You may have noticed that I haven't posted in several weeks. The reason for this is that I have been spending most of my free time working on my Pennsylvania Stop Sign Ticket Defense book. You can find out details about this at the link below: I hope to return to this Libertarian Teacher Blog just as soon as this Defense book is completed. My son will be testing out my Defense strategy when he appears in court for his own stop sign ticket on March 6, 2019.
You can keep up with his stop sign saga on Stop-Sign-Ticket.com.
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Restorative "Justice" - Feeling sorry for the bad students (at the expense of the good ones).12/21/2018 A MONSTER CALLED TRUMP?
Earlier this week, the Trump administration announced a plan to end “an Obama-era policy that was meant to curb racial disparities in school discipline.” National Education Association President Lily Eskelsen Garcia had this to say about the plan: "It is shameful that the Trump administration is using the real risk of gun violence in our schools to strip vulnerable students of their civil rights, while doing nothing to keep all our students safe." Let me get this straight ... Trump is:
Why, he must be a monster! How dare he treat students this way! As it turns out, the main proposal of the Trump administration is simply … “… a rollback of 2014 guidance that urges schools not to suspend, expel or report students to police except in the most extreme cases.” This “2014 guidance” from the Obama administration is based on two “progressive” ideas:
THE SCHOOL-TO-PRISON PIPELINE If you are not familiar with this “pipeline,” it is a belief that students who are exposed to “zero-tolerance” discipline policies get unfairly expelled from school and eventually end up in prison. I do not support ending the School-to-Prison Pipeline. In fact, over the past year or so I have written several critical articles about this very topic:
RESTORATIVE JUSTICE “Restorative justice” is another idea that I don’t agree with. It refers to discipline without a punitive component. When schools implement this type of program, the bad students are not punished in the traditional sense. Suspension and expulsion are frowned upon. Instead, students are encouraged to:
At least that is how the New York Times describes it. EFFECTIVE CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT- FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE One of the hallmarks of an effective teacher is that he never has to kick a student out of his class. Good classroom management means that behavioral issues get handled as they happen and that potentially disruptive situations get diffused before they get out of hand. But what about those students who, despite every attempt to prevent further escalation, still continue to disrupt the classroom, fight in the hallways, bring contraband to school (weapons, drugs), or violate other school rules? Suspension, right? FACE THE FACTS – THERE ACTUALLY ARE BAD KIDS Supporters of restorative “justice” say that suspension is harsh because it is life altering in its effect on children. Well, it should be life altering. It should mean so much to a student that he would step back and ask himself: “What am I doing with my life here? Why am I choosing to go down this path? Do I really want to be a part of the school to prison pipeline?” In essence, the suspension should be a wake-up call to that student telling him to stop screwing around, not only with his life, but with the lives of all of the other students in the classroom whose education he is destroying. The kids on the “Prison Pipeline” are serious, repeat offenders who don’t want to be in school and act accordingly. They are students who deal drugs in the playground, fight in the hallways, store weapons in their lockers, regularly disrupt the learning environment in the classroom, curse out the teachers, etc. CRAZY IDEA? Here is a suggestion: How about we spend less time thinking and worrying about the kids who disrupt the learning process and more time on those students who are actually there to learn. Crazy idea, I know. THALES ACADEMY
I recently heard about an innovative school in North Carolina called the Thales Academy. I don’t now how unique its approach to education actually is, but I can certainly say that it is quite different from the way I am required to teach at the public school I work at in New Jersey. “The mission of Thales (THAY-LEEZ) Academy is to provide an excellent and affordable education for students in Pre-K to 12th grades through the use of Direct Instruction and a Classical Curriculum that embodies traditional American values.” Affordable Education? Direct Instruction? Classical Curriculum? Traditional American Values? The nerve of these people! GROUPING BY ABILITY But the one thing that particularly caught my attention was the following: “All students of one single skill level are placed in a classroom together and taught at a pace and level appropriate for their abilities.” In case you are not up on current educational lingo, when students are grouped by similar ability/intelligence, it is called homogeneous grouping. The opposite