I wasn't going to blog the SOTU, but I found this line from Obama to be quite rich [emphasis added]: "Well I don't think American elections should be bankrolled... by foreign entities." The irony is that Obama's 2008 presidential campaign was bankrolled by foreign entities. His campaign disabled the address verification system (AVS) on his donation website. AVS is used to verify a card holder's address. By disabling it, the Obama campaign enabled people the world over to make donations that would go unscrutinized as long as they were under $250.
Earlier this week, Pamela Geller of Big Government called for an audit of Obama's campaign finances. I second the motion.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
State of the Union
Labels:
Barack Obama,
campaign,
politics,
White House
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Obama Bingo
Americans for Tax Reform has developed four different Obama bingo cards for Wednesday's State of the Union address. Really, there's no reason to stop there. Print out a stack of each card and play with every presidential speech:
Labels:
Barack Obama,
snark,
White House
Monday, January 25, 2010
Illinois Primary: Februrary 2nd
Adam Andrzejewski for Illinois Governor
Tea Partier Adam Andrzejewski is running for governor of Illinois. The primary is Tuesday, February 2nd. Let your friends and family in Illinois know!Update: How cool is this!?!
It's not every day that a Nobel Prize winner becomes involved in a U.S. election, but Lech Walesa -- famed for his Cold War leadership of the Solidarity movement in Poland -- will be campaigning this week for a GOP gubernatorial candidate in Illinois.
Labels:
Adam Andrzejewski,
Lech Walesa,
politics
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Implications of HCR 18
KMOX is reporting that Russ Carnahan is feeling the sting from fellow Democrats in Jeff City. Eight of the 22 state house Democrats that voted for Missouri's Healthcare Freedom Act (HCR 18) represent portions of Missouri's Third Congressional District (PDF map).
At the top of the list of Democrats that hung Russ out to dry is Michael Frame. I interpret his vote for the resolution as an attempt to move from the left towards the center. Frame will be facing Paul Curtman in November. Paul has a loyal Tea Party following and recently made his international television debut on the BBC.
At the top of the list of Democrats that hung Russ out to dry is Michael Frame. I interpret his vote for the resolution as an attempt to move from the left towards the center. Frame will be facing Paul Curtman in November. Paul has a loyal Tea Party following and recently made his international television debut on the BBC.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Vote for Russ Carnahan!
Russ Carnahan on Saving Healthcare
No, really, go vote for Russ Carnahan! Citizens Against Government Waste is running a poll for porker of the year and this is the last race Missouri's Third Congressional District would like to see Russ win. This issue crosses political ideology. If you lean right, you want to soften Russ up for a run against Ed Martin. If you lean left, you want to give his primary challenger, Edward Crim, a shot at winning the August 3rd election and bolstering Democrat chance's in November's general.
Citizens Against Government Waste awarded Russ Carnahan Porker of the Month last July. Here are some other highlights of Russ's penchant for fiscal frivolity:
- A lobbyist funded jaunt to the Great Barrier Reef, Hawaii, and Antarctica
- Voted taxpayer dollars to his brother's oh-so-green windfarm—$90 million in stimulus green
- Voted to fund abortion with taxpayer dollars
- Voted for the "stimulus" bill
Labels:
Ed Martin,
Edward Crim,
politics,
Russ Carnahan
Friday, January 22, 2010
Glenn Beck's The Revolutionary Holocaust
The Revolutionary Holocaust
Glenn Beck's The Revolutionary Holocaust aired this evening. I found the six segments on YouTube and glued it together in a playlist. Here's how his website describes this documentary:
A groundbreaking hour long special where Glenn Beck takes us back in time to examine the roots of socialism and communism and the evil that followed. We all know about the horrors of the holocaust where the pure evil Hitler inspired claimed the lives of millions of innocent people. But most do not know about the millions upon millions of lives lost in a different genocide of the Ukrainian people under the Stalin regime. This special also takes a look behind the iconic fashion symbol of Che Guevara showing that the myth doesn't tell the story of the man who was a blood thirsty killer. We meet a family who saw first hand what a monster the man was. They know the cost of communism and you will too when you hear their story, and who can forget about Mao Zedong? A leader responsible for 70-million deaths during his reign. All communist. All killers. We will show you things you've never seen but need to.Towards the end of the documentary, one of the interviewees recommends The Black Book of Communism. While not mentioned in the documentary, R. J. Rummel's Death by Government is another good book on the subject of tyrannical governments. Heyek's The Fatal Conceit debunks the socialist conceit that property rights are not foundational to civil society. And, of course, checkout Glenn Beck's site for much more!
