Walter Block on the Mythical Pay Gap

Professor Walter Block on the mythical wage gap:

The second nail emerges when we consider the exotic implications of the employer discrimination hypothesis of the pay gap. If this analysis were true, one would expect to find a systematic and positive relationship between profit levels and the number of women in the firm or industry.

It the idea that, all things equal, men and women have a level of parity when compared equally is ine worth considering. If employer discrimination were an issue, any such firm would be driven out of the market by an entrepreneur willing to hire a worker discriminated against. Men and women are equal, but also quite different, in regards to abilities and specialities. If not for those differences, we may see female construction workers and firefighters. In reality, women are better at a great many things, men excellent in a few as well...

From the Mises Institute:

His thesis is that discrimination -- choosing one thing over another -- is an inevitable feature of the material world where scarcity of goods and time is the pervasive feature. There is no getting around it. You must discriminate, and therefore you must have the freedom to discriminate, which only means the freedom to choose. Without discrimination, there is no economizing taking place. It is chaos.

The market embeds institutions that assist people in making the wisest possible choices given the alternatives. In this sense, discrimination is rational and socially optimal. For the state to presume to criminalize it based on social and political priorities amounts to a subversion of the market and of human liberty that leads to social conflict.

More: http://mises.org/document/6078 (don't give me any poor excuse for turning down a free book)

Block reminds us that there was a time when discriminating meant having the desirable ability to make an educated, informed choice.

Nothing more.  

Negative discrimination is purged from the free market, yet promoted by the state. Minorities will prosper by firms willing to hire minorities at lower rates, undercutting gluttonous competitors and driving themfrom the market. If we are to rid the world of it's evils, we must give ourselves the chance to do so. Block's Case reminds us that a better future is worth the fight. Those discriminated against find friend in liberty, not disparity. 

There's no state like no state.

And I feel like a nerd-punk voluntaryist fanboy:

Parents, the State, and Collectivism

Something that has bothered me about involuntary societies since fully understanding the idea has been the inherent lack of choice, and the subsequent lack of learning from the act of making individual choices, be they positive or negative.

Life is an opportunity, not a guarantee, with the opportunity to fail also delivering the potential for cognitive growth. What life gives us in these opportunities is the chance to excel in a higher capacitive reasoning potential. By learning from failure today, we have the chance to succeed tomorrow. As parents, we are charged with raising our children to be the keepers of tomorrow's world, and without our knowledge, experience, and guidance, how can we expect to hold a legitimately optimistic view of what tomorrow's world will hold? 

I say this not only as a parent, but as inequality who teaches his children to respect others by respecting ourselves, but by trying to pass that understanding on to other parents. As George Carlin said, "don't just teach your children, teach them to question everything." How else can we make the future better than the present? 

One of the most malignant features of modernity since the French Revolution has been the attempt by the State—left or right, fascist, nationalist, socialist, or communist—to take over control of children's education from parents and local agencies—such as churches and municipalities—and direct that education in the interest of grandiose, intellectually neat, or more efficient plans and aims. The Philosophes and Jacobins of "Enlightenment" and Revolutionary France were the chief originators and evangelists of this program, but its subsequent development has had left-wing, right-wing, and even innocuous-seeming democratic or patriotic forms.

With the rise of the state in opposition to individuality, along with the learning experience facilitated by the consequences of bad choices, we see an erosion of natural rights, whereby individuals are discouraged from recognizing the failures of collectivism. There is hardly anything democrat about a society without an opt-out policy. Modern governments are more than willing to use violence against the peasants to show that the oligarchy shall not be questioned. By withdrawing consent to be governed, we effectively relegate laws against victims of victimless-crimes to the history books, a distant reminder of a world when common sense was anything but. I may disagree with the faithful on the origin of the effort, but the goals are not entirely dissimilar; an end to violence.

In the aftermath of World War II, after a century and a half of ultimately tragic and destructive attempts by left-wing, right-wing, or simply radically-secular states to wean children from their parents and local and religious loyalties and influences in the interest of state-directed education, many Western European nations and the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights (1948) clearly asserted that "parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children," in the words of the Declaration. With the fall of Communism, after 1990 new national constitutions in eastern Europe affirmed the provision their Western neighbors had made in the preceding decades, a noble story told well by Charles L. Glenn in Educational Freedom in Eastern Europe (1995). This provision included forms of tax relief or support that would enable parents to make such choices.

More: Parents vs the State

I believe that to best serve our children, we need to foster in them a critical view of the world, every aspect, and hope that they can find the best in everything. 

By removing the ability to learn from our experiences (even failure), we are truly being teachers for our children. What happens in a society in which repercussions are suppressed (in both social and economic realms) is that we don't learn from our experiences. 

With problems like drug addiction, where historically abuse of a substance is statistically insignificant until the state see fit to enact regulatory prohibition of some sort, is that we see a spike in instances of such issue. As with a child, telling them not to do something and teaching them about the consequences of the same action have quite varying outcomes. When we tell our children not to smoke or drink alcohol, where teaching about the negative consequences of the same action result in caution and consideration. Historically, issues like drug usage and firearm violence rise with prohibition. 

If we expect our children to succeed, shouldn't we prepare rather than hindering them?

Milk Subsidies Need to go Over the Fiscal Cliff

Rich and Happie Larson's brood goes through 14 gallons of milk per week, minimum.

So the prospect of starting 2013 paying as much as $8 per gallon for milk would have far-reaching consequences for the Davis County family, which has 11 children at home.

"That's over $110 a week just on milk. I love my kids and they need to eat well, but if you have to choose between a gallon of milk and a nice dinner with meat for my family, I'm going to choose the nice dinner with meat," Happie Larson said.

The farm bill expired three months ago. Unless Congress passes legislation renewing federal support for agriculture programs, milk prices could spike to between $6 and $8 per gallon, according to some estimates.

This is exactly what is needed to stabilize the milk market. The problem with subsidies (or one of many) is that they suppress natural cues to producers to alter the volume of goods produced for the market. This natural action tells producers if they are over- or under-producing, and is what sets the market price. Subsidies suppress this natural signal and cause production to remain high well after demand drops. 

It must be those mean capitalists driving up costs to increase profits...

Fifth-generation Weber County dairy farmer Ron Gibson is of two minds about the possibilities.

"It's really a double-edged sword. It would be nice to have $8 a gallon for milk. (Consumers) can't afford to do that long term," Gibson said. "The bigger concern we have is that it could kill demand for our product. How many people will quit buying milk and start buying something else?"

We need this natural market reaction so that firms will look at the market and decide whether to continue producing milk or exit the market. 

