A former Canadian Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, once famously quipped: “The state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation.”
Unless, it would seem, the “nation” means schoolchildren ages 12-17, and the “state” is local school board bureaucrats and/or the provincial Ministry of Education. The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (Ontario, Canada) plans to issue a survey which asks, among other things, for children to disclose their gender (four choices) and sexual orientation (nine choices). Proponents claim the survey is voluntary, but rather than requiring parental permission for the survey to be administered, the onus is on parents to opt out in writing (by Nov. 19), if they do not wish their child to participate.
[…]Although the survey is touted as being anonymous, each form is tagged with a code that can be traced back to the individual child, and, by extension, his or her family. Critics wonder what kind of inferences will be drawn, and who will have access to information that involves the cultural, religious, financial, and educational status of students’ parents.
Now why do you suppose they want to know about the religion of the parents and about whether the child is gay? Hmmmn. And how will the parents’ decision to opt out affect the children’s test scores? Hmmmn.
What’s interesting about Dr. Miron’s critique is that he shows how the stimulus was a failure even if you take for granted liberal assumptions about economic policy (such as Keynesian economic theory), since it was so badly designed and executed that it failed to achieve its goals, spending wastefully while failing to revive the economy. Indeed, the stimulus was so poorly tailored to the economy (and the goal of reducing unemployment) that Miron concludes that it was designed to reward politically connected “constituencies” and special-interest groups, like public-employee unions, rather than being focused on ”economic stimulus.”
Other Harvard economics professors like Robert Barro have also criticized the stimulus package. Barro called it “the worst bill that has been put forward since the 1930s.” Former Obama economic advisor Martin Feldstein, a Harvard professor who is a big believer in stimulus packages in principle, said that the stimulus designed by Obama and congressional Democrats was “poorly done”
The “’stimulus’ is not the road to economic recovery. It’s the problem, not the solution, writes Nobel Prize winning economist Vernon L. Smith.” Other Nobel Laureates like Gary Becker have also criticized the stimulus package. 200 economists signed a statement publicly opposing the stimulus package in an ad published in the Washington Post and New York Times.
So the stimulus bill was a failure because it was not designed to grow the economy or create jobs.
…based on my new analysis of the Recovery.org data, Democratic districts are getting 1.8 times more money on average than Republican districts. Using Recovery.gov data, and cleaning it up seriously to be able to use it, we find that Republican districts are getting on average $260.6 million in stimulus awards while democratic districts are getting on average $471.5 million. The average is award per district is $385.9 million.
Interestingly, my data also confirms that the stimulus funds are not allocated based on unemployment rates or even variations in unemployment rates. So basically, if the administration believes that government spending can create jobs, the allocation of the funds doesn’t show it.
Based on the Recovery.gov data, more than two third of the 594,754.3 jobs “created or saved” with the stimulus funds were “created or saved” in the Department of Education (see chart). Basically, what the administration meant by shovel ready projects was funding for your next door teacher.
The stimulus bill was never about stimulating the economy. It was about rewarding Democrat special interest groups. Remember, people who disagree with Obama are his “enemies”. And that means he isn’t there to govern for all the people equally. He’s there to reward his people. With Your Money.
The state-appointed authority overseeing Buffalo public school finances says taxpayer-covered cosmetic surgery rung up by the city’s teachers totaled nearly $9 million in 2009.
The Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority reports that last year’s costs for such elective procedures as chemical peels and other skin treatments are up $8 million over the 2004 tab for cosmetic surgery provided under the teachers’ union contract.
School district officials say teachers or their dependents accounted for 90 percent of the approximately 500 people who received cosmetic surgery last year. About 10,000 district employees are eligible for the benefit.
If we make the public schools compete with private schools, charter schools, and homeschooling parents, then the ones that waste money like this would go out of business. So long as they have a direct feed of money from the government, they really don’t have to care what children and parents want. The only way to make them care is by making them compete for parents’ money.
WINTERY KNIGHT 