Do not think about, write about or deal with human behavior without determining the effects of incentives.
"All this has been said before, but nobody listened, so it must be said again." Andre Gide
An Interview with Neal Mc Cluskey: The Right Reasons Why the Teacher Bailout is Wrong
“Michael F. Shaughnessy – The primary reason taxpayers should oppose the teacher bailout – and we’re really talking about a bailout for both teachers and other public-schooling staffers – is that we have increased public-school staffing for decades and gotten no corresponding improvement in achievement.
1) Neal, it seems that every time I turn around, these politicians are putting some kind of strange spin or simply incorrect explanation about things. Why SHOULD the average taxpayer oppose the Teacher Bailout?
The primary reason taxpayers should oppose the teacher bailout – and we’re really talking about a bailout for both teachers and other public-schooling staffers – is that we have increased public-school staffing for decades and gotten no corresponding improvement in achievement. Indeed, over the past forty years public-school staffing has grown ten times faster than enrollment while achievement scores for students at the end of high school have been stagnant. If anything, then, taxpayers should demand more public-school employment cuts so that the saved money could stay with taxpayers who could put it to more productive uses.”
That productivity thing is really pesky. More money, more government employees, same dismal outcomes–yet they still call if “investment”.
“2) Neal, they have this Race to the Top thing- have any REAL accomplishments been seen or are these politicians just blabbering?
So far, Race to the Top has been much more hype than hero. Yes, some states have eliminated some atrocious barriers to some common-sense things like being able to evaluate teachers based on student outcomes, but for the most part states have just promised to plan to do good stuff. Very little of any substance has actually been done, and anyone even remotely familiar with public schooling knows that promises and plans come easy – positive results, not so much.
At the very best, all you can objectively say about Race to the Top is that the jury is out until we can measure academic achievement and other outcomes and connect them to RTTT. Unfortunately, to put it mildly, RTTT aficionados aren’t restricting themselves to that.”
3) If you were in charge of things—where would YOU put the money—if in fact there is any left after the War in Afghanistan and Iraq?
It’s not so much where I would put the money as I wouldn’t take it from taxpayers in the first place. Individuals know better than government what their needs are, and collectively will meet those needs better if they are able to freely interact with each other. Moreover, even if you thought Washington could somehow attend to individuals’ needs better than the individuals themselves you would have to factor in the hugely disproportionate political power of special interests, and all the greed-driven distortions that causes. So even if government were somehow capable of micromanaging our lives better than we could manage them ourselves, you wouldn’t want to give it that power because special interests would subvert the process to enrich themselves.”
…….
There is more.
Cheerio and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
Cui Bono–Cherchez les Contingencies