Milk is just part of the dairy market. If the price of milk goes up, so goes the price of cheese, ice cream, sour cream and other dairy products, he said.

The dairy industry has worked hard to partner with the food service industry to encourage restaurant chains to use more cheese on home-delivered pizza or sandwiches.

Higher prices could result in the various chains cutting back on their orders, which would further pinch dairy farmers who are already struggling with higher feed prices due to the drought, Gibson said.

Higher prices are exactly what we need to stabilize the milk market, or the intervention into the sugar industry could have long term effects similar to the Great Sugar Shaft. How long since you had a Coca Cola with real sugar?

Congress is at an impasse over how much to cut food stamps, how much the government should subsidize crops and debate over how dairy prices should be stabilized.

Or we can continue a policy of market intervention insanity that could lead to the following:

Unless Congress resolves the stalemate over the farm bill by the end of the year, the federal government would have to follow a 1949 law that would require the U.S. Department of Agriculture to buy milk at roughly twice the current market price to maintain a stable market.

More: deseretnews

Teacher Quits Over Standardized Testing

A second-grade teacher in Providence, R.I., has issued a very public resignation that is making its rounds online.

"I've had it, I quit," Stephen Round says in his resignation video, posted to YouTube last week. "I would rather leave my secure, $70,000 job, with benefits, and tutor in Connecticut for free than be part of a system that is diametrically opposed to everything I believe education should be."

Round first applied to be a teacher in Providence Public Schools in 1999, and "it was a great fit for several years," he says. But things started to change for the worse, until he couldn't take it anymore. Fed up with standardized testing, Round says the district's rigid structure and lofty standards created an environment where creative teaching and alternative learning were not tolerated.

"It was purely frustration. It got to the point where I can't stand by and watch kids not learn, and I have the key to help them," Round told WPRI. "They want us to follow the book to the letter."

His mid-year departure, Round adds, was the best move for his students, who were not benefiting from his gripes with school officials.

In response to Round's resignation, the Providence school district released the following statement to WLNE:

As a matter of practice, Providence Schools would not comment on the specifics of an individual's resignation letter. We regret that Mr. Round has found his recent professional experience dissatisfactory, but we thank the hundreds of teachers in our schools who continue to make learning exciting and enjoyable for their students every day.

The Providence teacher's scathing departure is not unlike another: A September post by former Boston teacher Adam Kirk Edgerton about why he quit rapidly became an Internet hit. Edgerton wrote that he was "no longer willing to operate under the old rules while the weight of our educational bureaucracy crushes our country ... I was tired of feeling powerless."

Standardized testing, especially, has come under attack as an inaccurate measure of student achievement, coupled with schools' heavy dependence on those measures to make critical decisions -- like determining teacher salaries and bonuses, as well as district and school funding.

Just last month, the American Federation of Teachers launched a campaign to end what it calls the "fixation on standardized testing" that has developed out of accountability measures required by the federal No Child Left Behind law.

In his video, Round makes those grievances against testing clear, walking through a number of points ranging from the culture of teaching to the test, to the evolution of a stringent school schedule that minimizes social interactions.

"Unfortunately, in the attempt to conform and abide by the misguided notions of educrats, the school system in which I had so much pride drastically changed," he says. "Rather than creating lifelong learners, our new goal is to create good test takers. Rather than being recipients of a rewarding and enjoyable educational experience, our students are now relegated to experiencing a confining and demeaning education."

Stephen Round, Providence Teacher, Quits Over Standardized Testing In Viral YouTube Video

Rhode Island teacher speaks out and resigns

Rhode Island teacher in the Providence School Department says, "I quit!"

Stephen Round, a 2nd grade teacher in the Providence School Department for 15 years has spoken out with a You Tube video. He tried to read his letter of resignation at a school committee meeting last week, but was not given the opportunity. He decided to make the video to read the letter of the resignation.

He addresses the Human Resources department of the Providence Public Schools with his resignation letter. education philosophy is to teach children to be life-long learners. The current school atmosphere does not allow him to meet that goal.

Children no longer are allowed to have breakfast in the cafeteria. Breakfast is now in the classroom while students are supposed to be doing some type of learning. There is no time for socialization during breakfast. Lunch and recess are being used as a tool to force children to behave in class and to be quiet.

He explains that most of his students had some type of behavior problems. The students that most needed socialization and recess were losing that opportunity, creating more behavior problems. Anything fun is gone, field trips are gone and even the ability to tutor his students after school is gone.

Anything that is not in the designed curriculum, even if it works is not allowed. I would rather leave my $70,000 per year job with benefits than be part of a system that is opposed to what I believe education could be, says Mr. Brown.

Many parents believe that with the high numbers of student with disabilities now being taught in the regular classrooms, Mr. Brown may not be the only motivated and experienced teacher that Rhode Island will be losing, unless something changes.

Rhode Island teacher speaks out and resigns - Providence special education | Examiner.com

Does Prohibition Cause Increases in Certain Activities?

Certain substances have been show to have significant usage increases after their prohibition in varying cultures historically, so if "more gun freedom would deter violent crime and drug legalization would allow people to get treated, do you think legalizing prostitution and etc would diminish sex crimes?" There is an interesting discussion thread over at r/Libertarian reddit on this very topic right now. Given the reality of unintended consequences of interventionist policies, it's worth diving into the discussions to debate statism with statists. 

Will the ‘regulatory cliff’ cause another economic collapse in the U.S.?

I think that the analogy of the impending financial troubles ahead as revenues decline and spending increases is somewhat inaccurate. The "financial cliff" that so many have been referencing as of late doesn't really put the current situation into perspective in a way that normal, economically-ignorant people can fully appreciate, but partisan views like this do more to encourage that divisive disregard for a need to address the underlying issues:

It seems the entire talk is over the fiscal cliff, but some Republicans in Washington and several business groups are discussing the upcoming "regulatory cliff" that many say could be just as damaging to the United States economy. 

The level of intervention into voluntary exchanges by both Republicans and Democrats is beyond unacceptable, with both doing immense damage to local and global economies that would function efficiently when left in their unencumbered states. One side focuses on economic liberties, the other on civil, but neither understands that both are necessary in a free society. I suppose it's more likely that the back and forth between the Left and Right will continue, along with the distractive methods used to maintain a centralization of power in the hands of the ruling class, rather than a move toward an agoristic society. But I can dream...

