Eduwonk notices the growing trend of conservatives calling out Bush on school choice.
There’s a reason. He does suck on choice.
Archive for January, 2005
What if, in the future, Googling someone meant calling them?
Yes, linking something that’s already been on Drudge is the lowest form of blogging, but the implications of voice-over-Internet are huge, and a brand like Google is just what could jumpstart the market.
Exciting times. It’s no small amount of telecommunications law that will ultimately be rendered archaic.
Also on The Post’s book-review page is Andrew Rotherham, the esteemed Eduwonk, writing about Theodore Sizer’s “The Red Pencil.”
E-wonk, who has a real fetish for centrism in the education debate, somehow finds it within himself not to deride a book that supports school vouchers — usually the province of us ideological nuts on the right.
I haven’t read the book, but apparently it rips “standards-based” reforms such as No Child Left Behind as well as the calcified status quo. Sounds good.
Leaving All Children Behind
Published by January 23rd, 2005 in Misc. Education and Misc. Self Promotion. 0 CommentsReaders may know that I’m not particularly a fan of federal meddling in education policy. I’m something of a federalist, after all.
But if the feds are going to meddle, it at least ought to be on the side of breaking up the local education monopolies around the country — the cozy union-district fiefdoms that benefit from poor kids being denied school choice.
And that is why I’m particularly offended by President Bush’s (worthless) No Child Left Behind law. I discuss some of the law’s shortcomings in today’s New York Post, in a review of “Leaving No Child Behind? Options for Kids in Failing Schools,” by Frederick Hess and Chester Finn:
There’s a price for doing business with Ted Kennedy: your soul.
OK, perhaps that’s a bit melodramatic. But it’s becoming increasingly clear, three years after President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act into law — with a smiling senior senator from Massachusetts by his side — that bipartisanship is a poor substitute for principle.
The president may have gotten a bill passed, but just what it’s accomplished in terms of advancing the central tenet of conservative education reform, choice, is at this point a mystery.
The president simply doesn’t get point for trying, here. The people in the standards movement may credit the law with moving the national discussion toward data-based management of schools, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned covering schools in New York City (and state), it’s that data can be manipulated endlessly — schools and entire districts can cover their tracks, and there’s virtually no way to control this through the political process.
Choice is the only real accountability.
Now, I know Larry Summers got in a whole lot of trouble at Harvard recently for suggesting that there might be innate differences between the sexes. Controversial stuff.
But then, answer me this: Why do we never find an old man with 63 cats?
For all the ways men and women are equal, there is some gene in women that tells them that cat hoarding is at least an option.
This, of course, is a big part of why America’s schools are failing — lazy students and indulgent parents:
A student whose vacation plans were spoiled has sued to end summer homework in Wisconsin, claiming it creates an unfair workload and unnecessary stress.
It’s not a popular sentiment, but sometimes it’s apt: Blame the kids.
“Couple lost in snowstorm dials 911 several times, dies”
– CNN.com
More on Wal-Mart over at Tech Central Station. They’ve launched a PR campaign — a little late — to make up for years of abuse in the press. Luckily for the company, it has one weapon: a small country’s worth of satisfied customers.
Moreover, its opponents aren’t all that sympathetic:
Opponents of Wal-Mart fit into two camps.
First, there is the labor movement.
…
Aiding and abetting the unions in their fight against Wal-Mart are the various urban “experts,” Starbucks-phobic grad-student types and other elitists who wouldn’t be caught dead in a discount store.
These folks have quite a presence on the Internet. Typical is one Amazon.com reviewer of Bill Quinn’s anti-Wal-Mart book. The reviewer, identified only as “Wes,” describes the experience of visiting a Wal-Mart as “an auditory, visual and olfactory assault upon the senses … The stink of fast food wafts throughout.” Wes is particularly offended by, “filthy, dirty floors being trod upon by barefoot parents and their screaming, woebegone rats, uh, I mean children.”
Don’t take too much offense, however, Wal-Mart shoppers. Wes assures readers that he does not “mean entirely to mock those who shop there.” They’re just victims of the capitalist system.
