Democracy – Whatever That Is – and Education
Democracy is inherently good, and since public schools are democratically controlled they, too, are inherently good. Right?
You’d think so from the way many people invoke “democracy” when championing government schools, but thanks to a recent blog post from the Fordham Institute’s Mike Petrilli, we might have a rare opportunity to actually scrutinize that assumption. A few days ago, Petrilli questioned the value of local school boards in light of what seems to be frequent capture by teachers unions, and was immediately accused of attacking “democracy” by historian Diane Ravitch.
“Gosh, Mike,” Ravitch wrote in the comments section, “it sounds as though you have identified the real problem ‘reformers’ face: democracy.”
With that the battle was on, and it’s one I’m happy to join: A huge problem we face in education is, indeed, democracy.
Before I go further, the first thing that’s necessary to do is define “democracy.” Unfortunately, that’s something rarely done by those who wield the term like a rhetorical chainsaw, swinging it wildly at anyone who might question government schooling. Typically, it seems the word is employed to just vaguely connote some sort of action by “the people” — whoever they are — as opposed to “elites,” or to indicate that popular voting is in some fashion used to make laws.
That said, the most basic definition of democracy — the one you probably learned in grade school – follows these lines: “Control of an organization or group by the majority of its members.” You might also assume the word means representative democracy, where people vote for their representatives and majorities of reps make the laws, but usually the word’s use isn’t even that precise.
This Week in Government Failure
Over at Downsizing the Federal Government, we focused on the following issues this past week:
- Over the last decade, annual average military wages rose 6.6 percent, federal civilian wages rose 5.0 percent, and private sector wages rose 3.0 percent.
- A rule-of-thumb to remember is that total federal spending is 3 to 4 percentage points of GDP larger than usually reported by officials.
- Imagining that more federal infrastructure spending will be a panacea for the economy is a liberal fairy tale, detached from the actual experience of most federal agencies over the last century.
- We’ve nearly tripled the cost of sending a child all the way through the K-12 system, while performance near the end of high school has been stagnant (reading and math) or even declining (science).
- Small Business Administration to close? Unfortunately, no.
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The Federal Government and Financial Literacy
Almost 600 pages into the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act is a provision directing the Government Accountability Office to assess the feasibility of the federal government certifying organizations that provide financial literacy. The GAO released its report this week and concluded that “While a federal process for certifying financial literacy providers appears to be feasible, doing so would pose challenges.”
The challenges cited by the GAO are generally of the bureaucratic variety: What agency or agencies would be in charge? What criteria would be used? How would oversight be conducted? And most importantly, how much would it cost [taxpayers] to implement and operate a federal process for certifying financial literacy providers?
Fortunately, the GAO says that the majority of the representatives of private sector financial literacy organizations, federal agencies, and academic experts that it interviewed said that the disadvantages outweighed the advantages. Numerous concerns were cited, but one in particular stands out: Financial literacy certification may not be an appropriate role for the federal government.
Well, Hallelujah. I’ve read my share of GAO reports – almost all of which have dealt with activities that are not a proper role of the federal government – and I don’t recall that concern being mentioned.
Not only is individual financial literacy not an appropriate concern of the federal government, the federal government itself is a monument to financial illiteracy. It isn’t just that GAO report after GAO report continues to document financial mismanagement across the entire government complex. No, it’s the fact that Washington’s financial mismanagement has left us with a bloated government that’s mired in debt and crippled by massive “entitlement” programs that operate like Ponzi schemes.
The additional irony is the Dodd-Frank regulatory overhaul was passed in the wake of an economic meltdown perpetrated in large part by government failure. Alas, there might not be a lot of shame in Washington, but the hypocrisy is seemingly without limit.
Thursday Links
- The Obama Doctrine fails to address the limitations of Washington’s attempts to shape foreign conflicts.
- The 2012 Republican presidential field has thus far failed to produce a small-government conservative.
- FREE E-BOOK: Government Failure: A Primer on Public Choice is available for reading and download (PDF) for a limited time on our website.
- Republicans and Democrats are quibbling over a measly $61 billion in spending cuts–that’s a failure of leadership.
- Under the failing status quo, Big Sugar wins, and Joe Taxpayer loses.
