the tip of the iceberg. The estimated cost of the testing complex is $50 million. It's likely that those involved in promoting this raid on taxpayer dollars will be coming back to state officials - or even local officials in the Charlotte metropolitan area - holding their hands out for more corporate welfare."

Notice that the handout can be cloaked in dollars sent to higher education--always a safe bet for funneling pork.

The politicization of life--in this case, entertainment--continues.
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Increased Minimum Wage: Good Intentions, Bad Results.
Yet another study, this time from the Employment Policies Institute, on the detrimental effects of increasing the minimum wage.

"[This] antipoverty policy should be judged by its effect on the group it is attempting to help—current minimum wage employees. Examining the distributional employment results reveals that minimum wage increases decrease employment opportunities for current employees—the very individuals these policies are attempting to help."
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Political Bloggers.
While the PolicyGuy blog is not about politics, I have written about the possible implications for politics of bloggers. It's in an article for the
Detroit News web log.
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Be Smart When Spending on Education.
Kansas, like most states, has been embroiled in a controversy over how much to spend on K-12 education, and where to spend that money.

Stepping back from the question of distributing the money, I offer several principles for education finance in today's Wichita Eagle.
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Graduation Rates Are Overstated.
Speaking of high school graduation, education scholar Jay Greene found a few years ago that:

• Completing high school is nearly essential to economic and civic success in life
  
• The track record of GED certificate holders is not as good as that of high school graduates
  
• School drop-out rates are systematically understated; in the latest year for which complete data was available (1998), the high school graduation rate was 71 percent. For black and latino students, it was even worse: 56 and 54 percent, respectively.

Given those numbers, NCLB, though flawed, was inevitable.
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Could GED Push Inflate Record of Kentucky Schools?
With the No Child Left Behind act in place, the pressure is on for states to boost the academic achievement of public school students. This well-intentioned law may provide some unusual incentives that may lead to further regulation.

Currently, Kentucky residents who take the GED must get the permission of the district superintendent, or else be 17 or older and out of school for at least one year. (Kentucky law requires attendance through age 16).

The GED route is not encouraging. In 2002, 7,000 students dropped out of Kentucky schools. In 2003, only 54 percent of 16-18 year olds who took the GED test passed.

The 2004 session of the legislature created a "secondary GED" for those students still in school. As the Louisville Courier-Journal reports, however, "Critics said a school could use the new GED to dump low-performing students who otherwise would drag down its test scores."

There are two ways of promoting educational improvement. One, largely ignored, is to ramp up competition among schools through public school choice, charter schools, tax credits, vouchers, and loosening restrictions on home schooling. The No Child Left Behind Act makes a baby step in this direction in that certain students in the worst of schools may, after two years, be allowed to transfer to another school in the same public school district.

The other approach to improving education, the dominant approach to date, has been to spend more money on the same approaches, and tweak standards. As the controversy in Kentucky illustrates, one administrative reform often brings forth a need for another.

(The Bluegrass Institute has been a leading critique of the state's plan.)
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The Right Incentives.
Education scholar Andrew J. Coulson examines the Detroit Public Schools, which rank among the worst-run in the nation. Since the 1996-97 school year, the number of staff has continued risen, even as enrollment has dropped. The schools now employ more 1,723 people to run a system that servers 35,000 fewer children.

If money guaranteed good schools, Detroit would be doing great. Even when adjusted for inflation, per-pupil spending has gone up 20 percent since 1996, and now tops $11,000 per year. Despite this great increase, however, achievement remains dismal.

The fiscal mismanagement at the top has finally hurt rank-and-file workers, too. Facing a deficit of $250 million, the schools are ready to lay off 3,200 staff.

WRONG STRUCTURE
One important lesson from Detroit is that schools have the wrong incentives. In private industry, a business that loses customers must trim its staff, lower costs, refocus its energies, and improve its service. If it does not increase its income and reduce its costs, the company is in a slow (or perhaps fast) ride to decay, perhaps going out of business entirely.

By contrast, public schools do not have to worry nearly as much. Few things will make management complacent than the belief that its income is guaranteed. Public school administrators, more than private business managers, have that guarantee. It comes from state and local taxes.

While people are legally free to move from a district, it’s not easy for anyone to do. The poor, of course, may be financially unable to move at all. Yet the income they give the school district, through their own taxes and the money paid on their behalf by state and federal taxpayers, is a guaranteed income for the district.

Guaranteed income, to say the least, is not helpful to promoting excellent service and management This is not to say that many teachers and administrators are genuinely concerned about students. But financial incentives are important, too.

If you doubt that, ask yourself under which condition do you think more people would be willing to work harder and smarter: when pay raises and job security depend on working smarter and harder, or when pay raises and job security are guaranteed? When both slackers and star workers get paid the same, or when the outstanding performers are rewarded?

