The Patterns Underlying Conservative Failures
In researching one story after another tracing the rise and fall of various right-wing ideas, I was struck by how many commonalities arose in each case. To a large extent, those patterns explain a great deal about why each idea failed in practice and, indeed, why movement conservatism generally is failing as a governing philosophy. Here’s a quick rundown of those common threads:
The ideological inventors. Most of the conservative ideas examined in the book can be traced to an individual or very small number of people whose brainstorms lacked supporting analysis grounded rigorously in data and history. Examples include Milton Friedman’s school vouchers, the early supply-siders, Peter Ferrara’s privatization of Social Security, John Goodman’s health savings accounts, and John Yoo’s rendition of the unitary executive concept. The guy who drafted Colorado’s TABOR amendment that we’ve been talking about was a bombastic real estate investor named Douglas Bruce who had previously written three wildly different tax-and-spending referenda that failed before hitting upon the magic formula that passed in 1992. To varying degrees, those individuals put forward fragments of evidence to support their ideas, but at best their claims were superficial and lacking solid research-based footing.
The right’s marketing network carries the ball. Because the funders of movement conservative are primarily interested in weakening the government’s domestic capabilities (setting aside matters in which civil liberties are at stake), their think tanks and advocacy groups latched onto those ideas because they would be much easier to sell (notwithstanding their flimsy theoretical grounding) than a more straightforward platform of phasing out Social Security, public schools, income taxes, regulations, civil servants, Congressional oversight, etc. Cleverly, those institutions invariably are labeled with “mom and apple-pie” names, often coopting terminology associated with liberalism – e.g., the Center for Equal Opportunity, the Center for Education Reform, Generations Together, among dozens of others.
Attack, attack, attack. To create a political environment in which their ideas might be taken seriously, the right’s networks devoted most of their energy to shifting the public’s attention from genuine policy problems to imaginary “crises.” So Social Security is going bankrupt, the entire public education system (as opposed to the genuine dysfunction in urban schools) is a disaster, high taxes and excessive regulation are destroying the economy, the problem with the medical system is that patients consume too much health care, civil servants are inherently lazy and incompetent, etc. And, oh yes, Iraq was involved in 9/11 and is planning to attack us with WMD. The right has been enormously effective at creating one fear-inducing drumbeat after another, laden with falsehoods, that have become widely accepted by the media and consequently the public.
Leverage intellectual powerhouses. Critical to the right’s success has been the participation of big-name academics, ideally affiliated with Harvard, Stanford, the Brookings Institution, and so forth, who have added credibility to the original lame ideas. So, for example, Harvard’s Martin Feldstein’s energetic support of Social Security privatization and most tax cuts coming down the pike was enormously influential. John Chubb and Terry Moe’s book about school vouchers, written when they were at the Brookings Institution but supported by the Olin and Bradley Foundations, gave that idea a huge boost. William Niskanen’s post even alluded to the “two Harvard professors” (without mentioning their past support from Olin) whose work endorsed the Milwaukee school voucher program -- even though their research on the subject has been effectively refuted by other scholars. John Graham, who founded Harvard’s Center for Risk Analysis – which was funded by the likes of Dow Chemical, Exxon, General Electric, Monsanto, and Union Carbide – joined the Bush administration and effectively carried out an agenda of what Thomas McGarity and his co-authors called “sophisticated sabotage” against the regulatory system. These folks are very, very smart and are assumed by reporters to be highly credible because of their academic credentials. But they are still ideologues who evidently value the policy agenda that they have become associated with more highly than the real-world consequences of what they have advocated.
As the failures invariably come home to roost, blow smoke. This is the sort of thing that we saw in Grover’s post about TABOR in Colorado, which cited the Independence Institute – originally a Coors outpost whose stuff appears in the media all the time despite what many of the commentators here instantly recognized to be utter ridiculousness. Obviously, the outlandish interpretations of what is happening in Iraq from the Weekly Standard, Heritage, and many other outposts of the right are equally disconnected from reality.
It’s not a right-wing conspiracy. It’s all out in the open for everyone to see. And the damage to the country won’t stop until people start recognizing that the conservative movement is responsible.