- Ian Vásquez, director of Cato’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, joined C-SPAN’s Washington Journal to talk about the failure of foreign aid:
Sen. Rand Paul Proposes Serious Cuts
Freshman Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has raised the bar in Washington by releasing a bill that would make substantial, specific, and immediate cuts in federal spending. While policymakers on both sides of the aisle have largely paid lip service to stopping Washington’s record run of fiscal profligacy, Paul’s proposal makes good on his campaign promise to seriously tackle the federal government’s bloated budget.
Paul’s bill would target $500 billion in cuts for fiscal 2011 alone. While audacious by Washington standards, cutting federal spending by that amount would still leave us with a projected $1 trillion deficit this year. Nonetheless, the federal government’s scope would be dramatically curtailed, which would pay dividends in coming years as the economy is unshackled from numerous failed federal interventions.
A description of Paul’s proposed cuts can be viewed here, but some of the bolder ideas merit a comment or two.
First, Paul would eliminate most Department of Education spending, with the exception of higher education subsidies. He correctly notes that the federal government’s increased involvement in education has been “detrimental” and that “the mere existence of the Department of Education is an overreach of power by the federal government.”
Second, the Department of Energy, which is becoming a chief source of corporate welfare, would be zeroed out. Paul would eliminate subsidies for all energy industries — from fossil fuels to so-called “green” energies. He notes that the government’s interference in energy development should be ended and the free market allowed to “start taking the reins.”
Third, the Department of Housing and Urban Development — one of most visible examples of government failure — would be eliminated. Among the HUD programs that Paul singles out, it is his criticism of housing vouchers that deserves the most applause as they remain popular in some Republican and conservative quarters.
Paul deserves credit for proposing cuts at the Department of Defense, although the savings would be relatively small. However, his proposal would cut the Department of Homeland Security almost in half, and would zero out billions of dollars in foreign aid. The latter is well-timed given the situation in Egypt, a major recipient of U.S. foreign aid dollars.
Finally, Paul would chop a quarter of the Department of Health and Human Service’s budget, although he doesn’t take on Medicare or Medicaid. He is reportedly at work on separate legislation that would address Medicare and Social Security. Because Paul’s proposal is focused on immediate cuts, his decision to tackle the big mandatory spending programs separately shouldn’t be viewed as a cop out.
Thus far, the spending cut bar in Washington has been set pretty low. Policymakers from both parties and varying ideological backgrounds have been timid in spelling out precisely what they would cut. By getting specific, Paul has raised the bar, which will hopefully put pressure on others — in particular, the congressional Republican leadership — to move beyond a vague, myopic fixation on nondefense discretionary spending.
This Week in Government Failure
Over at Downsizing the Federal Government, we focused on the following issues this week:
- Unfortunately, the president’s Fiscal Commission appears to have operated on the premise that the federal government should continue to do everything it now does.
- Getting Rep. Jeff Flake on appropriations is a step in the right direction, but his appointment can’t be a token gesture.
- A new study finds that policymakers needn’t fear spending cuts.
- House Republican leaders’ support for “Prince of Pork” Hal Rogers to chair the chamber’s appropriations committee is a slap in the face of voters who demanded change in November.
- Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, whose state’s unemployment rate is almost 13 percent, has advice for Washington on how to create jobs. No, it’s not April 1st.
Stopping the ‘Culture of Spending’
Sen. Mitch McConnell’s quick reversal on the subject of earmarks was a surprise, but that quick, largely symbolic win against profligate spending certainly won’t translate into a more permanent movement without sustained effort. Shortly after McConnell made his speech supporting a “moratorium” on earmarks, I spoke with Matt Kibbe of Freedomworks about turning the enthusiasm for smaller government into that enduring force. He said understanding public choice gives lawmakers a better shot at turning popular anger at government into reductions in its size and scope. Freedomworks recently held orientation sessions for freshmen members of Congress. A primer in public choice was on the agenda.
Cato’s Government Failure: A Primer in Public Choice is a good place to start to understand the mechanics of government dealmaking.
Hot Heads and Government Failure
The left-wing blogosphere and left-leaning newspapers have spent the past few days joyously incensed over the story of a Tennessee city fire department that allowed a home to burn because the homeowner hadn’t paid his annual fire fee.
