Police protection? Maybe

The Foundation for Economic Education publishes The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty, a magazine devoted to "defend(ing) the ideals of a free society."

An excellent example of what this magazine offers is found in the article Just Dial 911? The Myth of Police Protection by By Richard W. Stevens. Stevens lays waste to the notion that police exist to protect private citizens from crime. Stevens notes:

First, the police cannot and do not protect everyone from crime. Second, the government and the police in most localities owe no legal duty to protect individuals from criminal attack. When it comes to deterring crime and defending against criminals, individuals are ultimately responsible for themselves and their loved ones. Depending solely on police emergency response means relying on the telephone as the only defensive tool. Too often, citizens in trouble dial 911 . . . and die.

While we are told to rely on the police to stop crime and violence, the police are not our best bet.^[1]

I recall an incident that occurred years ago on a bike ride. A fellow cyclist was hit in the face with a BB gun, just missing his eye. This gentleman was understandable upset, and wanted to report the incident. He phoned the Sheriff's office and was told that the only deputy on duty at the time was in the other side of the county - this being a rural county. The rider was assured that the deputy was on his way. So, we waited. For 45 minutes, we waited. Finally the deputy arrived. Certainly this was a minor incident, yet if the situation had truly been life threatening, there would have been no police officer available to assist.

The same holds when someone has entered your house intent on crime. Certainly you can call 911 and hope that a car will be dispatched, and then wait. Not much of a positive outlook to a dangerous situation - you can't simply place the criminal on hold awaiting arrival of the deputies or police.

Read the article to see that some courts have ruled that "police officers do not have an affirmative duty to do anything." I'm not get a warm, fuzzy feeling here.


Notes
[1] Keep in mind that the police did not enter the building at VTech or Columbine until after the killers had committed suicide.

Pittsburgh: One of the last remaining Soviet Cities

From the Reason Magazine's article Pittsburgh: Livable or Leavable?: The shortcomings in city-ranking indexes

"Pittsburgh is in a death spiral. It’s bankrupt. Its school district spends $16,000 a year per kid. Its parking tax is the highest on Earth: 50 percent. City police and firefighters irresponsibly pad their numbers, salaries, and pensions—and openly trade their mayoral votes for sweetheart contracts. Meanwhile, local school and property taxes are among the highest in the country. So are public bus and taxi fares. And, oh yeah, highways are congested, in bad shape, and under-built."
- Bill Steigerwald

Taxes are killing my hometown. Sad, but true. Right before our eyes, the taxgrabbers - the politicians, bureaucrats, and unions - have been robbing what little life Pittsburgh has left. These kleptocrats have turned what was once the epitome of the American free market into what sounds like a Soviet-styled urban wasteland. It's a sad end to a fine city.

Bitten by junk science: the electric and warming side of government science

Junk science is everywhere; today's version being human-induced global warming. This nasty bit of junk science is a cover for Eco-Greens who want to drag humanity back to the Stone Age. Of course, the Eco-Greens are only too happy to have the useful idiots such as Al Gore, etc., join their cause.

However, as witnessed by the Gore lifestyle, Al has no desire to return to a more-natural state of existence. He simply wants power and influence, and since this issue plays well, he's taken on the role of lead lemming in a march toward the cliffs that overlook the cold seas of socialist environmentalism.

When I was young, a prominent version of junk science was the fear over the supposed harm due to exposure to EMF (electric and magnetic fields).^[1] Though this was shown to be junk science, the scare lives on within the collective psyche. And, now the EMF scare is biting back at government – a local government school district in this instance.

The Olentangy School District just issued a statement regarding EMF and the proximity of schools to power lines.

The statement reads (in part):

There has been some discussion and speculation in the community of late regarding the EMF (electric and magnetic fields) levels in the area of the new Liberty Tree Elementary and Hyatts Middle School. Specifically, speculation is that the buildings could be unsafe as a result of their proximity to high voltage power lines in the area.

Of course there is no threat due to EMF, yet the schools are taking a big hit from mental remnants of disproven junk science. Parents are nervous about their children’s health. That’s what parents do, they react to what they have been told; whether the information is right or wrong.

The district further states:

Electric and magnetic fields have been studied for over 40 years with no definitive conclusion regarding health effects; therefore, there are no recommended public policies or standards for EMF.

Go back a couple of decades ago and the harmful effects of EMF were being reported and taught just about everywhere. Those who claimed that EMF was not a concern were considered quacks; unscientific quacks at that. Note the parallels to today's junk science; human-induced global warming.

Irony: The same school system that played up the EMF issue years ago, is now trying to downplay it.

More Irony: Return to today, and the public schools have adopted the Eco-Green vision of the future. The schools are more than willing to play up the ills of humanity and progress; that humanity is warming the Earth. Or, at least the schools are willing to echo this new party line.

Before the Olentangy district issues another statement regarding fears over EMF exposure, I hope they rethink their stance on global warming. Junk science has a way of biting you back when least expected.


Notes:

[1] You are receiving a higher milligauss level while reading this blog than will be experienced by anyone standing on the school grounds mentioned above. In fact, students will also be exposed to higher levels while using computers in classrooms and labs.

Olentangy's budget: at the margin

Note: As the Olentangy School Board discusses the state-mandated May update of its Five Year Forecast, it's important to note where the expenses are coming from: salaries and benefits, and staffing changes (see below).

Olentangy's budget: at the margin

Marginal analysis is the best way to understand the financial direction an organization is taking. By looking across the organization for changes at the margin as opposed to focusing on changes of averages, policy shifts are easy to note. When the attention is placed on average salaries, staffing ratios, etc., policy shifts can easily get lost in the sea of a big-dollar operating budget. But when the focus is directed at the margin, policy shifts are revealed.

An example: The Olentangy School District has a current operating budget of over $100 million dollars. The budget has been growing, that we all agree upon. The board and administration will claim that additional students and inflation are the main driving forces behind budget increases. Is that true?

Let's look at one item at the margin; the staff to pupil ratio. Looking at staffing practices from fiscal year 2004 to fiscal year 2006 reveals that the district had been hiring one new staff member per additional 10.6 students. Now look at the period covering fiscal year 2007 to fiscal year 2009 (forecasted), the district proposes to hire an additional staff member per additional 7.6 students; an almost 40% increase in this one statistic. Think about it; a 40% increase or an additional $3.5 million per year in expenditures and subsequent tax revenue needs. Incredible!

More incredible is the change in new administrative positions. Instead of the FY04 to FY06 pattern of one new administrator per additional 429 students, the district is projecting one new administrator per additional 159 student from FY07 to FY09; a 260% increase. Incredible ... oh, wait ... I used that already. Scary may be a more apt description.

Looking at changes as a function of the average would also reveal the changing staffing pattern, but the margin reveals what's actually behind that change - it's magnitude, and the effect on the future tax increases.

Keep this in mind as the district talks about budgets and levy millage. See if they address the expenditure train that is about to leave the station, running wild on marginal increases.

Reading and malinvestment

My latest blog post over at Mises.org:

Reading and malinvestment
Jim Fedako

Ludwig von Mises warned of the unintended consequences that result from government interventions. In line with his warnings is the misallocation resulting from malinvestment by government in activities that are not the best use of scarce resources. These malinvestments create capital structures unsupported by real wants and desires. Bust comes when resources are cutoff or shift to the lines that are truly productive from those lines which exist solely because of these government interventions.

How in the world does this relate to reading? The answer is quite simple and telling, and it's also an excellent lesson in Austrian Economics.

At the same time that Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons by Siegfried Engelmann, Phyllis Haddox, Elaine Bruner, is currently available on Amazon.com for $8.14, the federal and state governments are wasting hundreds of millions, if not billions, on Progressive reading strategies that are of little use, and are potentially harmful. In addition, local public schools are spending untold tax dollars implementing these strategies, leaving many children semi-literate at best.

Go to Amazon.com and search for 100 Easy Lessons, then sort the customer responses in reverse order of ranking - lowest to highest - to see the objections to the above reading program. You will find that the objections typically suggest another book or series of books that are themselves reasonably priced and readily available. None of the comments I read said that 100 Easy Lessons fails to teach reading. And, neither this program nor suggested alternatives rely on continual government resources for R&D. They are programs that are tried and true, successful yet cheap, products of the free market.

The result of the government expenditures in reading is a capital structure that is nonproductive and wasteful, but is also a dollar-consuming Leviathan. A significant portion of the funding received by these programs and departments goes back into continual lobbying and PR expenditures. As a result, the programs and departments, along with their sycophant lobbyists and PR pushers, grow and grow; a financial Backdraft that consumes tax-dollars and lays waste to the dreams of future generations.

