Poor Students Make Poor Schools

Never try and teach a pig to sing: it's a waste of time, and it annoys the pig.

Robert A. Heinlein - Time Enough For Love

I see no particular evidence that schools or teachers are worse than they once were, or better for that matter. What has changed is that we are less comfortable with students dropping out of school as most once did.

Our society has changed in ways that leave fewer lawful things for the uneducated to do to earn a living. The uneducated do unlawful things and we end up housing them in prisons for large portions of their lives.

Imprisonment is expensive, so as a matter of social policy we try to get more young people to finish school in order to qualify for lawful jobs. Very often, the attempt fails, and annoys the youngsters who are not pigs, but are more or less ineducable in a formal sense.

A couple of books have emerged which take this viewpoint. Mark Bauerlein has written "The Dumbest Generation" and even more to the point, Robert Weissberg has written "Bad Students, Not Bad Schools." Both are used as sources in this Washington Examiner article by Gregory Kane.

We have converted our public secondary schools into non-residential reform schools and are surprised when they don't succeed in teaching their pupils. Imagine what they could accomplish if, like colleges, they only contained students who wanted to be there.

Poor Old Europe

The financial system in Europe continues to melt down in agonizing slow motion, with Greece taking the lead and Ireland in second place. Portugal, Italy, and Spain cannot be far behind.

A discussion of all this in the London Telegraph has the gloomy title "The eurozone is in bad need of an undertaker." It's clear that Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, who authored the article, believes the euro was a mistake and the U.K. was smart to keep the pound.

The euro zone has been like a family trying to remain solvent while letting its irresponsible adult children have their own credit cards. The parents, Germany and France, are now looking at the bills run up by the kids, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain, and trying to decide whether to let them fall into bankruptcy or to bail them out.

Both options are bad, the question is which is the lesser evil.

Graduate from College

Regular readers of COTTonLINE know we are fans of analysis based on demographic data. One of the most stark pieces of today's demography is the difference in life outcomes between those with college degrees and those without.

Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, has written a very interesting piece about this phenomenon. He begins by saying:

The unemployment rate for people with a college degree or higher is 5 percent. If that were the rate for everyone, it’d be the 1990s again. But college graduates are only 30 percent of the country. For the rest of the population, the jobs picture is grimmer. For people without a high-school degree, the unemployment rate is more than 15 percent. If that were the rate for everyone, it’d be the 1930s again.

Employment level isn't the only difference between the educated and the rest:

The highly educated (with a college diploma or higher) are less likely to divorce, less likely to have children out of wedlock, and less likely to commit adultery than the moderately educated (high-school degree or some college) and the least-educated (no high-school diploma).

Therefore the children of the educated are more likely to succeed, etc. I recommend the entire article to you; much of it is based on research by Bradford Wilcox of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, which can be viewed here.

Not Yet Winter

See this article from the Associated Press by way of Yahoo News for a report about one heck of a mean blizzard and snow storm crossing the Midwest and headed for the east coast. It caved in the roof of the Minnesota Vikings' stadium.

Why is this weather report interesting? Because winter technically doesn't start until December 21, over a week from now. Would anyone entertain a suggestion of global cooling?

Rx: Benign Neglect

The New York Times' Tom Friedman writes about the U.S. efforts to prod the Israelis and Palestinians into serious negotiations about a two-state solution. He says:

You can’t want peace more than the parties themselves, and that is exactly where America is today. The people running Israel and Palestine have other priorities. It is time we left them alone to pursue them — and to live with the consequences.

The whole column is good. Basically Friedman says both parties have such difficulties with their internal politics that they cannot negotiate a two-state solution.

I have felt for a long time that the U.S. should stop trying to solve Middle East problems; yet every president gets drawn into the same mess. I never expected to hear anybody in our foreign policy establishment voice this opinion.

Political Humor Alert

Check out this NewsBusters article reporting a Daily Show spoof of the usual analysis of how the President is doing in the polls. Here the cast is doing an analysis of how we are doing with the President. For example Wyatt Cenac says the following:

Let's look at the numbers. At present, Obama only approves of 26 percent of all Americans. That’s down from a high of 79 percent and that's across all demographics.

There is lots more to enjoy, go read it and have a laugh.

Ya Gotta Love It

Global warmists are meeting in Cancun - tough duty - to work out how to control the supposed phenomenon. This article in The Week reports that, during their stay, Cancun is reporting record low temperatures.

People are calling this unusual cold the "Gore effect," although Algore isn't scheduled to speak in Cancun. I seem to remember it happened in Oslo, too.

Words of Wisdom

See this opinion article from Christian Science Monitor, repeated on Yahoo News, concerning corruption in Islamic countries. It isn't particularly well written but the idea it contains is solid - it is hard for Islamic countries to claim the moral high ground when so many of their officials are "on the take."

