Some Chicago Boyz know each other from student days at the University of Chicago. Others are Chicago boys in spirit. The blog name is also intended as a good-humored gesture of admiration for distinguished Chicago School economists and fellow travelers.
Bruno Behrend I doubt if I was the first person to use the phrase “Government-Education Complex,” but I use it often to describe the current education system. Others have clearly started to pick up on the meme, which is good.
A friend of mine in Indiana emailed me and asked me to define it for him. So I did.
The Heartland Institute is “trigger happy” today. They’ve been one of the few free-market think tanks really promoting the concept of parent empowerment. That’s why today’s news is so promising.
The first school has pulled the trigger, and is working to convert “government/education complex” infrastructure over to independent infrastructure. This is a good thing.
For more information on how the Parent Trigger changes the dynamic on education reform, check out these links.
Heartland’s Parent Trigger page.
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For purposes of full disclosure, yes, I am the director of the Center for School reform at The Heartland Institute.
As someone involved in the education reform movement, I hate to criticize Michelle Rhee. That said, if you want to bring about a better education system, you have to know the source of the problem. That’s the only way you can develop a solution.
Rhee’s article is an lesson in problem avoidance. It makes the point that education reform is a political battle. So far, so good. It’s high time that high profile people started talking like this, though I suspect much of that can be attributed to Chris Christie’s surviving the campaign of lies put out by the teachers unions and bloated bureaucracy.
Where the article fails is her failure to take on the 800 lb. gorilla in the education debate. After being successfully targeted for destruction by these engines of greed and mediocrity, Rhee turns tail and opines the this is what unions are supposed to do. This is a travesty.
What I’ve Learned
We can’t keep politics out of school reform. Why I’m launching a national movement to transform education.
The teachers’ unions get the blame for much of this. Elected officials, parents, and administrators implore them to “embrace change” and “accept reform.” But I don’t think the unions can or should change. The purpose of the teachers’ union is to protect the privileges, priorities, and pay of their members. And they’re doing a great job of that.
What next, Michelle? “Kim Jong Il’s role is to turn millions of North Koreans into brainwashed, undernourished midgets building bombs to terrorize neighboring nations, and he’s doing a great job of doing that.”
While I’ve been purposefully avoiding any news shows or blogs this weekend, the situation in North Korea forces me to post this potential solution to the problem. Let’s start with some premises.
1. NK is a buffer state for China. It exists at China’s will.
2. NK is a clear and present danger to its own people and to the world.
3. China, belligerent and “ascendant” as she may be, is linked to our currency and to our consumption of her cheap goods.
While I could add details and subheadings to the above, I think the premises are sound. If not please correct me.
With that in mind, why shouldn’t America, in the person of its CEO, simply offer China the ultimatum below.
Dear Hu,
This nation tires of the dangerous and evil games played by Kim Jong Il. He is a dangerous man who is actively destroying his own people. The United States has played the diplomatic games with this madman long enough, yet fully realizes that we have no optimal military option.
Given that you have it with in your power as a nation to change the nature of NK, and that you clearly are using NK as a threatening buffer state, I see no reason to remain diplomatically engaged with the buffer state puppet – Kim Jong Il. I think we will deal with your nation alone.
With that in mind, I offer the following ultimatum. You will immediately begin the process of forcing regime change in NK. The best solution would be for you to begin the process of reunification, but I would be happy to hear other alternatives.
If you fail to begin this process, I will use all my administrative powers, and lobby Congress to use its powers to shut down all trade with China until such regime change is effected.
Sincerely,
President Obama (or his successor)
Why shouldn’t we use trade as weapon in this situation? Aside from hurting Walmart’s stock price for a few quarters and losing a few transportation jobs in the interim, why can’t we do this? Discuss.
News reports are rolling in regarding the TARP paybacks and stock sales on GM. Some are saying that these bailouts are “turning a profit” for taxpayers. Here is one example.
G.M. Prices Its Shares at $33 in Return to Stock Market
American taxpayers’ ownership of General Motors was halved on Wednesday, and billions of dollars in bailout money was returned to the federal government, as a result of the nation’s largest initial stock offering ever.
The offering, which raised $23.1 billion, is bigger and more ambitious than had once seemed possible. But the recently bankrupt automaker will have to build on its revival for the government to recoup its entire $50 billion investment and validate the Obama administration’s decision to keep G.M. from collapsing.
The idea that these policies were beneficial, simply based upon some of the money being returned through IPOs, needs to be placed into context.
Let’s start with this. Since 2007, revenues to the Fed. government have collapsed. This collapse was precipitated by a dramatic slowdown, which, in turn, was based upon a variety of factors. The key is that many of these factors could have been addressed prior to the collapse.
Instead, American governance is a freak show where we have an above the surface gridlock on any good policy, with a below the surface greasing of every stupid policy under the sun. This culminated in bursting asset bubbles, bailouts of rent-seekers, and a slew of morally hazardous policies that replace self-governance with “Czarism.”
Into this tragi-comedy of political idiocy, unemployment, and huge deficits, defenders of the bailouts point to a paltry few pennies returned to the treasury as a sign of “success” while ignoring the billions (or trillions, even) in lost revenues based upon bad government policies.
This is ridiculous. GM’s $33/share price is based upon a czarist edict waiving away taxes on bailed out entities. What some tout as a “return on investment” reads more like a scene out of Atlas Shrugged, where some people get bailed out based upon the “aristocracy of pull.”
There are far too many Republicans, conservatives, and libertarians who operate under the false theory that the well of our moral, social, financial and intellectual capital will never run dry. I think they are wrong.
The GM situation is evidence of deep decline, not of a “bailout” having worked.