approach is called heterogeneous grouping. Which is the better way to teach students? It all depends on who you talk to. OPPONENTS OF HOMOGENEOUS GROUPING Take the NEA, for example: “The National Education Association supports the elimination of such groupings.” Why is this teacher’s union against grouping by ability/intelligence? Well, if you read its Research Spotlight on Academic Ability Grouping you find the following reasoning: “… ability grouping not only fails to benefit any student, but it also channels poor and minority students to low tracks where they receive a lower quality of instruction than other groups.” The National Education Policy Center agrees: “Ability grouping has been found to have few benefits and many risks.” TRIGGER WARNING – Students compared to light bulbs??? My reference to light bulbs in the next section may be offensive to some readers. I only use this analogy because teachers often refer to their best students as "bright" (a term which I find annoying, personally). Because it is politically incorrect for teachers to use the term intelligent when they are talking about the smart kids, they revert, I guess, to the next best, inoffensive way to describe their students of higher ability. But if the intelligent students are considered “bright,” kind of like a powerful light bulb, would it not also be true that some students are not so “bright,” like a less-powerful bulb? Again, I don’t like to refer to students in this way, but I have heard my colleagues speaking in this manner again and again. In any case, whether teachers want to acknowledge it or not, there ARE smart students in the classroom - kids who are more intelligent than the others. Unlike other teachers, I not only acknowledge this, I celebrate it. This doesn’t mean I look down on those students who are not as intelligent. It also doesn’t mean that I ignore them. Instead, I try to reach them at a level that is appropriate for their abilities. I just wish that my students were homogeneously grouped because then I could address their needs much more directly. MY EXPERIENCE Unfortunately, I teach in a middle school where in 6th and 7th grades, the kids are all lumped together in heterogeneous groups. This means I get a mixture of “brightness.” To use the light bulb analogy, this means a range from 10 – 100 watts with a healthy mix of 40, 60 and 75-watt to round things out. At least the 8th grade in my district has an honors class made up of mostly 75-watt and up type students. Buy why not group the students by intelligence and ability in 6th and 7th also? Why not implement homogeneous grouping in all grade levels? A FOOTBALL TEAM ANALOGY In most school districts, pretty much anyone can try out for the school football team when practice starts during the summer. So, in a way, these initial, preseason practices are similar to a heterogeneous classroom. Everyone gets to participate and show if they have what it takes. Of course, the coaches already have a good idea who the best players are (just like teachers already know who the smart kids are), but they still offer the opportunity out of a sense of fairness. But ask yourself this question: "Do the coaches let just anyone who shows up during those early days actually PLAY in the regular season games?" Of course not. Assuming that winning is the ultimate goal, they quickly weed out the players who don’t belong and cut them from the team. Only the best - the most talented players - deserve to play when it really counts. No one in their right mind would criticize a coach for creating a homogeneous team entirely made up of top-notch athletes rather than a heterogeneous football team comprised of a mixture of poor, medium and great players. Yet educators are vilified when they even suggest something similar. One of the main problems with heterogeneous groups is that students of intelligence and ability are assigned second class status. Their education rights are sacrificed to satisfy the education needs of the many. If we can all agree that winning is the ultimate goal in football, we should be able to comprehend that academic excellence is the ultimate goal in education. For students of higher intelligence and ability, heterogeneous grouping stands as an impediment to attaining that goal. “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda MILLENNIALS AND FREE STUFF This is the second time I am dealing with an article I read at the National Education Association’s web site. What Do Public Schools Need? More Money and Strong Unions, Say Millennials My first criticism was a podcast on the misleading nature of the article title. I showed that millennials do NOT, in fact, support public education. You can find that podcast here: Do Millennials Really Support Public Schools? This time, I am writing a blog post related to that article. The NEA article was based on a survey done by the GenForward Project and it was called: Education in America: The Views of Millennials They asked millennials a bunch of questions but the two that are important for this post can be seen in the graphics below: I just want to focus on the part of the question not including taxes.
