As readers of this blog know, opinions are fine, but back it up with data. The following was on the editorial page of today’s Wall Street Journal. The facts are what they are.
Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Ron Haskins testifying before the Senate Finance Committee, June 5:
I want to emphasize the importance of individual initiative in reducing poverty and promoting economic success. Young people can virtually assure that they and their families will avoid poverty if they follow three elementary rules for success—complete at least a high school education, work full time, and wait until age 21 and get married before having a baby. Based on an analysis of Census data, people who followed all three of these rules had only a 2% chance of being in poverty and a 72% chance of joining the middle class (defined as above $55,000 in 2010). These numbers were almost precisely reversed for people who violated all three rules, elevating their chance of being poor to 77% and reducing their chance of making the middle class to 4%.
Individual effort and good decisions about the big events in life are more important than government programs. Call it blaming the victim if you like, but decisions made by individuals are paramount in the fight to reduce poverty and increase opportunity in America. The nation’s struggle to expand opportunity will continue to be an uphill battle if young people do not learn to make better decisions about their future.
Now, some on the Left (actually, most on the Left) will argue that Government needs to provide those full-time jobs. But, of course, the Left’s understanding of how to create a full-time job seems quite limited. Full-time jobs are created because the value of the work performed is greater than the cost of the work performed.
Government jobs do not create value. Government jobs are, generally, regulatory/oversight/bureaucratic by design. This doesn’t mean that all government jobs are “bad”, but we long ago passed the point of diminishing returns as it relates to health & safety.
The only entity that creates full-time jobs in which the value created by the job is greater than the cost of performing the job is the private sector.
So, let’s summarize what Delaware’s Government can do…
- Provide educational options so that kids stay in school through high school (which means that Delaware needs more high-performing, niche schools like Kuumba Academy, Newark Charter or DAPSS);
- Reduce the regulatory burden of the State on Small Businesses and quit wasting tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer money on crony capitalism and leave that money in the pockets of the job creators;
- Promote abstinence and marriage.
Simple enough.
You say that the rules here are that you must bring data to support assertions. I am calling on you to provide data that suggest that “Provide educational options so that kids stay in school through high school ” is a truthful statement. Also, how does it fit into the context of providing opportunity for all vs. some.
Options are options, they do not guarantee, nor provide any causal relationship to outcomes, just correlative. Therefore, those “options” may be hurting DE more than helping.
Really, Kuumba Academy is hurting Delaware? Tell that to the kids who are getting the best education in the City of Wilmington. Really, Newark Charter is hurting Delaware? A school that is competitive with the best schools in the world? Really, DAPSS is hurting Delaware? A school that is providing young students with career options in protecting and serving Delawareans during times of crisis?
If they are “hurting” Delaware, Delaware is in need of a lot more “hurt”.
So, providing those options are indeed causal to great success and benefit for Delaware, not just correlative.
However, I will give you more data… Let’s look at Delaware’s graduation rate prior to 2009 just to see what the world looked like while these options were evolving… Simply visit All4Education to see the data about Delaware’s 34% high school dropout rate. But a quote from the data:
To summarize:
Delaware’s educational system is allowing 1 in 3 students to not graduate from high school (A High School diploma being 1 of three choices that leads to a middle class life per the original post). So, we’ve begun adding some options that have been hugely successful. Therefore, logic would dictate that we should continue expanding these choices to provide truly individualized, high-quality education for our kids.
Or we could do nothing and cost Delaware $1.1 billion in lost wages every year that our failure continues. I’ve made my choice.
RE: abstinence and marriage. Anyone with a little more time might want to check out “Unprotected” by Miriam Grossman, M.D. Pretty quick read based on college attending women. Makes the case that we hurt young people’s chances for success when we don’t support a realistic approach to how sex impacts when it comes too soon and apart from commitment.
Mr.Copeland,
Thank you for proving my point. You spin yarns of anecdotal success and challenge me to Tell that to the kids who are getting the best education in the City of Wilmington while ignoring the thousands who are NOT getting the best education. Those whose educational environments are adversely affected by the presence of the charter and the fiscal drain caused by flight. You see, the anecdotal success of charters has a cost, and the equation needs to favor all children, not just some.
As charters have populated the DE educational landscape, NAEP scores remain in a decade plus funk, and while dropout rates have modestly decreased, they are not statistically significant and definitely nowhere near goals for districts or the state.
Finally, you selectively choose three schools to make your points while ignoring charter failures, the crises at Reach and Pencader as well as the acknowledged failure of NCS (as evidenced by Sec. Lowery’s mandates conditions) to serve it five mile radius with racial and economic fidelity.
We don’t need more of the hurt created by Delaware Charters under current law. We need a better, more modern law that will actually benefit all Delaware kids, not just our “lottery” winning kids who happen to attend one of Delawares few succeeding schools.
No matter how you cut it, the anecdotal success is just that and until DE charters serve to make public education better for all Delawareans, they should be challenged/curtailed. Only when they can add to the betterment of our state should they be permitted to expand.
A pretty rough report card: http://www.publiccharters.org/law/ViewState.aspx?state=DE
So, providing those options are indeed causal to great success and benefit for Delaware, not just correlative.
So, to show the causal effect your offer what calculation/statistical proof as opposed to seeming intuition and the statements about the three schools above all of which have not graduated a single student ever, yet?
Statistical proof? Kuumba Academy is the best school in the City of Wilmington. Newark Charter is competitive globally. 60 First Responder Organizations within Delaware have endorsed DAPSS.
These are not just statements, but of statements of fact with data supporting them. Source: The Delaware Department of Education.
Did some Charter Schools fail? Yep. And they have been closed or altered — which is what is supposed to happen. That is the point of Charter Schools — experiment, find what works, and build on the success. Your non-solution of the status quo leaves failing schools open for generations. What is worse? Closing a failing school or leaving it open to fail generation after generation of child. I choose closing.
What statistical proof (or intuition) do you offer that these schools “hurt” Delaware? None.
So, twice I have now responded to your query with evidenced based information. You offer no data to support your “status quo” solution of throwing more money at a failing system.
I agree that we need better than a lottery. Open more Charter Schools like Kuumba, Newark & DAPSS, and you won’t need one.
Back to the original post:
“Government jobs do not create value.”
“The only entity that creates full-time jobs in which the value created by the job is greater than the cost of performing the job is the private sector.”
Those assumptions are correct only if you define “value” as making money. Profit and value are two different things.
And therein lies the problem with these new off beat ideologies – the belief that if something does not make money, it has no “value”.
Do jobs at the Department of Justice create more value than the cost of performing the job? We are getting into the twilight zone of ideology here.
Bill:
You fail to understand an extremely simple point. Value (aka profit) is what is used to pay for the Department of Justice. Government can’t just continually print money to pay for the Department of Justice. The economic system must create that value. As a matter of fact, government’s continual printing of money actually decreases its value — just ask the Germans.
An economic system that creates value greater than the cost of running that system allows society to use some of that excess value to pay for necessary services like the DOJ or clean water or quality schools.
To you this may seem “off beat”, but to the vast majority of people, it is common sense.