Schools

The Next Bubble: Student Loan Debt?

by Aaron on September 6, 2011

in Economics,Government,Schools

Via the Atlantic’s Daniel Indiviglio:

See that blue line for all other debt but student loans? This wasn’t just any average period in history for household debt. This period included the inflation of a housing bubble so gigantic that it caused the financial sector to collapse and led to the worst recession since the Great Depression. But that other debt growth? It’s dwarfed by student loan growth.

How does the housing bubble debt compare? If you add together mortgages and revolving home equity, then from the first quarter of 1999 to when housing-related debt peaked in the third quarter of 2008, the sum increased from $3.28 trillion to $9.98 trillion. Over this period, housing-related debt had increased threefold. Meanwhile, over the entire period shown on the chart, the balance of student loans grew by more than 6x. The growth of student loans has been twice as steep — and it’s showing no signs of slowing.

For more on the higher education bubble, this Economist article is a good primer.

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Wisconsin Is Just Baby Town Frolics Right Now

by Aaron on February 22, 2011

in Government,Schools,Videos

Wisconsin is showing the nasty, brutish, Hobbesian side of democracy. Remember the reactionary, new-civility crap that bandied about after the Arizona shooting? Teachers (and/or their supporters) directly compared Governor Walker to Hitler and Mubarak, or openly advocating his death. All this because someone thinks teachers should pay 5% of their retirement? On the other hand I don’t mean to defend Governor Walker, who’s used a sledgehammer in place of a scalpel. It’s funny, in a rubber-necking shadenfruede sense, to see the media praise AWOL Democrats in Wisconsin, and deride “obstructionist” U.S. Republican Senators. So instead of diving in, I’ll just dip a toe. Fortunately, Roger Pilon over at Cato has the most concise, and incisive, take on the whole mess that I’ve seen so far. Let’s occupy both sides of this discussion, Roger:

In November the government-union cabal that has driven Wisconsin, like other states, to the brink of bankruptcy was thrown out of office in a landslide election. So what are the union thugs now occupying the capitol and the state’s Democratic senators who’ve fled the state complaining about? The lack of democracy. That so many are “teachers,” waving signs likening Gov. Walker to Hitler and Stalin, gives rise only to sympathy for the children of Wisconsin.

In fact, if ever there were an argument for separating school and state, it’s unfolding today in Madison. Private schools in the state are functioning quite normally through this Athens-like spectacle, because they operate under normal market conditions, where parents, administrators, and teachers decide personnel matters through voluntary agreements. By contrast, as the Cato Institute’s Chris Edwards has shown through numerous studies, because public-sector unions occupy, effectively, both sides of the bargaining table, their pay and benefits over the years have far outstripped those of private-sector workers who pay those benefits.

Well the taxpayers spoke in November. The unions’ beef is with them. Deal with it.

Step back from the breathless hateful hyperbole. We all want quality education for our kids. Unions aren’t some magic panacea that make teachers more effective. They’re also not evil monsters. They’re a mechanism for balancing costs of a public service with the results achieved. In Wisconsin, and most other states, those costs have spiked dramatically, without any relation to the broader fiscal picture, and without any real variation in educational outcomes. Something has to change.

For those who don’t get the title reference, start watching Archer.

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Are You Smarter Than A (1895) 8th Grader?

by Aaron on December 2, 2010

in Economics,Schools,Twitter

There’s lots of consternation today among my greader sharebros (sup y’all). The object of their ire is this 1895 8th grade test. Eyes on your own work, kids:

8th Grade Final Exam: Salina, KS – 1895

Grammar (Time, one hour)
1. Give nine rules for the use of Capital Letters.
2. Name the Parts of Speech and define those that have no modifications.
3. Define Verse, Stanza and Paragraph.
4. What are the Principal Parts of a verb? Give Principal Parts of do, lie, lay and run.
5. Define Case, Illustrate each Case.
6. What is Punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of Punctuation.
7 – 10.  Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.

Arithmetic (Time, 1.25 hours)
1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2. A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weighs 3942 lbs., what is it worth at 50 cts. per bu., deducting 1050 lbs. for tare?
4. District No. 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?
5. Find cost of 6720 lbs. coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $20 per m?
8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per are, the distance around which is 640 rods?
10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt.

U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)
1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided.
2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus.
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4. Show the territorial growth of the United States.
5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas.
6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn, and Howe?
8. Name events connected with the following dates:
1607
1620
1800
1849
1865

There are two more sections on geography and orthography, which I had to look up. Spolier alert: it’s just fancy-pants talk for spelling, y’all. La Dee Da, Little Lord Fauntleroy. The general consensus seems to be that ‘we generally couldn’t do this; therefore we dumberer than those kids’. Further, this is some kind of crying shame.

But my colleague and heterolifemate friend Dan Rothschild tweefed a contrarian idea. Dan’s thesis (which I agree with); there’s no objective good in knowing this stuff. Instead, not knowing this stuff is a testament to the specialization, diversity, abundance, and interconnectedness that flourish in a relatively free society. There’s no necessity for us to know most of this, and we shouldn’t feel bad. We’re all adults, with constructive, productive lives, and if we don’t have to know what this epoch of American history is, it just means that our brainpower is being used for other tasks with a higher utility. That’s good, and we shouldn’t be ashamed by some stupid olde tyme 8th graders. They probably all had to live on a stinky farm, anyhow.

