Students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have demanded that African-American students be given free tuition and housing because blacks were denied access to college educations for much of our history. They also opposed the use of standardized test scores as a barrier to black students.
Notably, George Washington University has also dropped the requirement of SAT or ACT scores expressly to boast minority student enrollment. Such scores were denounced by the Associated Students of Madison as a vehicle of “white supremacy.”
The Black Liberation Collective, a national organization, has also demanded such accommodation for African-American students.
The Madison students also demand access to the university for black people, including former inmates.
Obviously, such proposals for struggling universities would impose not only huge costs but also a challenge to maintaining the ranking of the school if students are no longer required to have competitive scores.
What do you think?
The solution is to improve our public education system so that every child, regardless of something so inconsequential as basal melanin concentration, has access to the same education opportunity. You create good after school programs, volunteers to walk kids to school, tutors, motivational speakers, and safe places to study so that latch key kids in bad neighborhoods don’t get sucked into gangs or mowed down by gang violence.
The hard Left insists on methods that end up harming the beneficiary, as per usual, and creating a victim class. They thrive on divisiveness and hate. Here, let us explain to you why you are a victim and whom you must blame and hate. They wish to lower the bar by removing testing. That’s a remarkably racist, insulting proposition. It supposes that they cannot raise test scores by improving education, so the poor things must be treated like they’re handicapped and nothing must be expected of them. Which would present them with a worthless college degree they did not earn. How insulting. And would you choose or trust a neurosurgeon that got his degree because he was black and did not take the same tests as the others? No, you would not. You would view him as a pity case.
I had professors in college tell me that they taught the same class for two different audiences – those who deserved to be there and those who were part of Affirmative Action, and who were completely unequipped for college. They were doomed to either flunk, or get some silly busy work degree in basket weaving. It set them up for failure. You cannot fake your way through college. If you do not have the educational foundation to be there, and the responsibility and determination to do the work, you won’t make it in any demanding degree.
It severely undercuts black professionals who earned their credentials to treat black people like they are handicapped and give them what, in essence, boils down to an honorary pity degree. Everyone judges those black professionals as having skated by on their skin color, and that they are less qualified than other races. What a terrible disservice this has done to minorities.
A meritocracy is the only fair system in education. This is not about quotas, where 1% needs to be Pacific Islander and 9% African American, etc, etc. That would render us a system that would say to a student, sorry, but you’re black, you see, and we already have our 9% quota. Or you’re Asian. Or Caucasian. We’ve reached our limit. And so even though you are eminently qualified, you will be passed over for this university, job, promotion, etc because you are wrong skin deep, or gender deep, or whatever stupid superficial criteria we judge people now on rather than ability or character.
The financial cuts would certainly hurt universities, such as Wisconsin and LSU, that have already seen their budgets slashed by Republican Governors. Education is, perhaps, the very best investment that any government can make. Too many potential Einsteins, Musks and Flemins slip through th cracks–especially when they come from impoverished backgrounds.
If they’re potential Musks, they don’t need much tertiary schooling. Michael Dell, Bill Gates, and Steven Jobs were all dropouts.
Yes, the three that you mentioned, all drop-outs. They’ll never amount to anything, eh? I was just pointing-out several brilliant people–who, without sufficient government funding, might not have the opportunity to bloom. Not everyone grows intellectually as early as Dell, Gates and Jibs.
Stupid is, as stupid does.
This is inherently discriminatory and would not survive a challenge on racial discrimination grounds. What the students want and what they get are not usually the same, thankfully.
There comes a time when we have to abandon the victimhood approach to everything. It might serve one side well politically but it doesn’t address integration fully.
A better approach is to deal with social stratification inequalities rather than being defined along racial lines.
It will survive a challenge if the federal judge in question wants that. He employs shallow smart-assed clerks to come up with a specious excuse while he hits the links.
Yes, free tuition for people that are non-White, non-Latino, non-Native Indian, and non-Asian is the way to go. Whites have oppressed black people for too long and the time is overdue to institute a White Privilege Tax. Fortunately, many people agree, as the following video makes clear.
And while we’re at it, let’s also institute a Male Privilege Tax, in addition to the White Privilege tax. This will solve so many problems in our society.
most people are capable!
True. True. When I was on active duty in the Navy some of my best Petty Officers, Intelligence Specialists and Cryptologists, were black. I never made Captain. One of my best bosses, a black Captain, was the guest of honor and speaker at my wedding reception in Japan (as he was praising me the guys from my Japanese rugby team were howling with laughter and he quietly asked LT Chase, the interpreter, why; “Because they know him, sir”).