Individualism, Out of Step

People are first and foremost individualistic, no prone to collectivism without force being applied. It can also be called ethical egoism, when the goal of the individual is not to thrive at the expense of others (property, labor, liberty, etc.). Ayn Rand is often criticized for Objectivism for ethical reasons that self-interest is not conducive to Mutualism (the epistemological arguments are a bit beyond me unfortunately at this point), but more than anything these people are recognizing and acting upon the inherently individualistic choices we make in our daily lives through voluntary exchanges. Individuality is what drives progress and innovation, not regulation and collectivism. By homogenizing the population, we cull out those individual traits that drive progress. These positions and arguments are the reason that I have not been keen to allow myself to be labeled since I was a child. I can not associate everything I do with one group or culture, everything I am with a political ideology or religious theology. I'm more inclined to strive to be Out of Step than mold myself to fit a label. One of the failures of individualism within social ideologies (such as liberal or conservative), is that it is based upon the non-consensual submission to authority through the state, which is a form of oppression, and is hardly individualism in application.

The Military-Industrial Complex's Waning Political Influence

In a recent paper, economists Christopher Coyne and Thomas Duncan paint a dire picture of the harmful effects of the permanent war economy. Most studies focus on total military spending (measured in either real or nominal dollars) to show the enormous growth in such outlays over the past 15 years. A few studies focus on the size of the Pentagon's budget relative to total federal spending, or to the economy as a whole, and claim that such costs are, in fact, quite modest.

I love to see the idea of cost analysis considers in regards to the warfare state. No one else seems to be...

But Coyne and Duncan, who are both affiliated with George Mason University's outstanding economics department, take a different approach. The true costs of the military-industrial complex, they explain, "have so far been understated, as they do not take into account the full forgone opportunities of the resources drawn into the war economy." A dollar spent on planes and ships cannot also be spent on roads and bridges. What's more, the existence of a permanent war economy, the specific condition which President Dwight Eisenhower warned of in his famous farewell address, has shifted some entrepreneurial behavior away from private enterprise, and toward the necessarily less efficient public sector. "The result," Coyne and Duncan declaim, "is a bloated corporate state and a less dynamic private economy, the vibrancy of which is at the heart of increased standards of living."

The process perpetuates itself. As more and more resources are diverted into the war economy, that may stifle—or at least impede—a healthy political debate over the proper size and scope of the entire national security infrastructure, another fact that Eisenhower anticipated. Simply put, people don't like to bite the hand that feeds them.

[...]

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More

Unschooling Quotes

Unschooling Quotes:


"I recognize June by the flowers, now. I used to know it by review tests, and restlessness." -Lisa Asher, unschooled teen  


"The only thing I didn't do in school was learn." -unschooler Jason Lescalleet  


"Schooling, instead of encouraging the asking of questions, too often discourages it." -Madeleine L'Engle  

Child of the Killing Fields

Born into the Killing Fields under the Khmer Rouge, Prach Ly escaped to Long Beach, Calif.

Growing up on the dividing line between Long Beach and Compton, he responded to the music of the era and became one of the first Cambodian hip hop artists.

Video by Mae Ryan

I Walked Away from Omelas

I was introduced to Le Guin’s fantasy fiction books through friends, but can see how some can be caught off guard, not expecting morality through fiction with the collection of non-fiction articles introduced in this course. It’s an allegory presenting the moral perspective of walking away from “utopia.” The question is whether the happiness of a society can exist at the expense of the freedom and happiness of an individual, innocent child.

Kyes:

"After the narrator has the reader thinking that this city couldn't possibly exist because of all of the "smiles, bells" and "parades," (Le Guin 951) the narrator asks the reader if they believe in the city and in the joy. The narrator suspects the reader will say no, so she decides to describe one more thing that will cause the reader to question the believability of the city. By describing the child who is locked in the dark cellar, the author is telling the reader that this town has its dark secrets too."

I view society from a voluntaryist position, so I see the moral vacuum created by building a utopia on the suffering of an innocent, that the society can not be said to be moral as a result. Rather than continue to be a part of the society, those who see the moral deficiency of the society choose to walk away from it. They choose to withdraw their consent and their support for that society. It’s an evil that can only be allowed to persist if society chooses to ignore it, to force it into the shadows where the atrocity can not be seen.

A society such as that is quite backwards. Can we live in a society at the expense of others? I think that this ties in to the area of positive liberty, where society promotes “equality” through forced redistribution and strong laws by a representative body, rather than through consensual or voluntary interactions and exchanges. This relies on the presence of a state which has the power (and often uses it to the detriment of society) to infringe upon natural, individual rights. If we know that our neighbor is being robbed to provide for services which we want, yet we choose to take advantage of those services anyway, we place ourselves in the position of being both the members of Le Guin’s Omelas as well as the innocent child in the dark cellar.

Ursula Le Guin - The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas (PDF download)

Lew Rockwell Roundup

There are a handful of good articles posted over at Lew Rockwell's site today, including a Ron Paul Farewell to Congress (finally coming out of the closet as a Voluntaryist), Lincoln's Greatest Failure (there are so many to choose from), the Petraeus Scandal (I'll give you a hint, it has nothing to do with sex), and more. Enjoy your liberty? Thank the folks contributing to Rockwell' site for fighting for it on an intellectual level, because your vote means nothing to anyone but yourself. 

Happy War Day

Veteran's Day, the third leg of the statist tripod of holidays; Veteran's Day, Memorial Day, and 9/11. Celebration of these "holidays" is little more than worship at the altar or the American Empire. The Empire Never Ended, yet it's collapse is imminent. 

Formerly Armistice Day, is a holiday observed on November 11 in honour of all those, living and dead, who served with U.S. armed forces in wartime. Armistice Day, the forerunner of Veterans Day, was proclaimed to commemorate the termination of World War I

Proclaimed by whom? surely not the people. Less than one on five support Obama (just the latest American emperor), which should be a stark reminder of the massive withdraw of consent of the population to be governed. I see this as a great step away from the state toward a voluntary society sans government. For what is government but a legitimization of the act of aggression toward others through the act of voting. Don't vote, it only encourages them. 

Less than One in Five Voted for Obama

That's my tentative estimate (based on Google election result and population statistics) of the percentage of Americans who voted for nobody for President of the United States on Tuesday.

US President Barack Obama knocked down about 60.7 million votes.

GOP challenger Mitt Romney polled about 57.8 million.

Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson, 1.14 million.

Green candidate Jill Stein, about 400,000.

A few others, a few thousands or tens of thousands.

About 38.8% of the population supported one of the candidates; about 19.5% of the population supported the alleged "winner."

61.2% of the population did not consent to be ruled at all, and fewer than one in five Americans consented to be ruled by Barack Obama. The figures are likely similar for most or all of the 435 US Representatives and 33 US Senators "elected" on Tuesday.