Labels:
documentary,
Glenn Beck
County Court
24thState.com reported that the preliminary hearing for the six people arrested at Russ Carnahan's Town Hall last August 6th, was suppose to be held yesterday—Thursday evening. That's changed. As 24thState notes, there are now four different dates for these pretrial hearings with Kenneth Gladney's assailants scheduled at the beginning of April.
The first of those hearings was held Thursday evening as originally planned. Kelly Owens was able to attend the meeting and emailed me her notes. She had some difficulty getting in. The security guard had said that there wasn't space for her in the courtroom; however, she persisted and was eventually allowed in.
She counted 81 empty chairs in the courtroom.
Here's how Kelly reported the exchange between defendant Brian Matthews and Judge Adler:
The first of those hearings was held Thursday evening as originally planned. Kelly Owens was able to attend the meeting and emailed me her notes. She had some difficulty getting in. The security guard had said that there wasn't space for her in the courtroom; however, she persisted and was eventually allowed in.
She counted 81 empty chairs in the courtroom.
Here's how Kelly reported the exchange between defendant Brian Matthews and Judge Adler:
I heard the judge say you are charged with interfering with police, how do you plead? and then I heard Brain ask something about how does he get a public defendant? I couldn't hear the rest. Brain was handed a manila square card stock piece of paper and all I could make out when he walked by was the St Louis County logo on top. Brain walked out of the court room.
Kelly also reported that she did not see St Louis Post Dispatch reporter Jake Wagman. Wagman blogs at the PD's Political Fix and was also suppose to have a hearing Thursday evening. Over the past several months I've spoken with several Tea Partiers who feel that the charges against Wagman should be dropped. Let's hope they were.
Labels:
Courts/The Law,
Jake Wagman,
Kelly Owens,
Ken Gladney,
news
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Bill Hennessy on Scott Brown's Win
Labels:
Bill Hennessy,
politics,
Scott Brown
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
BBC Covers the Franklin County Patriots
Last week, the BBC sent Washington, DC-based reporter Katty Kay and her team to Washington, MO. They were working on a report that contrasts the two Washingtons and marks President Obama's first year in office. Their report aired this evening. You can view "Obama faces a new movement" on the BBC website. It runs seven and a half minutes.
In addition to the Franklin County Patriots, I Heard the People Say and Paul Curtman participated in the interview session. They did well and I'd like to thank Katty Kay and her team for producing a good report that highlights the often overlooked small town Tea Parties!
In addition to the Franklin County Patriots, I Heard the People Say and Paul Curtman participated in the interview session. They did well and I'd like to thank Katty Kay and her team for producing a good report that highlights the often overlooked small town Tea Parties!
Sunday, January 17, 2010
race: American
Fifty years ago we were segregated by law. Today, we're segregated by our own choices. We strive for unity, yet we have not found a means to achieve it. We have not grasped that which is common among us. That bit of shared humanity that will allow us to unify.
That shared humanity will not be discovered in the Ivory Tower and delivered in a lecture to the masses. It will not proceed from the minutes of a corporate board meeting to the shelves of Walmart. Government agencies will not dispatch bureaucrats to implement it. And it will certainly not be delivered from Washington by a president promising unity. Racial harmony requires a commitment from all of us to a common principal.
That principal, has a name: American. American is the shared identity that can unify us. One facet of being American is respecting the differences among the races and cultures that have joined in this great melting pot: E pluribus unum. That will always be foundational to what it means to be American. At its core, American is the pigment of the color-blind society and the scale by which the content of our character is measured.