Aside; Japanese wedding formalities being what they are you have a shikaisha or master of ceremonies running the event and you have guests of honors and speakers, although things were a lot more free-form since we held ours at the Officer’s Club at Yokosuka (31 knot Burke!), and the shikaisha sent over by the agency we were told was reputable was so inept my friend LT Chase (a name so innocuous no one will ever figure out which of the 1000s of Chases serving at the time was this one) had to take over. And I learned a valuable lesson. literally valuable. When you marry into a Japanese family you negotiate over who pays for what, as weddings in Japan are expensive, usually involving hotel banquet halls. And I was embarrassed to be roped in to interpreting, as my Japanese was far better, for a then friend who was determined “not to be ripped off.” All that created was enmity and ultimately it cost him more.
Learning from the experience when I got married I told the would-be in-laws, “Don’t worry, I’ll pay for everything.” Did I mention that everything was done on a Navy base in Japan where it cost a tenth of what it would have out on the economy? The in-laws were so freaking relieved the traditional envelopes stuffed with money paid not only for the reception but the honeymoon tour of the Ryukyus (Mom’s side of the family) and later the Caribbean.
But I digress; back to black people. Search on the term “critical theory” and go to the entry from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. It won’t be the first one. You’ll see I’m not making things up when I talk about the German Marxists of the Frankfurt school. Who repaid us for offering them sanctuary from the Nazis by poisoning minds against us. Including and especially black minds. We hate them.
It just isn’t true, but the cultural Marxists had to create an underclass to revolt against the system.
But actual Africans whose minds haven’t been poisoned by this Marxist indoctrination do well.
http://www.sciencebuzz.org/blog/africans_doing_better_than_blacks_in_college
I’ve often remarked when confronted by leftists indoctrinated to believe that America is nothing more than an open-air hatefest of white cisnormative xtofascist patriarchy how it’s strange, if that’s the purpose, the Chinese do so well.
Paying attention to discrimination should mean unflinching honesty concerning it. This means black students have been the victim of discrimination. It also means women of all colors. It means people of any gender based on class etc. There are intersections of discrimination. Class may trump gender or race discrimination or it may not. People who are truly serious about rectifying discrimination need to account for all its forms and act on that knowledge.
Many other nations are able to provide free college tuition to all. Stop all our wars, stop spying on every person in our nation and the rest of the world and in one week, the money to give everyone who wants one, a free college education will be ready to go. It is that simple and we should do it.
As to scores, those have been studied. They have nothing to do with one’s success in college. I don’t see how they are necessarily an example of white privilege. I would say they are more honestly categorized as instruments of class privileged. I think it would be good to get rid of them.
I recommend the use of a lottery in all school admissions. Take the person you get and work with them. If they aren’t up to speed, it’s possible to get them there. Most people are incapable of accomplishing many things if given the chance and the help. Get people together who aren’t used to dealing with other people who aren’t like them. Help them understand each other. Make certain students may speak freely. Help them learn. Ask that they give back to the community in exchange for the free tuition and help.
That’s my answer.
As to scores, those have been studied. They have nothing to do with one’s success in college.
One of your more amusing tics is your habit of (1) lying blatantly and (2) doubling down when caught.
DDS,
I picked a nice, liberal, MSM source for you so as not to be accused of fake newzing:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/nail-biting-standardized-testing-may-miss-mark-college-students/
I am not lying now, nor have a done so in the past. Now that you are caught lying about me, will you double down or do you have enough courage and decency to apologize for your uncalled for and nasty lying statement? I’m going to guess you don’t. Please surprise me!
You’ve lied grossly and repeatedly (see your nonsense about ‘military government’ in Honduras).
It doesn’t occur to you that secondary and tertiary sources from DNC auxilliaries like PBS are worthless, or that you’re trafficking in what’s manifest nonsense. You’re not going to come up with a bibliography of psychometric or sociological studies which show that college board scores are irrelevant to academic performance in college, because no such bibliography exists. Neither have colleges and universities required the submission of these scores for six decades out of stupidity. They require them to gauge the capacity of the applicant to handle the work. That’s not evenly distributed in the population. That you cannot accept that reality is irrelevant.
DDS,, You didn’t surprise me!
Access to the university by FORMER inmates? How bourgeois of these students. They’ve been indoctrinated and socialized by our white, racist and privileged society to set their legitimate demands so low. Why not insist upon access by CURRENT inmates? Yeah. That’s the ticket. Bring in some of those gang-banging murderers and rapists for English Comp I. Why not? It’s time to let Tiffany and Skip get a taste of that. Nothing like a little murder and mayhem on campus to round out the college experience.
😉
This is an awful idea, same as in the affirmative action. This is why when I want to choose a doctor, dentist, lawyer, etc, I never go to African-Americans. I can never fully evaluate their education, training or feel confident about it.
Negates the term “earned a degree”…. if that were the case what would keep everyone from filling out a request form to send me my degree??? Sounds like a hell of a plan doesn’t it??? Another SNOWFLAKE! And don’t scold him… he’ll run to his safe place with his thumb in his mouth.
Now,at last,we have an education Secretary who will
Enshrine the future of Education giving every American youth
An opportunity to prepare for the future of ensuring a great America once again.
While her Blackwater founder brother establishes a private army in China. The plutocracy at work…….