An overwhelming percentage of millennials apparently think that “forgiving student loan debt” and providing “free tuition at public colleges” are simple things to accomplish – that the government can just snap its fingers and get the job done. Do they not understand that these two programs would involve trillions of dollars? Where is the government going to get this money? This brought to mind a post I made last year on my Anti-NEA Blog about the Big Lie involved in the understanding that the government provides things for free. I am re-posting what I said there in its entirety below. THE NEA AND “FREE” PUBLIC EDUCATION The NEA President, Lily Eskelsen Garcia, says we need to get serious about “free” education. Should we take her at her word? Do we conclude that she really means what she says – that she actually believes education is free? Let’s start by assuming that the NEA President is not stupid. OK, so why does she make a statement that is patently false? Why does Eskelsen insist on telling such a “Big Lie?” Before answering this question, it is important to note that the tendency to describe education as “free” is standard procedure in the NEA. A quick search of its website makes this quite clear: “Access to a free, quality education is the key to the uniquely American promise of equal opportunity for all.” “Campaign continues to push governments to provide quality, free public education by 2015” “IMMIGRATION STATUS AND THE RIGHT TO A FREE PUBLIC EDUCATION” “The Supreme Court has already considered—and may revisit—nearly every issue that matters to educators: the right to equal access to free public education” The NEA is an active member of the Global Campaign for Education which calls on governments to: “fulfill their promises to provide a free, quality public education for all children.” Education’s Opportunity Dashboard, Lily Eskelsen García: “and a free and public education has become a rite of passage for every American child.” It's Time to Push for Free College: “We have made K-12 education free because it is good for the individual and for society.” THE REALITY: EDUCATION IS NOT FREE Of course, education is not free. This is such an obvious fact of reality, but take a moment to note how GLARINGLY obvious it really is:
You get the point. In fact, spending on education is quite high. In 2015, on average, per pupil spending was $11,392 according to Education Spending Per Student by State THE NEA TAKES A LESSON FROM JOSEPH GOEBBELS? So, Eskelsen and the NEA both know that education is not free, but they continue to say that it is (i.e. lie). How to account for this? Perhaps they took a lesson from Dr. Goebbels? Whatever they did, their strategy has certainly been successful. Most Americans are convinced that education really is free. They have heard the word “free” coupled with “education” for so long that they have really “come to believe it” as Goebbels puts it. Just take a glance at a sample of recent headlines dealing with “free” college tuition: A CNBC Poll: "Would you support or oppose making tuition at public colleges and universities free for anyone who wants to attend?" Poll: Most support making college free: "As the cost of college tuition continues to grow, Democrats are proposing that public schools should be free for students, and most of those polled agree." Bernie Sanders is right: Make public colleges tuition-free Make college free for all Bernie Sanders: free public college tuition is the 'right thing to do' MONEY DOESN’T GROW ON TREES Joseph Goebbels’ famous line about the Big Lie actually has a second part which is just as insightful as the more famous first part. He continues: “The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie.” [bold and underline added] Margaret Thatcher had her own version of this: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.” The NEA can talk all it wants about how “free” education is. The fact remains that the tax-payers will only believe it for so long. School districts need to keep this in mind when they plan future budgets and unions have to remember this when it comes time for negotiations. When the economy inevitably turns down again (a recession is almost a done-deal before the end of President Trump's term), the government isn't going to be able to "shield the people" from economic reality. And when the money runs out, hard-pressed taxpayers are not going to be in any mood to foot the bill. THE BACKSTORY
Why did I start this website called Stop-Sign-Ticket.com? Because I got pissed off – it’s really that simple. Here is the backstory … My son recently got a ticket for allegedly failing to obey a stop sign – his first ticket ever. When my son told me that he actually DID stop and wanted to fight the ticket in court, my initial reaction was to tell him it was a waste of time. “Son, who do you think the judge is going to believe, a 17-year old kid or a police officer?” He then suggested that he could show up at the hearing to ask the prosecutor for a plea bargain - agree to a different violation with a higher fine but no points. This sounded like a reasonable suggestion. After all, since I am paying his car insurance, the points on the license would be a punishment for me, not him, because most likely my rates would get jacked up as a result of his citation. But