Each of us must choose to be American. That is what is common among us. That is what can unite us at this time. The American race is not defined by skin color or genetics, but by shared values like liberty and tolerance. The American race is here, but we are unaware of its arrival.
We have been trained to think of American as a culture and to look at our skin to determine our race. But a color-blind society demands that we ignore one another's skin color and, to the degree we are able, our own. Each of us does this when we indicate our race: American.
What I'm saying is that each of us should take this simple step: on the upcoming census and when answering a pollster tell them your race: American. Here's why. As more and more of us self-identify as American, our collective awareness of the American race will increase. First pollsters and later the census will reveal which cities and towns are trending either toward or away from American. This will lead to introspection and we will learn over the years what it is that helps to build and break unity. Today, we learn of racial strife in our neighborhoods when a crime has been committed. Perhaps tomorrow we can find reconciliation before a crime is even contemplated.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Small Government and Religious Liberty
Ann Althouse explains how big government erodes religious liberty:
A legislator who wants the state to run more of the economy and wants a strong separation of church [and state] is threatening to have a much greater effect on religious freedom than a legislator who believes in the strong separation of church and state but also believes in small government.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Ed Martin stumps for Scott Brown *UPDATE*
Ed Martin making calls for Scott Brown
Update: After talking about Scott Brown, Ed and I talked a little baseball. Both St. Louis and Boston are great baseball towns, so I asked Ed about Mark McGwire. McGwire has been in the news because of his recent admission to using steroids during his baseball career.
Ed Martin on Mark McGwire
Labels:
campaign,
Ed Martin,
Mark McGwire,
Martha Coakley,
Scott Brown,
sports
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Senatorial Sanctimony
Instapundit
UH OH: Feingold Criticizes Reid, Declines to Endorse Him as Leader.If an enterprising Democrat Senator wanted to add to the upper chamber's drama and sanctimony they could promise to hold up the healthcare bill until the soon-to-be elected Senator from the Bay State take's their rightful seat. Of course, Feingold is pretty far left so perhaps this is what he's doing in his own way for want of a "public option".
UPDATE: Wisconsin reader Robert Gleason writes: “I wonder if this is the beginning of a scramble for power among Senate Democrats? His reference to the caucus meeting next week and that he has ‘not decided’ how to respond might indicate that he is holding out for something. With Dodd out and Reid on the ropes and Obamacare ‘hanging by a thread’ this might be a good time for an ambitious Senator or two to make a move.”
Labels:
Health and Medicine,
healthcare,
Senate
Monday, January 11, 2010
How to Contribute to the Kenneth E. Gladney Fund
At the end of last year I blogged about the possibly politically motivated firing of Kenneth Gladney's brother, Keith. In an update to that post, I mentioned that a trust had been setup to help the Gladney brothers with expenses while they're looking for work. If you would like to make a donation, here's how.
The trust is set up at Bank of America under the name "Kenneth E. Gladney Fund." You can go to any Bank of America branch in the country and deposit money with a teller. If the teller has a problem finding the account, ask them to look it up by "James Durbin" under a business account. I know the trustee, and will vouch for him personally.
There's no account via Paypal for online transactions; however, if you want to mail a check, contact editor@24thstate.com for the mailing address.
This is a legally binding trust, and all money will go directly to personal expenses for the Gladney brothers. The trustee has set a cap on the fund, as this is designed only to get them through the next two months as they seek employment.
The trust is set up at Bank of America under the name "Kenneth E. Gladney Fund." You can go to any Bank of America branch in the country and deposit money with a teller. If the teller has a problem finding the account, ask them to look it up by "James Durbin" under a business account. I know the trustee, and will vouch for him personally.
There's no account via Paypal for online transactions; however, if you want to mail a check, contact editor@24thstate.com for the mailing address.
This is a legally binding trust, and all money will go directly to personal expenses for the Gladney brothers. The trustee has set a cap on the fund, as this is designed only to get them through the next two months as they seek employment.
