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6 October 2009

Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR [email protected]

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number of statistically significant findings favoring free education markets over state school monopolies (in white), significant findings of the reverse (in light grey), and insignificant findings (in dark grey). Markets beat monopolies by a ratio of 15 significant findings to 1, across the seven educational measures for which data are available.

Throwdown with Charles Murray [Cato at Liberty] OCT 05, 2009 05:20P.M.

While a few of these findings have small effect sizes, many are above .15 standard deviations — some of them well above it. A paper by Tooley, Dixon, Bao, and Merrifield (under consideration by the journal Economics of Education Review), for instance, finds that in Nigeria private schools outscore public schools by double that amount, after controls, while ”in Delhi and Hyderabad private unrecognized schools top state-run schools in math instruction by about 2/3 of a standard deviation.” A recent randomized assignment study of the DC voucher program finds that voucher students who’ve been in the program for three years are reading two grade levels ahead of their public school peers (.42 std deviations), though the average voucher is worth only a quarter of what DC spends per pupil on public k-12 education.

In a response to my post this morning, Charles Murray remains unconvinced that changes to our school system could result in dramatic improvements in educational outcomes. He asks to see the scholarly study showing that a school has miraculously boosted achievement above the norm. In one way, this hurdle is too low, and in another it’s too high. If we could only point to a single study of a single school, it wouldn’t instill much confidence in the generalizability of the phenomenon. A consistent pattern of scholarly results is necessary for that. On the other hand, asking for “miraculous” improvement is a needlessly high standard. My disagreement is with Murray’s earlier, lower threshold claim that: ”reforms of the schools can never do more than produce score improvements at the margin.”

These are more than marginal improvements, and they are part of a consistent pattern. That pattern strongly suggests that moving from our current monopoly school system to a free and competitive education marketplace would shift the bell curve of academic achievement significantly to the right, raising the mean achievement substantially above its current level.

Let’s call a marginal improvement an increase of less than .15 standard deviations above the current mean (typically considered a “small” effect in the social sciences). Taking that as our litmus test, is there a consistent pattern of scholarly evidence that better school system design can boost achievement by more than .15 standard deviations? Yes.

No one should be surprised by that. Imagine how far the bell curve for median income across modern nations would shift to the left if all free markets were supplanted with centrally planned monopolies such as have ruined the economies of Cuba, North Korea, and until recently many other nations.

That pattern is presented in the figure above, drawn from my recent review of the global econometric literature comparing educational outcomes across different types of school systems. The figure relates the

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6 October 2009

Manuel Insulza, secretary general of the OAS, then asked the Venezuelan government to authorize the visit of a delegation of the IACHR, a request that hasn’t been granted. Judging by the lack of follow up efforts, the OAS, made up of a majority of countries that receive Venezuelan largesse of some form, seems mostly uninterested in pressing this issue.

Why Is For-Profit Education So Difficult in the U.S.? [Cato at Liberty]

The OAS seems ready to help deposed would-be autocrats in Latin America. Where is it when it comes to defending the rights of political

OCT 05, 2009 05:17P.M.

prisoners in Venezuela? Matt Yglesias has a post up looking at the PISA scores, and he seems to imply that for-profit schooling has been tried and found wanting in Sweden and the U.S.: FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS The big difference is that many Swedish charters are run by for-profit firms. We’ve had some experiments with that in the U.S. and it hasn’t worked very well. Nobody’s really found a great way of making consistent profits running K-12 schools in America.

The Czar Will Rule [Cato at Liberty] OCT 05, 2009 03:57P.M.

Of course even he notes that Sweden’s schools are highly regulated by the state.

President Obama’s real czar, “pay czar” Ken Feinberg, who has real power, brushes aside such claims even as he prepares to issue his Gosplan-style edicts on future and even past pay agreements:

And in the U.S., the difficulty of succeeding in for-profit education just might have something to do with that government monopoly on k-12 education and the $560 billion or so in tax revenues that fund it.

The Obama administration’s pay czar says negotiations over executive compensation with the seven companies that received the biggest federal bailouts have been “a consensual process’’ – not a matter of forcing decisions on them.

Maybe.