Government has to fear the bust that will inevitably occur when funding ends for these programs and departments. The result will not just be thousands upon thousands of bureaucrats, administrators, and teachers hitting the street. The result will include the loss of capital invested in private enterprises that exist solely to remedy the ills caused by the government-funded reading programs.

Should the products of the private sector - Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, etc - replace those created by interventionist policies, you will save tax dollars while student achievement rises^[1]. Just be ready to ignore the administrator or teacher holding the cup and the sign that reads, "Will whole-language for food."

Notes:
[1] Of course, privatizing both schools and school funding is the real solutions.

Old enough to have fought, yet still under the nanny's thumb

That's right, the veterans of Ohio have to go smokeless because the nanny do-gooders convinced the voting sheeple that no one should smoke in public places.

Let's ignore that these venues are really private property; owned be entrepreneurs and organizations who exist to please customers and members. Instead, let's focus on the do-gooders and their mindless electorate who simply want everyone to live as they choose.

Whatever happened to Freedom? Liberty? It was sold to the local health departments who are a stroke of the pen away from pulling up the jackboots and kicking down your doors.

Don't think it will happen? Neither would have any red-blooded American of thirty years ago believed that smokeless would be enforced by the power of coercion and compulsion. So long "Don't Tread on Me!"

note: Your children are being inculcated with the collectivist mindset by the public schools. They are being told that government has the right - the obligation - to promulgate and enforce health mandates. Your children are being taught that a government that does such is simply satisfying the public good; the general welfare.

Tibor R. Machan boxes a collectivist

Tibor R. Machan is a free market philosopher - an intellectual "arguer for" Freedom and Liberty. Over at The Future of Freedom Foundation (FFF), he takes on California Senator Barbara Boxer and her collectivist mentality.

Long ago I realized government is not "by the people, for the people" after reading signs around North Park, Allegheny County, PA. These signs noted that fenced areas were "Property of Allegheny County, Trespassers Prosecuted."

As a resident of Allegheny County, I would have been charged with trespassing in spite of the signs. See, the property was not mine; it was property of the governmental entity called Allegheny County. And I could trespass on the county’s property. The fence was a Berlin Wall that separated government from the governed.

Note: The same holds with regard to public schools. Think they belong to the community; the people? Think again.

Reisman and the light bulb

George Reisman, Professor Emeritus of Economics, has posted another excellent article on environmentalism over at Mises.org. If you like this article, you should purchase his book, Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics, or download it for free. Reisman has a lot to offer those who want to understand how the market works.

Say No to the Hideous Light Bulbs
George Reisman

The environmentalists are pushing hideous looking fluorescent light bulbs of the kind shown here as a way to save electricity and thus reduce the need for power plants and resulting carbon emissions. The bulbs will thus allegedly help to save the planet from global warming and, therefore, the environmentalists argue, everyone should use them instead of the customary, incandescent bulbs.

Australia and Canada have already enacted laws or regulations that will make these bulbs mandatory within a few years. Efforts are underway to do the same thing here in the United States.

Continue reading at Mises.org

Listserve response regarding state-level tests

Tom,

I have to agree. I served on the Fourth Grade Reading Content Advisory Committee for the Ohio Department of Education - I wrote about this in a Thomas B. Fordham article.

The committee is charged with reviewing test questions against the state's fourth grade reading content standards. Sounds fair enough. Yet, the committee was given the power to object to any question regardless of whether or not the objection was related to an issue with the content standards. So, no questions relating to birthdays, Christmas, etc., were allowed. Any question that someone judged unfair was removed, even though there was a separate fairness committee that had already approved the test items. And, the committee could rewrite questions or suggest alternatives. In addition, the committee favored writing samples to be graded against a very subjective rubric. Multiple choice and true/false were frowned upon, and whole sections of such questions received negative reviews and were pulled.

Truthfully, I'm not certain that anything of value is being tested in Ohio. The process was enlightening. Other than myself, the rest of the committee was made up of reading teachers and district-level administrators. Though the committee was supposed to made up of representatives from all groups of stakeholders (teachers, administrators, parents, community members, business leaders, etc.), I was the only noneducator, and I was a school board member at the time.

I am certain that the rest of the committee sighed in relief after I quit attending their meetings.

(P)rofiting by the labors of others: government

Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else. Every one is, more or less, for profiting by the labors of others. No one would dare to express such a sentiment; he even hides it from himself. A medium is thought of; Government is applied to, and every class in its turn comes and says, "You, who can take justifiably and honestly, take from the public, and we will partake."

-- Frederic Bastiat, 1848

Bastiat is the relatively unknown French economist and champion of Freedom who destroyed many fallacies that still persist within most philosophic schools of economics. In particular, Bastiat showed that damage to physical capital does not spur the economy. He pointed out that in order to understand the true result of an action one must look beyond the obvious.

Yet, come the next natural disaster, you will here noted economist perform a pseudo analysis and state that the economy is going to benefit from the additional dollars spent cleaning up the damage. An absolute lie, though a lie that plays well with government spending; think FEMA.

Spend some time reading more from Bastiat at Mises.org.

Charter schools and fixed costs, or it's all at the margin

From a pure economic standpoint, if you can't reduce fixed costs after the reduction of a student, that student did not contribute to fixed costs.

The term fixed cost can be used to describe short-term obligations (e.g. salaries, leases, etc.) and long-term capital expenses (e.g. bond repayments, etc.). Since a district's general fund does not include the capital costs associated with a building, and because the charter funding debate is always centered around a school district's general fund and operating expenses, I will only focus on short-term obligations.

In Ohio, a school board must approve its district's annual appropriation before the start of the next fiscal year (beginning July 1). The initial appropriation can be a temporary measure, with all districts having to approve a permanent appropriation measure by the 1st of October. Even though the permanent appropriation measure can be modified throughout the school year, the permanent appropriation measure reflects the likely general fund expenditures for the school year.

Each district in Ohio bases its budget on projected student enrollment (ADM). The process to estimate actual enrollment is difficult and subject to error. If a district miscalculates its ADM, it usually cannot make mid-year corrections since districts typically don't hire additional teachers or RIF excess teachers during the current school year.^[1] Districts can correct enrollment projection errors when approving the subsequent year's budget, but once set, a budget and its associated contracts create short-term fixed costs for the current school year.

What does the first sentence mean in light of what I've just discussed? It's simple, there are fixed costs based on the current budget, but those costs are short-term and may not even be associated with the student who transfers to a charter school.

Example: If an elementary has 600 students and one child moves in after the budget was set and subsequently transfers to a charter school, there is no way to reduce fixed costs since the current budget had been approved. Though costs cannot be reduced, state basic aid flows to the district and then out again, this time to the charter where the child has enrolled.^[2]

In order to understand the impact of this transfer, one has to go back in time to the point where that child entered the school. Upon enrollment, overhead costs were already fixed so the school did not incur additional fixed costs due to that child. Therefore, at the margin, no fixed cost can be attributed to that child, whether on the way in or way out of the school. This child was expenditure neutral.

Fixed costs can be attributed to the student whose enrollment brings about a new section, school, etc. If a district loses enough students that it can reduce staff or close an elementary, the fixed costs associated with the section or school are wiped from the books.

If a student causes the need for a new third grade section, the marginal fixed cost associated with the child are the costs of operating an additional section; new teacher contract, etc. Subsequent third grade students result in no additional fixed costs and only minimal operating costs since the section is already available with empty seats. If the subsequent students transfer to a charter school, no fixed costs can be reduced since no fixed costs were incurred due to their enrollment. When the child that caused the opening of the new section transfers, the fixed costs associated with the child are wiped from the books since the section, and teaching position, etc., are no longer needed.

In Ohio, if a district opens its doors to more students than planned, it sees a revenue gain. The district's operating costs were fixed by the budget, so each new student provides approximately $5,400^[3] in additional state funding aid while only creating small additional operating costs; for water, paper, etc. Low estimates create a financial bonus.

High estimates, conversely, create financial distress. In such situation, costs were fixed by the budget yet the district loses approximately $5,400 for each student that doesn't arrive as planned.

But these hardships are not the result of charter schools; they are purely the result of poor planning by the district. Student populations change over time as students move into and out of districts, change to and from private schools, and choose or return from home schooling. None of these other movements of students are criticized like charter school enrollment, but there is no real difference between them; all cause an increase or decrease of $5,400 for each student over or under enrollment projections.

In fact, some of these movements are cheered. Districts encourage their students to enroll in colleges and universities through post secondary options enrollment, as well as encourage students to attend alternative schools such as the Columbus Zoo's Zoo School. Each of these activities cause funds to leave the district, yet there are few critics of such alternative programs.