Labels:
Keith Gladney,
Ken Gladney
Greening the Postal Service
Over the weekend, I blogged about the politics of green jobs. The key quote there comes from a German think tank: "Significant research shows that initial employment benefits from renewable policies soon turn negative as additional costs are incurred." In other words, new green jobs appear to benefit the economy when they are first created; however, as the higher costs of the goods and services produced by those green jobs ripple through the economy, marginal jobs in other industries are lost.
Last December Russ Carnahan (D-MO) co-sponsored a bill that will jeopardize jobs here in Missouri in this way. FederalTimes.com reported on a House bill that spends $2B on electric vehicles for Postal Service:
Last December Russ Carnahan (D-MO) co-sponsored a bill that will jeopardize jobs here in Missouri in this way. FederalTimes.com reported on a House bill that spends $2B on electric vehicles for Postal Service:
The bill would provide up to $2 billion for an Energy Department program in which vehicle manufacturers would compete for grants to build electric vehicles for testing by the Postal Service.Hey look at that, the people getting your money are happy to have it! Of course, no one asked you how you feel about giving it to them. The text of the bill, H.R.4399, is at OpenCongress.org.
...
The bill won immediate support from the American Postal Workers Union, the U.S. Postal Regulatory Commission and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Labels:
Green Jobs,
politics,
Russ Carnahan
Saturday, January 9, 2010
The Politics of Green Jobs
The IBD Politics and Markets Blog reports that Obama's green jobs program will cost $135,294 per job:
Last December, Reason had a post on The Green Jobs Delusion:
One local bakery (McArthur's Bakery) has taken a firm stand against the green jobs myth. Randy and David McArthur would have to raise their prices as a result of the increased energy and raw material costs forced on their business by the Cap and Trade bill (H.R. 2454). Higher prices will reduce demand and likely lead to layoffs. Other small businesses need to explain the impact that these green policies will have on them.
"Building a robust clean-energy sector is how we will create the jobs of the future — jobs that pay well and can't be outsourced," President Obama said Friday.The AP Reports: "The money will go to projects including solar, wind and energy management."
Yes, but getting these jobs is burning a hole in the national wallet. The problem is that even advocates like Obama concede that these programs are not very cost-effective in creating jobs.
Obama says the grants will create 17,000 cleantech jobs. Well, get out your calculator. $2.3 billion for 17,000 jobs equals $135,294 per job. (And that’s not including the eventual interest on this deficit spending). Those green jobs had better pay well over six figures to justify that expense.
Last December, Reason had a post on The Green Jobs Delusion:
Other countries have tried to use energy policy to produce jobs. Germany is often cited as an example of how government policy can drive the adoption of renewable energy and produce scads of green jobs. For example, in his opening statement at a May 2009 climate change hearing, Sen. Kerry praised Germany for putting “in place strong policy mechanisms to drive investment in solar power and other renewable energy sources. As a result, renewable energy usage has tripled to 16 percent, creating 1.7 million jobs. By 2020, Germany's clean energy sector will be the biggest contributor to the nation's economy.”So-called "green jobs" appear to be little more than big government patronage positions. I think the reason that they're popular in Congress is because the jobs destroyed by them are hard to see while the jobs created are easily tallied.
However, a study released in October finds that the German green job miracle is largely a mirage, and an expensive mirage at that. The report, published by the nonprofit German think tank Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (RWI), notes that as a result of the German government's energy policies, Germany leads the world in solar panel installation and is second only to the U.S. in wind power generation. Great, right? Actually terrible, says the report. Let me quote some of the report’s sobering conclusions at length:
While employment projections in the renewable sector convey seemingly impressive prospects for gross job growth, they typically obscure the broader implications for economic welfare by omitting any accounting of off-setting impacts. These impacts include, but are not limited to, job losses from crowding out of cheaper forms of conventional energy generation, indirect impacts on upstream industries, additional job losses from the drain on economic activity precipitated by higher electricity prices, private consumers’ overall loss of purchasing power due to higher electricity prices, and diverting funds from other, possibly more beneficial investment.
Proponents of renewable energies often regard the requirement for more workers to produce a given amount of energy as a benefit, failing to recognize that this lowers the output potential of the economy and is hence counterproductive to net job creation. Significant research shows that initial employment benefits from renewable policies soon turn negative as additional costs are incurred. Trade and other assumptions in those studies claiming positive employment turn out to be unsupportable.