@DaveT-Hey Dave I gave some thought to your labeling me ignorant. Here’s where I was ignorant, working 2 jobs to put my kids through college and helping one through Med School. Having my wife work and not apply for food stamps. Not banging out a few other kids with some other woman and disappearing on them. Not sitting in front of my house every other week nurturing a brown paper bag waiting for the mailman to drop off a government check. Yes Dave T I sure am ignorant.
Dave T was kind of being a dick before, but this last comment really was kind of ignorant.
Really Jay, what part the last half? Come and work the streets with me, easy to name call from afar.
you know, you’re not the only person who works for a living. you’re the only one with a martyr complex about it.
Ah, ignorant to martyr complex. Anything else?
If implemented wouldn’t it be free for all students since we have now entered the era of no gender or race identity? If I identify as black, is that good enough?
On a more serious note, I have said before, it is time for a real paradigm shift for education. It should be all on-line taught by only the best teachers. Get rid of colleges and public grade schools all together. Students and teachers both would make out better with this model. If I could teach a million kids at $5 a pop, I would would be pretty happy.
All on-line???? Seriously???? THAT is a frightening concept fr anyone other than those that develop on-line curriculum…
Online education is not a “concept”, it is reality. That being said, offering it “all” online is certainly worth exploring. It should be a frightening concept for the administrators who’s livelihood is tied to the brick-and-mortar education industry.
Yes, all online. Why not?
Why wouldn’t you want to be a student who:
– Builds his own college using the best professors from, everywhere.
– Never gets blocked out of a class because they got “out of sequence” or it was filled.
– Pay the real market value for such a class or preferred professor.
– Not pay for college administration/buildings/facilities that you may never use.
As a teacher:
– You could now teach more people than you ever had before.
– Potentially make more money in a year than you ever have.
– Not be bound to have to do research.
And how will the school respond when every applicant to UW Madison self-identifies as African-American?
Olly, We posted the same thing at the same time.
🙂
I’m sure Asian students will be startled to learn that SAT and ACT tests are a vehicle for white supremacy.
Black Americans will continue to scream more, more and up to this point society has bought into their demands. It actually does not serve them any good because it hasn’t made them anymore competitive. Every time you turn around they come up with some other creation to keep their bitch alive like “white privilege”.
There’s a group in America which makes up about 7% of society they quietly go about life, extremely smart, great family life and add value to American life and ask for nothing, I speak of Asian Americans. Black America would do well to learn from them?
Go read a US history book. Your ignorance is startling.
Is that your free history book your reading from?
+1
It’s free only if I get to keep it. High school textbooks are paid for by the tax payers of the district. Often, there is a deposit every to cover damages.
Dave,
Please identify what it was exactly in Zambini’s comment for you to claim he was ignorant? And then, what history book would you recommend he read to become as enlightened as yourself?
Steve Groen, feel free to respond as well since you up voted his comment.
I don’t think anyone that knows much about US history can reasonably compare the experiences of black slaves and their descendants to that of Asian Americans. That is not to say that Asians have not faced hardships but their hardships pale when compared to the violent legacy of slavery which is carried generationally.
Your remark is non sequitur. If you’re not prepared for school work at the pace and sophistication of an ordinary class at UW, you’re not prepared. It’s wasting your time and everyone else’s to have you there. If you’ve not had academic accomplishments to merit admission or degrees, it vitiates the value of same to just hand them to you due to ascribed traits. Nothing about your family’s history changes that.
Not that the Chinese didn’t have their own trials, but we fought it out, literally, over African Americans who were kidnapped and chattel by law for hundreds of years before voluntary Chinese immigration came about.
Further, Chinese immigration was localized. I don’t recall any Chinese working in the industrial Northeast or the corn and cotton fields of the Midwest and South. California businessmen were by and large the culprits in oppressing Chinese workers and their families. Was there any federal law that you know of that discriminated against the Chinese on a nationwide scale as it did against African Americans?
It’s time for conscious awareness of this country’s past.
“It’s time for conscious awareness of this country’s past.”
Great idea! Now if we could only convince progressives our past has relevance prior to the 19th century then we’ll get somewhere.
It’s time for conscious awareness of this country’s past.
Which will do flat nothing to improve the academic performance of blacks nearing the end of secondary school.
Steve – try the Chinese Exclusion Act. Then add to that, all the land plots that required that you sell to Caucasians only.
Paul, you got me again. I stand corrected. I thought California alone was the troublemaker with respect to Chinese immigration. Live and learn.
Still, preventing immigration is a far cry from forced immigration of African Americans as personal property to be chained, sold at auction, and whipped into subservience.
“forced immigration of African-Americans”?
Did you mean Africans?
No slaves have been imported since 1808. That’s seven generations back.
DSS – no slaves have been LEGALLY imported since 1808. Let’s get our facts right. 😉 Slaves are being imported today.