Does it need to be said? Conservatism is a religion. And like any religion their ideas are based in a notion of what settles well inside, rather than making decisions based on what works, or finding provable cause and effect. Our friend Grover gives an excellent example of this by showing a couple of graphs, and this ought to be enough. To him, it must be pattently obvious. I do not think that they are capable of understanding that they actually are a minority; they intuit that "of course, their thinking is right, therefore the majority of people must think the same"
Examples of this can be seen in the "debate" about evolution. They think that the "theory" developed from somebody's thoughts, so any other "theory" can be just as valid. The arguments they present show little understanding of scientific theory. Now if one takes this mindset to other fields, one can see this "theory" that tax cuts grow the economy rather than provide temporary stimulus; in religion, they will be the ones citing scripture as an answer to problems rather than making hard moral choices. The irony is that they talk about personal responsibility, but demonstrate a distinct inability to take responsibility by laying it on "rule of law" instead of thinking out the consequences based on history or experience. After all, just why are we repeating Viet Nam? Why are we dropping behind in the number of scientists? Why is our economy getting ready to tank?
dc
September 21, 2007 9:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
What I noticed through the years was that the "experts" being consulted/cited with respect to various issues -- well, many of them didn't possess the qualifications to be consulted about the issues under consideration.
In one instance, an advertising exec seemed to be functioning as an oracle for environmental issues. Back in 2001, a search for one's curriculum vitae on the internet would still turn results. I can't remember his name, but apparently this ad exec wrote literature that was selected to be used in public school classrooms that refuted the scientific assertion of global warming. I saw nothing in his CV that made him a candidate for consultation regarding the environment.
The other "experts" being consulted to challenge global warming assertions similarly lacked appropriate backgrounds to be used as enviro-eco oracles.
Mixing and mis-matching skill sets to positions appears to be the method of choice by the Bush administration -- I won't call them "conservatives" because I no longer know what that term means.
September 21, 2007 10:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Your take on school vouchers, or your classification of that issue alongside Iraq as a "failure," is perplexing.
1. You're using ad hominem arguments. The fact that Caroline Hoxby got an Olin Faculty Fellowship in 1998-99 does not in any way disprove her research on voucher and charter schools, most of which was published later. Indeed, given that you yourself work for an ideological foundation, I'm not sure why you keep suggesting that anyone who ever got money from a foundation is under a cloud of suspicion. Do you expect that readers will apply this standard only to one side of a given debate?
2. You say that vouchers are a "failure." By what standard? There are several random assignment studies showing modest increases in test scores with vouchers. (See, e.g., Angrist et al., who found a 2/10 standard deviation increase, which is pretty big for educational interventions.) There are a few studies that have purported to disprove the former, but no study of which I'm aware claims that vouchers actually harm test scores. Even Martin Carnoy -- who seems to oppose vouchers -- found in his own research on Chile that "Catholic voucher schools are somewhat more effective than public schools," and that "non-religious schools are more efficient, by virtue of producing academic achievement at a lower cost."
At the same time, test scores aren't everything (right?) Vouchers also make parents happier; they may put some valuable competitive pressure on public schools; they tend to promote civic and democratic values among students; they sometimes allow students to attend more racially integrated schools; and they provide greater autonomy and freedom of choice to poorer citizens (in other contexts, liberals usually purport to believe that choice and autonomy are valuable).
If vouchers are nonetheless a "failure" to be equated with the Iraq War -- just because they haven't been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to cause massive increases in test scores - then pretty much every liberal education policy ever tried has been a "failure" as well.
September 21, 2007 10:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is a beautifully written essay -- clearly stated and compelling.
I would only dispute the idea that a conspiracy can only be a conspiracy if it is hidden. Hillary was correct years ago; it was then and continues to be a "vast right-wing conspiracy."
September 21, 2007 10:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is so well written and the week-long discussion was cathartic. I am going to buy the book this weekend and I hope other posters do too. Anrig richly deserves our support.
