The Liberal Order

The Poverty of State Collectivism - Government School Edition

In a market capitalist system properly conceived, in order to make me better off I have to make you better off relative to what anyone else is offering you with similar resources. Competition forces me to continually improve on quality at any given price, which also means discovering ways of producing the same quality at reduced cost, and therefore reduced price. Failing to do so, I go out of business and people quit dealing with me.

Why does this seem so foreign to government school bureaucrats and those with egalitarian mindsets?

Annica Eriksson, the head cook at the Falun school, received an order from the municipality to decrease the quality of her cooking after it discovered she served a variety of 15 vegetables and freshly baked bread to students each day. The municipality claims that these offerings are “unfair” to students at other local schools, who consume meals of a lesser quality, The Local reported.

School choice (and I mean total school choice - free schools from any state mandates, including curriculum requirements) forces schools to compete for students by continually innovating and discovering ways to serve students' needs rather than the interests of teachers and public school bureaucrats.

This egalitarian ideology has had tragic consequences, leading to mass murdering of millions of people around the world throughout the Twentieth Century. This is not to say that forcing the lunch lady to reduce the quality of her meals is going to lead to mass genocide in Sweden. But egalitarianism is a slippery slope, and if it's important that something as trivial as school lunches be equal, and you're willing to force one school to degrade the quality of its lunches so students at other schools don't feel slighted, you're probably pretty far down that slope. 

Here is an old post on the travesty of choice in North Carolina schools. 

Triangle home sales are up, but is that enough?

Things are improving in the Triangle area real estate market. Sales are up 19% in June. This follows increases of 9% in April and 28% in May, and inventory is down from its peak in June, 2010, shortly after I wrote this.

Sales might be up, but housing prices continue to fall. The graph below shows the change in inventory (black line and right axis) and asking prices for homes in the Triangle (left axis). Notice the recent upward trend in inventory (not unusual as people who waited to put their homes on the market due to poor market conditions of the past begin putting them on now), and the downward trend in asking prices. Prices still have a way to fall.

[H]igh unemployment in North Carolina is hampering any sort of real economic recovery, including a sustained recovery in the housing market. As foreclosures are sold off and banks cooperate with homeowners in short sales the pressure will affect the market, sending home values lower. Home prices are forecast to decline 3.8% on average in 2012 in Raleigh. 

Why can't teens find jobs?

I wonder if the following graph helps explain this.

For the third summer in a row, teens across the country are finding employment opportunities few and far between. While the economic downtown has limited job prospects in numerous industries, it’s been particularly hard on those with the least experience.

After falling by 20.79% from 2000 to 2007, the real federal minimum wage increased by 30.64% from 2008 to 2010. It has since declined only slightly, by 3.05% during 2011. 

Yes, certainly the economy adversely effects employment at all levels, but it has persisted for the least skilled much longer. Raise the price of something and people buy less of it.

Wake County Schools Embarrasses Itself Further

The business community wants excellent schools, but it also wants to get Wake County off the national radar as a place where education has become a political battleground.

Then get politicians and bureaucrats out of the business of education.

"Huge Kids Sale"

A sign down the street.

I guess if you're trying to sell some huge kids this sign is appropriate.

But if what you're trying to do is bring people's attention to a sale of items for kids, then this is the appropriate sign.

Here is an example of a misplaced apostrophe.

Can we ever have too few airline accidents?

A great test question that Walter Williams used as part of his Intermediate Microeconomics exam was, "Given that airline safety is costly, can there ever be too few airline accidents?" The answer, of course, is yes. It is a simple application of supply and demand where diminishing marginal benefits of some spending or action goes against increasing marginal costs. This applies to everything, including to airline safety. Certain safeguards and safety checks provide tremendous value at little cost, but you eventually encounter spending that provides almost zero benefit at extremely high cost. (Can you say, TSA screening?)

We know that when you spend other people's money you overspend relative to how you spend your own money. A great example of this is provided by today's News & Observer with this story on North Carolina and its push to pave every state-maintained road.