Steve Groen – California screamed about the number of Chinese in California and Congress and the Chinese government took notice. They worked out an amicable arrangement.
You’re inclination to offer non sequiturs is not startling. It’s boring.
This proposal did get a standing ovation from the athletic dept.
From the Left:
This blog post woke up the angry, mighty white amongst us.
In a word, it’s preposterous to lower academic standards for post-secondary education, with the exception of vocational programs.
The real problem is funding in the public K-12 schools, which leaves these children, many of whom come from dysfunctional families, at a disadvantage, when half of annual federal revenue is going toward the war machine. Needless to say, a voucher system would reduce that funding even more because the select private schools would be inundated, which is why public schools have drifted into mediocrity unless they’re located in a financially-isolated locale (e.g., Piedmont High School in the exclusive hills above Oakland, California).
The current public university system is much like the “finely-tuned machine” Trump calls his administration. For instance, the college football and basketball programs are being relied on to meet significant school expenses while allowing not-so-scholarly athletes-cum-employees-by-any-measure to matriculate.
Do we make exceptions for less-qualified students who can entertain enough to bring in revenue? We shouldn’t, but if we’re going to, then we should open the door for other less-than-qualified student applicants, too.
really, why?
All of this is irrelevant. The University of Wisconsin is a school. It’s not your mother nor is it a social work agency. (And, while we’re at it, no public agencies are equipped to restructure your family life so that the distribution of academic performance among communal groups is to the liking of lefttwits).
when half of annual federal revenue is going toward the war machine.
There is no ‘war machine’. There is a military. As we speak, military spending accounts for about 4% of gross domestic product, or about 26% of federal expenditure.
“There is no ‘war machine’. There is a military. As we speak, military spending accounts for about 4% of gross domestic product, or about 26% of federal expenditure.”
I’ll admit to embellishment as to DOD and DHS’s budgets together are at about 26 percent of federal receipts. I don’t know that GDP has anything to do with it, but federal revenue is currently at about 17.5% of GDP. Likewise, I don’t know that federal spending is relevant either as we tend to spend on borrowing, not on receipts.
As for our military not being a war machine, we’ve been at war (against the phantom terrorists of our choosing since 2001 when we invaded Afghanistan), and of the top five spenders, the next biggest spender, China, which dishes out well over what Saudi Arabia and the UK combined spend and over three times as much as Russia, while the US spends over 3.7 times as much as China! We spend over 14 times what Japan (the sixth biggest spender) outlays. No other country even comes close. WTF!
http://www.globalfirepower.com/defense-spending-budget.asp
I’ll admit to embellishment as to DOD and DHS’s budgets together are at about 26 percent of federal receipts. I don’t know that GDP has anything to do with it, but federal revenue is currently at about 17.5% of GDP. Likewise, I don’t know that federal spending is relevant either as we tend to spend on borrowing, not on receipts.
The valid denominator is federal spending, not federal tax collections. The government is funded by a mix of tax collections and the bond market. You’re insistence on using federal tax collections would make sense only if revenue from the sale of Treasuries was put in a dedicated fund devoted only to non-military spending. The ratio of military spending to domestic product is an indicator of the degree to which factors of production are devoted to military uses. This isn’t that difficult.
Homeland Security is a collection of police forces. There’s an intelligence collection unit and a civil defense agency added in. The only component that has a military aspect is the Coast Guard, and the Coast Guard is assigned to the Defense Department only during general mobilizations. For decades it was part of the Transportation Department. Why you think customs inspectors, airport baggage screeners, and people running FEMA trailer parks are part of some fanciful ‘war machine’ only you know.
The military are generally honorable men who perform useful services. You’re a waste of space, so of course you despise them.
DSS re: “The military are generally honorable men who perform useful services.” that may well be true – has been my experience overall. BUT the money going to private contractors, AAFES and other corporations – remember the ghost Hyatt Hotel in Kabul. In his excellent book “A Time to Fight” Jim Webb addresses this issue. Also, multiple studies have been done about troop morale when they are stationed with contractors who are making major bank while they are struggling financially.
Blackwater had about 900 employees. Big deal.
Would your work for someone like Eric Prince, who required that his employees take an oath of allegiance to him? (Don’t answer that. I know you would.)
Another egomaniacal war addict.
Steve Groen – it would be a cold day in hell before I would take an oath of allegiance to my boss.
DDS – the valid denominator is federal revenue, not federal spending, for anyone who realizes the US cannot spend more than it takes in, unless it borrows, and as you mentioned the government does borrow by issuing bonds and pays interest for the loan. For FY2017, the interest on the national debt alone will be ~$165,000,000,000.
This is a stark reminder of the non-sustainability of 26% of federal revenue ($3,250,000,000 in FY2016) being spent on the department of homeland security (which as you know was created to counter terrorism as a result of what happened on 9/11/2001) and the war department.