Part of the confusion comes from the presentation of state basic aid on the Ohio Department of Educations SF3 form. The forms leaves the impression that the state funds on a per student basis at the state share percentage.^[4] In addition, districts also believe that fixed overhead costs are apportioned out to students equally. These are absolutely not the case.

The confusion is also due to districts not understanding the effects of changes over time. In the year after an outflow to charters or other situations, districts can reduce administration and staff to recoup most of the fixed costs. That said, some costs, such as the need for a board of education, superintendent, treasurer, and at least one teacher, educational service personnel, etc., are truly fixed but are nothing compared to property tax revenue being generated locally.

Word for the wise: Revenue and costs function at the margin, never at the average.

Notes:

[1] Districts approve teacher contracts that provide teachers with an implied right to work. My district's negotiated agreement spells out the specifics by which the district may apply reduction in force (RIF) to terminate a teaching contract. The agreement states that the district cannot reduce staff midyear.

[2] Keep in mind that this analysis is only dealing with the expense side of the charter issue. As it has been shown before, charter schools do not reduce local revenue. The only funding that leaves the district with the student who transfers to a charter school is the $5,400 that the state earmarked for that student.

[3] $5,498 in Olentangy.

[4] The SF3 includes a state share percentage figure that many assume is the percentage that the state funds the marginal student. This is not the case. After the charge-off - 23 mills times recognized valuation - has been met, the state funds each marginal student at the full $5,400 amount.

Madmen and rights

My latest blog post at Mises.org.

Bill Steigerwald, associate editor, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, puts the horrible Virginia Tech shooting in its almost-forgotten historical context.

On March 18, 1927, Andrew Kehoe, board member of Bath Consolidated Schools, Bath Township, Michigan, carried out a massacre that killed 45, including 38 grade-school children. Though, unlike Cho Seung-Hui, Kehoe used readily available explosives. Yet, it appears that no one called for bans of explosives as Kehoe was recognized as an aberrant and abhorrent madman.

Crazed murders will always be with us, regardless of any imagined government-run police system. Removing the right to bear arms in order to protect against the next lunatic serves no personal security purpose - as Kehoe aptly proves. Yet, removing the right to bear arms does serve to further metastasize governmental power - as was well understood by our Founding Fathers.

Constitutional lunacy

The Constitution is not an instrument for government to restrain the people; it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government--lest it come to dominate our lives and our interests.


— Patrick Henry

Of course, Patrick Henry got it right. The problem is that public schools tend to trivialize our Constitution--of course one should suspect nothing less from a unionized workforce protected by a government monopoly. Instead of teaching the concept that our Constitution is designed to limit government, schools teach that our Constitution provides for unlimited government; unlimited government in the form of one group of citizens having a legal claim to the property of all others.

There are no such positive rights in our Constitution, nor will you find them enumerated in our Declaration of Independence. Constitutional rights are purely negative rights; rights that protect you from the actions of others, including government, who seek claim to your property.

I submitted the following letter to the editor (unpublished) to respond to the lunacy being taught to students. I am posting it once more as it appears that the idea of in-class, or in-school, constitutions are becoming more popular.

This Hillard City Schools activity is one step away from codifying a Lord of the Flies legal system. Oh, wait, we almost have that already. Anyway...

Dear Editor:

"Then he whomps the other student with a pillow." (from "Hilliard students take law into own hands", Columbus Dispatch, September 16, 2005.)

Let's see, Constitution Day was passed by a Congress that does not understand state's rights and the role of the federal government, and is being implemented by schools that confound the US Constitution with codes of conduct and civil law. Is this really as wonderful as it seems?

Students in Hilliard are being taught that a good constitution enumerates the behaviors which govern good citizens. It would appear to me that teachers at Horizon Elementary understand a constitution to be a document that empowers citizens to enforce vague "feel-good" terms under the threat of violence (see first sentence).

Our Constitution was drafted in order to limit the powers of the federal government, though Sen. Byrd -- D-W.Va., sponsor, and the rest of Congress missed that lesson. Or, maybe they also spent their youth writing school constitutions similar to those being created in elementaries in Central Ohio.

A true school constitution would have to be constructed in a manner that circumscribed the powers of the staff within the God-given rights of the students. That would be an interesting exercise to say the least. Instead, the teachers had students codify classroom behavior expectations and called them a constitution.

I know, this all sounds like a fun activity, but what is really being taught? And, most importantly, what does this say about the teachers' understand of such valuable concepts as the guarantees of freedom from government contained in the document signed by our Founding Fathers?

Constitution Day failed in Hilliard.

Eco-Freaks

Another great offering from Laissez Faire Books is Eco-Freaks by John Berlau. Of special interest is his discussion of the tens of millions of lives lost to malaria in the 35 years since the governmental bans of DDT.

Starting in 1972, governments worldwide began banning DDT based on the biased, junk science found in Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Now, governments are admitting their error, and DDT is once again being used against carrier mosquitoes. Of course, that admission is too late for those who died needlessly, as well as the millions who continue to suffer. So much for the omniscience of governments and their agents.

At least when the market fails, victims have means for recourse. No means for recourse exists when governments are negligent. So much for the belief that government can justly improve the condition of humanity.

Lew Rockwell has an excellent article on this very subject over at Mises.org.

Keep all this in mind as you read about governmental solutions to global warming. Gore and his cronies are the modern-day Rachel Carsons, ready to destroy the lives of millions.

In the meantime, read Eco-Freaks to see all the ills caused by those who care little for human life.

Jim Fedako

Eco-Freaks
Environmentalism Is Hazardous to Your Health
by John Berlau
Nelson Current, 2006, hardcover




According to Laissez Faire Books:

Many campaigns have been undertaken in the name of protecting our health and environment: the banning of asbestos, the encouragement of public transportation, the crusade against DDT. But in Eco-Freaks, award-winning journalist John Berlau shows that the law of unintended consequences is alive and well.

Berlau explores how environmental policies have worsened disasters like the malaria epidemic, Hurricane Katrina, and the attack on the World Trade Center. He also questions the very core of environmentalism, the idea that we should be taking care of the environment before ourselves. He points out how past generations viewed Mother Nature as a constant threat, not something to protect.

This is interesting stuff, and Berlau's fluid writing makes it very readable and very entertaining. If you want to look past the environmental propaganda, Eco-Freaks is the book for you.

250 pages

Letter in response to Ted Celeste

Dear Editor:

In his April 28 letter, "A Little civility in society will go a long way," State Representative Ted Celeste asks Ohioans to show more civility - especially with regard to debates on public policy.

What Celeste fails to mention is that there have always been, and will always be, impassioned arguments over the uncivil desire of some to tax others. Celeste wants more dollars from my wallet to spend on projects and programs that benefit those who support him. Why should I remain civil, and simply smile and agree to Celeste's goals?

Our great nation was founded by those who rebelled against political figures who continued imposing "Taxes on us without our Consent."^[1] Of course, our Rebellion was an uncivil act in the eyes of some. Yet, our Rebellion was a very worthy and noble act in support of Liberty.

Sorry, Celeste, the "long train of abuses and usurpations"^[2] that you propose do not deserve a civil response. Instead, your proposed goals deserve a renewed patriotic response; a response that you will certainly consider uncivil. Yet a response that is historically correct indeed.


Notes:

1. Declaration of Independence

2. Ibid.

The cross-country bus ride test

Students, consider this situation:

You have just begun a cross-country bus ride when, at the first stop, an adult boards and take the seat beside you. Once the door closes and the bus begins moving again, the adult, without prompting on your part, says, "Have I got a story that you need to hear." The adult then begins telling you - in full graphic detail - the scenes and dialog from some perverse book they just read.

Question: What thoughts are running through your head?

a. What luck, an interesting adult to chat with for the next 1800 miles.
b. Man, am I creeped out. Who is this sicko? Driver?!?

How in the world is the adult on the bus any different from the adult in the classroom? Answer: There is no difference. They both are creepy situations, and creepy people.

Maybe repetition will help

Setting the stage: On an almost daily basis, I receive comments on this blog from individuals who claim to be students. Of course, in the blogosphere, no one knows for certain whether someone else is who they claim to be. Nevertheless, since the comments come from the district's servers during school time, let's assume for a moment that these individuals are indeed students - otherwise they would have to be district employees, for whom the discussion below would be equally as relevant.

The issues:

1. The Perks of Being a Wallflower provides insight into, and an understanding of, the current social structure.

False. The Perks is simply the fantasies of the author, who does not claim that his fantasies are real experiences. To paraphrase Heather Mac Donald, these are simply perverse fantasies committed to print in order to elicit the "delicious emotions" of the author.