It’s a credit to many hardy souls that schools work as well as they do.
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Free to Be Fat.
Nick Gillespie takes a quick survey of government efforts to encourage thinness, and takes a dim view of it all.

The typical justification is to save on health care expenses from the public purse. Gillespie points the attention, correctly, to another problem--our system of third-party payment of health care expenses.

If being overweight contributes "significantly to our health care costs," the best way to reduce our dangerous dependency on imported stretch fabrics is to make individuals internalize those costs the same way they scarf down the Big Macs and (formerly) supersized fries. That means reducing the publicly funded elements of health care. An added benefit of that would be to deny politicians -- and your taxpaying neighbors -- any right to shape your personal lifestyle.

If people want to pay higher insurance costs, a suitable arrangement can be worked out by consumers and insurance companies. But with someone else (government, employers) paying the bill, individuals have little financial incentive to keep fit, and governments (and employers) have plenty of financial incentives to cajole or even regulate private behavior through seat belt laws, jawboning fast-food restaurants into downsizing their food portions, and so forth.
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Economic Growth Better Than You May Think.
Bad economic news sells newspapers and grabs attention. But the state of the economy is, to borrow a phrase from the campaign trail, more nuanced than headlines suggest.

Much has been made of the recent payroll survey by the Labor Department, which reported a lower-than-expected number of new jobs in July. As Brian Wesbury notes in today's Wall Street Journal, there are several reasons why we should not call the recovery dead.

First, the figures are from one month only: a snapshot, not a movie. Second, the numbers are only one of two ways of measuring employment. The household survey, another government report, showed 629,000 new jobs in July. If you compare the growth measured by the two surveys since late 2001, you find that the payroll survey's growth of 401,000 new jobs is eclipsed by 3.3 million new jobs in the household survey. In other words, we may be looking at the wrong numbers if we look only at one survey. The true job growth number is somewhere between those two numbers. (The Labor Department offers an explanation of the difference between the two surveys here.

Third, other economic measures suggest a robust economy. The average growth rate for the first six months of this year (3.8 percent) topped that of the Clinton years (3.7 percent), for example. Retail sales--people actually acting on their feelings about their own economic security--are up 4.8 percent on an annual basis. Finally, the Federal Reserve just raised interest rates. Why? They, too, believe that the economy is growing.

None of this is to minimize the difficulty of looking for work. But to paraphrase Mark Twain, the reported death of the economy has been greatly exaggerated.
[Cross-posted to the Detroit News weblog]
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Outsourcing Continues.
Stateline has a rundown on the latest in the bruhaha over whether state governments should enter the 21st century and employ foreign contractors in some instances.

At least 42 states have let contracts that included the use of call centers based in Mexico, India, and other countries.

As the Conference Board concluded, "Like it or not, outsourcing is not merely gaining momentum; it is already a fixture of modern global business practice in the private and public sectors alike."

So far, complaints about outsourcing have been much to do about little. Take the information technology (IT) sector's sales to state governments, estimated to be $50 billion a year. The known value of offshoring (outsourcing to firms in other countries) contracts so far is $75 million--a scant percentage that barely registers, except in the emotional sense.

Because of the emotional response, a number of proposals have been floated in the states, including the giving of preference to domestic firms in the bidding process, and requiring companies to disclose the location of their workers. Some have revoked contracts already in place, preferring to pay more for work done in-state.
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How Many Politicians Do You Need?
According to the Center of the American Experiment, one reason for Minnesota's high-tax status may be the large number of politicians it employs.

In its December 2003 report (PDF), the center's Task Force on Metropolitan Governance has this to say:

"One needs only to examine the multiple layers of governments that exist throughout the state and [Twin Cities] region to see who spends those vital tax dollars. Of states with 3 million citizens or higher [Minnesota has roughly 5 million], Minnesota ranks number one in elected officials per capita. Minnesota has:

87 counties
853 cities, 521 of which are below 1,000 in population
1,791 townships
343 independent school districts
91 soil and water conservation districts
150 special districts (approximately)

The average citizen generally does not care who provides a service such as snowplowing, wastewater treatement, or road maintenance. They do care, however, that the service is provided and that it is provided efficiently and effectively."

Quite sensibly, then, the report endorses competitive contracting for government services. But what about small governments? Isn't it somehow wrong to endorse, as the report does, consolidation of government units?

If it's imposed on high, then yes. But as the task force points out, many of the small towns "are kept alive only through state intergovernmental aid programs," which are extensive.

In other words the civic pride that small towns derive from having their own political identity comes at a price paid by residents of larger communities.
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