the more I thought about it, the more pissed off I got – but not at my son. I was starting to get annoyed at the police officer. Let me explain. My son is adamant that he did actually stop at the sign in question. But let's assume that he only slowed down and “rolled through” the sign like the officer claims. Couldn’t she simply have issued a warning to this first time offender? Considering that there were no other vehicles approaching the intersection at the time of the alleged violation, would it be unreasonable for me to expect her to have made a judgment call in my son’s favor? After all, no one’s safety was endangered whether he came to a complete stop or “rolled through" that stop sign. The intersection was empty. Needless to say (but I WILL say it in order to stress this point), of course she could have issued a warning - but she chose not to. The result of this perceived injustice was this website. THE TRAFFIC TICKET SCAM MACHINE By the way, I don’t entirely blame the police officer. After all, she is nothing more than a cog in the traffic ticket scam machine. Why do I describe it as a scam and a machine? Consider the following:
MOST TRAFFIC TICKET HELP SITES ARE WORTHLESS When I decided I wanted to fight my son’s ticket, I did what any other person would do – I used Google to search for information. Unfortunately, I quickly realized that most traffic ticket help sites are pretty much worthless. In fact, many are actually run by lawyers who provide minimal guidance because they want you to hire them rather than actually defend yourself in court. Worse, some lawyers actually try to scare you into NOT pursuing a defense on your own because the consequences of losing are held out to you as catastrophic. Here is a summary of the kind of “advice” I found in my search, along with a list of some of the websites I visited:
Here are some of the websites I visited:
While some of these websites have ideas that may have a certain degree of merit, most will get you nowhere if you are trying to defend yourself in court. You need a solid strategy, not vague recommendations. A solid strategy is what I am going to provide. THE MOST USELESS WEBSITE One of the most useless websites that came up on the first page of my search results was Rocketlawyer.com Here are the five suggestions from that website:
Talk about totally worthless. WEBSITES THAT ARE FRONTS FOR LAWYERS Then there are websites that are basically just fronts for lawyers. They tease you a bit with some information, and then they kind of give some OK advice. But in the end, they are not very helpful when it comes to actual strategy to use in court. Take Avvo.com as an example. While there are some thoughtful pieces of advice on this website from lawyers, the advice that is given basically breaks down into the following recommendations:
But at least Avvo.com has real lawyers giving advice. Expertlaw.com, on the other hand, appears to just be non-professional individuals giving opinions. Consider this response to a person looking for help defending against a stop sign ticket: “Pleading not guilty is a good idea. You might get a plea bargain or deferred adjudication. Expecting the officer to "work with you" is ludicrous. All he will do in court is testify that you didn't stop. That's all he is likely to be allowed to do in court. If your license means so much to you, you would be well advised to hire a traffic attorney. Or resign yourself to taking Ubers or public transportation back and forth to work.” HIRE A LAWYER? Finally, many of the links just take you to a law firm website where you find this typical advice: “Many individuals have made the mistake of trying to fight their ticket on their own without a lawyer, thinking that they’d get it dismissed or negotiate a plea down to no points. While it is true that, in some circumstances, your ticket could be negotiated, depending on where you received this ticket and the facts surrounding your stop you may be left with no deal and a guilty plea. However, a stop sign lawyer knows how to use the individual details of your violation coupled with their extensive knowledge of the traffic laws to fight for you and defend your rights. Hiring the right lawyer can be the difference between a positive outcome and a negative one.” I must admit that there is an interesting service available which allows you to hire a lawyer through the internet, but you have to pay for it. The way I see it, this is simply a modern approach to hiring a lawyer online rather than through the phone book: Offtherecord.com As a final note, there is nothing wrong with hiring a lawyer to fight a stop sign ticket. But why pay that extra cost? If he charges by the hour, the fee could run in the hundreds of dollars. More importantly, you won’t know what it feels like to represent yourself and defeat the scam that you have been subjected to. Defeating the state is a satisfying feeling – trust me on that one. Visit Stop-Sign-Ticket.com When I win in court on December 6, 2018, I will share my strategy. It will be posted to Stop-Sign-Ticket.com. “Brecher noted that heroin overdoses began to be reported in New York City after World War II, and accelerated into the 1970s. Yet the average purity of a street dosage prior to the War was 40 times the concentration of a 1960s dose.”