Students, you are being played by the adults: the author and some teachers. These books are not my life, though they may accurately reflect the depraved lives of the author and some teachers. But who wants to live in those shoes anyway.

2. These books help students understand the dark aspects of life.

False. The fantasies were not written and assigned to help you understand anything about life. By reading such books, you only know the thoughts of those who seek to drag you down to their soured view of life. If you still desire to understand the madness that lurks behind the façade of many, read Robert Conquest's Harvest of Sorrow or Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago. Both of these books will expose the end of the road that those who desire to socialize this great nation – such as the national teachers unions - seek to travel. It’s ugly, and it's true.

Keep in mind that continually dwelling on darkness is unhealthy. Note the burnout rate of those who work in social services, and the stress and nightmares exhibited by soldiers after combat. Your mind and soul do not have the capacity to be assaulted by the illness that consumes some authors and teachers - no healthy person has such a capacity for darkness. They, on the other hand, thrive on their own delicious emotions; a sad, pathetic addiction to evil.

These very same adults want to control your emotions with their own sickness. Rebel against that. Stand up for yourself and demand to learn essential knowledge that will benefit you. Tell the purveyors of nonsense to seek help, or to at least leave you alone.

3. Books were banned and speech was censored.

False. Another big lie perpetuated by adults who want to trigger your most basic emotions. The typical lie goes something like this: "I read this book with my 13 year-old child and we both found it profound and enlightening. So, I don't understand why the books were banned in an act of censorship."

These folks use the terms banned and censorship to trigger the natural defense of lovers of Liberty. However, how can a book be banned or censored if the parent and child were able to purchase it and read it openly. The terms banned and censorship imply the denial of constitutional rights; natural rights.

If the book is available in libraries and bookstores, how could it possibly have been banned? How did government censor speech? Of course, the book was neither banned nor speech censored. Those claims are absolutely false, and the adults know as much.

Don't you find it disingenuous for adults to claim a denial of rights when what they really seek is the forced exposure of the children of other parents to the subject matter contained within the book? I find it peculiar, and a quite a bit strange.

Many commentators on my blog note that they will soon enter adulthood. All right, I will accept that. If you still want to read the book, use a little initiative. Borrow the book from the library or purchase it at a local bookstore - certainly let your parents know what you intend to do, as adulthood does not start until you are out on your own.

However, do not cry foul - bans and censorship, act; borrow or buy. And, do not try to force such nonsense on those who have no such desire. Respect your fellow students who do not want their minds filled with such garbage. Respect Liberty. Act for yourself, but do not force others to be exposed to that which they find objectionable.

Do not claim that these students must read what you read. Such a response is not an act of freedom, it is an act of coercion and compulsion; the methods of those who brought madness to the world throughout the Twentieth Century.

Respect your fellow students in the manner that you demand from others. Let your fellow students - and their parents - object. Do not advocate for them to be forced into a situation where they must read or discuss books that provide no educational benefit; books that assault their morals. Respect, and be respected.

4. Times are different.

False. A read through the Bible will show the depravity of man throughout the ages. In some sense, little has changed. Humanity absent the belief in God drifts toward all kinds of evils. One situation may be new: I do not remember reading passages where the adults saught to inculcate children into wickedness. Yet, situations such as today must have existed. Situations that caused Jesus to say in Matthew 18:6, “But whoso shall cause one of these little ones that believe on me to stumble, it is profitable for him that a great millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be sunk in the depth of the sea.”

My advice: Quit having your emotions played and controlled by those who are obviously looking to have you enter their perverse world of evil. Why let these adults drag you down? Escape and find refuge in the Bible, and see the light that is available to all of us. It's your choice: their sick lives, or a world of light. Choose wisely.

Philanthropy as seed money

My latest blog post at Mises.org.


The NY Times is reporting that billionaires Eli Broad and Bill Gates are “joining forces for a $60 million foray into politics in an effort to vault education high onto the agenda of the 2008 presidential race.” What appears to be an extension of their philanthropic activities is simply seed money for the next political solution for failing government schools; a solution that will end up pounding more of my tax dollars down the rat hole that is public education.

A suggestion for Broad and Gates: Keep your money so that I can ultimately keep mine.

You reap what you sow: What in the world is wrong in Olentangy?

"Last year we personally witnessed the sexual activity between two students in our lunchroom. That was eighth grade. We all knew of this, and half of us saw this event." ¹
Public statement by a ninth grade Olentangy Liberty High School student at last night's board meeting.

In the lunchroom nonetheless. Oh, and the boy made this statement in support of the perverse books that the staff is pushing on students.

Students are simply acting out the situations that the teachers ask them to read and discuss. The schools no longer have any moral compass to guide them. And, this is the supposed public good that coercively takes my tax dollars.

Why should I have to pay for this nonsense? And, more importantly, why should any parent have to send their child into such an environment? If half of the students saw it, one has to assume that at least one staff member witnessed it.

OK, maybe the paid staff didn't witness this event. Maybe they knowingly ignore such behaviors, or maybe they are simply too inept to provide a safe environment for the children that parents love deeply. Any way you look at this mess, you have to conclude that it is a travesty.

The student continues, "That's why (The Perks of Being a Wallflower) is more interesting than the books we read." Certainly, if you expose children - that's right, children - to whatever goes on in the lunchroom ², they will seek out the perverse world of some authors and teachers. Yet, why these adults want to inculcate young children is beyond me; it's actually quite disgusting.

To think, parents believe that the schools will protect their children. From this testimony - made with the student's parents in attendance at the meeting, one has to recognize that there is something very, very wrong in Olentangy.

After this statement, the board went about its business of self-congratulation over its Fulbright Scholars Program at Orange Middle School. The board mentioned nothing about the student's statement. I guess the board had to get back to work selling its PR message.

Have these people no shame?

Notes:

(1) The statement is located around 23:20 of the April 23, 2007 meeting, available on the district's website.
(2) Keep in mind that this incident occurred in a public spot, the lunchroom. What is going outside of view?

A Free Market in Childbirth

My latest article published by the Ludwig von Mises Institute

A Free Market in Childbirth
By Jim Fedako


Recently, my wife and I celebrated the birth of our fifth child in twelve years. Over that stretch of time, we have seen hospitals adapt to the wants of the consumer: future mothers and fathers. Some of the changes we have witnessed have been subtle, mere nuances, while other changes have been quite dramatic. Together, these changes lead me to two conclusions: I love the free market; and, I would love a truly free market in healthcare.

The Free Market

In the technology-driven free market, twelve years is an eternity. It's sometimes hard to imagine how fast life is changing, as the only-imagined gigabyte is now standard and soon to be substandard. For a reminder, simply contrast the box that sat on your desk in 1995 with the current data-cruncher that easily folds into your briefcase.

Over this same period, businesses have improved their ability to bring products to the market, and to satisfy consumer demand for the intangible, such as customer service, quality, options, etc. Sure, there are blips and occasional bad patches, but consumer demand is driving changes that benefit us all.

The entrepreneur looking for profits is always one step ahead of the consumer demands of yesterday, yet still behind the ever-distant horizon of consumer wants. Even before our previous demands are satisfied, we already desire the as-yet-to-be-created product or service. Moreover, it's the ever-distant wants-horizon that sometimes leads consumers to believe that the free market is not efficient, not the optimal delivery system in a world of scarcity.

Yet, the free market continually improves the condition of man. While these improvements go unnoticed in the short term, over the long term the staggering level of change is stark indeed. The internet, cell phones, e-business, etc., were the storylines of comics and sci-fi books but 25 years ago. The dreams and plans unleashed in a profit-seeking environment have improved the quality of life for all of us; nowhere more obvious than in the healthcare profession.

Consumers want more than just new and improved products; they want experiences that leave them satisfied; satisfied in the short term anyway. The consumer is certainly a heartless taskmaster. We want cheaper products, higher quality, and a better shopping experience.

In the hands of a central planner, those three distinct wants would be judged mutually incompatible; a certain impossibility in his mind. The planner would suffer exhaustion trying to satisfy even one of them. Yet, the entrepreneur must satisfy all three or he loses his position and becomes a simple wage earner, such as this writer. Though exhaustion and fatigue are real, the consumer cares nothing of the pains of the entrepreneur. If the entrepreneur is not up to the task, there are legions ready to replace him.

So, we have supermarkets with low-cost, high-quality foods from all over the globe. Nevertheless, that is not enough, the shopper also wants to get in and get out as quick as possible, hence the self-service checkout lines. Once those aisles appeared in one store, other stores were forced to follow suit. The decision to invest was not made by the grocer on behalf of the consumer; the decision was made by the consumer without regard to the grocer. Woe to the grocer who fights such changing consumer wants.