September 21, 2007 11:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Stuart, This is obviously a big topic that's difficult to fully debate in this kind of format. I address most of the questions you raise, with footnotes, in my book. Since I doubt you'll be inclined to buy it, however, a few brief responses:
1. Hoxby, like Peterson, has never met a voucher plan she didn't find to be successful, and has rarely met charter schools that she didn't find to be superior to conventional public schools. But her work has time and again been found to have shortcomings. For example, here's one instructive study discrediting one her most widely publicized charter school reports. Olin and Bradley only fund research that finds positive results for vouchers. It is a prerequisite for receiving their largess, as anyone in the education community will tell you. That is not the case with funders unaffiliated with movement conservatism.
2. I say that voucher programs have been a failure by the same standard that researchers have often found liberal innovations to be a failure, particularly in urban settings: they did not succeed in demonstrably improving student performance. Not improving equals failure. The right never cared what parents thought about their own children's public schools in the past, so why should anyone care much now about their studies related to how parents feel about their kids' private schools.
There have been a number of major studies recently showing that after controlling for the socio-economic backgrounds of students, there appears to be relatively difference in the test scores of students attending private, charter, or conventional public schools. Obviously, there's a lot more to talk about. But the basic strategy of moving poor students from public schools with lots of low-income kids to private or charter schools with lots of low-income kids by and large isn't producing improved outcomes. -- Greg
September 21, 2007 11:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bless you, BevD!!!--Greg
September 21, 2007 11:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
1. Hoxby, like Peterson, has never met a voucher plan she didn't find to be successful, and has rarely met charter schools that she didn't find to be superior to conventional public schools.
I actually agree with this, but it's (unintentionally?) humorous that you demonstrate this point by citing to a report from the Economic Policy Institute, which has "never met a voucher plan" that it likes. Personally, I'd rather have arguments and studies judged on their merits, but if you're going to take the opposite view, apply the standard evenhandedly.
The right never cared what parents thought about their own children's public schools in the past, so why should anyone care much now about their studies related to how parents feel about their kids' private schools.
Are you seriously intending to say that liberals shouldn't care about parental satisfaction (or parental autonomy, democratic values, and the like) merely because right-wingers are supposedly hypocritical in claiming to care about those values? I'll have to add "tu quoque" to the list of logical fallacies here.
September 21, 2007 11:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Non-conservative foundations have funded tons and tons of studies, including some by EPI, that have found various public school innovations to be ineffective. The right often used those studies to support vouchers and charter systems that lack much in the way of accountability to the government.
I'm not saying parental satisfaction is worth nothing. I'm just saying it's not the standard by with the right held public schools in the past, with considerable justification (many parents generally have little way of knowing whether their kids are getting a "good education" relative to students at other schools.)--Greg
September 21, 2007 11:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
I say that voucher programs have been a failure by the same standard that researchers have often found liberal innovations to be a failure, particularly in urban settings: they did not succeed in demonstrably improving student performance.
One more point: If you concede (as you seem to here) that most or all "liberal innovations" were also a "failure" at improving education, then why are you focusing on the one "failure" that happens to be conservative?** And if you concede that "failure" in this context merely means "didn't create huge improvements," then why are you claiming that vouchers are one of the things causing "damage to the country"? This is painting with a broad brush, to say the least.
**I'd note that on page 182 (via Amazon), you say, "Earlier liberal reforms to increase funding, recruit better teachers, and cut class size in high poverty schools proves that those strategies haven't been very effective either, although they can help at the margin."
September 21, 2007 12:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
There are liberal innovations that have worked, mainly involving public school choice plans that enable low-income students to attend middle-class schools. See this report for more on that subject. The right's ownership of the educational reform agenda in recent years has largely sidetracked attention from that general strategy, though change is afoot.
September 21, 2007 12:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
What I would really like to know is how did this happen? How did we go from signatories of the Geneva Convention to discussing the efficacy of torture on national t.v. as though it was a sane, rational topic for debate? A sociopathic serial killer tortures his victims and the discussion centers on his sanity, we have psychologists and profilers studying them as human abberations, monsters as they call them and yet we have an administration which promotes torture as a policy and someone like Dershowitz who appears on t.v. to discuss it as though it was a viable intelligence gathering option. News organizations give them air time.
It's not just torture, all their policies are destructive and cruel and victimizing and yet these people are taken seriously as "pundits" and "intellects" - how did we get to this point?