Charming folks. I prefer a discount on toilet paper to any of them.
…can improve hits on a Web site just by typing the words: Lindsay Lohan.
Sorry disappointed porn surfers.
Best AP story of the year (so far):
Defense attorney Leslie Ballin called it the “jury pool from hell.”
…
[One] would-be juror said he had had alcohol problems and was arrested for soliciting sex from an undercover officer. “I should have known something was up,” he said. “She had all her teeth.”
Need I mention this happened in Tennessee? (No offense to Glenn)
Spoiling for a Fight in New York
Published by January 18th, 2005 in Misc. Self Promotion. 0 Comments
New York’s businessman mayor is playing fast-and-loose with his Republican support, leaving himself wide open to a third-party challenge should a credible candidate emerge to his right.
And, as luck would have it, one has: Thomas Ognibene, leader of the City Council Republicans during the Giuliani administration.
Ognibene announced on Friday that he would be challenging Mayor Bloomberg in the Republican primary. And he made it clear to me on Monday that should he lose the Republican primary, he plans to run an active third-party candidacy on the Conservative Party line during the general election.
Some might wish to dismiss Ognibene. But even a few points could kill Bloomberg in November — and there are more than a few extremely pissed-off Republicans out there.
Hence, my latest column:
“I think he’s a very substantial figure,” a political consultant in New York, Joseph Mercurio, told The Post, referring to Ognibene. While an upset of a sitting Republican mayor in the primary is unlikely, he said, “it’s in the realm of possibility.”
Mayor Lindsay, after all, was upset in the 1969 primary by a state senator from Staten Island, John Marchi. Lindsay came back to win as an independent, but Bloomberg might not be so lucky.
Mercurio points to the fact that Bloomberg only won in 2001 by about 40,000 votes. “Ognibene could peal off a significant number of votes . . . even 5 percent,” Mercurio estimates. “That could be the margin.”
The problem for Bloomberg is that he has left himself no easy task when it comes to wooing back Republican voters.
Of course, Bloomberg was a lifelong Democrat before running for mayor. But when he switched parties, he promised city Republicans that he would support the party and wear its mantle proudly.
That’s not how it’s worked out.
Personally, I think Republicans would be making a huge mistake to let a New York City Nader throw the election to one of our illustrious lefty candidates on the Democratic side of the aisle.
But angry people do stupid things.
A big batch of responses to my recent column supporting Wal-Mart moving into New York City.
My favorite, from a local labor leader:
Nobody is against competition. What we’re against is unfair competition that drives hardworking New Yorkers out of business and then doesn’t provide consumers with a good product at a fair price.
I’ve been so blind. So unions are only against unfair competition!? That changes everything!
Well, you have a choice when it comes to arguments over lifetime tenure for justices of the Supreme Court.
A) You can listen to the experts The New York Times’ Linda Greenhouse talked to recently.
or…
B) You can listen to Alexander Hamilton.
I know which one I’ve traditionally chosen. But we all have our own preferences.
More later…
Meet my new favorite senator, Mike Crapo:
My last name is of French origin and can be confusing to pronounce for the first time. There are many members of the Crapo family in Eastern Idaho, so many Idahoans already know how to say it correctly. But for those who are not familiar with it, it is pronounced CRAY-poe. Although the pronunciation of my name may be confusing (or for some, amusing), I am very proud of it and wouldn’t change it.
Senate Web page here.
(via Matt Yglesias)
Least Surprising Headline of the Year
Published by January 16th, 2005 in Misc. Miscellany. 0 CommentsAn early upset:
“MLK’s Message Still Relevant, Says Widow”
–CNN
It’s the “Says Widow” that does it.
Here’s a terrific article on Wes Anderson’s films, particularly Rushmore, from Jacob Siegel at The New Partisan.
I don’t know why space coverage is so lame on the major news Web sites. We’ve just landed a probe on a goddamned moon of Saturn (Titan). We’re getting back actual pictures of the surface.
This is huge. Yet the pictures being printed are tiny and come with a minimum of explanation. These sites are not even providing a link to NASA’s coverage of the mission.