Corruption is a major cause of lack of development as potential investment funds get diverted into Swiss bank accounts. Go here to see the actual country rankings by Transparency International.

I find it sad that the United States only ranks number 22, out of 178 nations ranked. On the other hand, at least we keep trying, as evidence of which the recent news about subpoenas going out to hedge fund operators accused of insider trading.

Quote of the Day

Robert J. Samuelson, writing for Newsweek, about Japan's problems in the last two decades and what we should learn from them:

There is no substitute for vigorous private-sector job creation and investment, and that’s missing in Japan. This is a lesson we should heed.

Amen, brother.

More About California

The folks at RealClearPolitics have given us a link to two articles talking about whether or not California in 2010 was a leading indicator of where electoral politics are headed in 2012 and beyond. The Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes thinks not, The New Republic's Peter Schrag thinks so.

I think both have overlooked a major factor in California being out of step with the 2010 Republican electoral wave. California is experiencing serious outmigration, a fact that has been reported here and elsewhere. The emigres are being replaced by Hispanics.

What is happening to CA is what has also happened to NY - conservative flight. The internal migration that brings strength to the GOP in other states is weakening it in California.

Over time, Americans are sorting themselves out. Conservatives are clustering together in so-called red states and liberals are doing likewise in blue states.

We'll know the trend is irreversible when the legislature in Sacramento passes a bill renaming the state "Alta California" and making Spanish one of its two official languages.

Samuelson: Squatters' Rights

Robert Samuelson, who writes for The Washington Post, has an excellent column about the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform report that was recently issued. He accuses the commission of not tackling the real issue: run-away spending on social security, medicare, and the like. I particularly like this Samuelson quote:

Government benefits, once conferred, cannot be revoked. People expect them and consider them property rights. Just as government cannot randomly confiscate property, it cannot withdraw benefits without violating a moral code. The old-fashioned idea that government policies should serve the "national interest" has given way to inertia and squatters' rights.

Remember Pearl Harbor

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and the entry of the United States into World War II. Wouldn't it be great if not a single Japanese auto was sold in the United States tomorrow?

Remember Pearl Harbor.

Gallup: Bush More Popular

If you are an unpopular politician, and would like to become more popular, get the public to compare you with someone they like even less. It has worked for George Bush, according to Politico.

They report here Gallup poll findings that George W. Bush is now slightly more popular than Barack H. Obama. Bush's popularity has climbed from a low of 25% to 47% today. Meanwhile, Obama's popularity has dropped to 46% from 63% immediately after his inauguration.

As the article notes, Bush always said that history would treat him more kindly than popular opinion. Who knows, perhaps he was right.

I persist in the belief that Obama has lowered the bar, making Bush look better in comparison. This is good for Bush but bad for our country.

Political Humor Alert

This was sent along by a high school classmate from too many years ago:

Here's a solution to all the controversy over full-body scanners at the airports:

All we need to do is develop a booth you can step into that will not X-ray you, but will detonate any explosive device you may have hidden on or in your body. The explosion will be contained within the sealed booth.

This would be a win-win for everyone. There would be none of this crap about racial profiling and the device would eliminate long and expensive trials.

This is so simple it's brilliant. I can see it now: you're in the airport terminal and you hear a muffled explosion. Shortly thereafter an announcement comes over the PA system, "Attention, standby passengers! We now have a seat available on flight number...."

My first thought upon reading this was that you'd have to pay booth cleaners quite a bit. My second thought was that you could make the booth function like a self-cleaning oven, cycling after each explosion. My third thought was the existence of this booth would dissuade further "suicide underwear" bombers, so cleaning wouldn't be a big deal.

I'm not sure this is actual political humor; maybe it's quasi-political humor.

Friedman on Leverage

The New York Times' Tom Friedman writes with insight about foreign affairs, and without insight on domestic politics. His most recent column looks at the U.S. diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks and what they tell us about our lack of leverage (i.e., bargaining power) vis-a-vis the Islamic world and separately, vis-a-vis China.

Friedman makes an argument for the U.S. being less dependent on foreign oil and foreign credit. I don't know if he is right or not, but I do know he is interesting on this topic. Generally, it is better for a nation to have more, rather than less, leverage.

Public School Issues

Joel Klein has spent the last several years as Chancellor of the New York City Schools, and is now stepping down. He has written an interesting article about what he believes works, and does not work, for The Wall Street Journal. If you are interested in our public schools, it is worth your time.

I believe Klein gives too little weight to parental emphasis on education. I understand it is a variable over which he had no control, but it is still important. It probably explains much of the achievement gap between Asian and African-American students.

WaPo on Side of Truth

The Washington Post has weighed in with an editorial debunking the usual Hollywood mythmaking and left-wing rewriting of history in the film Fair Game. In this case the history being rewritten concerns the revealing of the CIA employment of Valery Plame, and the supposed influence of her husband, Joseph Wilson, in opposition to the "Iraq seeks WMDs" views of the Bush White House.

