Tag Archives: politics

American Education

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Our public school establishment has grown enormously over the last two-and-a-half generations, even as the public school student population has grown not so much, and public school performance as measured by student testing performance has not improved a single minim. The graph gives, as of 2017, the total change of the indicated personnel and student populations; you can see the changes year-by-year here [there’s a replay button at the top of that graph].

Mark Perry put his conclusion succinctly:

Bottom Line: Despite the significant increase between 1970 and 2017 in the number of public school teachers (57%) and non-teaching staff (151%) relative to the 10.4% increase in students, the significant 30% decrease in the pupil-to-[teacher] ratio in public schools and the significant 154% increase in inflation-adjusted spending per pupil attending public schools over that period, there was basically no change in academic achievement. More spending + more teachers + more administrators + no change in education outcomes = a failing public school monopoly that benefits entrenched unionized teachers who vigorously try to squash competition from charter schools and educational choice at the expense of taxpayers, parents, and students.

What he said.

Which puts a premium on two distinct, but each necessary, actions: defanging the teachers unions and expanding parental access to schooling alternatives like voucher schools and charter schools.

Critical to that second item is this: per-student school funding via taxpayer monies needs to stop being school funding and be transformed into student funding: the monies need to accompany the student to the school the parents select for him. If the parents choose home-schooling as their alternative, they should get, in lieu of full-up per-student funding, an allowance to cover teaching material and supply expenses. And, conditioned on performance on State-mandated testing, a serious honorarium for their teacher labor, with the allowance plus honorarium not exceeding the per-student funding rate.

Flynn, Mandamus, and the DC Circuit

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The DC Circuit has decided to rehear General Michael Flynn’s request for a mandamus ruling ordering the DC District Court to accept Flynn’s motion—agreed and proffered by DoJ—to drop entirely the case against Flynn. The Circuit plainly does not trust the original Circuit ruling to issue the mandamus and so to order the lower court.

The Wall Street Journal has opined on the matter. While I disagree with the DC Circuit’s decision to retry the Flynn mandamus appeal en banc, I more strongly disagree with the WSJ‘s rationale for not rehearing it.

It will stoke more public cynicism about the politicization of the judiciary. This alone ought to have persuaded the DC Circuit not to rehear its panel’s decision.

No court should hear or not hear a case, or rule in a particular direction, based on public perception of the court. Every court—if it’s to preserve the legitimacy of the court and of the judiciary as a whole—must make those hear/rule decisions based only on the merits of the case at hand.

That is the subject and purpose of the judges’ oaths of office and the subject and purpose of the Judicial Branch.

Hong Kong’s Elections

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They were scheduled for 6 September. Now they’re delayed by the People’s Republic of China for a year; although it was Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam who delivered the news.

Officially, the delay is due to the Wuhan Virus. However, the virus situation has been known for some months, but just before the decision to delay,

12 pro-democracy candidates were disqualified from running in the poll, for reasons including perceived subversive intentions, opposition to the new security law, and campaigning to win a legislation-blocking majority.

There it is in all its naked glory: that new security law that lets the PRC government in Beijing determine what is subversive and so criminal. Included in the current definition is democracy: it’s a crime for Hong Kongers to try to elect city legislators that will represent them rather than Beijing.

The move has one additional outcome: in the absence of a City legislature, the government of the PRC will fill the legislative vacuum.

This is freedom PRC style.

Ranked Voting?

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There is a growing push from the Left to move our elections to ranked choice voting. RCV is a technique whereby voters rank all the candidates on a ballot by that voter’s preference, and in the event the first preference candidate doesn’t get a majority, bottom candidates get stricken from the ballot, those votes reallocated in some fashion—or dropped altogether—and the counting redone. The process is repeated until a winner is manufactured out of the æther of preferences.

We already do all the ranked voting we need, and it doesn’t precisely ape the foolishness and unnecessary complexity of RCV. They’re called run-off elections in the primaries. And when there’s no majority in the Electoral College, the House and Senate do ranked voting: more run-offs.

If jurisdictions are dissatisfied with pluralities winning rather than majorities, they can switch to run-offs.

Joe Biden, Black Lives Mattering, and Education

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Daniel Henninger explored the inkblots of the Trump-Biden Presidential contest. One of the blots he mentioned was this:

If Joe Biden wins on the basis of his current policy course, those young black lives will have next to no chance of their schools improving in the next four years.

Indeed. We’ve already seen the Progressive-Democrats’ attitude toward the lives of black children and their education. Eric Holder, the AG under Biden’s heavily touted BFF Barack Obama—and with Biden’s clear knowledge and at least tacit approval—sued Louisiana to block that State’s effort to let black children escape from failing public schools and go to voucher schools for an actual education.