If these politicians support the system of government they claim to support — one in which governments "deriv[e] their just powers from the consent of the governed" — then the only order of business they have to discuss is who will turn the lights off as they depart Washington.

Don't bet the ranch on it.

http://c4ss.org/content/14117

As voter turnout reduces, that consent is more apparently not given to politicians through the vote, and confidence in politicians and their government is fading. Getting the support of less than 20% of the population is a sign that the consent of the governed is being withdrawn en masse.

Vote no confidence by not voting.

Wage Rates and Employer Health Benefits in the Future

 

Looking at the coming increases in health care costs, I am starting to wonder how these costs will affect private companies like Pearson. Employers tend to pass off some of the increases in costs like health care by decreasing wages, which disproportionately affects the lowest wage earners. What is the likely outcome in the compensation and benefits arrangement between employers and employees as a result of the increased healthcare costs, increased regulation, and decreased competition?

With the mandate portion of the  Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, aka Obamacare), the lack of competition in the market will do little to encourage consumers in this market to shop for lower cost alternatives, since most people react to rising premiums by looking to alternative providers or reducing the scope of coverage (dropping add-on options and sticking to core needs). By requiring everyone to have coverage which discards deductibles and co-payments, there will be no incentive to cost-compare and look to alternative providers. There is no economic incentive to economize and reduce costs (at the consumer/employee level). (Read: Priceless: Curing the Healthcare Crisis by John C. Goodman)

Another likely effect is that wage increases could decline (and they are currently barely keeping up with the rate of inflation) as healthcare costs rise due to regulatory increases. As production costs increase, driving down profits, and possibly encouraging producers to cut costs in part by decreasing labor costs to maintain prices at competitive and profitable levels. Think of it from the employer's perspective; if the value of a employee decreases, what motivation is there to continue to compensate at unsustainable levels? Wage stagnation is likely to become the norm, but significantly more evident at low wage rates than any other level.

Minimum wage jobs, which are already an issue, could likely see more competition, especially as unemployment rates rise. Employees earning $10/hr (or less)  can not afford $6/hr healthcare costs. Low wage earners need affordable healthcare more than any other class, yet the PPACA can not reduce costs to bring costs down to an affordable level. As is typical of government intervention into markets through regulation and taxation, overall costs tend to rise, which has a variety of other negative effects, primarily increased unemployment rates. The actions that government takes "to help the poor" tend to do them more harm than no action at all. But it sounds good when we hear it on the television. Fining people who do not purchase healthcare is not effective either, as it has the same effect as the income tax in contributing to driving down market efficiencies and causing unemployment (which should be easy to understand, except for policymakers). Subsidies can only exist when driven by penalties.

The rate of inflation is likely to be a hedge against massive cuts in companies which are already profitable. Compensation rates will likely simply begin to decline in effort to prevent labor cuts, which we are seeing in other markets and industries already. Special interests will lobby government like there is no tomorrow when the mandate goes into full effect, which will only further drive up overall costs to employers and employees alike. Imagine what happens at the state level being applied at the federal in this regard.

Election Time, HOA Edition

I found a message in my inbox from a member of my local homeowners association board who is running for re-election:

Hello Neighbors,

Early voting starts today and your vote counts! I am asking for your support in putting me back on the Block House MUD Board. I am also asking that each of you tell 10 of your neighbors to vote for me. This is a crucial election and every vote counts.

After a 2 year break from my last term on the MUD Board, I am ready to get back to work representing YOU and your best interest. During my first 4 years on the Board, I fought to keep the taxes low while maintaining the services that were offered to our residents the previous year. My record will show that the tax rate did not increase one time while I was on Board. I plan to continue this record because I know that, in this economy, every dollar counts.

With 4 people running for 2 seats, I need and want your support. I am pleased to have this opportunity and I look forward to the challenges that it presents.

While I hold no ill will against anyone on the homeowners association board, but this is a good time to discuss an idea that has been circulating in my head for some time. Could engaging in the act of voting, whereby the result is a situation where those who have not voted to support those who were elected, are forced or coerced to comply with the will of those in elected positions? I believe there is a moral deficiency here. One that is not unfounded. The opposition to this system of representative democracy goes back to the Romans, but more recently was supported by the likes of Frédéric Bastiat and Lysander Spooner.

In The Law, Bastiat offers this which he calls legal plunder, by which voters either use their vote to plunder others, or to defend themselves preemptively against plunder:

But on the other hand, imagine that this fatal principle has been introduced: Under the pretense of organization, regulation, protection, or encouragement, the law takes property from one person and gives it to another; the law takes the wealth of all and gives it to a few — whether farmers, manufacturers, ship owners, artists, or comedians. Under these circumstances, then certainly every class will aspire to grasp the law, and logically so.

The excluded classes will furiously demand their right to vote — and will overthrow society rather than not to obtain it. Even beggars and vagabonds will then prove to you that they also have an incontestable title to vote. They will say to you:

"We cannot buy wine, tobacco, or salt without paying the tax. And a part of the tax that we pay is given by law — in privileges and subsidies — to men who are richer than we are. Others use the law to raise the prices of bread, meat, iron, or cloth. Thus, since everyone else uses the law for his own profit, we also would like to use the law for our own profit. We demand from the law the right to relief, which is the poor man's plunder. To obtain this right, we also should be voters and legislators in order that we may organize Beggary on a grand scale for our own class, as you have organized Protection on a grand scale for your class. Now don't tell us beggars that you will act for us, and then toss us, as Mr. Mimerel proposes, 600,000 francs to keep us quiet, like throwing us a bone to gnaw. We have other claims. And anyway, we wish to bargain for ourselves as other classes have bargained for themselves!"

Spooner goes a bit further in No Treason to present the idea that we are not bound by contracts that we have no entered into ourselves voluntarily:

If, then, those who established the Constitution, had no power to bind, and did not attempt to bind, their posterity, the question arises, whether their posterity have bound themselves. If they have done so, they can have done so in only one or both of these two ways, viz., by voting, and paying taxes.

In the very nature of things, the act of voting could bind nobody but the actual voters. But owing to the property qualifications required, it is probable that, during the first twenty or thirty years under the Constitution, not more than one-tenth, fifteenth, or perhaps twentieth of the whole population (black and white, men, women, and minors) were permitted to vote. Consequently, so far as voting was concerned, not more than one-tenth, fifteenth, or twentieth of those then existing, could have incurred any obligation to support the Constitution.

