To Annie Holmquist and her blogpost that unfavorably compares today’s high school education standards with those of the distant past using the New York State Regents Exam. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.
There are explanations for Holmquist's above observations. They revolve around the relationship schools have with their surrounding communities. Many public education school districts are running on 4 flat tires where all of the major stakeholders have a role in the dumbing down of education in our schools. But in addition to that, there is an ominous outside influence on public school districts as well as a disturbance in The Force, if you will.
First, we have the 4 flat tires in public education. They consist of school administrations, parents, teachers, and the students. School administrators hurt public education not only with new education philosophies that have high disregard with students' future needs, these administrators provide a major push for unconditionally passing students through the system. In addition, many administrations have failed in terms of backing up teachers with inadequate or inappropriate discipline for disruptive or apathetic kids.
And where administrators aren't trying to guarantee graduation and even high marks for the students, litigious parents bombard school administrators with complaints and threats of litigation if their children aren't receiving the recognition they believe their kids deserve. Many parents consist of the 2nd flat tire in public education.
Third, despite their unions, teachers give in too easily to being caught in the middle between trying to provide adequate educational standards and the anti-educational demands of administrators and parents. Often teachers are either pressured to pass students through or their efforts to discipline students are not backed up by administrators.
Finally, we have students who, upon seeing the reduction in demands that lowering educational standards provide, go along for the ride. For too many of them prefer to be constantly entertained than to work and to learn. After all, why be bothered with the work required by a good education, when everything is handed to them, including their diplomas--note their passive role in the situation. In addition, our current economic system has devalued any decent work ethic in society by how it makes workers into disposable objects while rewarding wealth with status and power. So why should they want to work hard in school if working hard outside of school can so easily be disregarded.
As for the disturbance in The Force, there are influences outside of the educational system which want our public schools to produce compliant, obedient kids who know how to fix the parts of the system they are employed in but who are constantly discouraged from exercising independent thought. For the dangers posed by independent thought will eventually cause people to question our political and economic systems all together and possibly from an outside perspective. Those who financially benefit the most from today's status quo are most likely the ones who want our public schools to produce students who become nothing more than obedient technicians.
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May 22
To Joseph Pearce and his blogpost that claims that only Christianity can bring progress to society. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative Blog.
Martin Luther King Jr. has a quote that, though not addressing progress, tells us how to achieve it. In opposing the Vietnam War, King said the following:
The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.
Now if we replace the word 'Western' with a fill-in-the-blank, we could the see who becomes an obstacle to progress and who doesn't. For if there is a Christian arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach and nothing to learn, we Christians become an obstacle to progress. Both logic and history teaches us that. The same goes for the Socialist or Capitalist.
Those who believe that they have a monopoly on what it takes for us to progress will sabotage whatever valid contributions they can make to progress by seeking a position of control over others while trying to silence those who have different contributions to make. In addition, those who believe that they have a monopoly on what it takes for us to progress deny that a key belief mentioned above applies to them: original sin. Those who believe that they have a monopoly on what it takes for us to progress have become the pharisee from the parable of the two men praying. In that parable, it was the religious professional who was all about self-exaltation and self-congratulations while it was the lowest person on the then social totem pole who could only see his sin.
When a group believes that it has a monopoly on what it takes for society to progress, then that group fights battles with all others to gain the vanguard position over society necessary for them to fully implement their ideology. Those battles start society on the downward spiral to destruction. And what it takes to maintain that position of control over society all but guarantees our destruction.
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To Joe Carter and his blogpost claiming that increased income inequality benefits the living standards for all involved. This appeared in the Acton Blog.
Is it odd that Carter didn't consult conflicting opinions about income inequality and its negative consequences when quoting Winship's study? For that points to the first problem with Winship's report. For example, the following were picked from an IMF paper on income inequality (see https://www.imf.org/~/media/Websites/IMF/imported-full-text-pdf/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2015/_sdn1513.ashx ):
1. Previous IMF studies have found that income inequality negatively affects growth and its sustainability (Ostry, Berg, and Tsangarides 2014; Berg and Ostry 2011).
2. Why would widening income disparities matter for growth? Higher inequality lowers growth by depriving the ability of lower-income households to stay healthy and accumulate physical and human capital (Galor and Moav 2004; Aghion, Caroli, and Garcia-Penalosa 1999).
3. High and sustained levels of inequality, especially inequality of opportunity can entail large social costs. Entrenched inequality of outcomes can significantly undermine individuals’ educational and occupational choices. Further, inequality of outcomes does not generate the “right” incentives if it rests on rents (Stiglitz 2012). In that event, individuals have an incentive to divert their efforts toward securing favored treatment and protection, resulting in resource misallocation, corruption, and nepotism, with attendant adverse social and economic consequences. In particular, citizens can lose confidence in institutions, eroding social cohesion and confidence in the future.
4. Inequality dampens investment, and hence growth, by fueling economic, financial, and political instability.
…In particular, studies have argued that a prolonged period of higher inequality in advanced economies was associated with the global financial crisis by intensifying leverage, overextension of credit, and a relaxation in mortgage-underwriting standards (Rajan 2010), and
allowing lobbyists to push for financial deregulation (Acemoglu 2011).
The problem with Winship's research is that it is based on the measurement of too few variables. For while Winship focuses on disposable and market income, the above IMF study mentions far more factors that must be considered when considers the consequences of income inequality. In addition, when one looks at the figures from Winship's full study (see https://www.manhattan-institute.org/pdf/e21_01.pdf ) and sees the living standards of the middle class for different countries, one forgets that those in the middle class of many European nations that lag behind the US in market or disposable income are better protected from financial threats like medical expenses. They also have better access to quality post-secondary education without being saddled with debt. In addition, living standards here do not include comparing each nation's infrastructure. And then there is the issue of violence in America vs violence in nations that have comparable economies.
And that last line points to another problem with Winship's study. Many of the economies in his study are not comparable and thus some of Winship's points quoted by Carter are very misleading.
Also, many of Winship's points just don't seem to match his data. For example, in comparing the living standards of the poor, Figure 7 reveals that the living standards for the poor in the US lag far behind most of the nations that have comparable economies and that does not include government provided services such as in healthcare or post secondary education to the poor.
Finally, there should be a quality of life measurement that goes beyond numbers and wealth. For while we focus so much on those numbers, we forget that life consists of what is personal as well. That too much focus on the numbers of our economy can cause us to become less connected with fellow citizens because we have become too materialistic. And the more materialistic we become, the more likely that we will devalue human life and tend to look at our fellow citizens as disposable objects of personal gain. That points back to point #3 cited from the IMF study.