Stanton Peele, The Persistent, Dangerous Myth of Heroin Overdose, ARE YOU CRAZY? As a libertarian, I have always been in favor of choice when it comes to taking drugs. But when pressed, I still had difficulty when asked about hard drugs like heroin. The typical response from family members and friends was: “You mean you want heroin available just like alcohol or marijuana? Are you crazy? A highly addictive drug like that? You want your children to be able to buy heroin at the local drug store?” I never felt that I had a good answer to this issue until I read a book called Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari. Of course, I still believe that an individual should be able to put anything that they want into their body – no matter how damaging it might be. But the argument in favor or legalizing heroin discussed in Hari’s book has nothing to do with this. BEFORE THE DRUG WAR As a middle school teacher, I don’t deal directly with heroin overdose. As far as I am aware, no student of mine has ever died in this way. Maybe some of the students who graduated years ago got addicted and met that fate, but I was never notified. However, my wife teaches high school. Sadly, on an all too regular basis, she hears that a graduate overdosed. We all feel bad and lament the sorry situation. We don’t understand how someone could be that stupid to start using heroin, let alone make the mistake of using too much at one point. We tend to blame the user. Of course, its not just heroin. There are other more powerful synthetic opioids available like fentanyl which make the opioid crisis even more deadly. But in my mind, the most interesting part of this issue is that before drug prohibition and the initiation of the Drug War, overdose was not prevalent. Thousands of people were not dying of drug overdoses back then. As Hari points out, there was a time when: “… drugs were freely available throughout the world. You could go to any American pharmacy and buy products made from the same ingredients as heroin and cocaine. The most popular cough mixtures in the United States contained opiates … and over in Britain, the classiest department stores sold heroin tins for society women.” POSSIBLE SOLUTION? You really need to read his book for the details, but the way to solve the problem may very well be to legalize the drugs that people are overdosing on. Of course, this doesn’t mean that you necessarily let anyone who wants heroin buy it at the local CVS. Hari describes a situation where drug addicts who formerly lived a life of crime and degradation on the street could go to a clinic in the morning where they receive heroin in a safe manner at a safe dosage and then go about their regular lives. They might then return to the clinic at the end of the day for another dose before returning to their homes. In a way, this is not very different from an individual addicted to alcohol who goes to work in the morning, carries on a normal day, and then has 3-5 drinks before going to bed. I am not saying that addiction in either case is a good way to live your life. I would hope that these individuals would work to overcome their addictions. But the fact remains that, if a person can control his addiction, he can still live a normal life. By forcing him out into the street to get drugs, you create the conditions for overdose. I realize that I have not provided much detail to support my contention that heroin should be legalized – that wasn’t the purpose of this post. I am not trying to convert you to my point of view, I am only offering it as an idea to think about. It took an initial skeptic like me several weeks of reading Chasing the Scream before I became convinced. Legalize heroin and greatly reduce overdose deaths? It might not be such a crazy idea after all. In a recent blog post, I noted the similarities between the Taxi Medallion and Public Education Systems.
Taxis and Teachers – Ominous Parallels. The following quote summarizes my main point: “My guess is that most teachers would agree that Uber and Lyft are the better bargain [when it comes to public transportation]. But I also know that there are many teachers who don’t see the connection between the efficiency of the free market system for transportation and the LACK of efficiency in the system of public education.” At the end of that post, I asked the following question: “I wonder when hard-core rank and file union teachers will realize that their days are as numbered as the taxi drivers?” I asked that question because I wondered why there was such a widespread denial of what seems obvious. Of course, the final days of public schools as we now know them are years in the future, so maybe this has something to do with it. But after thinking some more about this topic, I was struck by the idea that, maybe, unions play a part here also. Maybe they are enabling this denial through their focus on victim-hood. UNIONS AND SOCIAL “JUSTICE” FOR “VICTIMS” Unions are HUGE advocates of what is called social “justice.” When I did a search on the National Education Association’s web site, I found the following examples just on the first page of results: Social Justice Activist Award Diversity Toolkit: Social Justice Social Justice Lesson Plans Social Justice Warriors Conference on Racial and Social Justice Registration and Fees NEA Calls on all Educators to be “Social Justice Patriots” The essence of social “justice” is the idea that everyone is potentially a victim. Perhaps you think I exaggerate? Consider the following from the NEA’s Diversity Toolkit: “The absence of social justice results in social oppression. Racism, sexism, ageism, classism, ableism, and heterosexism are some forms of social oppression in society.” Here are a couple of other categories of oppression that the NEA left out for some reason (but I covered them in my blog post Obsession with Oppression: The NEA Legitimizes Victimhood Status):
