What Should We Do About Education?

After a century of government education we still have large swathes of the population that just don’t get education.  Writes Niall Ferguson

In Britain today, fully 40 per cent of adults who left school at the earliest opportunity are now unemployed.

Then he goes on to talk about an “an uneducated and unemployable underclass” that is our biggest problem.

Here we are spending about five percent of GDP on primary and secondary education every year.  Yet millions of children grow up without acquiring basic literacy and numeracy.  What is going on?

But let us step back a bit.  Notice anything about those unemployed and unemployable adults?  They aren’t starving to death.  Let’s put it another way.  Although you and I wouldn’t be caught dead without our 20 years of education and our college degrees, the fact is that education is not a matter of life and death.  People who studiously avoid education are doing fine.

In fact our society actually gives money to people without education and without skills.  On the other hand, it takes money from people with an education.

As economist Ludwig von Mises said half a century ago.  People who are unemployed today are people who can afford not to be working today.

Maybe we need to change the whole structure of incentive in our society.  Here are a few mean-spirited ideas.

• We abolish the public school system but the government (or government contractors) runs free literacy/numeracy clinics for all ages 6 through 60.  Graduates get a certificate of literacy and numeracy.
• Kids under 14 cannot work unless they have a certificate of literacy and numeracy.
• Teenagers who want to quit school and work must pay a 20 percent literacy tax unless they carry a certificate of literacy and numeracy.
• Single parents that show up for government benefits must enroll in a literacy program and demonstrate basic literacy skills before they can get government housing or rent subsidies.  Children are farmed out to foster homes until certificate of literacy and numeracy is obtained by the parent.
• People that apply for unemployment benefits must show a certificate of literacy and numeracy before they get full benefits unless they are enrolled in a literacy/numeracy clinic.
• People can’t get a driver’s license unless they hold a certificate of literacy and numeracy.

And so on.  Nothing special going on here.  It is just that if we believe that literacy and numeracy are essential in the modern age then let us demonstrate how serious we are.

And the way to show our seriousness is to get serious about illiteracy.

Liberals should like this program.  They are all in favor of compulsion.

Collapsing Venezuela. Who Cares?

Now that the price of oil is going down we shall start to see the consequence in the thug dictator nations, natural resource states like Venezuela.   Richard W. Rahn reminds us the dimensions of the corruption in that unhappy country and of the collapse to come. 

It has been widely reported that Mr. Chavez has been increasingly taking control of the oil, telecommunications and energy sectors, as well as the media. What has not been reported is the full extent of the corruption in Venezuela and how this ultimately will destroy the economy.

The financial scandal taking place is far bigger than Enron, and may ultimately even exceed the U.N. "oil-for-food" scandal, the biggest financial disgrace of all time.

Who cares, you might ask?  After all, the Chavez regime isn’t the first to nationalize the economy and go straight down the tubes.  And it won’t be the last.  After all it was in 1758 that Benjamin Franklin wrote in “Poor Richard’s Almanac”  that:

Experience keeps a dear School, but Fools will learn in no other, and scarce in that.

Maybe a century ago it was possible to dispute that capitalism was the only way to organize economic cooperation.  Maybe fifty years ago it was still just possible as left-wing enthusiasts confidently expected that the Soviet Union would “bury” us.

But not any longer.  We can predict, with as much certainty as is possible in economic affairs, that the consequence of the nationalization and politicization of the Venezuelan economy is that the Venezuelan people are entering a period of economic misery.  And everyone knows how to avoid it.

"Have Your Baghdad Civil War Without Us"

What is the difference between a serious commentator and an unserious one?

Answer:  Occasionally, the serious commentator can be detected in an original thought.  That is why Charles Krauthammer is a serious commentator.

He asks: What’s the point of the “surge?”  The problem is that is does nothing to make the Maliki government get serious about the Shiite militias.  Right now it is protecting the militias and the Iranians.

So let’s do something that really does threaten the Maliki regime.

We say to Maliki: you let us down and we dismantle the Green Zone, leave Baghdad, and let you fend for yourself; we keep the airport and certain strategic bases in the area; we redeploy most of our forces to Kurdistan; we maintain a significant presence in Anbar province where we are having success in our one-front war against al Qaeda and the Baathists. Then we watch. You can have your Baghdad civil war without us. We will be around to pick up the pieces as best we can.

A redeployment like that would reduce US casualties, maybe to zero, but would still maintain US military presence.

Back to the bottom line.  It is embarrassing to Bush and the US that we haven’t built a democracy in Iraq.  But it is only an embarrassment.