In the end, Germany’s PV promotion has become a subsidization regime that, on a per-worker basis, has reached a level that far exceeds average wages, with per worker subsidies as high as 175,000 € (US $ 240,000). …
Although Germany’s promotion of renewable energies is commonly portrayed in the media as setting a “shining example in providing a harvest for the world” (The Guardian 2007), we would instead regard the country’s experience as a cautionary tale of massively expensive environmental and energy policy that is devoid of economic and environmental benefits.
One local bakery (McArthur's Bakery) has taken a firm stand against the green jobs myth. Randy and David McArthur would have to raise their prices as a result of the increased energy and raw material costs forced on their business by the Cap and Trade bill (H.R. 2454). Higher prices will reduce demand and likely lead to layoffs. Other small businesses need to explain the impact that these green policies will have on them.
Labels:
energy,
environment,
Green Jobs,
politics
McCaskill Calls for a Conference Committee
Jamie Allman and Dana Loesch interviewed Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) Friday morning. The Senator agreed to call for a conference committee on the healthcare legislation; however, she refused to say that she would vote against it if there was no conference committee.
Update: Dana has more audio and commentary.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Drop a Dime for Scott Brown (R-MA)
Riehl World View is reporting that Scott Brown Needs Help That Doesn't Cost Money:
Update: Just saw this on Instapundit.
Will wonders never cease. Unlike that refined and reserved blog demeanor I've witnessed over the years, it looks as though Sissy Willis knows how to get down to the dirty business of politics after all. Who'da thunk it? She's pitching in to help Scott Brown with phone calls. Evidently more help could be used, as well.Here's Sissy Willis reporting that Scott Brown's bid to be the Bay State's next Senator is one step up from a toss-up:
Meanwhile on the homefront, we walked half an hour across the McArdle Bridge down Meridien Street to Maverick Station in East Boston this morning and took the T into Boston to phone bank in a backroom at MA GOP headquarters, 85 Merrimac Street, a couple of blocks north of City Hall. Closest T stop is Bowdoin, end of theIf you have time, drop a dime for Scott Brown. A GOP victory would bring the number of number of Republican Senators to 41. That should be sufficient to defeat the pending healthcare legislation.GreenBLUE (!) Line [Thanks to MD in the comments for the correction. We KNEW it was blue not green, darn it], just after Government Center. Why are we tellng you all this? Because we're hoping that any of our readers who may be so inclined and live nearby will take the opportunity to put in a few hours to help our cause. They've got 22 totally awesome state-of-the-art phone-bank phones hooked up to their database, so you don't have to dial. Just press a few buttons. If you'd rather not step out, of course, you can theoretically call from the comfort of home...
Update: Just saw this on Instapundit.
Reader Andrew Solovay writes:
And could there be a more fitting memorial to Ted Kennedy, than to have his successor be the one who drives Obamacare off a bridge?
Labels:
Health and Medicine,
healthcare,
politics,
Scott Brown,
Senate
Transparency Pelosi Style
The Washington Examiner's Mark Tapscott on Pelosi's healthcare message to the public:
Once in a while, though, one of our esteemed public servants lets slip a whopper so patently outrageous, so completely and obviously false, that we are left in unrelieved astonishment, knowing the speaker either has now lied for so long he no longer can distinguish fact from fantasy, or he thinks we can't.
Such is the statement Tuesday by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that "there has never been a more open process" in Congress than the succession of back-room deals, closed-door bickering, and arrant manipulation of official data that has marked the flim-flam legislative birthing of Obamacare.
