The great unwashed marching or whatever it is they are doing in New York isn't the only protest being staged against "the man" right now. There was a group staging "Occupy DC" in Washington over the weekend. They are college students. And they want student loans forgiven, their free lunch as it were, not having learned that TANSTAAFL.
Video below, but some highlights. First of all, if the young woman who speaks from about 2:21 to 4:24 is a student at Harvard, the admissions staff should be expunged. This isn't because she holds political beliefs with which I disagree. I have no problem with that. The problem is that she's a fucking idiot who cannot form a sentence. I watched it twice and am amazed the lass had the whole breath/blink/heartbeat thing down. Maybe she's just rockin' the Harvard gear as an aspiration.
But my favorite part, the part that lies at the core of progressive socialist thought not just in early 21st century America but through the entire history of socialism, is this:
7:24-7:51
Student: Well, I mean, I obviously believe that my ideas are persuasive enough and beneficial enough to society that people should subscribe to them [at the conclusions of their own reason [sic]] and their own sense of right and wrong but frankly some people don’t, and yet…
Q: And at the end of the day you’ll use force against those people
Student: I believe that it is the role of the government to use force
Q: So you won’t do it yourself you’ll hire someone else to do it basically?
Student: That’s what a government is.
This is Paul Krugman saying that if you don't agree with the ideal of Progressivism and the idea that government is merely a large insurance company with an army, you are wrong. Your opinion isn't merely different than his, it is wrong. This is Thomas Friedman saying that he would prefer to be ruled by "enlightened autocrats, like they have in China." This is the complete abandonment of reason and persuasion. Think like us, or die.
Because Socialism and Progressivism are the abandonment of reason and logic. They work on emotion, not reality.
And if these kids are this stupid after attending college, why on earth would taxpayers want to forgive their loans? They should be paying extra interest.
An old friend posted a link to this article published by the New York Times. I take exception to some of the arguments made by the authors, specifically that simply paying teachers more would increase performance. A similar idea was floated by the mayor of Newark, NJ last fall, (link and comments here).
Wages are set by the market, and they are already distorted by the teachers' unions. Arbitrarily and artificially inflating wages would no more lead to better results in the classroom than increased wages for soldiers would have won Vietnam (to use the authors' analogy to the military).
The 20% of teachers who leave urban school districts (no source for the data is provided) are replaced by others willing and able to do the job at the wage provided.
The authors cite the old trope of equivalency between other jobs for which "degrees are required." Since when and why are bachelor's degrees required to teach elementary education? When was a primary or secondary teaching job ever considered a sole breadwinner job?
They also conflate aggregates and apply them to specifics (The average starting salary is $39,000; the average ending salary — after 25 years in the profession — is $67,000. This prices teachers out of home ownership in 32 metropolitan areas, and makes raising a family on one salary near impossible.) First, which salary prices the teacher out of home ownership, the beginning or the final? Teachers in small, rural communities, of which this country has thousands, probably don't make enough to purchase an average home in LA or New York City where the supply of housing is limited. But then, most of the people who also live and work in those communities probably can't afford to buy a home in those 32 metropolitan areas (again, this is tough to tell though, because the authors don't cite a source for the data).
Further, I can only say that in my school district (not affluent) teachers with more than 25 years make more than $100k. This doesn't include the fact that, yes, they do get summers off and have a pension that is nonexistent in the private working world, guaranteed by current and future taxpayers. They also went on strike a few years ago because the district wanted them to contribute 7% to their healthcare costs, up from 2%. This, according to the union and therefore the teachers that refused to work, amounted to an unacceptable "wage cut" because the automatic wage increases in the proposed contract wouldn't be a bottom line increase in wages.
Oh, and they are about to go on strike again.
I am not "anti-teacher." There is an obvious advantage to having personnel around who have experience and wisdom and who know how to do a specific job better than someone with identical training and desire but no experience. There is also the added benefit of the mentoring that takes place. But there is also a limit on that cost, and the wage structure in many school districts exceeds that cost.