The way I see it, the individuals who make up these categories are seen as potential “victims.” As such, unions and other social justice warriors will be more than prepared to fight to rescue them from the oppression which binds them down. “TEACHERISM” – A New Social Justice Category? Why not add teachers to the list of the oppressed? We can call it “Teacherism.” After all, haven’t we heard the stories about how many teachers have to work a second job just to make ends meet? And how about that teacher that has to sell her own blood in order to pay the bills? That sure sounds like legitimate oppression to me. Where is the justice for teachers? FIGHTING FOR A “PERPETUAL PRESENT” When I read about a possible United Parcel Service strike next week, I couldn’t help thinking that unions are, essentially, fighting a losing war against reality. As technology advances, market forces will make so many of the workers “protected” by unions irrelevant. In essence, unions are nothing more than an organized attempt to exchange the future an impossible perpetual present. In this sense, although they are often described as progressive organizations, they are, in fact, quite conservative in their goals. And they are also very good at marketing their product. The National Education Association (NEA) and the state teacher unions have been able to convince hundreds of thousands of teachers to spend millions of dollars of hard-earned money for what they offer. THE UNION ANSWER TO “TEACHERISM” – Be a victim and we will protect you … Why do so many teachers fall for this? Well, to be fair, not all of them do. There are some teachers who are ardent union advocates and feel that the benefits outweigh the costs. And there are many others who probably just do it out of habit. This is certainly true in the district within which I teach. Even though teachers are now allowed to opt-out of paying dues in New Jersey, most of my colleagues stayed in the union. They either were not aware of the opportunity, or just didn’t want to take the time to cut ties. But there are far too many teachers who buy into the victim-hood mentality that the unions constantly push on their members. An article entitled “Victims” Make Good Union Targets at the Omega HR Solutions website expressed it perfectly: “… unions thrive on the culture of victimhood. For a union to gain a toehold in a business they need to find, or need to create, a victim inside the workplace. And of course the “them” is always management. As a “victim” worker, management could always be paying you more, or offering you better benefits, or more security.” In any case, as the saying goes, the writing is on the wall. As technology continues to change our reality, traditional public schools will go the way of all outdated technologies. Don’t believe me? Go ask your local milkman – if you can find him, that is … Back in May I wrote a post for my Anti-NEA blog about how inflation was eating away at teacher pay.
This was in response to the recent uptick in articles on the National Education Association (NEA) website dealing with salary issues. I made the point that, while most people simply look at the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and conclude that inflation is tame, there is solid evidence that this number is misleading. Of course, I’m not the only one who sees this. A recent article from The Balance points out: “The Consumer Price Index (CPI) - a key measure of inflation - seeks to include all kinds of goods. But, some economists believe that certain goods could provide a more accurate indicator since the CPI can be skewed by certain categories or manipulated by some governments.” IF NOT THE CPI, THEN WHAT? Two other indicators may give a better idea about the true level of inflation in the United States today. The first is the Chapwood Index which … “… reflects the true cost-of-living increase in America. Updated and released twice a year, it reports the unadjusted actual cost and price fluctuation of the top 500 items on which Americans spend their after-tax dollars in the 50 largest cities in the nation.” I didn’t do a formal calculation, but if you scan the numbers, it appears that the 5-year inflation average is at least 10% per year. The CPI, by contrast, is in the 2% average range over that same time period. The second is the Big Mac Index, which is described in detail below. BIG MAC INDEX The Economist Magazine created something called the Big Mac Index in 1996 in order to track how much your money is able to purchase over time. Consider the example below:
Now, most people would say that the price of that hamburger went up because it more than doubled in 22 years. But the better way to look at the change in price is that the value of your dollar went down – so you are not able to purchase as much with the same money. Why is this a better way to explain what happened? Because the Big Mac hasn’t changed at all since 1996 “A Big Mac … is made the same way in most countries around the world … [and the] … recipe has changed little during the past thirty years … two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions on a sesame seed bun …” So if the burger hasn’t changed over all of those years, what has? The value of your money – that’s what. POP QUIZ – Do you trust the government or your own pocketbook? Here is a simple example to illustrate that the CPI doesn’t necessarily measure what you think it does. The increase in the CPI from July 2016 to July 2018 was only 4.7%. The index was at 252.006 in July of 2018, up from 240.647 in July 2016. The increase in the price of a Big Mac from 2016-1018 was 9.3%. The 2018 average price of a Big Mac in the United States was $5.51, up from $5.04 (price of a Big Mac in 2016). The Chapwood Index shows results similar to the Big Mac Index if you average the highest and lowest inflation rates in all of the cities it follows from 2016-2018 (10.33%) Pop Quiz - Who are you going to believe?