Labels:
Health and Medicine,
healthcare,
Nancy Pelosi,
poltics
Conservative Rebound in 2009
Gallup reports that the early 2009 trend toward conservatism continued through the year with conservatives finishing 2009 ahead of moderates and liberals:
The increased conservatism that Gallup first identified among Americans last June persisted throughout the year, so that the final year-end political ideology figures confirm Gallup's initial reporting: conservatives (40%) outnumbered both moderates (36%) and liberals (21%) across the nation in 2009.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
The Vision for the New School
Journalism has been struggling to keep its head above water for many years. In my favorite blog post of 2009 Clay Shirky contrasted the advent of the Internet in the newsroom with the introduction of the printing press. Journalism (and I believe all of society) is experiencing a technology induced cascade of social, economic, and political changes. I expect one of the coming changes to be the sudden death of government education. Sudden relative to journalism.
I live in St. Louis where the government schools are unaccredited. The city will pay to send your children to a county school if the county school accepts them, but many kids still receive a dubious education in a St. Louis city school. Why should these children not have access to the best lectures available?
Sooner or later someone is going to upload a complete high school curriculum to YouTube. Perhaps someone has. They'll build a website that supplements the video material with an open source textbook, homework, readings, and testing—a virtual learning environment like Moodle. Over time, the best video lectures on a subject will be remixed together to produce an even better educational experience. New material will be integrated as it is created and unaccredited school districts will replace their teachers with bouncers to maintain order during the video lecture. Homeschoolers will have an Internet based educational alternative—one that might be configured to help them avoid incarceration in backward states like Maryland. Families will work with like minded religious institutions to create al a carte educational curricula that meet their shared academic, civic, and religious priorities. Churches, synagogues, and mosques around the country will become venues for education, just as they once were hundreds of years ago. School boards will set grade appropriate testing requirements in academic fields (including civics) that meet the needs and demands of the local community, but the curriculum will be crowdsourced by those that choose to contribute content to this educational approach.
This will work for middle school as well... probably, down to fourth grade or so, but something like government schools may persist for the early grades. It will work for colleges and universities, too. In fact, George Mason economics professor Alex Taborrock is expecting something like it. In his post Online Education and the Market for Superstar Teachers, he writes:
Perhaps, taxpayers will breath a sigh of relief as the underfunded public pension situation improves with massive layoffs in government education. Politicians that have relied on the patronage purchased votes of teachers will find that their public choice gambit no longer works when their rent-seeking supporters are gone. And the quality of a decentralized, crowdsourced American education system tailored to communities and students will become the envy of the world.
Journalism has been unraveling for a couple of decades. I expect our educational evolution to be quicker and I think there's an economic reason for it. Education is largely a government function while journalism is largely a private industry. The creative destruction of the news media market has chipped away at journalism in little ways for years, but education is politically protected from the creative destruction of academic competition. Look at one service a teacher provides: they sell the same lecture each year. Why does paying a little more for an algebra lecture each year make any sense with the wide availability of video and the means to deliver it on demand? It doesn't, especially when there's likely a much better lecture to be had on YouTube. Teachers will be protected by their political patrons while the infrastructure and curricula are built out, but then, with looming budget deficits, governments will have little choice but to supplant them with cheaper, better options.
I could be wrong. After all, we still have libraries despite the fact that they could be replaced by a Kindle and/or the Internet. Of course, I think it's just a matter of time before municipalities start selling off libraries to pay their debts.
As I was writing this, news broke about President Barack Obama's announcement of $250 million dollars "to help train over 10,000 new math and science teachers over the next five years." Teacher's worked hard to get Obama elected, so I'm not surprised by his patronage. Still, when a complete high school curriculum is put on YouTube and a virtual learning website is built to supplement it, do you think it will cost anywhere near that?
Areas for further thought:
I live in St. Louis where the government schools are unaccredited. The city will pay to send your children to a county school if the county school accepts them, but many kids still receive a dubious education in a St. Louis city school. Why should these children not have access to the best lectures available?
Sooner or later someone is going to upload a complete high school curriculum to YouTube. Perhaps someone has. They'll build a website that supplements the video material with an open source textbook, homework, readings, and testing—a virtual learning environment like Moodle. Over time, the best video lectures on a subject will be remixed together to produce an even better educational experience. New material will be integrated as it is created and unaccredited school districts will replace their teachers with bouncers to maintain order during the video lecture. Homeschoolers will have an Internet based educational alternative—one that might be configured to help them avoid incarceration in backward states like Maryland. Families will work with like minded religious institutions to create al a carte educational curricula that meet their shared academic, civic, and religious priorities. Churches, synagogues, and mosques around the country will become venues for education, just as they once were hundreds of years ago. School boards will set grade appropriate testing requirements in academic fields (including civics) that meet the needs and demands of the local community, but the curriculum will be crowdsourced by those that choose to contribute content to this educational approach.
