From a New York Times article:

For the last several years, teachers accused of incompetence or wrongdoing have been forced into rubber rooms, formally called Temporary Reassignment Centers, where they receive a full salary but do not work while they wait for the Department of Education or a hearing officer to decide their fate. But in April, city officials and the teachers’ union agreed to eliminate the rooms, which had been a source of embarrassment for all. Beginning in the fall, those teachers will perform administrative duties or be sent home if they are deemed a threat to students.

So teachers the state can’t trust not to hurt students will still get paid their full salaries without teaching, but now they’ll do admin work or sit at home. Is it too much to ask that a teacher deemed “a threat to students” be, oh, I don’t know, fired?

Let’s see, I can just imagine a worker in the private sector threatening a co-worker and then collecting full pay for sitting at home.

I’m thinking that business would fall victim to creative destruction, which is exactly what public schools should do, except they can’t, because they’re public, and that exemption from the forces of creative destruction contributes mightily to forces of public education’s mighty suckage.

{ 0 comments }

Something dawned on me while I was reading about the failure of standardized testing to improve the quality of public education.

Testing is an attempt to use means other than the market to perform a market role.

Think about it. How does the market ensure quality? It puts producers in competition with each other in the market. The producers who offer a product with a higher price and lower quality lose out to the producers who do better. But people have to be able to make choices for the winners to emerge and then be trounced by even better producers.

In public schooling, there is no real competition. A school can produce a poor quality product at a really high price — and they are — and suffer no consequences in the marketplace. A disgruntled customer (a parent) can’t just demand his or her money back and try another provider.

So how do you get accountability without a market? Tests are the only real way. But if tests actually told you what you wanted to know, which they don’t, what do you do about it? Even when tests tell us schools are failing, nothing radical changes. The kids who are zoned for that school still go there. Money still flows to that district. Sometimes individuals schools close, and the students are bused to other, nearby, nearly identical schools. Sometimes teachers are fired in droves. But does that help? Is there any evidence that that helps anyone?

The only way to introduce market accountability into education is to introduce a market into education. That’s been tried to an extent with vouchers and charter schools. But again, measuring these programs’ success always centers on standardized testing. And the benchmark is always whether the students in charter and private schools (with vouchers) perform better on them than the students at nearby public schools.

Here’s my thought: in any free, competitive market, you’ll have a good or service available at a variety of prices and qualities. Of course there are levels of freedom and competitiveness. There is no totally unregulated, legal market in America. But let’s take the market for food for example. You can pay a lot for filet mignon, or you can pay a little for beans. Both will keep you alive and fill you up, but they cost different amounts to buy.

I propose that a free, unregulated market for education would be the same. You can pay for Harvard prep, or you can pay for tech school. Both will provide educational value, but they’ll cost different amounts to buy.

Here’s where I think most people would agree with me. And here’s where I will lose most of them: I think that’s as good as it gets.

People see education as the key to America’s upward mobility and meritocracy, and the idea that poor kids would get a worse education than rich kids is a social evil that must be eliminated, in our lifetimes! Throw money at it, stat!

Fact is, poor kids get worse public educations than rich kids, even when the state spends more money per pupil on them.

We’ve got to first face facts about education, then privatize it, thereby introducing a market where there was none, and lastly let the market do to education what it’s done for food, medicine, clothing and other necessities: made it cheaper, move available, and higher quality.

This is long and rambling, but I think I’m on to something. I care so much about public education. I need to think about this some more and write something that makes sense.

{ 3 comments }

Should ownership ever be a crime?

March 2, 2010

I’m ’bout to get philosophical on your asses (all  three of them.) Should it ever be illegal to own something? Generally things are illegal because they violate rights. Killing is illegal because it violates someone’s right to life. Theft is illegal because it violates someone’s right to property, etc. Does Ownership Violate Rights? But how [...]

Read the full article →

AEA has killed the Alabama Charter School Law

February 19, 2010

All hope of charter schools being allowed in Alabama this year is dead. Take it away Montgomery Advisor: Last week the House Education Appropriations Committee voted 13-2 to indefinitely postpone a bill that would allow state and local school systems to start charter schools. On Wednesday, the Senate Finance and Taxation-Education Committee voted 13-4 to [...]

Read the full article →

Let’s make it easy for kids to escape high school early

February 18, 2010

People are talking about shortening the number of years it takes students to complete high school. Utah Senator Chris Buttars wants to make it easier for kids to skip 12th grade. The New York Times reports a new plan that would give 10th graders a chance to take tests which, if passed, enable them to [...]

Read the full article →

Article on corporatism demonstrates misunderstanding of corporatism

January 29, 2010

In a Firedoglake article on corporatism the author quotes FDR: Liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. This is a classic misunderstanding. People seem to think that the public and private sectors are at [...]

Read the full article →

An Anarcho-capitalist taking a dim view of democracy

January 29, 2010

In a recent Reason blog post Lawrence Lessig is quoted as saying “Our Framers wanted a Congress dependent not upon foreign powers, or upon the President, or upon anything else save upon the People.” Lessig said this while bitching about the Citizen’s ruling. I’m so tired of hearing people whine about this being the end [...]

Read the full article →

Just watch it, seriously

January 27, 2010

The best rap video on Austrian economics versus Keynesianism in the history of mankind.

Read the full article →

To the Alabama Education Association, 50 percent is a great job

January 19, 2010

Alabama Education Association District 28 UniServe director Jocelyn Schilling said “That scares me a little bit,” about the fact that charter schools aren’t required to offer their teachers tenure. Later in the North Jefferson News article Schilling said that schools in north Jefferson County all perform at a high level. What? “‘Communities are happy with [...]

Read the full article →

A clue as to why Alabama schools are less than fabulous

January 19, 2010

Mortimer Jordan High School principal Barbara Snider quoted in the North Jefferson News: “It certainly seems like it would be a boom to Alabama to have charter schools and the good things that come with them,” she said. Yes, a big boom indeed.

Read the full article →