So, above is one of the pictures. And here is a link to NASA’s site.
Over at Reason’s Hit & Run blog, there’s a surprising amount of anti-Wal-Mart sentiment. Among the commenters anyway:
See, when an actor in the economy becomes large enough, it is longer limited to responding to the market, but can actually shape it to its advantage. Normally, the interests of any one actor are balanced out by those of others, and broad change can only occur via market forces. But when one of the actors is strong enough to bend the market to its will, rather than win by outcompeting rivals (which is to say, convincing others to go along of their own free will, without coercion), then something else needs to balance the power of that actor.
Reminiscent of a letter I got from a union shill yesterday saying they weren’t fighting Wal-Mart because they’re afraid of competition — just unfair competition.
Uh-huh.
This is why the Armstrong Williams thing is so, so bad.
Just my luck, the day I pen a pro-Wal-Mart screed in the N.Y. Post, Wal-Mart announces it is launching a nationwide PR campaign to improve its image. Immediately, I get e-mails asking if I’m part of that PR campaign.
Of course, I’m not. But this is the question all right-leaning types will hear all year. OK, probably only until February. By then, it’ll all be forgotten. Kaus has a name for it.
But still…
Working for Wal-Mart…
Published by January 13th, 2005 in Misc. Self Promotion and Misc. Miscellany. 1 Comment…and they don’t even have to pay me.
I’m a HUGE fan of big-box stores, like Wal-Mart, Barnes & Noble, Staples, etc. They save consumers money, provide jobs and replace old, outmoded, under-stocked local stores. Some people see all of this as a bad thing — something that wipes out “local character.”
Well, to hell with local character (I always say, to no one in particular — sometimes to my girlfriend, but she gets mad), save me $0.23 on some binder clips. (And don’t even get me started on “independent” book stores.)
Anyway, my views are especially not shared in my adopted home town of New York City, USA. People here would rather hang on to their stagnant economy, higher-than-average unemployment rate and catastrophic cost of living than let any dern’d big-box meanies move into town.
Thus, my most recent column in today’s Post:
While members of the New York City Council stump endlessly for “affordable housing” and “affordable health care,” they’re apparently less keen on affordable clothing, toys, electronics, furniture and groceries.
Last week, the City Council’s Economic Development Committee held a hearing aimed at keeping bulk, discount retailers from expanding in the Big Apple. The hearing was prompted by Wal-Mart’s plan to open its first-ever store in the five boroughs — in Rego Park, Queens.
Consumers across America love Wal-Mart for its low prices and vast selection — 100 million people shop in Wal-Mart stores each week — but politicians in union-run towns like New York tend not to see the attraction.
…
Wal-Mart now calls New York its “next retail frontier.” The Capital of the World has taken a tumble when its retail industry needs to be civilized by a company from Arkansas. But that’s what happens when a city becomes so afraid of change that it builds a wall around itself. The cost is that innovation comes here last, economic growth stays low and prices stay high.
Read the whole thing to find out about the jobs we know we’re losing to the suburbs, to see the facts as to the claim that Wal-Mart “destroys jobs” and to get a tiny bit of historical perspective.
Well, I never thought I’d see one of those famous Wall Street Journal dot-art pictures of Jeff Tweedy, frontman of Wilco. But here it is. The story’s (subscription required) about the last maker of reel-to-reel tape filing for bankruptcy:
Jeff Tweedy, leader of the rock group Wilco, prefers to record music on reel-to-reel tape rather than on the digital equipment that has overtaken the music industry. Purists like him think it confers a warmth and richness to recordings that a computer cannot.
But last Friday, Mr. Tweedy hit a snag as he prepared for a session in Wilco’s Chicago studio space: Nobody could find any of the professional-grade audio tape the band is accustomed to using. “I was under the impression that there was a shortage of tape in Chicago,” Mr. Tweedy says.
What he didn’t yet realize was that the shortage is global. Quantegy Inc., which may be the last company in the world still manufacturing the high-quality tape, abruptly shut down its Opelika, Ala., plant on Dec. 31, leaving audiophiles in the lurch.