What is the difference between Ted Bundy and John Yoo? The only qualitative difference I can see is that Ted Bundy tortured his victims up close and personal while John Yoo tortures victims from behind a stack of law books. But they're both torturers, aren't they?
Niskanen wants to reinstate the political spoils system as though the reasons for reform never existed - and yet he's taken seriously instead of pointing out that this man has taken flight from reality.
Grover Norquist's goal in life is the strangle the government of the United States, to kill it, to destroy it and people line up to attend his Wednesday salons and court his patronage - even Benedict Arnold had the sense to retire to another country.
It has to be true that this country is one big asylum and the inmates are running the show. There is no other way to explain it.
September 21, 2007 12:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Also, thanks to Amazon's "search inside" function, I see something else interesting, and that makes me think that this book shows a particular kind of bias that is endemic to virtually all public policy debates. That bias is this: You hold the opposite side's evidence to much higher standards than are applied to yourself.
Example: Just above in this thread, you point out that one of Caroline Hoxby's studies on charter schools has been criticized by an EPI report, which (if one reads that link) points out that Hoxby could have done a better job of controlling for race and socioeconomics. OK, fair enough.
But on page 183, you come out full force in favor of one specific policy: "But because the research is so clear that moving low-income students (whatever their race) from high-poverty to middle-class schools improves their performance without any negative impact on the students they join . . . as a matter of policy, voluntary socioeconomic integration can only help to reduce disparities by race.”
What do you cite for this? The only thing I see is in endnote 50: a Century Foundation report by Rick Kahlenberg. Look, I've liked Kahlenberg for 10+ years, and I think that he may be onto something here. But come on: His report doesn't control for anything at all when pointing out (on pages 3-4) that according to 2005 NAEP scores, poor kids in middle-class schools score better than middle-class students in high-poverty schools. This is just eyeballing a chart. There might be all kinds of selection effects, to say the least, that would explain such a disparity. (The same is true for Kahlenberg's citation of supposed success stories in North Carolina, for example, where he cites anecdotal reports of test score increases, but concedes in footnote 13 that he wasn't able to compare scores from before and after the policy, and his analysis on page 6 merely compares raw test scores across various counties.)**
So clearly, you're holding Kahlenberg to a much lower standard of proof than you hold Hoxby (or voucher studies in general). Based on a report that consists mostly of anecdotes and that controls for nothing, you're confidently predicting success from a particular policy; while at the same time you dismiss vouchers as a "failure" because of technical econometric analysis arguing that voucher studies didn't control for the right thing in the right way.
** You'd rightly jump all over this if a voucher advocate did it. I.e., if a voucher proponent came out with a study that merely compared the raw test scores in one county with vouchers vs. three counties without vouchers, and without controlling for anything or looking at pre-voucher scores, proclaimed vouchers a success because that one county's raw test scores were higher.
September 21, 2007 1:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Anrig --
It probably also needs to be pointed out that Democrats and liberals have been remarkably inept in their response to these conservative fairy tales. And, sad to say, often appeared to have even, at least halfway, fallen for them.
I, for instance, have been frustrated for close to 30 years now about how liberals allowed progressive taxation to be defined by the Right as a transfer of resources between individuals -- when, in a broadly middle class society, as we at least still were when the debate began in earnest, it is actually a transfer of resources between generations.
Why, when the Right started whining in the late 70s and early 80s about the "unfairness" of progressive taxation that "penalizes success" didn't the other side point out that, thanks to a progressive tax system, in their youth, when they were acquiring an education, gaining valuable skills and experience, establishing their families and businesses, and acquiring the assets that led to their success -- in other words, when they needed it most -- those successful people got a mostly free ride in terms of taxes? While their already financially established elders paid the bulk of the tax bill for the important civic infra-structure and public resources that were helping provide opportunities and a foundation for their future, personal success?
Making that argument, and understanding those principles, wouldn't have addressed the most important reason for that era's middle class tax rebellion -- the raging inflation that was simultaneously pushing people into higher tax brackets while eroding their assets. But, it could have helped us address that very real tax issue in a more realistic context -- with more effective solutions, less regressive shifting of taxes to young earners (who, being in their asset building years NEED more tax relief than their richer, more established elders) and less shameful scape-goating of the poor.