No one, by voting, can be said to pledge himself for any longer period than that for which he votes. If, for example, I vote for an officer who is to hold his office for only a year, I cannot be said to have thereby pledged myself to support the government beyond that term. Therefore, on the ground of actual voting, it probably cannot be said that more than one-ninth or one-eighth, of the whole population are usually under any pledge to support the Constitution. [In recent years, since 1940, the number of voters in elections has usually fluctuated between one-third and two-fifths of the populace.]

It cannot be said that, by voting, a man pledges himself to support the Constitution, unless the act of voting be a perfectly voluntary one on his part. Yet the act of voting cannot properly be called a voluntary one on the part of any very large number of those who do vote. It is rather a measure of necessity imposed upon them by others, than one of their own choice.

While this has little bearing on the institution of the homeowners association, Spooner's ideas on the unintended (intended) consequences of a representative government hold more weight in any argument defending the movement toward a voluntary society. It is time to Stop Voting, and I have cast my last vote; no confidence. What if they had an election and nobody came?

Mises on Secession

I believe I have found a scholarly focus for myself at long last, though I will still and always be a student to my last. 

Mises was almost an anarchist.  If he stopped short of affirming the full right of individual secession, it was only because of what he regarded as technical grounds.  In modern democracy, we exalt the method of majority rule as the means of electing the rulers of a compulsory monopoly of taxation.

Free men read Mises

Obama, Romney and Education

How would a second Obama term look in terms of education? What about a Romney Presidency?

Are there great differences between the presidential candidates on education? What would a Romney presidency mean? A second Obama term?

Neither man was asked about No Child Left Behind, easily the most intrusive federal education effort in our history. They weren't asked about the seemingly inexorable move toward national education standards; the growing body of evidence about the importance of early education; or the coming teacher shortage, to mention just a few of the pressing issues Americans might have been interested in hearing about.

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More: http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2012/10/obama-romney-and-education-taking-note.html

Texas Schools Using Electronic Chips To Track Students

"Two Schools in San Antonio are using electronic chips to help administrators count and track students' whereabouts. Students at Anson Jones Middle School and John Jay High School are now required to wear ID cards using radio frequency identification (RFID) technology embedded with electronic chips in an effort to daily attendance records. The article said the Northside Independent School District receives about $30 per day in state funding for each student reporting."

Texas Schools Using Electronic Chips To Track Students; Parents In Uproar - Slashdot

Does anyone else remember a time when citizens were cataloged and labeled by the state?

Cut Education Spending

On economic and education issues, we often have subjective views contrasting the stark reality. Education spending by local, state and federal governments is no different.

From 2011, but still quite relevant:

If President Obama cares about restoring sanity to federal finances, he will demand deep cuts to education spending. That's right: In tonight's State of the Union address, he will call to axe most of Washington's educationally worthless outlays.

Unfortunately, Mr. Obama is likely to prove that he doesn't care all that much about attacking the nation's crushing debt. According to several sources, he'll not only place education spending off limits, he might make increasing it a focal point of tonight's address.

But wait: Debt or no debt, isn't having an educated citizenry crucial to the nation's future? Isn't he right to protect education funding?

Education is, indeed, very important. But while Washington spends huge sums on things that are education-related, the riches produce almost nothing of educational value. If anything, the feds keep stuffing donuts into an already obese system.

Federal elementary and secondary education spending has risen mightily since the early 1970s, when Washington first started immersing itself in education. In 1970, according to the federal Digest of Education Statistics, Uncle Sam spent an inflation-adjusted $31.5 billion on public K-12 education. By 2009 that had ballooned to $82.9 billion.

On a per-pupil basis, in 1970 the feds spent $435 per student. By 2006 — the latest year with available data — it was $1,015, a 133 percent increase. And it's not like state and local spending was dropping: Real, overall, per-pupil spending rose from $5,593 in 1970 to $12,463 in 2006, and today we beat almost every other industrialized nation in education funding.

What do we have to show for this?

Certainly more public school employees: Between 1969 and 2007, pupil-to-staff ratios were close to halved. Not coincidentally, these same people politick powerfully for ever more spending and against reforms that will challenge their bloated monopoly. They also routinely defeat efforts to hold them accountable for results.

This constant feeding of special interests is why we've gotten zilch in the outcome that really matters — learning. Since the early 1970s, scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress — the "Nation's Report Card" — have been utterly stagnant for 17-year-olds, our schools' "final products." In 1973 the average math score was 304 (out of 500). In 2008 it was just 306. In reading, the 1971 average was 285. In 2008 it was up a single point, hitting 286.

More: For the Nation's Sake, Cut Education Spending

Without a stabilization of the education system (if it deserves to be sustained by government at all in the long-term) it will continue to bloat until it collapses under it's own weight. With excessive spending increases by government at all levels, budget deficits and inflating debt, it's not just public education that needs to be on the chopping block, but the neck of government itself.

And a bit more recently,

Cuts such as those that would be made to federal education programs through sequestration are both necessary and overdue. Not only does the federal government have no constitutional authority to fund and administer education programs — no mention is made of education in the specific, enumerated powers given to the federal government in Article I, Section 8 — but the last forty-plus years of federal involvement in education provide a clear demonstration of futility.

Start with preschool. The primary federal preschool program is Head Start, which in FY 2012 received almost $8 billion. The program has existed since 1965 and has cost roughly $180 billion through its lifespan. Despite its longevity, the program has failed to demonstrate lasting benefits. Indeed, a 2010 federal study found that the program had only two statistically significant positive cognitive effects that lasted through first grade, and negative mathematics effects for kindergarten students who entered Head Start when three years old.¹ In the vast majority of measures no meaningful effects were found one way or the other.

Unfortunately, the essentially nonexistent positive effects of Head Start are not the program's only problem. As reports from the Government Accountability Office, local media outlets, and other sources have revealed, Head Start has long suffered from serious waste and abuse. Indeed, GAO reports in 2000, 2005, and 2008 found widespread noncompliance with financial management standards and very poor efforts to remediate the problem.²

More: Sequestration Needed for Federal Education Programs

College Attainment In The U.S. And Around The World

A common talking point in circles in that college attainment in the U.S. used to be among the highest in the world, but is now ranked middling-to-low (the ranking cited is typically around 15th) among OECD nations. As is the case when people cite rankings on the PISA assessment, this is often meant to imply that the U.S. education system is failing and getting worse.*

The latter arguments are of course oversimplifications, given that college attendance and completion are complex phenomena that entail many factors, school and non-school. A full discussion of these issues is beyond the scope of this post – obviously, the causes and "value" of a postsecondary education vary within and between nations, and are subject to all the usual limitations inherent in international comparisons.