“I’m hoping I won’t be required to simply make a determination over company objections,’’ veteran Washington attorney Kenneth Feinberg told the Chicago Bar Association in a speech.

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Political Prisoners in Venezuela: Where Is the Organization of American States? [Cato at Liberty]

But note: he’s “hoping” he won’t have to impose his own view. He’s hoping the companies will accede to his power without complaining. But the fact remains, he doesn’t have to get their consent. He “has sole discretion to set compensation for the top 25 employees of each of those companies,” and his decisions “won’t be subject to appeal.” Or, as Feinberg himself puts it,

OCT 05, 2009 04:19P.M. The Washington Post has a great story today on the swelling number of political prisoners in Venezuela. As the story points out, the government of Hugo Chávez is increasingly targeting university students who have been active in the opposition movement. They are jailed under bogus charges of “destabilizing the government,” or “inciting civil war.”

The statute provides these guideposts, but the statute ultimately says I have discretion to decide what it is that these people should make and that my determination will be final. The officials can’t run to the Secretary of Treasury. The officials can’t run to the court house or a local court. My decision is final on those individuals.

Unfortunately, despite stories and numerous reports from international media outlets and human rights groups, the Organization of American States—which has been very active in trying to reinstall Manuel Zelaya to the Honduran presidency—has remained silent on this issue. Last week, dozens of students went on a hunger strike in front of the OAS headquarters in Caracas, but no official from that organization came out to meet them. After several days some students were allowed to talk with the OAS ambassador in Caracas, who put them in touch with the director of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). Jose

That’s power. So where is Doonesbury? We need him to update his classic 1970s “energy czar” strips.

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6 October 2009

Appearing on CNBC Monday, DownsizingGovernment.com editor Chris Edwards explained more about the site: Plus, keep track of where your tax dollars are going by following DownsizingGovernment.com on Twitter (@DownsizeTheFeds) and Facebook.

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

NYT Columnist, Meet NYT Reporter [Cato at Liberty]

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Cato Launches New Web Site Exposing Wasteful Government Spending [Cato at Liberty]

OCT 05, 2009 02:26P.M. In the New York Times this weekend, columnist Thomas Friedman wrote, “[W]e may be tired of this ‘war on terrorism,’ but the bad guys are not. They are getting even more ‘creative.’”

OCT 05, 2009 02:59P.M. On September 26th, the New York Times reported in a story by Scott Shane:

Did you know that the average American family spends $1,000 each year on the U.S. Department of Agriculture, whether or not it consumes that agency’s services? Or that the federal government annually spends $1,500 per household on net interest costs alone?

Many students of terrorism believe that in important ways, Al Qaeda and its ideology of global jihad are in a pronounced decline — with its central leadership thrown off balance as operatives are increasingly picked off by missiles and manhunts and, more important, with its tactics discredited in public opinion across the Muslim world.

In an ongoing effort to shed light on runaway government spending and expose wasteful government programs, Cato launched a new Web site today that examines the federal budget department-by-department to see which agencies can be reformed or terminated. DownsizingGovernment.org describes which programs are wasteful, damaging and obsolete in an era of trillion-dollar deficits.

Who’s right? Should we be more concerned or less? Well, the statements are not inconsistent. But unlike the analysts cited in the news story, columnist Friedman uses loaded terms and broad generalizations like “war on terror”, “bad guys”, and “creative” to misconstrue the nature of the terrorist threat.

The research exposes that many public outlays—though vigorously defended by the politicians who created them and the constituencies they purport to help—are remarkably ineffective at achieving their core aims.

Friedman says “war” a dizzying seventeen times in his short column, misdescribing the many different efforts that go into suppressing terrorism, dissuading terrorist recruits, and capturing or killing terrorists.

Here are just a few examples: • Though the Department of Education’s annual budget has more than tripled in real dollars since 1970, that period has not been marked by any tangible improvement in student performance.

He lumps all terrorists together as “bad guys” despite expert counsel against assuming they have similar aims and motives, or that they collaborate.

• The Department of Housing and Urban Development operates a rural subsidies program even though hundreds of other federal programs benefiting rural constituencies already exist.