Sales from Treasuries are a form of revenue. The government’s been running a deficit since 1961, with two or three years excepted. The salient metric is the relative debt burden. The historic high was in 1945, when it stood at 119% of gdp. It gradually declined in fits and starts to 38% of gdp by 2007.
(which as you know was created to counter terrorism as a result of what happened on 9/11/2001)
Every component of Homeland Security bar the intelligence clearinghouse and the Transportation Security Administration was extant in 2001. For some agencies (e.g. Customs and Border Protection, antecedent agencies were present which were resorted (e.g. the Customs Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service being reconstituted into Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enfrocement, and Citizenship and Immigration Services). Others were just shifted from one department to another. As for TSA, the functions were being performed prior to it’s foundation, but not by unionized federal employees. The Democratic Party of Rackets insisted on that detail. Little was created de novo and the agency which was created de novo had a problematic seminal culture.
So, you’re saying I’m worthy of your affection?
One reason is because weaponry and materiel are designed to make high profits rather than effectiveness with cost reduction as an important factor. When we use a thirty million dollar aircraft costing five thousand dollars an hour to maintain that fires a forty-five thousand dollar missile to take out “Haji’s” pick up truck it isn’t long before we spend ourselves into ineffectiveness.
I read an article a month or so ago when the USAF experimented with a Vietnam Era “Bronco” (OV-10) to take out insurgents and found that it was surprisingly effective in many areas and a fraction of the cost to maintain. (Assuming a modernized form could brought back into production as individual cost for a small number of legacy craft is higher)
For me it seems reasonable to have a contingency of lower cost / high production models rather than relying solely on the most expensive solution that is a feat of technology. I think a plan similar to the High-Low program Admiral Elmo Zumwalt created could be fitting today.
I hadn’t heard of the High-Low program. From Wikipedia: “High-Low sought to balance the purchase of high-end, nuclear-powered vessels with low-end, cheaper ones —-such as the Sea Control Ship—that could be bought in greater numbers.”
I think the V-22 (Osprey) and F-35 programs are candidates for balancing.
Fundamentally, though, no cost reductions matter much if the end game is destabilization and control of foreign sovereigns to drive our economy.
Within the past 24-36 hours, “phantom terrorists” have killed c. 100 in Pakistan and c.50 in Iraq.
The bombs probably seemed real enough to those affected by them.
The phantom group ISIS claimed responsibility for one of the attacks, so far.
tnash, what would say is the US government’s reasoning for failing to include the number of civilian deaths by US personnel in its casualty reports from Lybia, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan?
And I mean its good-faith best argument. If US can count the number of kills of suspected bad guys, can’t it account for the number of civilians killed, too? Or, is it that they all look alike?
Steve G.,
-Maybe the government views them as phantom casualties, just as you believe that the U.S. targets “phantom terrorists”.
When the govenment does release estimates of civilian deaths, it is often the result of a mission like the recent one in Yemen.
Civilians were killed, investigations followed.
The govenment number on civilian casualties for drone strikes is that one civilian is killed for every 10 drone strikes.
In bombing missions, the government’s claim is that one out of every 300 bombing missions produces civilian casualties.
So there actually are some numbers the govenment releases.
I have no way of assessing their accuracy, but there is no shortage of estimates if civilian deaths caused by drone strikes, or bombing raids.
Most are far higher than U.S. gvt. estimates, but I have no way of knowing tge accuracy of the other estimates, either.
Okay, you have no way of assessing their accuracy. What does your intuition tell you? One civilian for every 10 drone strikes? 🙂
Steve,
Of all of the articles/estimates I’ve seen, I find the BUREAU OF INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM estimates to be the most realistic.
What about a soldier who said he was ordered to kill everyone standing near any suspected militant in Iraq, including men, women and children? And that’s what he said he did. I posted that video recently.
Even Adm. Elmo Zumwalt himself said that he had a problem with John Kerry slaughtering everyone in hooches, and that guy became a Senator and Secretary of State.
The gods must be crazy.
tnash,
This one’s for you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZSMBHxfkqM
If true, do you have a problem with it or is this acceptable behavior from a civilized country?
26,000 bombs dropped on Muslim countries last year, military expenditures equivalent to the next 12 nations on Earth combined and $650 billion per year on war related matters speak for themselves. So, OK, no war machine. Say, who was behind the utterly pointless destruction of North Africa’s most economically successful 92% literate secular Muslim economy? Definitely no war machine.
“Say, who was behind the utterly pointless destruction of North Africa’s most economically successful 92% literate secular Muslim economy?”
Good question, but I don’t believe you’ll like the answer. The military is the gun, the funding is the ammunition and the politicians decide who to shoot at. Unless you have some evidence that our military went rogue, the CINC is ultimately responsible for this so called “war machine”.
Libya’s was not a notably successful economy. It sat on a large pool of oil, which allowed more infrastructure investment and school spending than would otherwise have been the case. Bracketing out natural resource rents (which constitute 4% of the domestic product of the median country, < 1% of that of a typical occidental country, but typically 1/3 of Libya's), Libya's per capita product was only about 20% higher than Tunisia's or Jordan's, lower than Lebanon's, and less than 1/2 of Saudi Arabia's.