The bottom line is that US strategy requires that Iran doesn’t get to be the hegemon of the Middle East.  In that effort Iraq is just a useful pawn. 

Meanwhile, the Iran economy is in the toilet.

A Small Step towards Education Reform

The New York City Department of Education is taking a small step towards reform.  As reported by Ryan Sager, in the future the standard process will: 

Require principals from now on to actually recommend teachers for tenure.

 Up to now, 99 percent of probationary teachers got tenure after three years.  Now the system will take a tiny step to change this.

1. Principals must sign a form positively recommending teachers for tenure
2. Principals will be educated “as to their existing right to refuse to grant tenure.”
3. Start using hard data, like student test scores, in tenure evaluations.

Well maybe.  It could make a little difference.  But don’t expect the principals to change that much.  After all, it’s no money out of their pockets.

The reason that people go to work for the government is that they want the tenure.  They want, after the first probationary months and years, to have absolute job security.

After they get job security then they decide that they should have the money too.

Maybe they should have that right.  Some people are very risk-averse, and they have a right to be.  But not with our kids. And not for hourly wage rates that are equivalent to that earned by technical professionals with no tenure.

Generally, in the real world you must pay for security, especially job security.  It is like insurance.  You pay a premium for the right to allocate risk to the insurance company.

There is a word for a world in which people that have complete job security earn as much or more than people exposed to the full risk of the modern global economy.  Unjust. 

Why Isn't The President Fighting For His Plan?

Radio talk-show host Hugh Hewitt is fit to be tied about the lackluster media offensive for the president’s plan for a “surge” in Iraq.  The president sent Tony Snow out to talk to the bloggers and the talk-radio shows, he gave his speech, appeared on 60 Minutes, and sent folks out on the weekend talk shows, he notes.

And that was it.

Media offensive over.

 Why aren’t the president and his administration fighting and getting their message out?

If, as the president has argued, and as I believe, the war—in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Somalia and across the globe—is the central calling of our time, then the men and women in charge of winning it need to embrace the very difficult task of persuading a public bombarded every day with a contrary argument.

Every day. In many places. With passion.

So the question is: Are they tired, worn out by five years of brutal opposition?  Or do they judge that the Democrats aren’t going to stop the surge, so why bother?

Or is the fix in?  Are Democrats privately saying: “Go for It, Mr. President,” even as they butter up their anti-war base with withering criticism and non-binding resolutions?

Maybe the Bushies feel that there is no political will to do anything about the War on Terror until the American people get riled up by another atrocity on American soil.

Or maybe they think they are doing fine, and that the media opposition is just a sideshow.

The truth is that we just don’t know.  All we do know is that the Bush administration is not working hard to build public support for the war.

In Defeat: Defiance or Renewal?

WWinston Churchill famously advised: “In victory: magnanimity; in defeat: defiance.”  But in recent history defeat for liberals has usually led to denial, and for the American conservative movement, defeat has often led to renewal, as Rich Lowry writes:

The recent history of conservatism is that in disaster there is renewal. Barry Goldwater’s shellacking in 1964 paved the way for the conservative transformation of the Republican party. Jimmy Carter’s 1976 victory paved the way for Reagan. And Clinton paved the way for Gingrich. Will Nancy Pelosi pave the way for something positive, and if so, whom or what?

And this weekend National Review Institute is hosting a conservative summit,  with lead-off speaker Newt Gingrich.  There will be policy analysis and also late-night partying, er, make that night owl sessions. 

Friday night is ladies night, featuring Mona Charen, Laura Ingraham, Kate O'Beirne, Michelle Malkin, and Kathryn Lopez.”

Saturday night is for the guys, with Mark [Steyn], Jonah Goldberg, and Rob Long.”

Yes.  In 2007, conservatives know how to have fun, even in the depths of defeat.

French Lefties Dodging Wealth Tax

You feel a bit guilty about it.  After all, we conservatives shouldn’t be indulging in German vices like Schadenfreude.  But when the Great Left Hope of France, Segolene Royal, gets in trouble for dodging the French wealth tax by the very capitalist device of incorporating herself and her husband into a real-estate company,  well, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer couple.

Here’s what Sego did, as reported by Peter Allen.

Not only does she part-own three impressive homes with her boyfriend, François Hollande, the Socialist Party chairman, but the couple have set up a real estate company to manage the properties.

This has enabled them to reduce the amount they pay in l’impôt de solidarité sur la fortune (ISF), a notoriously high tax imposed on anyone with assets of more than €500,000.

I know what you are wondering.  What is the French for “limousine liberal?”  Thank you for asking.  It is “gauche caviar.”

Pretty cute, eh?  Lefty with caviar taste.