Quantegy filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday and hopes a restructuring will eventually revive its operations. But its future is uncertain, inasmuch as demand also is dwindling for its videotape.
The news has set off a frantic scramble in the music industry as producers and studios seek to secure as much Quantegy tape as possible. By the middle of last week, most suppliers around the country had sold out their entire stocks of reel-to-reel audio tape.
…
Quantegy is hearing from customers all over the world trying to secure the professional-grade tape. A Japanese musician e-mailed from Tokyo, eager to get more for a recording session. Richard Lindenmuth, Quantegy’s president and chief executive, says he’ll try to help. Some customers are trying to organize their own bailouts of his company. Andrew Kautz, president of the Society of Professional Audio Recording Services, called Mr. Lindenmuth Friday hoping to get a one-time special order, a request Mr. Lindenmuth is considering.
So, the company may be bailed out, but Tweedy has a backup plan:
Looking ahead to a tape-starved future, Mr. Tweedy has a fallback: The band has an archive of around 100 reels of tape it has used in recording its various albums. By splicing out and saving the final version of each song, he figures they can maintain the archive and also generate a supply of tapes that can be recycled for future recording sessions.
Still, Mr. Tweedy jokes, if the tape scarcity continues, even some of the archived recordings might become expendable. “I’m just fearful that all the master tapes at the loft would be worth more if they were blank,” he says.
Chances are, production of this kind of tape does have a market and thus will survive in some form. But it’s going to get pretty expensive for its few adherents.
Goddamned capitalism.
Oh wait, this is a story of capitalism working. Cheaper, more flexible digital recording technology has opened up the music market to thousands and thousands of bands and independent musicians who are able to record albums much more cheaply now — in their basements, if they like. And the big-name rock bands, like Wilco, who want the boutique-y stuff, will likely find a way to get it.
Yay, capitalism!
Jurisdiction Stripping Sounds Sexier Than It Is
Published by January 13th, 2005 in Uncategorized. 0 CommentsI know it may be hard to believe, but I’m really not trying to bore anyone to death on the topic of jurisdiction stripping. It’s just that I believe Republicans ought not be pushing an idea that undermines our entire constitutional system simply to protect a socialistic loyalty oath (that’s “The Pledge,” for reference).
Anyway…
I was sent an interesting policy paper (passive voice to protect the source) on jurisdiction stripping put out by Sen. Jon Kyl’s (R-Ariz.) office. The paper is in favor of it.
I find the paper ultimately unconvincing — for the reasons I laid out here — but it does have useful background for people who are interested in the subject. Hours of Interweb surfing yesterday turned up nothing quite so useful. Thanks to the reader who sent it on.
Again: Politics at the confirmation. Independence thereafter.
The Post’s Albany man had a fun exchange this morning with the head of the state’s Democratic Party, Denny Farrell (in today’s Post, Dicker exposed that Farrell, 72, is fathering a child out of wedlock):
I just came in to let your radio listeners know what a piece of slime that you are,” Farrell declared in the Post’s state Capitol office where Dicker was broadcasting his morning show. “You’re a bully.”
Dicker defended his handling of the story and at one point took the microphone from Farrell and told him: “You’re the head of the Democratic Party and you’re acting like some street character. Obviously, you’re a little bit out of control here, Mr. Farrell.”
Later, Farrell said he felt his heated exchange with the talk show host was appropriate even if there could be negative consequences.
“My staff is going to beat the stuffing out of me for doing this, but I don’t care,” he said. “You don’t let people get away with this crap.”
Gotta love New York politics. Why, again, shouldn’t Bill Clinton run for mayor?
Now, I have already heard about this sentence in my article: “As for jurisdiction stripping, it’s not been tried and may well not be constitutional.”
In fairness, I have to admit this is an imprecise wording. I’m no expert in jurisdiction stripping (I think I’d make more money if I were, perhaps), but I do know that it has been tried — in more limited ways than Congress’ current batch of bills, and mostly relating to the lower federal courts — but it has by no means been established that Congress has the authority to strip the Supreme Court of jurisdiction over constitutional questions in whole or in part.