Libya's literacy rates are lower than Saudi Arabia's, to name one country which receives reflexive complaints on this board, are lower than every other Gulf emirate, and are lower than Lebanon's and Jordan's, two countries which have little in the way of natural resources. (Lebanon was also in a state of anarchy for 15 years, which destroyed masses of physical plant).
And, of course, removing Gaddhafi was a pointless exercise only in the mind of palaeotwits.
Chenrezik: simple: Ghaddafi decided to go off the almighty dollar. Death knell. And he was stupid enough not have nukes for protection like Saddam. And now we hear that Iran is going off the petro dollar as well. do they have nukes for self protection? I think we’ll find out soon.
Autumn, thanks for reminding us that a substantial part of the reason for our warmongering against Iran is that the second largest OPEC producer began trading in euros rather than US dollars as its petrocurrency last year.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-oil-iran-exclusive-idUSKCN0VE21S
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-3760015/Iran-South-Korea-begin-trade-euros.html
This fellow and his politics. and his interviewer are much farther along on the sliding civility scale than most on this board, let alone the United States:
Chenrezik: simple: Ghaddafi decided to go off the almighty dollar.
You’re an idiot.
Needless to say, a voucher system would reduce that funding even more because the select private schools would be inundated, which is why public schools have drifted into mediocrity unless they’re located in a financially-isolated locale (e.g., Piedmont High School in the exclusive hills above Oakland, California).
No, it would not, if the voucher program were properly structured.
1. Have the board of regents produce a set of examinations for quality control, to be administered statewide annually or semi-annually. The proctors would be board employees, not school employees. You could have a basic education series (language, mathematics, and the fundamentals of American history, geography, and civics) with 5 or 6 paces; an academic secondary series with two paces (one for those seeking a diploma and a slower one for those seeking more limited certificates or in an academic junior high awaiting vocational school) and a vocational series. In re your basic education series, a student who scores a standard deviation above the median is switch to a faster pace and one who scores a standard deviation below is switched to a slower pace. Your vocational series would cover about 20 different trades, of which a student would aim to complete one before aging out of high school. Your academic series would have seven coarse subjects (mathematics, literature, natural sciences, history and geography, foreign languages, music appreciation, and art appreciation) broken down into components (e.g. algebra v. geometry v. calculus; geosciences v. biology v. chemistry v. physics; classical v. medieval v. early modern v. late modern v. non-western civilizations; history v. geography; your choice of about a dozen ancient and modern languages; and a set of literature modules).
2. Re-incorporate the extant public schools as philanthropies with elected stakeholder boards as trustees. Elections to such boards would be held quadrennially via postal ballot. Aspirant candidates would register with the state board of elections for a fee. The state board would produce printed ballots and mail them out to voters with a prospectus consisting of one page statements by each aspirant. The stakeholders would be alumni of the school in question who are registered to vote within a particular geographic ambo. Voters would fill out the ballot and mail them to the state board, who would tally them. Ordinal balloting would be the order of the day. The order of the candidates on the ballot would not be uniform. There would be as many stereotypes as candidates who qualify (so every candidate has an equal shot to be the 1st, 2d, 3d candidate listed), and the board would print equal numbers of each stereotype.
3. Have existing private schools apply for a re-issuance of their charters. They can elect a standard model or a variant model of corporate organization. The standard model begins with a foundational board which is self-regenerating. After 20 years, the votes on the board are partitioned, and one vote goes to an elected stakeholder and 6 votes to the self-regenerating trustees. Every few years, the self-regenerators lose a vote and the elected stakeholders gain one. After 60 years, the school has a board elected by alumni per the procedure used for quondam public schools. Any private school founded more than 60 years ago would have to have an elected stakeholder board from the get go unless they applied for a variant model. The variant model would be a dispensation allowed to religious denominations in existence for 60 years or more, and would have bishops, superiors, or denominational boards function as trustees in lieu of a board.
4. Have a residual corps of state schools run by the state prison system and local sheriff’s departments, for incorrigibles no one else wants.
5. Have a generous permission to home school: anyone could do so initially. They’d retain their franchise if their child’s performance on state regents examinations was adequate. Have a standard state form for the formation of home school co-operatives by enfranchised parents.
6. Have incorporated schools choose between two funding models: voucher funding or tuition funding.
a. In a voucher model, county governments appropriate a fund for the redemption of vouchers. Each custodial parent is issued a voucher for each child in his household. The parent applies to private schools and on receiving admission, registers her child with the municipal clerk’s office. The voucher is turned over to the school, who turns it over to the county government for redemption. A school may elect (FWER) to decline to accept a particular county’s vouchers. However, it has no option to accept payment in any form other than vouchers. A school may have donation and endowment income as well, but conditioning admission and retention on donations would be defined as a crime by the corporation and the school officer as well.
b. In a tuition model, the parent returns his voucher to the county government in return for a rebate of a value to be determined by his most recent direct tax payments. The idea is that the parent receives a sum roughly equivalent to his household’s contribution to the county redemption fund (but not exceeding the redemption value of the voucher), so there’s no effective cross-subsidy to tuition-funded schools. A typical parent would receive 1/3 of the redemption value, or thereabouts. Tuition would be according to the market.