I just love the free market. Something new and improved is coming to stores tomorrow, and tomorrow, ad infinitum.

Healthcare and Childbirth

Certainly third-party payers, guild professionals, and government regulations have created a system of healthcare that would improve dramatically under the pressure of profits in a free market. Yet, I have seen changes over the past twelve years of deliveries to recognize a system ready to improve in the manner of Moore's Law; if only healthcare were subject to a truly free market.

During this latest delivery, the nurses were exceedingly professional and caring — as they had been with each previous delivery — yet this time they were well versed in the language of the consumer. As one nurse assured us, "This experience is yours. We want to make it special for you since we know that you will tell your friends about us." What? Yes, the nurse was looking out for our wants, and fearful of competition from the hospitals just down the road.

Sure, the soda was generic and the father's hospital gown was gone from the delivery room, but those were never the concerns of ours. There were new tangibles such as security systems for the newborn and cable TV — to ease the hours of waiting for our newest arrival. In addition, there were the intangibles that come with providing an environment that felt more like Disneyland than a hospital. In a word: wonderful.

Now, it was not always this personal. Go back twelve years and the hospital was more concerned about their own rules, and less concerned about the patient and family. Where the hospital now has a 24/7 Tim Hortons restaurant loaded with donuts, bagels, soups, and sandwiches, the same hospital used to have just the simple hash-slinging cafeteria. To think, Tim Hortons is profit seeking, yet I was able to feed my four children fresh sandwiches for less than $15 — in a hospital setting nonetheless. What a wonderful concept, this free market.

Through this latest experience, I observed and contrasted nurses with public school teachers. Both claim to care about children, yet only the nurses are willing to accept the free market and consumer demand.

The fear is that public employees will turn from helping children into profit-maximizing automatons for dollar-hungry investors; in short, children will suffer. Yet, there I stood helpless in the delivery room as a squad of nurses raced to help my newborn who had arrived a too-dark shade of blue. I can honestly state that a unionized workforce, protected by government monopoly power, could not have provided any better service. As I replay those first minutes in my head, better is not an adjective that comes to mind as the staff addressed the situation like true professionals.

OK, the hospital was a not-for-profit entity. Yet, even as such, it has to satisfy the consumer. Choice in hospitals has created a pseudo–free market in healthcare. Woe to the hospital that turns its back on its patients.

I am convinced that deregulation of healthcare would only improve the system. Break the healthcare guilds that exist all the way from medical education through licensing, reduce government interventions, and watch the healthcare system improve at Intel speed. Please do not advocate for a government-run healthcare system, or even its predecessor, universal coverage. Think Walter Reed or the Soviets before going that route.

I am fearful of a government-run, centralized healthcare system staffed by a unionized workforce. My own experience would have certainly been quite different. Funny, those forced to chase the almighty dollar are always those who serve the consumer with smiles and helpful hands. I dream of the day when the future Michael Dells and Bill Gateses of healthcare are the ones driving improvements, from their garages or basements if needed.

Yes, the consumer in that day — including my newest son — will still be slightly dissatisfied with their situation, not because it is not better than what I experienced, but because it is not as good as his dreams and desires.

Given that reality, the entrepreneurs of that age will be working to exhaustion in order to satisfy the dreams of the ever-distant horizon of consumer wants. What a wonderful world that will be.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jim Fedako, a former professional cyclist who lives in Lewis Center, OH, is a member of the Olentangy Local School District and maintains a blog: Anti-Positivist.

Happy birthday Olentangy State Standards Analysis

I am revisiting the series of posts I did on the Olentangy State Standard Analysis report - now one year old and one month old.

If the proposed state funding formula passes both Ohio houses, the Olentangy School District gains more than $4 million in state aid over the projections contained in the district's October Five Year Forecast. That means the district needs to find only $10 million in expenses over the next 27 months - a 4% reduction - in order to go another year before asking for another operating levy. If the district holds the line on salary increases in the upcoming teachers contract negotiations, the $10 million deficit is almost zero.

The Olentangy State Standard Analysis report identified well over $10 million in yearly savings, savings that could have been applied starting last year. But, for some reason - there are many reasons I can think of - neither the board nor the administration want to discuss this report in public. I imagine that time flies when you're spending someone else's money.

This report should be serving as the basis for understanding rising costs and requisite soon-to-be-proposed property tax increases. But the report is obviously being kept from the sunshine of public debate. The reason? I guess you will have to ask your board members why the public should not be given the opportunity to hear debate on this important report; a report funded by local tax dollars.

You'd think that with possible levies on the horizon, the board would want to get a handle on costs ... you'd think anyway ...

note: click to read installments one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven

Hysteria and hysterics

My latest blog post at Mises.org:


Hysteria and hysterics

In conjunction with the DVD release of the BBC's series, "Planet Earth: The Complete Series," AOL is currently offering a short quiz and a video contest.

Hysteria first: The 10-question quiz "Planet Earth by the Numbers" has a certain spin, to say the least. Note question 10, my favorite:

Question: According to some estimates, by 2050, CO2 levels may be as high as when ...

a. Elvis was alive
b. Dinosaurs ate early humans
c. Oceans were 300 feet higher
d. An ice age began

The answer is ...






Oceans were 300 feet higher.

The comment along with the answer: "If sea levels rise along with CO2 concentrations the effect could be devestating(sic) -- 10 percent of the world's population lives in coastal areas within 32 feet about sea level."

Set the new sea level at 300 feet and say goodbye to most of the populated in the US. Panicked? Have a good laugh to reduce the stress.

Hysterics: To win a copy of the DVD, AOL asks contestants to "(u)pload a video of yourself, a family member or a friend imitating an animal or presenting an Earth Day tip about how to protect the planet and you could win a 'Planet Earth: The Complete Series' DVD set!"

There you have it, the solution to global warming: Videos of committed Socialist Greens squawking and clucking the party line. I'm laughing already.

That irksome Hanushek

Can't Eric Hanushek mind his own business? The once soft-liberal is again questioning the benefit of additional money spent on public schools. Sounds like he's on to something once again. Consider this from the liberal busybodies at Education Sector:

Enough Already? School Funding and the Courts
"Money isn't everything," argue the contributors to a new book on school finance policy. "But not being everything, isn't the same as being nothing," responds Kevin Carey, Education Sector's research and policy manager. This week, Carey reviews the latest compendium of complaints against school finance lawsuits: Courting Failure: How School Finance Lawsuits Exploit Judges' Good Intentions and Harm Our Children.


Edited by economist Erik Hanushek, one of the nation's most prominent critics of conventional school-funding wisdom, Courting Failure assembles a number of arguments to show how schools can—and often do—misuse resources. Their critique centers on the legal idea of "adequacy," the notion that states are legally obligated to give schools enough money to help all students meet defined learning goals. By way of a number of court-mandated reforms, the adequacy principle is responsible for billions of dollars in new education funding over the last two decades. Led by Hanushek, Courting Failure's contributors aren't pleased. But Carey assesses what's behind this displeasure, counters anti-adequacy arguments, and explains why the era of school funding lawsuits is unlikely to end any time soon. more...

Proud to pay taxes?

A fitting repeat for Tax Day:

Here's the legal gift for those who like to puff their chests and declare, "I proudly pay my taxes." Simply ask your state legislators to sponsor a Tax Me More Fund bill in your statehouse. This will allow anyone who is so disposed to pay extra on their returns. Americans for Tax Reform has sample legislation available on their website.

See how many self-declared, tax-flagellating fools really opt to tax themselves at a higher rate. You know who I'm talking about: Those who claim that since it is all for the public good, they should be taxed more.

If they so wish, let them give to their heart's content. But leave me out of their deluded world of tax benefits. I am much happier in the reality of coerced taxes wasted on unconstitutional interventions and transfers. At least I can fight and argue against additional taxes, the deluded salivate like a Pavlovian dog at the sound of proposed additional tax legislation. Classical conditioning indeed!

But, hurry up! Six states already have similar legislation, and you don't want to have your state behind the curve on this issue.

Another hidden cost of taxes

You can't blog and do taxes at the same time.¹

What are we getting for our time and tax dollars. Heaven on Earth? Hardly.

According to Rousas John Rushdoony - Christian writer and father-in-law of Gary North - rabbinical traditions have counted 613 separate laws in the Torah, our Old Testament. Six hundred thirteen. And, many of these laws were subsequently repealed by Jesus's blood.

According to Rushdoony, current local, state, and federal laws number in the millions. Millions!

Keep this in mind on tax day. Some claim that Christianity is heavy-handed with its number of laws? Not at all. Is government - local, state, and federal - heavy-handed? Absolutely!