This will work for middle school as well... probably, down to fourth grade or so, but something like government schools may persist for the early grades. It will work for colleges and universities, too. In fact, George Mason economics professor Alex Taborrock is expecting something like it. In his post Online Education and the Market for Superstar Teachers, he writes:
I have argued that universities will move to a superstar market for teachers in which the very best teachers use on-line instruction and TAs to teach thousands of students at many different universities. The full online model is not here yet but I see an increasing amount of evidence for the superstar model of teaching. At GMU some of our best teachers are being recruited by other universities with very attractive offers and some of our most highly placed students have earned their positions through excellence in teaching rather than through the more traditional route of research.You can already hear the caterwauling on the left: "Oh the humanity! Imagine the class sizes!" Student-teacher ratios are mostly irrelevant. Smaller class sizes create a larger cadre of paid patrons for like-minded politicians because more teachers are needed for the same number of students. In other words, part of the reason we have smaller class sizes is that politicians want to be re-elected so they've created a public perception that low student-teacher ratios are important as a way to cater to one of their constituencies. A couple years ago a McKinsey & Co. study found (the original study link isn't working, but here's a post about it):
I do not think GMU is unique in this regard--my anecdotal evidence is that the market for professors is rewarding great teachers with higher wages and higher placements than in earlier years.
South Korea and Singapore employ fewer teachers than other systems; in effect, this ensures that they can spend more money on each teacher at an equivalent funding level. Both countries recognize that while class size has relatively little impact on the quality of student outcomes (see above), teacher quality does. South Korea’s student-to-teacher ration is 30:1, compared to an OECD average of 17.1, enabling it in effect to double teacher salaries while maintaining the same overall funding level as other OECD countries….In short, the marginal educational utility of the next teacher you hire is pretty low. Politicians and academics have been telling us for decades that they know best. They've been lying about the importance of class size, about climategate, and about many other things simply to marshal your money to their policy preferences and favored constituencies. Why should these people keep their taxpayer provided revenue streams? How can they when their elite status has been tarnished by their failures in their own areas of expertise?
Singapore has pursued a similar strategy but has also front-loaded compensation. This combination allows it to spend less on primary education than almost any other OECD and yet still be able to attract strong candidates into the teaching profession. In addition, because Singapore and South Korea need fewer teachers, they are also in a position to be more selective about who becomes a teacher. This, in turn, increases the status of teaching, making the profession even more attractive.
Perhaps, taxpayers will breath a sigh of relief as the underfunded public pension situation improves with massive layoffs in government education. Politicians that have relied on the patronage purchased votes of teachers will find that their public choice gambit no longer works when their rent-seeking supporters are gone. And the quality of a decentralized, crowdsourced American education system tailored to communities and students will become the envy of the world.
Journalism has been unraveling for a couple of decades. I expect our educational evolution to be quicker and I think there's an economic reason for it. Education is largely a government function while journalism is largely a private industry. The creative destruction of the news media market has chipped away at journalism in little ways for years, but education is politically protected from the creative destruction of academic competition. Look at one service a teacher provides: they sell the same lecture each year. Why does paying a little more for an algebra lecture each year make any sense with the wide availability of video and the means to deliver it on demand? It doesn't, especially when there's likely a much better lecture to be had on YouTube. Teachers will be protected by their political patrons while the infrastructure and curricula are built out, but then, with looming budget deficits, governments will have little choice but to supplant them with cheaper, better options.
I could be wrong. After all, we still have libraries despite the fact that they could be replaced by a Kindle and/or the Internet. Of course, I think it's just a matter of time before municipalities start selling off libraries to pay their debts.