7. Homeschoolers would also receive the rebates. Again, the homeschooler is unsubsidized.
8. The fixed costs and the security services associated with the residual state schools would be county government appropriations. The employment of teachers and the purchase of certain equipment would be funded from voucher redemptions (in effect, a transfer from the fund to the Sheriff).
9. All schools would be subject to a regulatory architecture inspired by extant laws on philanthropies. This would include limits on the compensation of employees (and sets of first degree relatives so employed would count as one employee in determining the application of the limit to them), required submission to the Secretary of State of audited financial statements, fiduciary obligations adhering to trustees, &c. Other regulatory requirements would include local building and fire codes, health and safety standards applying to kitchens and bus services, requirements re insurance, some basic labor law (regarding forms of compensation, frequency of compensation, overtime, &c). It would not include anything resembling anti-discrimination law or any direct regulation of disciplinary practices or curriculum (so long as the school was in compliance with the state penal code and select provisions of social service law).
10. The state board of regents would produce league tables each years rank-ordering schools according to their performance on each exam series for which their students are registered. The ideal performance metric would measure rates of improvement given the psychometric profile of the school, but you might have to use something cruder. Schools scoring in the lowest 1.5% re a given exam series would be relieved of their franchise for that series, and students registered there taking that series would have to re-enroll elsewhere. A school relieved of all its franchises would be closed through a suit filed by the state attorney-general, and its assets distributed to other philanthropies.
11. The vouchers stop at age 18. If a student wishes to continue his education, there’s community college, which will prepare you for secondary examinations as well – but which will be funded by tuition, donations, and endowment income, not vouchers.
12. Admission to state colleges and universities,the receipt of state-issued vouchers to finance that, and any cash fees to claim vouchers, would be contingent on the number of tax returns a family has filed in that state and contingent on an aspirant’s performance on a state-wide baccalaureate examinations. A student could matriculate if he’s completed at least 4 subject series of which 3 are academic, and could sit for the exam if he’s 85% of the way toward completing 4 subject series.
What a great post, DSS.
DSS – Arizona already does much of this. The money follows the student. If they switch schools, the money starts at the new school. Schools are ranked each year according to standardized test scores and type of school and given a letter grade with a + or – if necessary. Low ranking schools are called in to explain their scores and teaching methods. Perpetually low ranking schools are closed.
DDS, couple of questions for you regarding your number 6-A:
What if the taxpayer didn’t have any children?
Could they get a rebate on their taxes for that amount?
Seems to me that if you are giving people a choice of where specifically their tax dollars go, shouldn’t one option be to opt out and receive a rebate?
No. The point of vouchers is to ensure a baseline of expenditures on primary and secondary educational services, most particularly among the impecunious. The parents have the choice because they’re raising the kids right now. If you had children, you had those choices then. If you didn’t have children, you’ve not contributed to the society’s continued flourishing.
Thanks for your timely reply.
How can you not say that this isn’t a slippery slope to selectively get to choose where your tax dollars go?
Society’s continued flourishing? Is there a legal basis for that assertion?
Wouldn’t targeting tax dollars towards the environment instead of schools, for example help society flourish?
I’ll use toll roads as an example to try to support my idea.
i have the choice to buy a transponder to cross a new bridge. I can also chose to use another route. The new bridge and the old brig are both taxpayer subsidized. The newer bridge is very convenient and well maintained. If you want a new school system because the old one is just adequate and possibly not as efficient, though the results are the same per traveled mile, then pay for the new one separately.
A total either or choice for newer schools out of the local districts control that offer a more efficient, to some, form of education are currently available. They’re called Catholic schools.
I just don’t buy the concept of vouchers providing remedy without depleting existing schools of resources they currently don’t have enough of to subsidize private education while not letting people get a rebate for not participating.
Wouldn’t targeting tax dollars towards the environment instead of schools, for example help society flourish?
No, it would not. There are several ways to ‘target the environment’. One is to sequester land and fisheries. Another is to impose land use planning. Another is to institute allocation schemes for harvesting and use rights to common property resources. Another is to institute health and safety regulations. Enforcement costs which show up in public accounts are quite modest for all of these activities and the enhanced social utility from increasing expenditure on enforcement to a degree that an individual taxpayer would notice is modest if not nugatory. (To take one example, composing and enforcing regulations consumes about 10% of the budget of the Environmental Protection Agency).