And if you want even further evidence that the CPI is a bogus number, I suggest you check out John Williams’ Shadow Government Statistics. He also pegs inflation at around 10%. “It’s time to admit that public education operates like a planned economy, a bureaucratic system in which everybody’s role is spelled out in advance, and there are few incentives for innovation and productivity. It’s no surprise that our school system doesn’t improve: It more resembles the communist economy than our own market economy.”
Albert Shanker, Former President, American Federation for Teachers GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION - Two types In my last blog post, I mentioned the economic problems faced by one of the United State’s possessions in the Pacific Ocean called the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). If you didn’t get a chance to read it, here is the point relevant for today’s commentary: “Up until the late 1990s, these islands were the home of a thriving garment industry. There were upwards of 34 factories producing clothing for export. But the expiration of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) had a major impact on the islands. Now, all of those factories have closed.” The economic fate of the CNMI was unfortunate. But as a libertarian, I see it as a good illustration of one particular problem which arises when government intervenes in the market. Of course, when most people think of government intervention, they have in mind the type of regulation shown in the picture at the top of this blog post. But not all of them work this way. Some interventions establish a set of “artificial conditions” which actually help certain companies and industries. The public education system is an excellent example of this. It was created by government intervention and to this day it relies on certain “artificial conditions” provided by the state for its very survival. Before I get to the public education system, I need to flesh out this idea of “artificial conditions.” In order to do this, I will:
THE ANALOGY – Special Education IEPs Exactly what do I mean by “artificial conditions?” To clarify, I am going to use an analogy that I think teachers will be able to relate to – special education students who are mainstreamed into the regular education classroom. If you are not familiar with my opinion on mainstreaming, I wrote a two-part post last year on the topic which you may be interested in reading.
A typical IEP would include modifications such as the following:
Could a mainstreamed student perform well, academically speaking, in a regular education class without these artificial conditions? Probably not, which is why the law dictates that he must receive them. ARTIFICIAL CONDITIONS – Tesla Motors For further clarification, I want to apply this idea to the world of business. Elon Musk is widely praised for his entrepreneurial endeavors, most notably, Tesla Motors. No doubt part of Musk’s success is his “genius,” but keep in mind that certain “artificial conditions” were bestowed upon him by the government. According to the LA Times: “… entrepreneur Elon Musk has built a multibillion-dollar fortune … And he's built those companies with the help of billions in government subsidies … an estimated $4.9 billion in government support …” I think most would agree that $4.9 billion is a very nice “artificial condition” to operate with. But even with this advantage, the future of Tesla is not assured. It is going to face real competition from other electric cars makers pretty soon. Making matters even worse, its government provided tax subsidy is set to end in 2019. Finally, to top it all off, short sellers are betting against the company. I forget what podcast I heard it on but one pundit was predicting that Tesla will either go bankrupt or be bought out by another car company at a price much lower that its current $335 – maybe around $50/share. ARTIFICIAL CONDITIONS – Public Education My point in the previous two sections was simply to point out that government intervention can create situations that would not be possible in a free market. Which brings me to public education. I opened this blog post with a quote from the former president of the American Federation of Teachers. I am going to restate it here because what he said about public education astounded me. “It’s time to admit that public education operates like a planned economy, a bureaucratic system in which everybody’s role is spelled out in advance, and there are few incentives for innovation and productivity. It’s no surprise that our school system doesn’t improve: It more resembles the communist economy than our own market economy.” Shanker sums up very well, in a general way, what I refer to as “artificial conditions” in the realm of public education, but here are some of the specific ones:
