“I care about educating the kids. Once we have done that, we can turn to arguments about the teachers. Until then, paeans to what great people public school teachers are are just completely irrelevant. The janitors are probably great guys too, but the school is not there for their benefit. If it made the kids […]
Archive for November, 2007
Nov8th2007
The Economist blog writes:
It is a commonplace of rudimentary economics that markets generally provide consumer goods more efficiently than government — they better satisfy consumer preferences — because freely moving price signals provide a kind of rapid, constant, dynamic, high-fidelity feedback about consumer desire that even the most efficiently-designed mechanisms of democratic choice cannot begin […]
Nov8th2007
“Two weeks ago I was listening to a discussion on NPR of research scientists in the U.S. who all (four of them) expressed their concern that scientific research and development in this country has deteriorated considerably over the past thirty years. All four attributed their academic (college and postgraduate) success, as well as their research […]
Nov7th2007
How Would Our Healthcare System Look If It Was Structured Like Our Education System?
Published by in Education, General and Vouchers. 1 CommentThe Economist Blog answers:
Suppose the United States had a Canadian-style single-payer health system. Suppose the quality of care was poor to middling. Suppose relatively wealthy people started opting out of the public system to seek care from better private providers and paying them out of pocket. Now, suppose relatively wealthy people also fought vehemently to […]
Nov6th2007
The Economics Of Vouchers
Published by in Capitalism, Communism, Economics, Education, General and Vouchers. 0 CommentsExplained by my favorite economic blogger, Megan McArdle blogging at The Atlantic:
One thing that strikes me about the arguments I’ve been having with voucher opponents is just how little they seem to understand how markets work. Markets don’t work because they get it right the first time; they succeed because if at first they don’t […]
Nov5th2007
Forgive me–I’m about to get testy again–but this thread on 11D really does seem to me to showcase in stunning technocolor the moral bankruptcy of voucher opponents who have pulled their own kids out of failing inner city schools. They have no good answer for why their choice is morally worthy, but vouchers are horrifying; […]
Nov2nd2007
“There is some evidence that people become political liberals because they perceive the government to be an extension of their parents. That’s why college-age people tend to be more liberal than older people. For young people, who cannot yet survive well on their own, the dependence on parents and their financial resources is still strong. […]
Nov1st2007
“the impact of gender equality on family inequality could be quite large. As I’ve suggested before, when a man with high earnings potential starts to look for a wife with high earnings potential instead of a wife who can cook and clean, you are going to see fewer inter-class marriages. That raises inequality. Then the […]