The debate over school vouchers -- the issue by the way that has most convinced me that conservatives not only don't understand government, they don't understand markets either -- is another one where liberals too often concede basic principles to conservatives. And then allow the argument to mostly play out on the basis of questionable, duelling statistics.
As someone with more than 30 years experience in business and marketing, I could go into a whole spiel about why vouchers won't do what conservatives have convinced themselves they will do (at least not for the vast majority of communities). But I won't. Instead I'll just point out what the average voter, thankfully, understands much better than the denizens of think tanks, Right or Left, seem to; the purpose of community supported schools is to serve the community -- not parents. Tax payers don't pay to support parents' private values and personal ambitions for their children, they pay to provide the community with an educated citizenry and workforce. Undermine that basic principle, as vouchers do, and you undermine the only real argument for taxpayer supported education -- no matter what form it takes.
September 21, 2007 1:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
To be sure, we're all guilty of this sometimes. It's the perennial sin of intellectuals. Hence the findings of Taber and Lodge, the classic study by Lord, Ross, and Lepper, and more recent work by Koehler.
September 21, 2007 1:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Esmense, I completely agree that Dems and liberals have been far too willing to concede basic elements of the right's arguments. That's one of the main points of my book, and the thrust of most of the concluding chapter. I wish I could be more optimistic that they'll start fighting back more effectively. The major presidential candidates aren't doing a very good job yet of connecting Bush's failures to movement conservatism more generally. The right keeps trying to distance itself from Bush, and by and large the Dems aren't making that difficult for them, unfortunately.--Greg
September 21, 2007 1:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've ordered your book and am really looking forward to reading it. Thank you for addressing these issues.
September 21, 2007 1:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you as well for your always thoughtful comments, Esmense. --Greg
September 21, 2007 1:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Two questions and one criticism and an observation:
1) Political labels often conceal more than they reveal. During the era or perestroika, some journalists labeled defenders of the Soviet system "conservative", and that's literally true. How long must a policy (e.g., "public" schools, Social Security) be in place for it's defenders to merit the label "conservative"?
2) Although political success often depends on framing the discussion, the underlying reality matters. The government of a locality is the major dealer in interpersonal violence in that locality (definition). A government grant of "title" to a resource to some individual is a grant of authority over that resource which includes the authority to transfer title to some other individual on mutually agreeable terms (definition). The system of private property (title) prevents the State from becoming bogged down in petty disputes over local issues. The scope of elective, democratic decision-making will vary. Would anyone propose a nationwide plebiscite over how many times I must chew my next bite of apple? All this is background to the second question: From State (government, generally) control of which industries does society as a whole benefit? Why do private contractors build roads while State (government, generally) employees maintain them? Why State (government, generally)-operated schools and not State-operated grocery stores? What decision-mechanism characterizes industries as likely candidates for State operation versus private operation? Your answer may create either a continuum or a dichotomous classification. My answer? You first.
My criticism:...
"The ideological inventors. Most of the conservative ideas examined in the book can be traced to an individual or very small number of people whose brainstorms lacked supporting analysis grounded rigorously in data and history. Examples include Milton Friedman’s school vouchers..."
"Ideological" is an uncomplimentary way to say "systematic". The antonym is "scatter-brained".
Milton Friedman's 1955 voucher proposal dd not have the benefit of empirical studies. How could it have? There were few pre-college tuition voucher programs in the US at the time. It is not the case, however, that Dr. Friedman's proposal "lacked supporting analysis grounded rigorously in data and history". Standard economic analysis applies to any industry, and off-the-shelf analytic tools informed Dr. Friedman's recommendation.
My observation:...
The nit-picky discussion of standardized test scores in State versus parochial schools does not really adress the voucher issue. It would be possible for students in voucher-receiving schools to do worse than students in State schools and for vouchers still to be good policy. It would even be possible for students in voucher-receiving schools to do worse than they would have done if they had stayed in State schools (derived from random assignment studies like Angrist), and for vouchers to be good policy. If unhappy parents remove disruptive students from State schools, vouchers would enhance overall system performance.