AlterNet’s Jonathan Holland titled-and-teased his post on the fire:
Ayn Rand Conservatism at Work — Firefighters Let Family’s House Burn Down Because Owner Didn’t Pay $75 Fee
Talk of limited government is appealing until you see what it actually means in practice: a society in which it’s every man for himself.
ThinkProgress’s Zaid Jilani thundered that the fire demonstrates that there are two competing visions of American society:
One, the conservative vision, believes in the on-your-own society, and informs a policy agenda that primarily serves the well off and privileged sectors of the country. The other vision, the progressive one, believes in an American Dream that works for all people, regardless of their racial, religious, or economic background. The conservative vision was on full display last week in Obion County, Tennessee.
(An aside: ThinkProgress loves to throw in partisan barbs, so Jilani claims that “every seat” of the Obion County Commission is “filled by a Republican,” a claim that Holland echoes. Nope. But then, ThinkProgress recently harangued Michael Cannon for an opinion that isn’t his, so ya’ know…)
Finally, today the New York Times editorial page chimes in:
In any case, the founding fathers left no message that government can make an object lesson of a neglectful citizen by letting his house burn down. The [homeowners] deserve an apology, even if it won’t come from the candidates peddling dreams of constricted government.
It’s unfortunate that these writers didn’t pause from their fervor to consider the facts. In a nutshell: The firefighters involved were from a city government fire department following a city government policy concerning people who didn’t pay a city government fee for a 20-year-old city government program that was adopted in response to a county government decision.
John Galt in Nomex this ain’t.
Beyond the facts, these writers are confused about basic political theory.
Six Reasons to Downsize the Federal Government
1. Additional federal spending transfers resources from the more productive private sector to the less productive public sector of the economy. The bulk of federal spending goes toward subsidies and benefit payments, which generally do not enhance economic productivity. With lower productivity, average American incomes will fall.
2. As federal spending rises, it creates pressure to raise taxes now and in the future. Higher taxes reduce incentives for productive activities such as working, saving, investing, and starting businesses. Higher taxes also increase incentives to engage in unproductive activities such as tax avoidance.
3. Much federal spending is wasteful and many federal programs are mismanaged. Cost overruns, fraud and abuse, and other bureaucratic failures are endemic in many agencies. It’s true that failures also occur in the private sector, but they are weeded out by competition, bankruptcy, and other market forces. We need to similarly weed out government failures.
4. Federal programs often benefit special interest groups while harming the broader interests of the general public. How is that possible in a democracy? The answer is that logrolling or horse-trading in Congress allows programs to be enacted even though they are only favored by minorities of legislators and voters. One solution is to impose a legal or constitutional cap on the overall federal budget to force politicians to make spending trade-offs.
5. Many federal programs cause active damage to society, in addition to the damage caused by the higher taxes needed to fund them. Programs usually distort markets and they sometimes cause social and environmental damage. Some examples are housing subsidies that helped to cause the financial crises, welfare programs that have created dependency, and farm subsidies that have harmed the environment.
6. The expansion of the federal government in recent decades runs counter to the American tradition of federalism. Federal functions should be “few and defined” in James Madison’s words, with most government activities left to the states. The explosion in federal aid to the states since the 1960s has strangled diversity and innovation in state governments because aid has been accompanied by a mass of one-size-fits-all regulations.
For more, see DownsizingGovernment.org.
Government of Continual Failure
The Washington Post is full of so many stories about government failure these days, it’s hard to keep up.
Today, on page A19 we learn about a Small Business Administration subsidy program that has a 60-percent default rate. On the same page, we learn that the U.S. Postal Service will lose $7 billion this year.
Flipping over to page A20, we learn that former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik is a liar, a tax cheat, and thoroughly corrupt.
Then flip back to A15, and columnist Steve Pearlstein rightly lambastes the latest stimulus scheme from Congress: ”This $10 billion boondoggle is nothing more than a giveaway to the real estate industrial complex.”
Finally, on A14, we’ve got government-owned Fannie Mae losing a colossal $19 billion this year and asking the Treasury for another $15 billion taxpayer hand-out.