Thanks to Steve Scott at From the Pew for the Rushdoony count.

note:

[1]OK, I managed a blog posting, but it is simply a rehash of an older posting.

Olentangy Math: starring Ma and Pa Kettle

Olentangy Math: starring Ma and Pa Kettle

Ma and Pa Kettle star as administrators in Olentangy Math. Watch how Ma and Pa apply the concepts of Everyday Mathematics to solve simple math problems.

While parents and community members will laugh at this funny short, district administrators will copy Ma and Pa's algorithm to present at the next teacher in-service.

Note: If any Olentangy administrator or teacher finds this entry - or any other post on this blog - offensive, simply consider the post to be satire. You obviously have no problem with any article written under the title of satire - whether the article is satire or not. In your world, stating something is satire provides a license to be profane and perverse. I only want to point out the truth; I am neither profane nor perverse. If I offend, so be it

Life Without Government Equals Chaos. Hardly!

A post of mine at the Mises.org blog:


We tend to assume that without an interventionist government – a government that extends beyond the enumerated powers in the Constitution - life would resolve into chaos. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

In the nineteenth century, French economist Frédéric Bastiat remarked on the wonder of that phenomenon by exclaiming, "Paris gets fed!" The same can be said of New York, Tokyo, Mexico City, etc. It's doesn't take the intervention of a governmental planning board to ensure adequate food for all of us. Entrepreneurs seeking profit make certain that eggs and milk are readily available for tomorrow's breakfast.

Consider the alternative: In the late 1970's and early 1980's I spent three weeks in the then-socialist countries of Yugoslavia and East Germany. If it wasn't for the illegal food market there would have been nothing to eat other than cookies, Vodka, and stale bread. Keep in mind that the brightest minds planned these economies. Not much to be said for central planning.

But we tend to forget these real-world examples of government planning. Maybe we assume that our bureaucrats are more omniscient and brighter than those of Yugoslavia and East Germany. Ludwig von Mises of the Austrian School of Economics proved over 80 years ago that all attempts at central planning lead to chaos. He was correct then, and he is still correct today.

Yet we still believe in governmental solutions. As I have previously written, if government is omniscient, I am omniscient. And even I don’t believe that to be true. Parents allow school officials, such as me, to make important decisions for their children because there exists the belief that school officials somehow are unbiased and altruistic, and better at guiding children than their own parents. While it is certainly true that most school employees like working with students, they can’t possible have a child’s best interests in mind. That is the realm of parents only.

School officials have jobs, careers and families of their own. They also have biases and beliefs that greatly differ from individual parents. There is nothing wrong with differing views, but parents should not simply hand over their children to the schools and assume the best. We bristle at the idea of our friends, neighbors and family members guiding our parental decisions, yet we readily give school officials, who are nothing more than friends, neighbors and family members, the power to make those very same decisions. The robe of omniscience does not come with school employment or board election. In fact, there is nothing unique and special about school employment.

Remember, it's the entrepreneur who will truck the eggs and milk today so that you can eat tomorrow.

Jim Fedako

When is a curriculum not a curriculum?

Two ways to apply a curriculum in the classroom:

One. Take sixth grade math. The math teacher looks at the approved curriculum and decides the most effective order in which to tackle the elements of the subject. For example, within a geometry unit, the teacher chooses the next appropriate topic, "Identify and label angle parts and the regions defined within the plane where the angle resides". The teacher selects one of any number of ways to introduce those concepts, using professional judgment and a host of resources. The teacher pre-tests to evaluate current knowledge, and then post-test to see the effectiveness of his classroom presentation and chosen activities. The students learn math and are proud of their efforts, as is the math teacher.

Two. Take sixth grade math once again. The math teacher has it in for SUV's. He really cannot stand the vehicles; he simply hates them. He therefore has made it his life's goal to see that such vehicles are banned from the roads of this nation, and the whole world for that matter.

This teacher wants to see change, and he knows that children are still forming opinions of the world. He puts two and two together and recognizes that he can affect certain change if he can form opinions for the students, instead of letting the students and their parents work out the understandings of a complex world together. The teacher wants students to leave his class believing as he does, at all cost.

Within a measurement unit, the teacher introduces the topic, "Determine surface area, mass and volume using the appropriate units and tools," by ranting on and on about the evils of SUV's. He then assigns a project: The students are to gather photo's of SUV's and bring them to class. The students will then form groups to discuss the photos and construct a group consensus on the evils of SUV's, and their drivers for that matter.

He is aware of the influence of parents on their children. While that influence is an obstacle at times, the teacher has an easy way around those problematic parents. He adds a group component to the grade, and weights that component very high.

Students must work well within their groups, neither argue nor question. Students must turn their backs on the guidance of their parents and echo the views of the teacher, else face a failing grade. A huge weight for a young child.

Knowing that this project is not aligned with the board-approved curriculum - though, it is aligned with his personal curriculum of social change - the teacher adds another component to the assignment: The students will estimate the area, mass, and volume of SUV's by using a ruler to measure the physical features of the vehicles in the photos.

The teacher notes the measurement element in his lesson plan and claims that he is teaching the curriculum as defined. And, better than that, he has implemented the curriculum in a cross-subject manner.

Of course, he is making his students math fools, but that is the price one pays for social change. In the back of his mind, the teacher hears the Trotsky line over and over, "You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.

Two applications of a curriculum, one approved by the residents through their elected board, the other the personal curriculum of a teacher who has no concern for district residents, or district students.

The following, taken straight from the district's website, details the rationale for the use of the novel, Whale Talk, in the classroom.

This book is one of six novels selected to explore and examine how marginalized groups and/or individuals are represented in society. The selection of books for this unit allows students to view the world from the viewpoint of marginalized characters. We will be examining stereotypes and questioning how stereotypes are established and perpetuated. Students will be asked to propose solutions to stop stereotyping and call others to action against stereotyping. Students will work in literature circles as they read this novel. The reading will be done individually and students will meet in their groups to discuss their novel. Literature circles offer powerful benefits to readers of all ages. The circles are structured to move readers through a range of cognitive roles as they discuss books that are self-selected. Literature circles allow students to connect with each other, with texts, and ultimately, with the world in which they live. They learn to take responsibility as members of a group who, together, must construct meaning through discussion, debate and reflection. Discussion, debate and reflection are anchored in the text which serves as a springboard to explore social issues.
Connection to the state standards/OLSD curriculum map(s):
• Acquisition of Vocabulary (1)
• Reading Application Informational (5, 6)
• Reading Application Literary (7, 9, 10, 11)
• Writing Process (all)
• Writing Application (5, 7, 9)
• Writing Conventions (10)
• Research Standard (11)
• Communication Standard (13)

Which application of the board-approved - hence, community-approved - curriculum is being used here? The answer is quite obvious.

Anything can be tied to the curriculum by simply noting the elements in the lesson plan along with some justification. Based on documents such as this - available on the district's website - anything goes.

Can you even imagine the discussions in the literacy circles - obvious edu-speak nonsense - after students read this book? Is the teacher guiding - dare I say, enjoying - these discussions? Isn't it creepy that an adult wants to prompt students to discuss such topics?

Whatever happened to the three R's? Can't they simply teach their subjects without indoctrinating?

Of course, if you do not want teach, you are only left with indoctrination.

The Supreme view of monopoly, and monopsony

Monopoly and its reflection, monopsony¹, are supposed to be the evil, fraternal twins of the free market. Yet, neither concept is possible absent government intervention, at best - and, some will argue that a monopoly or monopsony price can never exist in the market regardless of government interventions.²

US Supreme Court Justice Thomas recognized that fact in the recent Weyerhaeuser Co. v. Ross-Simmons Hardwood Lumber Co., Inc. decision. Thompson relied on the reasoning found in R. Blair & J. Harrison, Monopsony 66 (1993) when writing the unanimous decision to vacate the judgement of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Thomas noted that predatory pricing schemes benefit the consumer more than the businesses suposedly engaged in such practices. This explains why such schemes are rarely tried; no business is assured that losses suffered to gain market control will be offset by future monopoly/monopsony profits. The consumer is always fickle and unpredictable.

Despite the reasoning provided in this and other Supreme Court decisions, textbooks still warn about the effects of monopolies and monopsonies, providing media-hungry attorneys-general and federal regulators with enough ammunition to go after businesses for perceived affronts.

While the fight against business always plays well in the media, there is no economic basis for the claims made by those who either hate entrepreneurs or love the camera.


notes:

1. Monopsony is defined as a buyer's monopoly, a single buyer with the ability to set the market price for a good or service.

2. Refer to the three books on the Austrian School of Economics in a previous post. Please note that this does not include any government service since all government services are non-market, tax-supported activities. Government services are the monopolies that we all should fear.