COTTonLINE doesn't often agree with editorial positions of The Washington Post, in this case we do. It is the occasional column like this that makes WaPo the nations's "newspaper of record" where The New York Times was once that paper.

Book Review

I’ve been reading a book lent to me by my brother-in-law chronicling the career of a self-described “economic hit man.” John Perkins’ biography is Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, published in 2004 by Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco. I’m reading the Plume (Penguin) paperback edition first published in 2006.

Perkins tells a good story, the story of an idealistic kid who, through almost no fault of his own, got a good education and went off to spend 3 years in Ecuador with the Peace Corps. Then, people who should have known better, hired him for his ability to go semi-native. The engineering firm sent him off to gather economic data upon which to base loan and project proposals.

Sadly for him, they didn’t want his reports to reflect the poverty and misery he found in a series of third world countries. They wanted optimistic reports which would justify big loans to pay for big projects from which their engineering firms would make big bucks. No kidding, they really wanted to make money.

In country after country these big projects enriched the few wealthy families who typically run the economy and government of a third world country. In country after country the poor didn’t benefit while their countries became enmeshed in the global economy, forced to do the bidding of the first world countries since they couldn’t pay back their loans.

Perkins blames all this on some sinister plot to form a de facto global empire of de jure independent nations, without the empire ever being out in the open. He never thinks to blame the economic structure of third world countries, which so often defeats development projects by siphoning off their earnings into the Swiss bank accounts of the few local ricos while the many pobres continue to suffer.

For example, the vice president of Afghanistan was recently caught carrying hundreds of millions of dollars into another country. He and the money were released as there was no proof he had the money illegally. Of course it was legal, and pigs can fly, too.

This book is a classical example of a square peg whining about being in a round hole, about being the wrong person in a job. Perkins would have been happy working for some NGO like CARE, the Red Cross or Save the Children. Instead he ended up working for people who wanted to make and keep money, not those who merely beg for donated money and disburse it.

I think Perkins somehow believed that development projects could be focused on the poor, the descamisados. The world doesn’t work that way. If you build a road network for a developing country, it is logical that only those who can afford at least a motorbike will be able to use it. If you build an electric power grid and generators to power it, people too poor to afford a toaster won't find it useful.

Somewhere in the book Perkins makes fun of offering a dollar a day job to someone who has none. Relate that to what is happening in China, the beginnings of labor unrest as cheap labor starts to organize. Perkins has it wrong, but it makes a good story nevertheless.

Travel Blogging IV

Dateline: Philipsburg, St. Maarten. Yesterday was Puerto Rico, today is Dutch Saint Maarten, called by the French who own the remainder, St. Martin. The other DrC and I were trying to think of all the islands where sovereignty was divided, we came up with Hispanola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic), this island (St. Maarten and St. Martin), New Guinea (New Guinea and Irian Jaya), Ireland (Ireland and Northern Ireland), and Cyprus (Greek vs. Turk). We thought that was quite a lot. Can you think of any more?

It is amazing how built-up this island is, there is a house just about everywhere you could easily build one without extensive engineering work. It is mountainous and green, albeit less green than formerly according to our guide who says they now get maybe 45 inches of rain per year whereas they once got twice that. As is true on several of these islands, desalination is the major source of fresh water.

The French side tries to be tres European: 220 volt electricity, European auto tags, use the Euro currency, etc. On the other hand, Dutch St. Maarten has U.S. style auto tags, uses 110 volt current, uses the guilder (which the Netherlands no longer uses) plus the U.S. dollar, and feels more tropical North American – like American Samoa or Guam.

I was amazed that there is a entire cluster of vacation islands here, including British Anguilla, St. Barts, French/Dutch St. Maarten, etc., all within view of each other. One would not need to be much of a small boat navigator to get from one to another, island-hopping on what amounts to VFR.

Travel Blogging III

Dateline: San Juan, Puerto Rico. San Juan is probably the largest city in the Caribbean, given that construction has continued here and has been, I think, stagnant in Havana during the Castro regime. San Juan is not particularly high-rise, but spreads over considerable real estate. It is not a bad looking city, nothing of which to be ashamed. Some of it feels like a U.S. city, some like the better parts of a city in Central or South America.

Supposedly Spanish and English are the official languages here, but Spanish is certainly dominant in signage and in conversations on the street. Puerto Ricans can look like any race, except Asians are rare. There are Africans, Native Americans, Europeans, and all the various mixtures thereof; in that respect they resemble Cubans.

We didn’t have nearly enough time to explore the hilltop citadel-turned-national-park that glowers over San Juan, and didn’t see anything that was outside San Juan. Because it is a large island, Puerto Rico would be a good place to which to return, rent a car, get a nice hotel room, and spend a week poking around. I suppose the same would have been true of Cuba in the days when Americans were welcome there.