To go back to the authors contention that we don't blame the soldiers for failure during war, I would agree. We blame the government. Schools are not performing well. Performance has declined (in aggregate) while costs have increased at a pace far ahead of inflation. So, let's blame the government for getting involved in education. I know a lot of public school teachers, and they all argue that tenure (dismissed as "worthy of debate" in the piece) is necessary because of the political, and thus capricious, nature of school boards. This also is an argument for eliminating government as the provider for this particular service.
Let's allow parents to decide where to send their children. Allow them to decide where they feel they would get the best return on their investment. This would allow for many more schools. Allowing more people who want to teach to do so. Teaching is a noble profession; this would lead to more people teaching. This is good, no? It would also lead to reduced costs for taxpayers.
Teachers' unions are against this because they know that even if teachers decide to unionize at a private institution, they will not be able to get the wages and benefits they can from a purely public-run institution because, by necessity, privately held firms are budgeted and run more efficiently. Or they disappear. This doesn't mean public school have to disappear, but the unions don't want the option of sending a child to another school because they know which option most parents would take.
Competition and choice will improve the American education system. Merely throwing more money at the problem will not fix it. The logic employed by the authors is fatally flawed.
Another predictably tendentious piece, this time from Hendrik Hertzberg of the New Yorker.
Mr. Hertzberg bemoans the fate of labor since its hay day on the middle of the previous century, completely disregarding the fact that corporations, big businesses, fat cats and the rest of the usual suspects don't sit around drinking cognac, smoking cigars and burning dollar bills they'vestolen from the surplus value of the labor they've exploited. They've paid market wages for the labor required for production. Any so-called surplus value is typically reinvested, either directly or indirectly. This leads to increasing productivity and innovation. This leads to many goods and services increasing in relative quality will becoming relatively cheaper.
Think of computers. It was almost the stuff of fiction to think that people would have computers in their homes in 1970. It was expensive but feasible in 1980. Slightly cheaper and better and more common in 1990. Almost ubiquitous in 2000. In 2010most people carry around with them phones that have more computing power than anything imaginable by the gentlemen who turned ENIAC on in 1955. And it's a phone. And a camera. And a radio. And, in real terms, much cheaper than anything you could have bought in 1980.
Life has gotten better because companies can pay market wages for the services provided by employees and not occur dead-weight losses due to union wages.
As we produce more, we all benefit. Increasing "income inequality" is a social fiction. Saying rich people make more than they did in 1970 is a fool's argument. And one, not surprisingly, embraced by Mr. Hertzberg. First of all, GDP growth has outpaced population growth. So while the "top earners" may have more, percentage wise, of the "take," everyone is earning more money. And with all due respect to P.J. Proudhon, property is not theft. The CEO of WeWantToRuinTheEarthAndPoisonYourChildren Oil Co. making $150 million dollars does not mean that you or me or anyone else earns less money. Just as the Yankees presumably paying Albert Pujols $300 million over the next ten years doesn't mean there's any less money out there for you or me. A capitalist system is not a closed system. Capital can increase, especially as the factors of production become more efficient, cheaper, better &c.
My absolutely favorite line of the whole piece by Hertzberg is this one describing the new "anti-union" movement in Wisconsin: "The bill, dictated by the new Republican governor, Scott Walker..." Classy move. The verb in the dependent clause is brilliant. Denotatively, Hertzberg is covered in that the wording of the bill was probably crafted by the governor. But he is also able to present the man as a dictator. Never mind that the bill was introduced to the state senate for a vote and it is the Democrats who fled the state, making a vote on the measure impossible.
The rhetoric is that the bill came out of nowhere and the Democrats wanted time for what was in the bill to become public. Well, it's public. It has been for two weeks. If you don't like a bill, vote against it. If it becomes law that you don't like, introduce a bill that will change it. But running out on your job? Because your "side" might lose? And the governor is dictatorial?
Great article from the New Yorker on the "Rubber Room" for incompetent and/or derelict teachers in the NYC school system. They get paid full salary and continue to accrue pension benefits. Complete waste of taxpayer money. Why does competition in private enterprise make other goods and services cheaper and/or better every year, yet it is considered beyond the pale to suggest a competitive market model for education? A neighboring school district is about to go on strike, and is currently "working to contract," because the school board has the temerity to ask that the teachers contribute to their healthcare plan (currently the teachers pay nothing). By working to contract, this means not doing things like attending back to school night or assigning/grading homework. The treachers associations aren't the only problem. Administrations and school boards also have no feedback loop that prices and competition provide. So get rid of all of them.