September 21, 2007 7:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is a great discussion, and I'm really struck by the serendipity of its appearance in the same month that I web-posted my own article, "Why Conservatives are Always Wrong" (http://conservativesarealwayswrong.googlepages.com/), which I think is broadly similar in spirit to Greg Anrig's book. I'm hoping that what's happening here is a broad, growing recognition that conservatism has failed and will continue to fail. Progressives badly need to recover their self-confidence and stop falling for the right's arrogance and triumphalism, and I salute Greg for his efforts to help jog them out of their stupor.
September 22, 2007 1:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Pardon me for nit-picking, but if performance was the reason to pursue a voucher system, how is it good policy absent that? And if performance is not the issue, what's wrong with public schools? And if poor performance is largly the result of uninvolved parents, how does a voucher system alter that?
How does a voucher system meet the "if everybody did it" test? Eventually, all schools are private, and some schools have too many biddng for entry, because they have a good reputation of some sort. Those get priced out of reach of the voucher, and a second-tier system develops.
And if you were in the school business, would you rather service the masses or the elite? Any innovation, and most cutting-edge technology, will be available at the high-end schools but not the second tier.
Publicly-supported education can generate elites, as in England. Our system sought a different goal. I'm still OK with that goal, of shared community.
September 22, 2007 7:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
" If unhappy parents remove disruptive students from State schools, vouchers would enhance overall system performance."
Unhappy parents do not disrupt classes. few if any "disruptive" students end up at selective charter schools. The state system in fact becomes a mandated dumping ground for "disruptive" individuals, where as a charter school always has the option of inviting disruptive individuals to find alternative education. Even with all the advantages of selective entry, and selective dismissal, charter schools still fail a to significantly outperform state schools. One reason could, of course, be that so many charter schools are set up not on sound educational principles but promote an ideology or religon (is there a difference?) and in doing so actually deprive the student of a balanced open eduction.
September 22, 2007 7:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Suggest you submit a discussion table post with some excerpts from and the link to that essay.
sPh
September 22, 2007 8:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
OK, thanks, I'll look into that.
September 22, 2007 9:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Disruptive students disrupt classes. I'm saying that overall (aggregate State school + voucher-receiving independent school) system performance could rise (by various measures) even if disruptive students did worse in their voucher-receiving schools, if teachers in State schools were then actually able to teach.
While I believe that policies which give to individual parents the power to determine the curriculum, the venue, and the pace and method of instruction would enhance overall system performance, I don't believe it would do so by the mechanism I suggested above. That was just a theoretical exercise. I suspect that a legal environment which included tuition vouchers good for some fraction 1/2
September 22, 2007 9:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
1) "...(I)f performance was the reason to pursue a voucher system, how is it good policy absent that?" Overall system can rise even as the performance of a part falls. Isn't this obvious?
2) "...(I)f poor performance is largly the result of uninvolved parents, how does a voucher system alter that?" Parents learn that appealing to the bureaucracy is like talking to a wall. Defects of parents do not explain the relation between differences in overall system performance and institutional structure.
3) "...Eventually, all schools are private...".
I make less of the public/private distinction and less of the for-profit/non-profit distinction than most. We are all public citizens and private individuals. People do not become more intelligent, more compassionate, or more capable when they enter the State's employment rolls.
4) "...(A) second-tier system develops." That's what we have now. Political control of school harms most the children of the least politically adept parents.
5) "...(I)f you were in the school business, would you rather service the masses or the elite? Any innovation, and most cutting-edge technology, will be available at the high-end schools but not the second tier." Substitute "grocery" or "auto" for school to see if this argument works in practice.
5) "Publicly-supported education can generate elites, as in England. Our system sought a different goal. I'm still OK with that goal, of shared community." The US "public" school system originated in anti-Catholic bigotry. It survives on assiduous lobbying by current recipients of the taxpayers' $400 billion + pre-college education subsidy.
September 22, 2007 9:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
I can't decide what you're arguing in favor of.
BTW, as to #5, I note there are more and better groceries and auto mechanics in more expensive neighborhoods. As I said, therefore.