That said, let's just take a very quick. surface-level look at the latest OECD figures for college attainment ("tertiary education," meaning associate-level, bachelor's or advanced degree), which have recently been released for 2010.

The graph below presents the nation-by-nation rates for the measure that is most commonly cited – the proportion of 25-34 year olds who have attained tertiary education. This younger age group is usually used for obvious reasons – because most people attend postsecondary schools when they're younger, the 25-34 estimate best approximates the "current situation."

Among the 34 OECD nations included in the data, you can see that the U.S. is indeed ranked toward the middle [...]

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Original Page: http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2012/10/shanker-blog-college-attainment-in-us.html

Maybe it is finally time to consider free market education again, as government schools have consistently seen declining performance and accessibility as intervention increases. 

Education Research Report: How Recent Education Reforms Undermine Local School Governance and Democratic Education

A new report, Democracy Left Behind: How Recent Education Reforms Undermine Local School Governance and Democratic Education, by Kenneth Howe and David Meens of the University of Colorado Boulder examines the impact on democratic ideals of vanishing local control over education.

[...]

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More: http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2012/10/education-research-report-how-recent.html

V for Voluntary, Motherfucker

I recently noticed that Lysander Spooner lived until just one year shy of the abolition of slavery in Brazil, not that he was as focused on issues outside of the United States as he was in his critical words and actions at home, doing his damnedest to promote liberty through education where it was considered utmost for a healthy, voluntary society. I'd like to think that his works (and those of his peers; Mises, Bastiat, Rothbard, Hazlitt, Hayek, Woods, Block, and many others) continue to be influential on the necessity for economic and civil liberty To maintain a free society. 

It's a conspiracy! Let's leave each other alone and promote respect in a voluntary society. We could do it in a few days, if we'd just let go of the false Left-Right dichotomy of separation and control (Divide et Impera, as the Romans called what we still see today), and just give in to morality and reason. Continuing to do the same thing while expecting differing results is how Einstein defined insanity. Rather acute, no?

People are born with natural rights, and many of America's own founding fathers recognized this (yet sadly abandoned those principles shortly thereafter) in their framing of a document which  intended to restrict state infringement upon those natural rights, yet none of signed nor are bound to who do not hold public office or civil position. If it were a contract, all those who signed it are long dead. Yet our collective pockets are plundered against our will to fund various immoral activities in our name. Yet we consent to this? I can not with a clear conscience. 

And to those who do? How is statism working out for us? Maybe it's finally time to try something different. I promise you'll like it, if you understand morality. 

Voting is nothing more than a tug of war, pushing on others to relieve our own burden, swinging back and forth on a pendulum, never really getting anywhere. Yet, over time, our collective burden increases gradually, and our liberties suffer. We harm ourselves in our attempt to harm others. Beware the double edged sword. Legal plunder is nothing to tolerate at any level. It is masturbation without pleasure. 

As Mises said, "economics is far too important to be left to the economists." In his worldview, government only decreases economic efficiency as its intervention and scope of government increase. And without economic liberty, civil liberties suffer greatly beside their counterpart. 

Imagine that...

Privatizing Public Schools: Big Firms Eyeing Profits From U.S. K-12 Market

The investors gathered in a tony private club in Manhattan were eager to hear about the next big thing, and education consultant Rob Lytle was happy to oblige.

Think about the upcoming rollout of new national academic standards for public schools, he urged the crowd. If they're as rigorous as advertised, a huge number of schools will suddenly look really bad, their students testing way behind in reading and math. They'll want help, quick. And private, for-profit vendors selling lesson plans, educational software and student assessments will be right there to provide it.

"You start to see entire ecosystems of investment opportunity lining up," said Lytle, a partner at The Parthenon Group, a Boston consulting firm. "It could get really, really big."

Indeed, investors of all stripes are beginning to sense big profit potential in public education.

The K-12 market is tantalizingly huge: The U.S. spends more than $500 billion a year to educate kids from ages five through 18. The entire education sector, including college and mid-career training, represents nearly 9 percent of U.S. gross domestic product, more than the energy or technology sectors.

Expect to see that public expenditure to dramatically reduce in the coming years...

Traditionally, public education has been a tough market for private firms to break into -- fraught with politics, tangled in bureaucracy and fragmented into tens of thousands of individual schools and school districts from coast to coast.

The coming collapse of the public sector is probably the best thing to happen to education since, well, education.

Now investors are signaling optimism that a golden moment has arrived. They're pouring private equity and venture capital into scores of companies that aim to profit by taking over broad swaths of public education.

The conference last week at the University Club, billed as a how-to on "private equity investing in for-profit education companies," drew a full house of about 100.

[...]

More: Privatizing Public Schools: Big Firms Eyeing Profits From U.S. K-12 Market

Parents Pitch In to Help Texas Schools Face Budget Cuts

The space used to be a vacant field, sandwiched between Casis Elementary School and a parking lot. 

Now, thanks to diligent fund-raising and a parent who is an architect, it is a state-of-the-art outdoor classroom where pupils get lessons in subjects ranging from math to creative writing. There is an open-air “room” with long green tables and benches, rosemary-filled garden beds and a pond studded with lily pads. A small stone amphitheater nearby also serves as a large-scale sun dial. 

The outpouring that produced the classroom is part of a pattern in West Austin, where community members also pooled their resources when Casis’s 60-year-old library needed new shelves — and when, down the road at O. Henry Middle School, the campus could not afford to hire the teachers it needed to maintain small class sizes after state budget cuts. 

Casis raised $90,000 to install new carpeting along with the library shelves. At O. Henry, parents have raised $350,000 in the past two years to finance seven new teaching positions. 

There is a long history of private philanthropy in public schools. But the elimination of more than $5 billion in state financing for public education in the last legislative session has put more pressure on parents to open their wallets. And while no one says that a community’s support of its schools is a negative, the influx of private money concerns civil rights advocates who say it exacerbates existing inequities in the public school system. 

The smaller classes, better facilities and extracurricular activities financed with private dollars attract the best teachers and offer far more opportunity to students in affluent areas, said Jim Harrington, the director of the Texas Civil Rights Project. “It ends up creating a de facto two-tier system,” he said. 

His organization, which recently released a report highlighting what it called the “vestiges of segregation” in the Austin Independent School District, has filed a lawsuit against a West Texas school district, arguing that its three high school campuses have wide variations in per-student financing. Mr. Harrington said he hoped the lawsuit would become a template for other parents around the country who are grappling with such disparities. 

Patty Martin, the principal of Casis, has a different hope: that what her school has done with the outdoor classroom will make it easier for other schools to do the same, especially now that the design is in place and a network of willing donors has been assembled. 