The federal government is a mess. Policymakers have no idea what the effects will be when they spend billions on scheme after scheme. Most of them don’t read the legislation, they don’t understand economics, and they never admit mistakes when their schemes almost inevitably fail. Fully 40 percent of the vast federal budget will be debt-fueled this year, but few policymakers seem to care. And public corruption seems never-ending.
Isn’t it time to give libertarianism a chance?
Fear of Freedom Leaves Only Faith Healing for Our Schools
Historian Diane Ravitch drives me nuts. She has written numerous, terrific books chronicling the ills of government control of education, including the wrenching social conflict it has caused; the ejection of meaningful content from textbooks and tests it has required; and the dominance of educrats over parents and children it has enabled. She has been, essentially, the official historian of government-schooling’s failure. And yet, in a new blog interview with journalist John Merrow, she appears not to comprehend the most important lesson her copious works have to offer: that government education is doomed to fail.
Why the huge disconnect between her historiography and willingness to act on its clear implications? Because, it appears, as much as she knows that government schooling fails, she fears educational freedom even more. “Privatization,” in her mind, is simply too dangerous:
I remember your saying in an interview years ago that you favored public schools but not the public school system that we have. In New Orleans Paul Vallas has called for ‘a system of schools, not a school system.’ What’s your ideal approach? Are we moving in that direction?
If “a system of schools” means that the public schools should be handed over to anyone who wants to run a school, then I think we are headed in the wrong direction. Privatization will not help us achieve our goals. We know from the recent CREDO study at Stanford that charter schools run the gamut from excellent to abysmal, and many studies have found that charters, on average, produce no better results than the regular public schools. Deregulation nearly destroyed our economy in the past decade, and we better be careful that we don’t destroy our public schools too.
Unfortunately, while Prof. Ravitch knows a gigantic amount about education history, she exhibits precious little understanding of freedom or its economic subset, free markets. For one thing, charter schooling – a system by which public schools are given a right to exist and largely held accountable by government – isn’t even close to “privatization,” if by that we mean taking control from government and giving it to free, “private” individuals. Worse, Ravitch evinces a reflexive and, frankly, simplistic fear of free markets in hyperbolically asserting that “deregulation nearly destroyed our economy in the past decade.” I’d strongly suggest that she explore some non-education history – for instance, that of government-sponsored institutions such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; federal laws such as the Community Reinvestment Act; and federal regulation – before making any such over-the-top declaration again.
Ultimately, it seems likely that Prof. Ravitch fails to grasp – or, perhaps, to intuitively feel – how freedom works, and hence she fears it. Like many people, maybe she’s just not comfortable with seemingly ethereal spontaneous order, and needs to have some higher power pulling the strings to feel safe. Perhaps she fails to see how freedom, by fostering competition and innovation, produces all of the wonderful things we take for granted. Maybe she doesn’t really understand that it is due to freedom that we have an abundance of computers, coffee cups, cars, houses, package delivery services, miracle drugs, and pencils, not to mention religious pluralism, marketplaces of idea, and even happiness.
Trapped Inside the Mime’s Box
Kevin Carey, policy director at the think tank Education Sector, asserts that when it comes to higher education libertarians are boxed in, unable to find a solution to out-of-control college costs that won’t violate at least one, basic libertarian principle:
This puts libertarians in somewhat of a box. On the one hand, they tend to be hostile toward the tens of billions of public dollars that flow into colleges every year. The more colleges cost, the greater the claim on the average citizen’s hard-earned money and thus reduction in their precious liberty etc., etc.
But the best way to bend down the long-term higher education cost curve and thus reduce government spending is to increase government regulation in the form of mandatory reporting. So it’s a pick your poison situation for the Cato folks — would you rather have Big Brother’s hand in your wallet or his eye on your business? You really can’t avoid both.
Now, I don’t want to seem obnoxious about this. After all, in the same piece that produced this quote, Carey notes that “while my politics are pretty far from Cato’s and I often think they’re wrong, they tend to be wrong in interesting ways.” I thank him for that (I think), though I should note that the impetus for his piece is a paper that comes from the John William Pope Center – the same paper I discuss here – not from Cato. So it might not even be Cato that Carey finds interesting. Regardless, here’s my potentially obnoxious-sounding reply:
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