Update: Snopes says basically the same thing. Apparently this has been floating around since 1999. In their words:

Although this exam may indicate, as Velz wrote, that “[o]ur notion of nineteenth-century education as primitive and backward may need modification,” perhaps what it demonstrates most is the truth of the aphorism that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

 

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Oh Government, My Government

by Rhom on August 23, 2010

in Government,Politics,Schools

cartoon by Mike Luckovich

Friend of WaCK Jarrett Skorup recently threw in his two cents on his “Nominees for [the] 5 Worst Government Services.” The finalists were veterans hospitals, the U.S. Postal Service, General Motors, the Public School System, and Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac.

Agreements, arguments, critiques, debates are welcome.

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Outcomes Over Intentions

by Aaron on July 7, 2010

in Government,Journalism,Law,Schools

In politics, as in most of life, intentions don’t matter. That is, they’re not operative; they are difficult to identify with any certainty, mutable, subjective, and intricately non-exclusive. In short, worrying, or caring, about intentions is wasteful, and harmful to public discourse. Results impact people’s lives, they are operative. They are what matter.

Michael Rizzo, more cynically but more accurately, puts it this way:

“In the event you forgot what the priorities of your government are, health care is not about health care, education is not about education, road building is not about transportation, national defense is not about defending us, agricultural policy is not about better and safer food, and environmental policy is certainly not about the environment”.

Around here we’ve certainly seen what happens when the veil of intentions get pulled back from education policy. Families get hurt, children get screwed, and vested interests get protected. If you thought this was a unique phenomenon surrounding teachers unions, you’re mistaken. Radley Balko explains:

A three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has rejected an Oregon man’s petition for habeas corpus relief (PDF). This despite acknowledging that the man has established actual innocence for the crimes for which he’s being imprisoned (sexual abuse and sodomy of a four-year-old). The reason: He was late filing his petition. By the panel’s reckoning, adherence to an arbitrary deadline created by legislators is a higher value than not continuing to imprison people we know to be innocent.

New York criminal defense attorney Scott Greenfield comments:

…in the rare case where a defendant can prove that he did not commit the crime, but the information or evidence doesn’t manage to come into his hands until more than a year after the exhaustion of remedies, even if the cause is concealment by the government or incompetence by his lawyer, the 9th Circuit told us their truth.  They don’t care.  They just don’t care.

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J’Accuse! Oh, My Mistake

by Aaron on July 7, 2010

in Corporatism,Government,Journalism,Schools

A little while ago, we had a back-and-forth about schools. In the midst of debate, commenter Tom took something I wrote out of context:

That’s a bold claim that the elements of a public system are all so self serving with such disregard to the students.

That wasn’t the claim I was making at the time. Unfortunately, it looks like the claim I should have made. Prove me unfortunately prophetic, Daily Caller:

Why did this happen?  According to former DC Mayor Anthony Williams and former DC Councilman Kevin Chavous (both Democrats), the answer is politics at its worst.

Williams and Chavous co-authored an op-ed arguing that politicians opposing OSP “are largely fueled by special-interest groups that are more dedicated to the adults working in the education system than to making certain every child is properly educated.”

The editorial board of the Washington Post put it a little more bluntly:

It’s clear, though, from how the destruction of the [OSP] program is being orchestrated, that issues such as parents’ needs, student performance and program effectiveness don’t matter next to the political demands of teachers’ unions. . . .

As it turns out, the teachers unions are the single largest contributor to federally elected politicians, with the vast majority of their funds going to Democrats.  The teachers unions don’t like programs like OSP because when parents have the freedom to choose, they may choose schools that don’t have unionized teachers.

DC Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton was one of the principal opponents of OSP and was instrumental in ending the program.   Guess who her largest donor is?  Answer here.

The three main critiques of OSP are that it takes money away from the public schools, is not accountable and does not provide a cure-all solution to improving education.  None of these critiques has merit.

The full article has the facts to dispel lingering doubts. And if you don’t get upset by hundreds of students being crushed under self-interested union wheels, than consider this; where do public unions get money to lobby and donate from? From the parents they’re abusing. Prostitution is illegal in the District, but you can (and will be forced to) pay the public unions to fuck you, and your kids.

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DC Vouchers Wild Success – Still Dead

June 24, 2010

We had a good back-and-forth yesterday about school choice versus one-size-fits-all (or none) schooling. Just wanted to repost this in full from Cato@Liberty‘s Adam Schaeffer: The latest and final scheduled report on the DC voucher program is out. Conclusion? Even a tiny, restricted program that’s only been around for six years increases graduation rates, has a [...]

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A Different Take On School “Choice”

June 22, 2010

From Dan Savage’s Savage Love column: CONGRATS: Two years ago, an openly gay student at Hudson High School in upstate New York ran for prom queen. He won—but school officials “denied him the crown.” This year, two openly gay students—best friends, both boys—at Hudson High ran for prom king and queen and won “in a [...]

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