If that happens, the community may have to export some of the talent and resources that made the project a success at Casis. Burton Baldridge, the architect who designed the outdoor classroom, and whose children attend Casis, found an eager stable of patrons who donated concrete, steel and lumber. 

In August, Mr. Baldridge left his office every day at 4 p.m. to labor over the structure with three other volunteers, sometimes working late into the night. More people donated their time on weekends. 

Parents managed to raise about $30,000, and a local business put in a little more than that to cover the rest. But Mr. Baldridge said that figure represents just a fraction of the structure’s total value when accounting for the donated services, materials and time. 

[...]

So, state and federal budget cuts lead to parent involvement in their children's education, voluntarily. And at no cost to taxpayers, the students are still receiving educational experiences despite no government involvement or intervention.
Imagine that...

More: Parents Pitch In to Help Texas Schools Face Budget Cuts - NYTimes.com

Did Jeb Bush's Speech Made Sour Milk?

Jeb Bush gave a speech at the Republican National Convention last night and, finally, Florida's powerful former governor made the case for "choice" in public schools:  

"Everywhere in our lives, we get a chance to choose. Go down in the supermarket aisle and you will find an incredible selection of milk. You can get whole milk, buttermilk, 2 percent milk, low-fat milk, or skim milk, organic milk, and milk with extra Vitamin D. There's flavored milk: chocolate, strawberry or vanilla. And it doesn't even taste like milk. They even make milk for people who cannot drink milk. So, my question to you is, shouldn't parents have that kind of choice in schools that best meets the needs of their students?" 

Yet most supporters of public education fail to recognize or even address the fact that public schools are funded through taxation (which is theft if involuntary) on productive members of society.

Doesn't "choice" help steer business toward privately owned charter schools while leaving struggling schools without their best students and, thus, worse off? Bush brought out a former student during his speech, who talked about being able to leave the Miami inner city school he was attending. "Thanks to Governor Bush's school choice program, I got the chance to choose a better school."  

It seems that preventing choice has not led to anything more productive than private education, which is at least driven by need to perform well to be sustained (natural market forces), where public schools can have a history of failure yet continue to provide lower-quality services and high costs.

Right, but what about the kids who don't take that chance? Where's their help? And while Bush cites several statistics showing testing gains for lower-income, African-American and disabled students, he does not mention that passing grades have been lowered by Florida's education board to account for decreasing scores.

More: Jeb Bush's Speech Made Sour Milk

Maybe it really is time to start thinking and teaching differently, rather than adhering to an educational culture of waste, force, and failure...

How to Answer a Government Propagandist

How to Answer a Government Propagandist | Tom Woods

Schools Matter: Memphis District to Lose $212 Million to Charter Schools by 2016

In June we posted on the Gates-SfC plan for school consolidation in Shelby County, which the State report says will cost Shelby County $212,000,000 over the next four years to pay for the segregated charter chain gangs that are being created to contain, separate, and indoctrinate the next generation of the poor in Memphis.

The County solution: raise the sales tax another penny, which will push this most regressive tax (which includes taxing food) to over 10% (TN is #1 in the nation for highest sales tax).  Oh yes, and in the meantime, reduce property taxes so that the immeasurably unfair tax on the poor will be even more so.

Projected take?  About $54 million, which would cover the annual amount estimated by the State  to cover the loss of revenue to fund the new charters.  Meanwhile, the charters under the new State Recovery School District (RSD) (think NOLA) will get to take over the school buildings that are being closed to create charters.

 

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More: http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2012/10/schools-matter-memphis-district-to-lose.html

Race To The Top Blame

Federal Education Secretary Arne Duncan is on the verge of pulling back $700 million New York State won in the Race to the Top school reform competition two years ago.

For that, blame Michael Mulgrew of the United Federation of Teachers and other union leaders who are more interested in protecting jobs than in guaranteeing solid schooling for kids.

For that, blame Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who not only had his members vote into law a toothless teacher evaluation system instead of the rigorous one the state desperately needs, but gave the unions veto power over any attempt to objectively measure teacher performance.

Silver’s refusal to support Gov. Cuomo’s call for an education commission to jump-start real school reform in New York State comes from the same textbook: putting the unions first.

This lockstep resistance from entrenched interests is about to cost the state, big-time.

The $700 million was going to modernize the arcane way instructors are evaluated. The smarter system — including student test scores — would measure classroom performance so parents, principals and, yes, teachers would know which instructors are making the grade — and ensure that those who fail to measure up get the boot.

Without the cash, perpetually underperforming schools would be left alone to inflict educational damage on yet another generation of kids.

So far, talks between negotiators from districts all over the state and union representatives — including in the city, the largest and most important district in New York — have gone nowhere or ended in failure. Both sides must get back to work and craft the robust teacher evaluation system Mulgrew and state teachers union boss Richard Iannuzzi vowed to deliver when they signed the state’s second Race to the Top application.

You know, the one Albany had to file after shamefully losing the first round of the competition because of union intractability.

In scathing remarks Tuesday, Cuomo got it just right — saying the system, and the bogus state law that created it, must be changed. And he was dead-on in pointing the finger where it belongs.

“The Assembly-led legislation in 2010 protected the teachers union at the expense of the students and instituted a system that was destined to fail,” Cuomo said. “Despite the powerful interests working to protect the status quo at the expense of our students’ success, this state must become a national leader in student performance.”

“Powerful interests” means you, Mulgrew and Iannuzzi.

Time’s nearly up. Get with the program — or get out of the way.

 
Race To The Top Blame

Education Race to Top Hits Bottom

Race to the Top has been another federal program where the results have been nearly anything but those intended, where stimulus as education has not been consistently successful despite $4 billion gone. Federal increases in spending that don't result in increased levels of success or even improvement should be looked at with even more of a critical eye, and no program should be immune to financial cuts in times such as these where the future is unknown.

You've probably been in an argument and, not very confident about your point, resorted to rhetorically blitzing your opponent by just insisting you were irrefutably right. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has been employing a similar tactic with the "Race to the Top," a competition pitting states against each other in a grab for $4 billion in "stimulus" dough. Duncan has been flatly declaring RTTT a triumph.

"The Race to the Top has been an extraordinary success," Duncan trumpeted in last week's announcement that Tennessee and Delaware had won the Race's first round. "This historic program has been a catalyst for education reform across this country."

Examining the first-round winners reveals why Duncan is going right to declaring victory.

Maybe the one-size-fits-all federal standards are the problem, not the solution.