A WORLD WITHOUT PUBLIC SCHOOLS? Whether you agree that the state should provide public education or not, you have to admit that it only survives because of government created “artificial conditions.” The question is, could the market do a better job of things? I read an interesting article in the Weekly Standard which discusses this very topic – A World Without Public Schools. Here is a quote to get you thinking: “But there's no reason we must have public schools. Granted, the public has a strong interest in educating America's children, at a cost that's divided equitably among all taxpayers and not borne by the parents of school-age children alone. But these requirements don't imply any need for public schools.” While the Weekly Standard leans to the conservative side, even the liberal-leaning Atlantic recently dealt with this very issue – What if America Didn’t Have Public Schools? The article concludes that both have their pros and cons: “Opting into the private-school system does not mean forsaking the public system—at least, it shouldn’t. And embracing the public schools does not mean there aren’t powerful reasons for families to go private.” A LIBERTARIAN PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHER - Contradiction in terms? As a libertarian working within the public school system, I have to deal with the reality that my salary is paid for by money stolen from taxpayers. That much is an indisputable fact. But I also realize that public education is also a fact – and it isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. This is why I don’t think trying to eradicate public education is worth my time and effort. A better approach to this issue is to get people who are involved in public education to think along the lines of former AFT president Albert Shanker. "It’s no surprise that our school system doesn’t improve: It more resembles the communist economy than our own market economy.” He almost sounds like a closet libertarian … don’t you think? I spend over 15 hours on the road each week commuting to the school where I teach. Many of my colleagues tell me they can’t imagine wanting to do this, but I actually like it. I look forward to the drive because it gives me the opportunity to listen to a whole lot of podcasts.
One of my favorites is a podcast produced by economist Peter Schiff. Recently he talked about the how the economies of two American possessions, the Commonwealth of the Northern Marinara Islands (CNMI) and American Samoa, were decimated after the United States forced minimum wage laws upon them a decade ago. When I did a bit of research on the matter, I found out that he was only half-right about this, so I figured I would set the record straight. AMERICAN SAMOA According to a Business Insider article, the situation in the American Samoa all came down to tuna fish. “For generations, American Samoa offered strong advantages for tuna canners. The close proximity to vast Pacific tuna schools, the islands' good port facilities, political association with the United States, and an abundance of relatively inexpensive labor (by American standards) enticed StarKist and Chicken of the Sea to locate their primary canning facilities in American Samoa.” Although workers on American Samoa were being paid lower wages than their American counterparts, they were doing just fine because the cost of living in the Pacific was also much lower. In fact, their standard of living was much better than most of the other islands in the area. Enter a well-meaning U.S. Congress … what could possibly go wrong? “… in 2007, Washington came to the ‘rescue.’ As part of its efforts to provide a ‘living wage’ for all Americans, Congress passed a law to step up the minimum wage to $7.25 per hour across all U.S. states and territories by 2009.” Most readers will be familiar with the expression that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Well, ten years ago, as another familiar expression puts it, Samoans learned this in spades. Spoiler Alert: The Samoans didn’t live happily ever after. As the Economic Policies Institute makes crystal clear in their article entitled More Layoffs In American Samoa A Result Of Congress’ Minimum Wage “Yesterday, StarKist Tuna announced plans to layoff 600 to 800 employees at its cannery in American Samoa. This follows fellow tuna producer Chicken of the Sea’s decision to close its own cannery in September. Both companies have cited Congress’ minimum wage as a barrier to doing business in American Samoa.” COMMONWEALTH OF THE NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS (CNMI) While the minimum wage hike did negatively affect the CNMI, there were other more important factors behind the decline of the economy in this part of the world. Up until the late 1990s, these islands were the home of a thriving garment industry. There were upwards of 34 factories producing clothing for export. But the expiration of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) had a major impact on the islands. Now, all of those factories have closed. According to GMA News: “Saipan’s garment factories producing 'Made in the USA' clothing started closing one after the other since January 2005, when the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) expired, eliminating quotas on textile exports to the United States.” So, the minimum wage hike didn’t cause the destruction of the economy of CNMI as Peter Schiff suggested. It was actually the removal of an artificial government protection, GATT, which caused most of the damage. |
AuthorGregory Monte is a libertarian public school teacher in the state of New Jersey Archives
January 2019
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