Those who think the range of quality found in public schools is an argument against them, in that it seems to inherently segregate along class lines, miss the point. It is not the public, i.e. government-run, nature that is the problem. It is that it is too local in its funding. Areas with weak property-tax revenues will get weak schools.
Vouchers can't help that, and may hurt by reducing the overall pool of revenue offered.
September 22, 2007 10:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
For a more recent and specific example, consider Carol Molnau, the Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Transportation; she had no professional credentials and zero experience. Her qualification was purely on her conservative ideology. Look how well that has served the people of the State of Minnesota.
September 22, 2007 3:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
In the Bush administration we have either connected friends lacking any oother qualification, i.e. Michael Brown, or those with qualifications from the wrong side, i.e. former industry execs or lobbyists running the departments charged with regukating those industries.
September 22, 2007 4:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
I. "It is not the public, i.e. government-run, nature that is the problem. It is that it is too local in its funding. Areas with weak property-tax revenues will get weak schools."
This doesn't agree with several facts.
1) Local property taxes account for less than hals of school district revenues across the US and in most US States.
2) Beyond a rrather low level, money doesn't matter much to school system performance. The top-spending US States are not the top performing US States (as measured by NAEP 4th and 8th grade Reading and Math scores. The top-spending countries are not the top-performing countries (as measured by TIMSS 8th grade Math and Science scores).
3) The correlation ($/pupil, enrollment) is positive in all but three or four US States with five or more districts over 15,000 enrollment (or 20,000, depending on which year of the Digest od Education Statistics you use). Big districts get more money per pupil. The correlation ($/pupil, %minority enrollment) is positive in every single US State with five or more districts over 15,000 (or 20,000, depending). Taxpayers spend more on non-white school districts than on white-dominatd school districts. The myth of the under-funded, inner-city minority school district (Kozol) is a lie. Dilapidated buildings and obsolete textbooks are not due to insufficient taxpayer generosity; the bureaucrats steal taxpayer money and poor kids' life chances.
II. "Vouchers can't help that, and may hurt by reducing the overall pool of revenue offered."
1) Vouchers can help by making explicit per pupil spending.
2) If a voucher policy applied to the current budget, there is no reason to suppose that vouchers would (immedictely) reduce available revenues. If the public comes to understand that the school system wastes resources, that a better result can be achieved for les, what's the problem?
September 22, 2007 5:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Assuming non-property tax funds were constant, the property tax contribution is the main variable.
If the sole cause of poor maintenance and materials for inner-city schools is waste or theft, account for it, don't de-fund it. I'll take your word for the funding correlations, but it ignores the conditions within families and neighborhoods. That is, how conducive or deleterious to education is the social milieu?
There is always room for improvement, and this article on San Francisco's public-school choice system is intriguing.
September 22, 2007 5:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
"even if disruptive students did worse in their voucher-receiving schools"
Do worse? How?
This statement blows any crediblity you might have.
My sister-in-law taught, until she retired, in a low income public school. She now teaches in a private school. the difference between them , no disruptive students. Why? the private school doesnt take them.
Jack
September 22, 2007 6:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I'll take your word for the funding correlations"
You should go look it up, I did several years ago(through the department of education web site). It was interesting. As I recall looking over the data there is a general corelation to spending and state scores with interesting exceptions One is Washington DC with the highest per pupil spent and the nations lowest test scores and another that comes to mind is Utah with low spending and good test scores.
And back to the subject at hand , where conservative governments dominate the test scores are low, with again the exception of Utah. Must be something about those Mormen.
One of the best ways to improve the world standing of US schools is to reverse the civil war and give the south their freedom.
Also, California , who used to have a reputation of top schools, now is below average. Can we say Prop. 13?
Jack
September 22, 2007 6:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
(malcolm): "...even if disruptive students did worse in their voucher-receiving schools..."
(Whyskyjack): "Do worse? How? This statement blows any crediblity you might have."
Comprehend "hypoyhetical"? My point was that overall scores --could-- rise due to some policy which might cause scores for some subset of the student populaton to fall.
September 22, 2007 6:25 PM | Reply | Permalink