The first thing one notices is that RTTT isn't about bold change. Indeed, as Duncan conceded when he announced the victors, what put Delaware and Tennessee in the winners' circle wasn't embracing cutting-edge reforms, but getting all districts and teachers' unions to endorse their applications.

"Perhaps most importantly, every one of the districts in Delaware and Tennessee is committed to implementing the reforms in Race to the Top, and they have the support of the state leaders as well as their unions," Duncan said.

Now, if you want a revolution you don't bolster the regime in power. But that's exactly what demanding union buy-in does. After all, it's teachers' unions that have most effectively fought real accountability because it is largely their members who would be held to account.

More: Education Race to Top Hits Bottom | Neal McCluskey | Cato Institute: Commentary

Maybe it's time to cut losses and try something different for some real change...

No Child Left Alone: Rhetoric and Reality of Public Education

Few arguments about education are as effective at galvanizing public attention and motivating political action as those that compare the performance of students with their counterparts in other countries and that connect academic achievement to economic performance. Because data from international large-scale assessments (ILSA) have a powerful effect on policy discourse, it is important to understand the limitations of these data as well as their benefits. This paper concentrates on three sets of cautions and caveats in the interpretation of ILSA and proposes a modest research agenda aimed at reinforcing the validity and utility of cross-national educational comparisons. Although aimed primarily at American policy and research audiences, the arguments in the paper are relevant to other countries for which performance on ILSA influences education reform.

The effort to write acceptable national goals into law can be understood retrospectively as the natural continuation of a discourse that was launched by the landmark report A Nation at Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Education [NCEE], 1983). Following on that enormously effective wake-up call, which alerted Americans to impending calamity if action was not taken to shore up our educational foundations, it was easier — for a brief moment in time — to find receptor sites across much of the political spectrum for the notion that national goals could be the basis for needed reforms.

Granted, ideologues on the right and left continued to fear, for different reasons, the encroachment of federal bureaucracy on the local definition of education and the local governance of schools; the specter of a national curriculum remained a looming threat. Nonetheless, the national goals in the Goals 2000: Educate America Act were written in language simple enough to deter overwhelming opposition and yet were meaty enough to be more than apple pie and motherhood (see Swanson, 1991). They covered a number of key issues — early childhood readiness, high school completion, student achievement and citizenship, science and mathematics, adult literacy, school safety — and by implying a commitment to increased equity and higher standards, the goals echoed a theme that had been pervasive in American educational history for over a century (e.g., Cremin, 1990).

Keillor may not have known the data, but he had a good intuition that President Nixon’s exuberance even about the past was off the mark: The United States had never really been “numero uno” on most indicators that matter.

More: No Country Left Behind: Rhetoric and Reality of International Large-Scale Assessment

This past April, schools across the country participated in statewide standardized testing.  Thanks to the No Child Left Behind Act, a school’s funding is now based on the test scores of its students.  The need for high test scores puts an immense amount of pressure on teachers and students alike.  Teachers are compelled to spend weeks preparing students for the standardized test; valuable classroom time that would normally be used to teach math, science, literacy, and art is instead used to teach students how to manipulate the test.

Universal education access has been a tired horse ridden by politicians for years now. It's promoted so vehemently that only an outsider might oppose the idea, yet the methods by which it is funded are immoral, as the taxpayers are given no choice as to whether or not to participate. The state's monopoly on force gives no option to opt-out of the program, hence it is immoral and despite any positive benefits. 

Students are well aware of the negative impact poor test results will have on their schools and their futures.  8th grader Katie Hartman wrote: “In the end what standardized tests give us is a number and nothing more. A number that may or may not be a fair representation of how a person understands all they have been taught. For years these scores have dictated high school courses, college acceptances, and the self-esteem of students around the nation. Students’ futures can lie in those very digits. Yet a mere number cannot evaluate a person’s creativity, understanding, ethics, and many other traits that we respect in others.”  Is this the kind of pressure we want our kids feeling as they sit for these tests?

No Child Left Behind? Yeah, Right! - Commentarista :Commentarista

And things aren't any better domestically than they are internationally...

"No Child Left Behind Obama Style" - Michigan test scores reveal a country in steep decline.(TT).Racial gaps in Michigan exam results a concern.Michigan educators have spent years trying to address the persistent gap in achievement between white and minority students, but Michigan Merit Exam results released Thursday provided troubling news: The gap keeps widening.

“Results in Detroit Public Schools were grimmer. Just 205 students — or 6% of the 3,418 who took the math exam — passed. In science, 104 students — or 3% of the 3,477 students who took the exam, passed. Only 1.8% DPS students were deemed college ready. “

The State Board of Education and the Michigan Department of Education recently set closing the achievement gap — the difference in percentage of students passing the exam — as a key goal for the 2012-13 school year.

• Database: Find 2012 Michigan Merit Exam results for your district or school

The gaps, State Superintendent Mike Flanagan said in a statement, are “shameful.”

“We need to end this disparity in education, and we need to do this together as a state,” Flanagan said.

Overall, Thursday’s release of MME results was mixed. Average ACT scores are up. So is the percentage of students considered college-ready. But students struggled against a higher standard for passing the exams, with only about a quarter of them passing in math and science.

The achievement gap between white and black students widened in reading, math, science and writing on the MME, and narrowed in only social studies. The gap between white and Hispanic students widened in math and science, but narrowed in other subjects.

The gap also widened for both groups in the percentage of students considered college-ready.

Plymouth-Canton Community Schools leaders have worked for several years to address the achievement gap.“We are very concerned about (the gaps),” said Jeanne Farina, assistant superintendent for instructional services. District and building equity teams are looking at the gaps, she said, “and digging deep into the data to find out where did they start to fail and what we can do about it.”

• At nearly 80 schools statewide, none of the students was considered college-ready. That includes 11 charter schools, 31 alternative schools and 36 traditional, comprehensive high schools. Sixteen Detroit Public Schools had no college-ready students.

• Only six schools in the state had more than half their students considered college-ready.

If America doesn’t turn around (like repeal healthcare, shun statist socialism and get back to liberty, freedom and business) it’s future is here.Hmmmm......Now if he follows the 'example of his BFF Erdogan he could start 'Religious Imam Hatip schools' the level is 'easier'.In Turkey, only 27 percent of the adult population has a complete secondary school education, compared with 65 percent in the EU, 74 percent in Korea, 82 percent in Poland, and 87 percent in the US.Read the full story here.

MFS - The Other News: "No Child Left Behind Obama Style" - Michigan test scores reveal a country in steep decline.

Still think everyone deserves public education, despite it's overall failures and moral deficiencies?