I saw a brief interview (below) with Corey Booker, mayor of Newark, NJ. One of his ideas is to pay teachers as "professionals" as opposed to "wage workers". "We should pay them to get a job done. We should pay them for results." The second statement sounds pretty reasonable until you combine it with the stupidity of the first statement. The interviewer says "we know that better teachers in schools run by principals who have more autonomy ("yes") create more effective learning environments ("yes"). Period ("period")." So it's clear that the interviewer and interviewee are in agreement. And that's super.
"Good teachers, radically pay them more, hold them accountable."
Wait, I think I missed something.
"...So I want to be the best, and as America [sic] I'm willing to make that investment." Well, I'm glad he is. But does he mean "he" the individual idiot elected mayor of Newark who apparently has the personal wealth to overpay every elementary and secondary teacher? Or does he mean "he," as in America, as in he's perfectly willing to over-spend other people's money?
Then Mayor Booker goes completely off the deep end.
He says he wants "that math professional" coming out of graduate school to consider working as a teacher in Newark as opposed to taking that "$200,000 job with Microsoft."
First of all, Microsoft is an extremely successful, well-run company. And I'm pretty sure they don't offer too many entry-level positions to math PhDs that pay $200,000/year. I could be wrong, but it's just a hunch.
Second, there is a distinct difference between designing algorithms and programs for a major, private software corporation (located in Redmond, WA) and teaching algebra and pre-calculus to teenagers (in Newark, NJ). Actually, there are many differences, but I'll just go with the most obvious. It may not have occurred to Mayor Booker that many, many more people are able to master the skills required to teach elementary or secondary mathematics (or any other subject) rather than develop, write, test and implement programs for Microsoft. There were more people willing and able to do the former even before the job of teaching kids was "professionalized" by the unions which began requiring college degrees. It certainly doesn't take a PhD in mathematics to teach high school kids; it would be completely inappropriate to have a PhD requirement for teaching it; and it certainly doesn't make sense for high schools that are funded solely through the public fisc even to contemplate competing with the private sector in terms of dollars for graduate level talent to perform their respective tasks.
Wages are the price people charge for their labor. Wages (and most other prices) are determined by relative scarcity (& subjective value, but I'm not getting into that here). Labor unions cartelize the labor force to drive wages up (good for them, bad for everybody else). Now, I don't know what teachers are paid in Newark, NJ, but I know enough teachers, public and private, throughout Jersey and Pennsylvania, that I can say the notion that any public school teacher is compensated as anything other than a professional is absurd.
Let's also disregard the fact that our ersatz PhD's employment is subject to very strenuous competition along with the vicissitudes of the market place, whereas public teachers are not. No matter how many private schools pop up, there will always be the public school whose employees wages are determined not by the market but by what the union was able to squeeze out of neighboring districts.
It kind of surprising that a mayor of a fairly large city could say things this obtuse and not be challenged by a reporter, especially a reporter that holds the title "CNN Education Contributor." Then again, maybe it isn't that surprising.
I think the residents of Newark, NJ should be pretty happy that Mayor Booker has no authority as to how school dollars are spent.
Outside of Teachers' Unions, has there been a good argument against school vouchers? Are we not doing it solely because politicians are afraid of teachers? If there are any good arguments I would love to hear/read/see them.
This article doesn't answer that question, but it raises it and a few others. It was linked to by Greg Mankiw who was big enough to say that he is "not at all confident that I am right about this one."
The founder of the company that is profiled is Andrew Magliozzi, son of one of the CarTalk guys. CarTalk, if you don't know, is the greatest radio show in the history of the medium.
I think a professor or university may have a claim if a student posted video of an entire semester of lectures without the professor's consent. Class notes and recalled information from tests, however, seem to be fair game. Especially if the online service is free. Scanned images or digital pictures of tests would also seem, to me, a bridge too far, but the website doesn't seem to do that.