Everyday Math, constructivist education, and Olentangy

Math Education: An Inconvenient Truth



Everyday Math and Olentangy: This is a great YouTube.com video on the differences between traditional math and the current flavor of the constructivist, Progressive education in vogue at districts such as Olentangy. In fifteen minutes, you will understand why district students struggle through math.

You will also find yourself wondering why the administration adopted such a mess. Simply ask Olentangy's Executive Director of Elementary Learning why the district continues to embrace failed programs such as Everyday Math. I can only imagine his response.

The video's M.J. McDermott is able to effectively explain the issue since she has not been inculcated into the current education mess. She is a successful user of math; not some educationist living the life of PT Barnum's fool.

Constructive Education and Olentangy: The constructivist education philosophy is centered on teachers and students being co-equals in the discovery of knowledge.¹ The teacher holds no special place since knowledge is relative, therefore the simple understanding of a third grader is equal to the supposed learned knowledge of the professional teacher.²

Constructivism is an application of Progressive education, the pedagogy - philosophy - that has permeated public schools for over to a century. As these ideas have taken greater hold of education - most notably since the Sixties, student achievement has gone downhill - this despite a tremendous influx of dollars and technology.

Even though constructivist math - fuzzy math - had been a failure for years, Olentangy decided to adopt the Everyday Mathematics program for its students. Well, the district will not say they have adopted Everyday Mathematics. Instead, the district will use doublespeak to say that they have adopted their curriculum maps, and not any single math program. But that simply confounds means with ends.

The maps are the ends, the definition of what is to be learned - the equivalent of architectural blueprints. The textbooks are the means to achieve the ends - the building tools and materials. Funny, your tax dollars pay for Everyday Mathematics textbooks yet the district staff do not even claim that they use the textbooks to teach math. Staff members say the books are simply a resource, similar to putting a child's plastic hammer in the toolbox instead of the steel hammer.

Go ahead and ask your administrators about Everyday Mathematics, you will hear them spin a tale of educationist gobbledygook. Hold on to your own head so that it doesn't counter spin in response.

[1] Check out rantings of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development and The Teachers College Record from Columbia University's prestigious Teachers College.

[2] Administrators and teachers who buy into this philosophy may actually be the overpaid, co-equals of their students.

A note that says it all

Someone sent me this explanation for the recent reading list issues, and I couldn't agree more:

Because too many teachers do not have anything much to teach, they decide their job is to be psychologists, using RELEVANT TEEN literature to conduct therapies to introduce (they hope) kids to the underside of life, and to guide them through their delicious emotions elicited by stories of perversity and crime.

As Heather Mac Donald says, the curriculum is "Anything But Knowledge."

They will never admit error

The school board and administration will never admit they erred with regard to any of these latest issues, viz., student newspapers and reading list? Why? The answer to follow.

The administration should admit they erred. They should take responsibility for another appalling decision, and they should take a hard look at themselves and compare what they claim is their goal - teaching children - with what they have become - purveyors of nonsense.

Not one of the responses from the board or administration has convinced me that anyone involved is truly upset. District employees simply view these latest issues as bumps in the road. But, bumps in a road to where?

The district will commit to re-reviewing their literacy selection process, yet there has always been enough district policies and processes to guide the selection of challenging and appropriate reading material. The problem is the selectors themselves, and they remain. Moreover, they appear to be remaining unscathed and unapologetic.

Once again, the talk in the schools will revolve around these issues. Ask parents of high school students what gets discussed in class on Wednesday, and their childen will say the reading list and student newspapers. Teachers will take up valuable time ranting and raving about how they cannot to exercise their professional judgment. Professional judgment? You have to be kidding me.

If I were facing the need for additional tax dollars, I would be as conservative as possible. Why ruffle feathers? Why indeed?

It is my strong belief that a number of teachers and administrators live to indoctrinate children. How else can you explain the insistence and repetition of all of this? How else can you explain the continual in-your-face actions of those entrusted with someone else’s child?

There you have it, the answer to the question above: Why will the district not admit error? Simple, the district staff and leadership do not believe they erred. These tax-funded employees have unilaterally decided to drop the approved curriculum – one that attempts to address the mission statement – for a personal, hidden curriculum that is extremely hideous.

Note: There is always the board member who says that the solution is a little common sense. I agree. Yet, you will not find a mite of common sense within the school walls.

What a solution?!?

Superintendent Davis introduced his new Literacy Selection Policy not too long ago, and here is the end product. Davis' staff applied the policy and added The Perks of Being a Wallflower to the required reading list.

What a vile addition. I wonder if Davis is proud of his new policy, and his staff. You now know why he did not want parents on the selection committee; parents would have vetoed the new addition - and, the district simply cannot have that.

There was a time when adults who encourage children to read such perverse material were guilty of an offense; if not a legal one, certainly a moral one.

According to the American Library Association - a collection of idiots who's dream is to expose all children to as much perverse media as possible - the book was one of the ten most challenged books in 2006. So, it appears that while other districts recognize inappropriate material, Olentangy cannot get enough.

I cannot imagine what is in the hearts of adults who desire - yes, desire - to have children read such vile. The sad part is that we are paying the teachers and administrators to do this.

Note: Caution, the following excerpts are indeed vile.

review of The Perks of Being a Wallflower
COMMENTS FROM THE PABBIS WEBSITE : The edition that the page numbers reference is unknown, but we have verified the excerpts to be correct. There is much more controversial material in this book than that below. The book is aimed at teenagers, and is told from a teenage boy's perspective. The book contains explicit references and discussion regarding:

‑ Sexual acts between teenagers.
‑ Male masturbation.
‑ Oral‑genital sex.
‑ A great deal of profanity.
‑ Male homosexual acts between teenaged boys, including kissing, seduction/"having a crush" and anal sex.
‑ Illegal drug use.
‑ Homosexual acts between men and boys.
‑ Sex between a boy and a dog.
‑ Female masturbation using an object.

SEE MORE COMMENTS AND EXTENSIVE EXCERPTS ON PABBIS WEBSITE: http://www.sibbap.org

And here I thought 1984 had come and gone

If everyone in DC is going to ignore the Constitution, can't we drop the facade of the US as a constitutional republic? Simply change the country's name to The United Socialist States formerly Republicanized¹ or USSR for short. I know the acronym has been used before, but why hide the truth any longer?


notes:
[1] Republican as a form of government, not political party.

British Medical Journal
19 June 2004
Bush plans to screen whole US population for mental illness
Jeanne Lenzer
New York

A sweeping mental health initiative will be unveiled by President George W Bush in July. The plan promises to integrate mentally ill patients fully into the community by providing "services in the community, rather than institutions," according to a March 2004 progress report entitled New Freedom Initiative (www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/newfreedom/toc-2004.html). While some praise the plan's goals, others say it protects the profits of drug companies at the expense of the public.

Bush established the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health in April 2002 to conduct a "comprehensive study of the United States mental health service delivery system." The commission issued its recommendations in July 2003. Bush instructed more than 25 federal agencies to develop an implementation plan based on those recommendations.

The president's commission found that "despite their prevalence, mental disorders often go undiagnosed" and recommended comprehensive mental health screening for "consumers of all ages," including preschool children. According to the commission, "Each year, young children are expelled from preschools and childcare facilities for severely disruptive behaviours and emotional disorders." Schools, wrote the commission, are in a "key position" to screen the 52 million students and 6 million adults who work at the schools.

The commission also recommended "Linkage [of screening] with treatment and supports" including "state-of-the-art treatments" using "specific medications for specific conditions." The commission commended the Texas Medication Algorithm Project ( TMAP) as a "model" medication treatment plan that "illustrates an evidence-based practice that results in better consumer outcomes."

Dr Darrel Regier, director of research at the American Psychiatric Association (APA), lauded the president's initiative and the Texas project model saying, "What's nice about TMAP is that this is a logical plan based on efficacy data from clinical trials."

He said the association has called for increased funding for implementation of the overall plan.

But the Texas project, which promotes the use of newer, more expensive antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs, sparked off controversy when Allen Jones, an employee of the Pennsylvania Office of the Inspector General, revealed that key officials with influence over the medication plan in his state received money and perks from drug companies with a stake in the medication algorithm (15 May, p1153). He was sacked this week for speaking to the BMJ and the New York Times.

The Te xas project started in 1995 as an alliance of individuals from the pharmaceutical industry, the University of Texas, and the mental health and corrections systems of Texas. The project was funded by a Robert Wood Johnson grant—and by several drug companies.