And “creative”?—well, putting a bomb in your keister is creative, but it is not an effective way to harm anyone other than yourself.

• HUD has been characterized by scandalous graft and cronyism under both Republican and Democratic presidents for three decades. The rate at which senior HUD officials have been investigated or prosecuted is chilling, and government watchdogs have found dozens of instances where officials’ private-sector contacts were showered with public money for projects.

But don’t jump to the wrong conclusion. The point is not to dismiss terrorism as a threat. It’s to know that terrorists are fallible, al Qaeda is on the wane, and law enforcement is on the case. In terrorism, we are not confronted by anything close to an existential threat. Friedman’s column is a reach, and it does a distinctly bad job of working

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with any of these subtleties. (The only reason I feel compelled to call them “subtleties,” I suppose, is because they seem to remain beyond the grasp of an otherwise intelligent and thoughtful New York Times

6 October 2009

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Carper: We Trust Our Staff So You Can Trust Us [Cato at Liberty]

columnist.)

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OCT 05, 2009 12:09P.M.

Revenge of the Laffer Curve, Part II [Cato at Liberty]

A deep fissure between federal lawmaking practices and the Internetfueled expectations of the people is just starting to open.

OCT 05, 2009 12:39P.M.

Here’s a fascinating interview with Senator Tom Carper (D-DE), in which he justifies not reading the legislation that he votes on.

An earlier post revealed that higher tax rates in Maryland were backfiring, leading to less revenue from upper-income taxpayers. It seems New York politicians are running into a similar problem. According to an AP report, the state’s 100 richest taxpayers have paid $1 billion less than expected following a big tax hike. The story notes that several rich people have left the state, and all three examples are about people who have redomiciled in Florida, which has no state income tax. For more background information on why higher taxes on the rich do not necessarily raise revenue, see this three-part Laffer Curve video series (here, here, and here):

He’s right that the bills Congress passes are almost incomprehensible, but he draws the wrong conclusion from it. It’s not OK to pass bills that you can’t read and literally don’t understand. Congress and the bureaucracy will come to learn a lesson that other parts of our society have learned: The Internet changes things. Because it is now possible to see legislation before Congress passes it, Americans now expect to see legislation before it passes. And they will come to expect that their representative understand it—in detail.

Early data from New York show the higher tax rates for the wealthy have yielded lower-than-expected state wealth.

A machine has grown up in Washington over the past two hundred years where representatives rely on colleagues who rely on staff to write bills. This has not produced a desirable body of federal law, and it is not a

…[New York Governor David] Paterson said last week that revenues from the income tax increases and other taxes enacted in April are running about 20 percent less than anticipated.

process that the public will accept for much longer.

…So far this year, half of about $1 billion in expected revenue from New York’s 100 richest taxpayers is missing.

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

A New Court Term: Big Cases, Questions About the New Justice [Cato at Liberty]

…State officials say they don’t know how much of the missing revenue is because any wealthy New Yorkers simply left. But at least two high-profile defectors have sounded off on the tax changes: Buffalo Sabres owner Tom Golisano, the billionaire who ran for governor three times and who was paying $13,000 a day in New York income taxes, and radio talkshow host Rush Limbaugh.

OCT 05, 2009 11:59A.M. Today is the first Monday in October, and so is First Monday, the traditional start of the Supreme Court term. The Court already heard one argument – in the Citizens United campaign finance case — but it had been carried over from last year, so it doesn’t really count.

…Donald Trump told Fox News earlier this year that several of his millionaire friends were talking about leaving the state over the latest taxes.

In any event, continuing its trend from last term, the Court has further front-loaded its caseload — with nearly 60 arguments on its docket already. Fortunately, unlike last year, we’ll see many blockbuster cases, including: • the application of the Second Amendment to state gun regulations; • First Amendment challenges to national park monuments and a

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statute criminalizing the depiction of animal cruelty;

6 October 2009

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Congratulations to Senator Tom Harkin [Cato at Liberty]

• an Eighth Amendment challenge to life sentences for juveniles; a potential revisiting of Miranda rights; • federalism concerns over legislation regarding the civil commitment of “sexually dangerous” persons;

OCT 05, 2009 11:52A.M. . . . for congratulating himself by naming a federal grant program after himself. His $10,000,000 earmark request for the program is funded at

• a separation-of-powers dispute concerning the agency enforcing Sarbanes-Oxley;

$7,000,000 in the Labor/HHS appropriations bill.