The state has spent hundreds of millions in the past two decades to blacktop 13,000 miles of roads, bringing asphalt to the driveways of nearly 200,000 homes, DOT records show.

Crews are still at it and now are reaching the bottom of the list, with only 1,842 miles still eligible for paving. They are working in the most rural and least populated spots, such as Mark Teague Road, and in hard-to-pave, mountainous terrain in the west, such as at Lower North Fork Road in Jackson County near the Tennessee border.

Crews there have nearly finished widening work and are preparing to pave a 2.5-mile dead-end road that climbs up the side of a mountain. It has about 30 houses, half of them considered “part-time” or second homes. There are no churches and, except for a bed-and-breakfast, no businesses.

Taxpayers are spending nearly $3.8 million on the project.

Granted, at least one resident who lives on this road is happy to see it paved; she obviously benefits from it. But not everyone sees the great benefits of seeing paved even the roads on which they live.

Mark Teague Road near Pittsboro in rural Chatham County is a half-mile-long strip of gravel that cuts through some woods and then dead-ends at a vacant brick ranch house surrounded by farmland.

The state road looks more like a driveway for Elizabeth Hopp, whose family lives in one of three houses off the lane. When crews showed up recently to widen the road bed, build erosion control for a pond and get ready to pave the road with asphalt, she wondered why the state was upgrading a road that goes nowhere. The cost to taxpayers: $225,000.

“I don’t really see the need for this,” Hopp said. “Maybe this is some kind of progress, but it seems sort of strange to me.”

And it's not as if even the News & Observer doesn't see the inefficiencies in all this.

The program costs have increased sharply over the past 23 years, and the benefits have diminished.

More miles were paved, on roads serving more houses, before 1997 than during all the years since, according to DOT figures. During those first eight years, the paving program served 18 homes for every mile of asphalt. DOT’s upcoming two-year work plan calls for paving roads that average 8 homes per mile.

Fast-rising prices for fuel and asphalt have pushed up construction costs for all kinds of road projects. DOT’s average cost for paving gravel roads has increased from $250,000 per mile in 2007 to $350,000 today. At that price, it would cost the state $644 million to pave those remaining miles.

Now if only the N&O's editorial staff could see that this applies to education spending as well. 

Why Do We Set the Bar For Students' Behavior So Low?

Read this story from the Southwest Wake (NC county) News. Kangaroo Express, a subsidiary of The Pantry (convenience stores located in the Southeastern U.S.), is offering consumers a special deal where for $6.99 you receive a plastic "Roo Cup" that permits you to purchase unlimited refills at any Kanagroo store for 25¢ between May 26th and Labor Day 2012. (The refills were free last summer.)

Now, as an incentive to encourage attendance and appropriate behavior in school, Kangaroo Express offered every student at Apex (NC) High School a free Roo Cup for this summer. That's right, these students just had to make it on time to all their classes and not act out for a whole year, and as a reward the students who met this standard would be rewarded with a free cup and unlimited 25¢ refills.

Oh wait, it wasn't for a whole year that they had to attend all their classes on time and not act out; that might be tough for many kids to achieve. It was probably for a whole semester that students had to act responsibly. Just one semester is a bit weaker for sure, but it still creates a good incentive to teach students the importance responsibility, which will help them socially and professionally over the long run. And this way only about 25% of the students would likely not qualify for the cup rather than the 50% that probably wouldn't qualify if perfect attendance and good behavior were required for a whole year.

Well actually, here's the deal:

For two weeks the students fought off colds, tugged themselves out of bed, and brushed off distractions in order to meet the requirements needed to get the cup – perfect attendance, no tardies and good conduct. 

Two freakin' weeks!?!? Are you kidding me? We have such low standards for students in public schools that they need an incentive to not be late, absent, or screw around for just two weeks? 

Here's the killer:

About 74 percent of the school’s 2,300 students qualified for the incentive.