Mr Jones told the BMJ that the same "political/pharmaceutical alliance" that generated the Texas project was behind the recommendations of the New Freedom Commission, which, according to his whistleblower report, were "poised to consolidate the TMAP effort into a comprehensive national policy to treat mental illness with expensive, patented medications of questionable benefit and deadly side effects, and to force private insurers to pick up more of the tab" (http://psychrights.org/Drugs/AllenJonesTMAPJanuary20.pdf).

Larry D Sasich, research associate with Public Citizen in Washington, DC, told the BMJ that studies in both the United States and Great Britain suggest that "using the older drugs first makes sense. There's nothing in the labeling of the newer atypical antipsychotic drugs that suggests they are superior in efficacy to haloperidol [an older "typical" antipsychotic]. There has to be an enormous amount of unnecessary expenditures for the newer drugs."

Drug companies have contributed three times more to the campaign of George Bush, seen here campaigning in Florida, than to that of his rival John Kerry

Olanzapine (trade name Zyprexa), one of the atypical antipsychotic drugs recommended as a first line drug in the Texas algorithm, grossed $4.28bn (£2.35bn; 3.56bn) worldwide in 2003 and is Eli Lilly's top selling drug. A 2003 New York Times article by Gardiner Harris reported that 70% of olanzapine sales are paid for by government agencies, such as Medicare and Medicaid.

Eli Lilly, manufacturer of olanzapine, has multiple ties to the Bush administra tion. George Bush Sr was a member of Lilly's board of directors and Bush Jr appointed Lilly's chief executive officer, Sidney Taurel, to a seat on the Homeland Security Council. Lilly made $1.6m in political contributions in 2000—82% of which went to Bush and the Republican Party.

Jones points out that the companies that helped to start up the Texas project have been, and still are, big contributors to the election funds of George W Bush. In addition, some members of the New Freedom Commission have served on advisory boards for these same companies, while others have direct ties to the Texas Medication Algorithm Project.

Bush was the governor of Texas during the development of the Texas project, and, during his 2000 presidential campaign, he boasted of his support for the project and the fact that the legislation he passed expanded Medicaid coverage of psychotropic drugs.

Bush is the clear front runner when it comes to drug company contributions. According to t he Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), manufacturers of drugs and health products have contributed $764 274 to the 2004 Bush campaign through their political action committees and employees—far outstripping the $149 400 given to his chief rival, John Kerry, by 26 April.

Drug companies have fared exceedingly well under the Bush administration, according to the centre's spokesperson, Steven Weiss.
The commission's recommendation for increased screening has also been questioned. Robert Whitaker, journalist and author of Mad in America, says that while increased screening "may seem defensible," it could also be seen as "fishing for customers," and that exorbitant spending on new drugs "robs from other forms of care such as job training and shelter programmes."

But Dr Graham Emslie, who helped develop the Texas project, defends screening: "There are good data showing that if you identify kids at an earlier age who are aggressive, you can intervene... and change their trajectory."

Three great Christian websites

Go to Gary North's web site to read excellent books on the Bible and Christian thought. Not only are the books interesting, challenging, and timely, they really are free.

The Blessed Economist runs a great blog that addresses economics and political philosophy in a biblical sense. Though I'm not saying I agree with everything posted, it is all very thought provoking.

Steve Scott has an interesting blog, From the Pew. Like the Blessed Economist, Scott offers insight into economics and liberty, all from a biblical perspective. Once again, I'm not saying I agree with everything posted. But, good reading nonetheless.

How do they do it? Don't they ever sleep?

Recent posting on the Blog at Mises.org:


Thank goodness for congressional committees, and the committees' subcommittees. To think, Google almost got away with the crime of the century.

ABC News is reporting that "A congressional subcommittee accused Google on Friday of 'airbrushing history' by replacing post-Hurricane Katrina satellite imagery on its popular map portal with images of the region taken before the storm's devastation."

According to ABC News: "'Google's use of old imagery appears to be doing the victims of Hurricane Katrina a great injustice by airbrushing history,' subcommittee chairman Brad Miller, D-N.C., wrote Friday in a letter to Schmidt (Google CEO)."

I will assume that "airbrushing history" is a felony, if not a capital offense. I cannot thank Miller enough. The only reason I can sleep soundly at night is that Miller and crew are manning their posts 24/7.

But, wait a minute. It gets even more sinister. AOL News is reporting that "Miller asked Google to brief his staff by April 6 on who made the decision to replace the imagery with pre-Katrina images, and to disclose if Google was contacted by the city, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. Geological Survey or any other government entity about changing the imagery."

A full-blown scandal!

The premise was so bizarre that I first thought it had to be an April Fools' spoof. Sadly, it isn't. It's one more example of those wonderful, and watchful, public servants in DC. What would we do without them?

Value-added or value-maybe

I have a variation on an old saying that reads, "If you have to join 'em, beat 'em."

Ohio is currently rolling out its value-added system. For years, many in education feared the concept of value-added. They feared a system that purported to be able to analyze test results and see if teachers and schools were able to add value during the previous school year. The standard for added value is the oft-used phrase, a year for a year: Did the student gain a year of knowledge during the most recent school year?

The year for a year has its own set of issues; such as, what is a year of growth in absolute terms, not defined by historical gains from similarly-situated students? For this discussion, I am going to ignore such issues and concentrate solely on the whitewash being used to spin lagging results into congratulatory press releases.

In logic, something is either A or not-A; there is no gray separating the two. In addition, saying something is not-not-A implies that the thing is A; the nots cancel. But in statistics, the nots don't cancel. So, not-not-A does not imply A.

A closer look: My district uses the standard value-added definition for not achieving a year of growth; performance two or more standard deviations [1] below the expected result. The reason for this range is that the statistics used in value-added analysis cannot provide exact figures. No one can state with certainty that a child achieved growth of, say, 1.23 standard deviations from the expected growth.

We can state with great confidence that the child who achieved at 2.24 standard deviations below expectations did not grow an academic year. Because of the inexactness of the statistics used in value-added analysis, it would not be fair to designate a teacher, school, or district as a poor performer unless the students achieved below the level of confidence; two standard deviations below expectation.

I can accept that. Statistics - an inexact science subject to noise - has to allow for a range of gray before making a positive statement. But the range covered by possible outcomes above the two-standard-deviations-below-expectation mark accounts for over 97% of all possible outcomes. Or, put differently, a score in the 3rd percentile is considered as not-not-A; the level which is now defined as A, the expected result of a year for a year.

The sleight of hand: The Olentangy School District has reported to our community that its students are gaining a year for a year simply because they are achieving above the 3rd percentile. The statement that district students saw a year of growth simply means that the students did not see the not a year of growth. But that does not necessarily imply that district students saw a year of growth. Yet the not-not-A has becomes A due to a sleight of hand. What is true in logic is not true in statistics, but is good PR nonetheless.

As a recent board member (resigned a little over six months ago), I saw the data from two years ago - poor performance - but was never able to get copies of last year's data (the latest reported data) since the administration was concerned about the results. Don't know for certain if last year's data was as bad, but in my experience possible good results were easy to obtain while possible poor results were always a struggle, unless the results were bound for public release through the state or local press. [2]

Now when I say that two years ago the district showed poor performance, I really mean that most combinations of school, grade-level, and subject, revealed achievement below expectations, including some combinations below the two standard error mark of failure.

The system that feared value-added has simply spun its value into that which tells a story worthy of congratulations. The 3rd percentile, a very low standard indeed. But the new standard nonetheless.

"If you have to join 'em, beat 'em". They won!

Note:

[1] It's actually two standard errors, but, for a population of one, the standard error is the same as the standard deviation. Remember, the district is stating that all students will grow one academic year per school year. That means that the focus is on individual students, not some aggregate class, school, etc.

That said, the district may be using two standard errors of measurement as stated at the board meeting. If that is indeed the case, the district has created its own system, one different from the now-standard Sanders value-added analysis. Sanders uses two standard errors not standard errors of measurement.

The district's system would mean that they are at the 25th percentile, give or take, depending on the test. Still a very low standard of achievement.

[2] Consider the arrogance of an administration that wouldn't provide its own board member with timely data.

The board and superintendent spoke. So what?

First it was The Beacon, now The Cannon. Since The Cannon came out after the board and superintendent made weak statements at the last school board meeting - over a month after The Beacon was published, I have to assume one of two things: Either the district leadership said one thing publicly, and another thing privately; or, the staff runs the show. Regardless, the district's impression of the community's standards and values are on display in The Cannon.

What another slap in the face!


Note: Until today, I assumed that Superintendent Davis ran the show; board president Meider certainly doesn't. Now it's quite obvious that Davis' staff listens to him as much as they listen to the taxpayers; and it's the taxpayers who will once again be asked to continue funding the staff's nonsense.