• judicial takings of beachfront property; and • notably in these times of increasing government control over the economy, the “reasonableness” of mutual fund managers’ compensation.

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

Monday’s Daily News [The Club for Growth]

Cato has filed amicus briefs in many of these cases, so I will be paying extra-close attention.

OCT 05, 2009 11:51A.M.

Perhaps more importantly, we also have a new justice — and, as Justice White often said, a new justice makes a new Court. While Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation was never in any serious doubt, she faced strong criticism on issues ranging from property rights and the use of foreign law in constitutional interpretation to the Ricci firefighters case and the “wise Latina” speeches that led people to question her commitment to judicial objectivity. Only time will tell what kind of justice Sotomayor will be now that she is unfettered from higher court precedent — and the first term is not necessarily indicative.

THE DAILY NEWS More Unemployment Benefits Will Backfire Larry Kudlow, Money Politics One of Washington’s All-Time Dumb Ideas - Wall Street Journal Editorial Stop The Spending And Cut The Taxes - IBD Editorial Burnt Rubber: Tire Firms Decry New Tariff - Diana Ransom, WSJ States Resist Medicaid Growth - Shailagh Murray, Washington Post Schumer Says Centrists ‘Very Open’ to Public Option M. O’Brien, The Hill The China Currency Conundrum - Blog Post, ScottLincicome.com Mikulski Earmarks Go To Top Campaign Donors P. West, Baltimore Sun Taxes, Other Bills Drive Families Out of New Jersey - S. Mullen, APP.com Tiger Woods: The First $1B Athlete - CBS News Cubs 2, D’Backs 5 - AP (the last game of a disappointing season)

Key questions for the new Court’s dynamics are whether Sotomayor will challenge Justice Scalia intellectually and whether she will antagonize Justice Kennedy and thus push him to the right. We’ve already seen her make waves at the Citizens United reargument — questioning the scope of corporations’ constitutional rights — so it could be that she will decline to follow Justice Alito’s example and jump right into the Court’s rhetorical battles.

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Cracking the Education Monopoly [The Club for Growth]

In short, it’s the first day of school and I’m excited.

OCT 05, 2009 11:11A.M.

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6 October 2009

But Chavis — and others before him and alongside him today — have shown how to do it: instill in the school environment those cultural characteristics necessary for academic success that are missing in the home.

We Are not Seeing the Bell Curve’s Toll [Cato at Liberty] OCT 05, 2009 09:40A.M.

In a free enterprise school system that would automatically disseminate and perpetuate great schools like Ben’s, average test scores would rise dramatically above their current levels. The Bell Curve would be shifted dramatically to the right.

Last week, I posted a chart on this blog showing the percent change in federal education spending and student achievement since 1970 (achievement has been flat while federal education spending has nearly tripled). After laughing out loud when he saw it, IQ expert and Bell Curve author Charles Murray mused that “such a huge proportion of a child’s educational prospects are determined by things other than school (genes and the non-school environment) that reforms of the schools can never do more than produce score improvements at the margin.” But consider the accomplishments of Ben Chavis, who spoke at Cato last Friday. When he took over the American Indian Public Charter School in Oakland in 2001, it was the worst school in the district. Under his leadership (imagine a hybrid of Socrates and Dirty Harry), the school’s scores rose dramatically year after year. Within seven years, it had become the fifth highest-scoring middle school in the state — though continuing to enroll a student population that is overwhelmingly poor and minority. It was not a freak occurrence. Chavis did it again, and again: creating a second AIPCS middle school as well as a high school, both of which are also among the top schools in the state, and both of which also enroll chiefly low income minority students. Murray has made a compelling case over the years that IQ is real, strongly tied to academic achievement, and determined in significant measure by nature and home environment. But academic achievement is also powerfully determined by schooling. Typical U.S. test score data camouflage the significance of schooling because so many schools are so amazingly bad at maximizing academic achievement — especially for poor minority students.

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