What?!?! Only 74% of the students were able to show up for all their classes on time and not act up for just two short measly weeks? No wonder our government schools are failing; we have such low expectations of students who attend them.

“I think it’s really awesome,” said Junior Adrika Rahim, 17, about the cups.

She said the toughest requirement was not being late to class, especially after lunch. Rahim said she solved the problem by leaving five minutes early.

Oh, I see, Miss Rahim's education is not a priority, at least enough to get her to class on time. But the prospect of 25¢ sodas over the summer convinces her to make a minor change in her behavior - leaving five minutes earlier - and that's enough to get her to class on time. What a pity!

Karen Ortiz,16, said she’s usually always running late and the incentive program helped to motivate her.

“I think it was hard,” Ortiz said. “You get sidetracked by your friends. I would just say ‘Hey, I need to leave. Remember Roo Cup.’ ”

Hard?!?!? Getting to class on time is a serious challenge for today's high school students? No, getting to class on time may be an inconvenince to their perceived busy social lives, but it's not hard. Here, do you want to read a story about two students who experience hard every day of their academic careers and more? Ortiz's remarks are symptomatic of students who have been coddled for years in our government school systems. How about, "Hey, I need to leave. It's expected of me to be in class on time and I can meet at least that low level of responsibility."

Senior Jon Perkins, 17, said last summer he missed out on the Roo Cups and was determined to get one this year.

“I was dealing with a bad cold this entire week and I didn’t want to get up,” Perkins said. “But, to get a (cheap) drink all summer, it was worth it.”

Yeah, I guess when the expectations of your behavior are so low, and from the quotes above your classmates must largely be undisciplined slackers who have been overindulged their whole lives, there's little reason for you to ever think that education is important enough to act responsibly and value what many in this world will never ever have the privilege of experiencing. Is that what's wrong?

How much, and what exactly, are we teaching our kids in schools today?

UPDATE: Here is the "Vision Statement" for Apex High School."

At Apex High School graduates will master curriculum knowledge. Our students will embody a core of positive character traits. Meaningful relationships between adults and students will provide the support necessary for students to develop their potential and pursue challenging goals. Our students will combine knowledge and 21st century skills in becoming lifelong productive citizens.

As Woody Allen once said, "Eighty percent of success is just showing up on time." Hmmm!?! How about working on that timeliness thing, or self-discipline and responsibility.

Melissa Essary Steps Down As Dean of Campbell's Law School

This is a shock to me.

The dean who oversaw the move of Campbell University's law school to downtown Raleigh announced today that she will leave her post next summer.

Melissa Essary has been dean of the Norman Adrian Wiggins School of Law since 2006. In a letter to the university's governing board dated today, Essary said she would be returning to teaching full-time on the law school faculty.

I'm sad to see this news, but glad that she'll be staying on to teach. Kudos to Dean Essary for the wonderful job she has done at the law school.

 

Raleigh Is #1 and North Carolina Is #2

According to Businessweek, Raleigh is "America's best city." (HT: Lauren)

And according to the Business Journal, North Carolina has the second most favorable business climate among all states (second only to Texas).

In the latest survey of 322 corporate executives, 49.4 percent named Texas as having one of the most favorable business climates in the nation. North Carolina was named by 27.8 percent, and South Carolina was cited by 14.3 percent. When asked why they selected various states as being best for business, respondents frequently mentioned low operating costs and a pro-business climate. 

I'm also guessing that both are right-to-work states with a low percentage of unionized workers.

Raleigh comes in at number two.

Raleigh has experienced the second-highest overall population increase and the third-highest job growth over the past two decades in the U.S. It also ranked among those regions seeing the biggest jump in new immigrants and is the No. 1 city for families with young children. The area is a magnet for technology companies fleeing the more expensive, congested and highly regulated northeast corridor. Affordable housing and short commute times are no doubt highly attractive to recent college graduates and millennials looking to start families.

Story here.