As I was writing this, news broke about President Barack Obama's announcement of $250 million dollars "to help train over 10,000 new math and science teachers over the next five years." Teacher's worked hard to get Obama elected, so I'm not surprised by his patronage. Still, when a complete high school curriculum is put on YouTube and a virtual learning website is built to supplement it, do you think it will cost anywhere near that?
Areas for further thought:
- Will private, say, Catholic, schools decide to build out the infrastructure and produce the video lectures?
- What are the global implications? What about just the Anglosphere?
Labels:
alex tabarrok,
Education,
journalism,
Media,
Press and Media
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
What if...
...an employee of the Missouri School for the Blind (where I saw this alarm) mis-characterized the nature of the threat? What if the guy with the explosive belt isn't just an "intruder" but a "terrorist"? How long should they deliberate before turning on the red or amber light?
Labels:
humor
Monday, January 4, 2010
Accuracy in Photojournalism
Photojournalist Ben Curtis: It Was All Started by a Mouse:
Photoshop manipulation is one thing; caption manipulation is another thing. But there’s also a question of editing in terms of picture selection and, obviously, the pictures you select out of all the pictures you’ve shot, one can argue that that is also one area where the news is shaped. It’s what the media decides to report on. And when you’re covering a story, there’s quite often a number of different elements of that story, and you may choose certain elements to send pictures of and certain elements not to.
Labels:
journalism,
Media,
Press and Media
Sunday, January 3, 2010
America Rising
A friend pointed me to this video. I saw it posted at at HillBuzz with the caption: "This video is great because it feels like a movie trailer." It's good! It's a little long, but, hey, there are a lot of screwups to cover.
Labels:
Barack Obama,
Ben Nelson,
Harry Reid,
Nancy Pelosi,
politics,
video,
White House
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Hyperinflation and Gresham's Law
Doug Ross has a great post about the US's impending financial Armageddon. He also talks about the Zimbabwean nightmare:
That said, I have a pet theory which some economist has probably already formulated. My theory has to do with Gresham's Law which, simply stated, is "bad money drives out good". Here's my theory:
The cumulative devaluation of the Zimbabwe dollar was such that a stack of 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (26 zeros) two dollar bills (if they were printed) in the peak hyperinflation would have be needed to equal in value what a single original Zimbabwe two-dollar bill of 1978 had been worth. Such a pile of bills literally would be light years high, stretching from the Earth to the Andromeda Galaxy.I don't fully buy into the idea of hyperinflation in the US. I think it's possible, but very unlikely. Nevertheless, I think you should take reasonable precautions, just as you should for natural disasters.
That said, I have a pet theory which some economist has probably already formulated. My theory has to do with Gresham's Law which, simply stated, is "bad money drives out good". Here's my theory:
If inflation drives the value of a dollar below the value of a square of toilet paper, then the bad money (dollar bills) will drive out the good (toilet paper)—greenbacks will replace the roll/role of toilet paper.You should have a stack of ones on hand if you expect financial Armageddon. They will serve you well in less dire catastrophes, too. It's not really in the interest of vendors to make exact change, so you'd better bring it. Again, reasonable precautions.
The Game Clock is Ticking
Bill Hennessy has a great post about what's ahead in 2010 for the Tea Party movement: "We have only 304 days 9 hours 30 minutes until the November 2 elections. Early voting starts as many as 45 days before that." I take a more sports-oriented view in the comment I left there:
My advice is to get involved early. Pick a couple of candidates you like–even at the state house level–and help them canvas in the primary. Game day is November 2nd. Contact a candidate or three and ask about their practice schedule. You need to get out in the primary and over the summer to prepare for the main event.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Colorado Employment Situation to Marginally Improve
Will economists be able to detect anything from this unique experiment?
Colorado's minimum wage will drop slightly in the new year - the first decrease in any state's minimum wage since the federal minimum was adopted in 1938.
Colorado's wage is falling 3 cents an hour, from $7.28 to the federal level of $7.25. That's because Colorado is one of 10 states that tie the state minimum wage to inflation. The goal is to protect low-wage workers from having unchanged paychecks as the cost of living goes up.
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