More use of tolls and fares and other service charges would be economically efficient. There are a few reasons you do not see that. One is just inertia. Another is popular taste. People resent it when formerly opaque costs are made explicit. A third is that it’s cumbersome. It can be done readily for bridges and limited-access freeways. You start trying to do that for ordinary roads and the costs of the impediments are likely to eat up productive efficiencies (and piss people off royally). Excises on motor fuels sent to funds dedicated to road maintenance would be more economically efficient than other species of taxation. Given the short-term and long-term elasticities of consumption, an excise north of $3 a gallon might do the trick given maintenance costs, settlement patterns and fuel consumption in a state like New York. Even if it came with a proportionate reduction in general sales, property, and income taxes, you’d still have a public hue and cry over it.
Unlike roads, schools are not a ‘public good’ as economists use the term. You do not have features of non-excludability and non-rivalry in consumption which make market allocation problematic if not impossible. Schooling is a fee-for-service activity you can purchase on the open market. Public schools are an aspect of the welfare system. Socialization of costs is the whole point.
The utility of opt-outs is to allow the parent to select the pedagogy for his children. If the parent does not do that, the graduates of teachers’ colleges do (with repulsive results).
Thanks for your time.
Forgot to mention “Nugatory” is my new favorite word.
It has such a efficient sound that goes so well with its meaning.
Coltrane: I’ve often thought about the point your making regarding the unfairness of the tax code. Congress likes social engineering through the tax code by protecting marriage, that home equity spending that only a couple can afford, and children, because it creates a docile, stable middle class and federal revenue when staying single without children according to Congress doesn’t.
Sounds like selective socialism based on classes of people to me, DDS. You can’t have it both ways.
Which ways am I trying to have it?
https://www.cato.org/blog/public-school-spending-theres-chart
You can raise the price on manure, and you can throw more money at manure, but it’s still manure.
Some aspects of the school system need money – like new pipes, removing asbestos and toxins, and updating text books. And of course we want to attract the best talent to teach. But I have been extremely disappointed in the outcome of spending more money on schools. We need to improve the quality.
You do make a great point that the athletes get in with a less rigorous educational background, and they get free tutoring. They still have to make the grade or they flunk out. That is no excuse to lower the bar for more and dilute the meaning of a degree from that institution.
Karen – college athletes put in 40 hours a week at their sport during the semester of their sport. In the off-semester they spend about 20 hours a week. They need all the academic help they can get. Spoken as a former academic tutor.
That suggests the marriage of higher education and athletics is a misbegotten enterprise. Baseball seems to get along passably without damaging higher education.
DSS – baseball players play up to 80 games a year depending on the conference they are in and if they make any of the tournaments.
So what? They have commercial farm teams.
DDS – the PAC-12 plays 80 games a year because of the nice weather. Schools from across the country fly out here to play, since their fields are not ready yet. The fields here are in perfect condition.
No clue what you’re talking about or think you’re talking about.
Baseball develops its talent through commercial farm teams. Basketball and Football make use of college teams, at a cost of corrupting higher education royally.
The College World Series is played in Omaha NE every summer between 8 teams from different regions of the US. Schools that don’t play football, do play baseball. Baseball is very competitive.
I think the allowances made for college athletes already disproportionately benefits African-Americans, and I’d be quite willing to see those exceptions disappear.
Wisconsin is the epicenter of PC and white guilt. About 15-20 years ago the university put out their annual booklet to prospective students. There was a group photo of alleged UW students. A sharp eyed person picked out that all the black students had been photo shopped into the shot.
Nick: Really?
I’d say Madison is assertively PC, but not Wisconsin. Milwaukee, for example, has basically confined African Americans to a small plot above Wisconsin Avenue between the East Side and west to about where Miller Brewery sits. This wasn’t by coincidence, and the rest of Wisconsin is politely (protestant) milky white.
Steve, I meant to say the University of Wisconsin/Madison. Hell, Adams County is Deliverance country.
🙂
Milwaukee, for example, has basically confined African Americans to a small plot above Wisconsin Avenue between the East Side and west to about where Miller Brewery sits.
Neither ‘Miwaukee’ nor any real agent did this. To the extent that there is settlement clustering, it’s the result of thousands of small decisions each year about where to rent and where to buy.
No, there’s no choice because of economic exclusion, a history of state and local discriminatory restrictive covenants, and a fear of not being huddled together for protection.
Restrictive covenants haven’t been enforced in nearly 70 years. ‘Economic exclusion’ is a bit of rhetorical gamesmanship which refers to something banal: rents vary by neighborhood. As for being ‘huddled together’, white-on-black crime is quite infrequent. If blacks are anxious about their neighbors, that’s usually poor risk assessment.
Where I’m from, about 1/3 of the black population lives nestled unobtrusively in suburban, small-town, and rural loci where they’re a single-digit minority and more than half the black population lives in census bloc groups which have a non-black majority. The most salient problem blacks in concentrated formation face is crime and associated school disorder. Your ilk cares nothing about that and does nothing about that.