A guide to the various theories on this matter is provided here. (link via Volokh)
Advocates of the view that Congress does have such a power point to Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution, which reads, in part:
In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.
But there is absolutely no reason, given what the founders wrote about Congress and the Judiciary, to believe that this clause should be read in any but the most limited way. The entire structure of the three branches would be rendered incoherent if the Legislature were able — by a mere majority vote, with the signature of the President — to remove its actions from the possibility of judicial review.
And while advocates of jurisdiction stripping typically appeal to Thomas Jefferson’s fear of the judiciary (such as here), it is important to remember on constitutional questions that Jefferson was not one of the Constitution’s framers. He was ambassador to France at the time.
The actual framers, Madison and Hamilton, feared a great deal more from the passions of the Legislature. To take just one passage, from Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 78:
The complete independence of the courts of justice is peculiarly essential in a limited constitution. By a limited constitution I understand one which contains certain specified exceptions to the legislative authority; such for instance as that it shall pass no bills of attainder, no ex post facto laws, and the like. Limitations of this kind can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of the courts of justice; whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing.
Emphasis, of course, added.
In other words, as should be patently obvious to anyone with even a glancing acquaintance with the thought of our country’s founding generation, the Constitution exists to set forth the framework of our government and to protect certain basic, natural rights from infringement by that government. As such, the Judiciary (the branch most insulated from political whim) exists to counterbalance the Legislature and the Executive (the branches least insulated) when popular passions push them to encroach upon the rights of the people.
Really, this is fairly simple stuff. Under no circumstance does Congress have the power to exempt its acts from judicial review — otherwise, all of us live at the foot of a mob. If an act of Congress, or the states under the 14th Amendment, violates the Constitution (or might violate it), Article III, Section 2 does not permit the matter to be removed beyond the reach of the courts.
Some, of course, will say that under the view I have just put forth, we live under judicial tyranny. That is nonsense. Every judge on the bench of the Supreme Court and all the federal courts was appointed by an elected president and confirmed by an elected Senate (recess appointments excluded, of course).
This is tyranny?
As I say in my article, politics at confirmation. Independence thereafter.
Here is my latest article from Tech Central Station. In it, I argue that Republicans have a backward view of how the judiciary is to be kept on a (very, very long) leash by the political branches (Congress and the President).
The Republicans seek to sanitize the nomination and confirmation process, while politicizing the jobs of judges already on the bench. The founders intended quite the opposite.
Rehnquist, as a member of the least-political branch of the federal government, is too polite to name names, but he points readers toward the misdeeds of Congress over the last year — all of them committed by Republicans.
A fight over the Pledge of Allegiance led to 2004 being a banner year for attempts to intimidate the judiciary, after the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld a ruling that schools can’t have students recite the loyalty oath in class. While the decision was legally defensible (if a bit extreme), it put many in Congress in high dudgeon.
Toward the end of the article, I urge Republicans to discard the idea of “jurisdiction stripping” — i.e. restricting the authority of the federal courts (including the Supreme Court) to hear Constitutional challenges to certain government actions. As detailed in my article, Congress has tried to do this — just in 2004 — regarding gay marriage and the Pledge of Allegiance.
“I hold in my hand a list of 205 known columnists…”
Slate’s TV critic, Dana Stevens, watches TV stoned and writes about it. How very edgy!
Now, I know White Noise has gotten some bad reviews. And I can see why: It’s got some hack-ish stylistic tendencies, the “real” science is ridiculous and there are logical holes you could drive an H-2 through.
At the same time, the Times Square-theater audience I saw it with last night was squirming for 100 minutes straight — wracked with suspense and perched at the edge of their seats. More than a few audible screams were released.
Not a satisfying film by any means. But a scary one. Scary as hell.
To quote one young man, seated in front of me: “I just crapped my pants.”
Same young man also advised the female lead at one point: “Bitch, run!” She should have. And she paid the price for ignoring his advice.
Some anti-charter dead-enders in Niagara still seem to be fighting the bad fight.
But this article from the Buffalo News makes it seem pretty clear that all the necessary people are on board in the Niagara Falls City school district to see the new charter school through.
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