National Bargain Association

Reminder -- I primarily blog at this site now: www.regularfolksunited.com

Today's Wall Street Journal sports page (page B16 if you love the paper copy like I do) noted that the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association recently sold game tickets for 10 cents if you bought one ticket for $12.00 thus making the tickets $6.05 each.

Not only is this a great bargain but it is clear evidence the market forces work for consumers. Residents of Los Angeles have two NBA teams to choose from -- Lakers and Clippers -- yet only one team is putting a great product on the hardwood thus the ticket prices for the lowly Clippers with their .234 winning percentage are very low.

Now if only a school choice revolution in Los Angeles would harness similar market forces that would allow parents and students to flee their failing government schools.

Advancement via Competition

Finally something for the conservative base to get excited about in terms of the McCain for President!! During Senator John McCain's speech to the NAACP - National Association for the Advancement of Colored People - in Cincinnati Senator McCain stated that as president he would --

"expand education opportunities, partly through vouchers for low income children to attend private schools..............

The article I read in our local newspaper (www.twincities.com) went on to state that Senator Obama has "dismissed support for private school vouchers for low income Americans."

While I am very encouraged by Senator McCain's comments I have to say he did not go far enough. His speech should have called our failing public schools in poor neighborhoods EXACTLY what they are -- "modern day plantations" not centers of education excellence.

So at this point in the presidential campaign the black candidate - Obama - is keeping poor blacks on the plantations/schools via his opposition to a voucher system that would finally make schools compete for students.

McCain's speech is essentially a modern day Emancipation Proclamation but sadly I did not see any media coverage speaking in those terms.

Get a dream Mr. Obama,

Todd

School Choice

Yesterday's Easter dinner attendees included two family friends from the education world -- a current elementary teacher and a retired teacher -- who do not support any form of school choice. Most readers out there will already know that most etiquette counselors tell us the topics that should be avoided over dinner include:

• politics
• religion
• sex

Given our different worldviews on school choice "politics" was clearly not a topic at this Easter gathering. While Easter is of course a highly important religious holiday that wasn't really a topic that could be discussed since I always highlight the fact that Jesus Christ did not like monopolies (the "temple" -- think about public schools today) and of course said there was a limit to government power ("render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and render unto the Lord what is the Lord's.............") so that would have placed us on the same path to disagreement during the dinner conversation.

That left "sex" which was clearly not going to be discussed.

At the end of the day I spent my time pondering school choice issues on my own since the teachers walking around the house provided constant reminders of our past debates on how best to reform our education system.

So here is my question -- if school choice is such a bad idea or simply un-needed for today's students why should we allow "school choice" for teachers?

By this I mean -- teachers are free to move from school to school as opportunities present themselves -- yet students (in the vast majority of cases) are required to attend the local government school provided in their neighborhood. To be consistent why don't we simply require teachers to teach in the schools in their neighborhoods -- regardless of supply and demand or personal interests?

Choice should be universal,

Todd

For the Students?

Today I attended our monthly "leave us alone"/center-right coalition meeting for Minnesota. This is the core group I am building to lead nothing shore of a political revolution to move us away from our high tax structure status.

Our guest speaker at the meeting was the Executive Director of a charter school -- which is still a public, no tuition school in Minnesota but the school has some freedoms such as being an "at will employer" meaning they can actually fire bad teachers!! Wow, I definitely learned something today. But what really stood out for me during this presentation was that this school has a current waiting list of over 300 students. This fact, coupled with my own local charter school's waiting list of about 320 applicants for their 24 annual kindergarten slots tells me that market demand for these alternative schools is not being met.

Sadly, many of our current state legislators - who swear they do what they do because they are doing it "for the students/kids" - have no idea what market forces are or simply refuse to acknowledge such consumer demand. The perfect example is the legislation introduced by a state representative that would have capped the number of charter schools in Minnesota. There is absolutely NO way such legislation would help the students and parents who clearly want charter schools based on the hard evidence of waiting lists/applicants for open slots.

So forget it students and parents -- you will go to the school we tell you to attend because we are spending your money for you because this is a perfect way to help the teacher unions grow in power while keeping you (our future workers!!) down on the economic ladder.

Markets not Marxists,

Todd

Shopping

First a belated Happy Thanksgiving Day to everyone out there -- what a great American holiday in that we set aside a day just to eat food and watch American football!! Does it get any better?

Thanksgiving Day (November 22 this year) also marks another key date known as "Black Friday" which is considered the most important shopping day in the country because it serves as a barometer for the economic performance of the nation's retail industry. I was reminded of this fact yesterday when I picked up our two local newspapers from our patio yesterday morning. Each newspaper was rather think in terms of news articles but contained numerous sales advertisements from a full range of retailers -- Target, Macy's, Fleet Farm, Sears, JC Penney's, WalMart, Best Buy, Office Depot, Kmart.................. -- you get the idea.

The news media is peppered with stories of shoppers walking around stores at 3 am in search of good bargains so it got me thinking about the average consumer. I personally know people (having heard them talk about their plans during our Thanksgiving meal) that approach Black Friday as a project -- they review the sales ads, check the stores' hours, and map our their day so they can satisfy their desire to shop.

Now let's pause a bit to consider this consumer mindset --

Finding a good deal on a sweater or that flat screen television is a personal objective that totally consumes their time and effort. But how many of these consumers will exert this same amount of energy to "shop" for a school for their children? How many consumers read the "sales advertisements" from schools (they don't exist) or compare product features ("class curriculum")? No I don't have scientific polling on this but anecdotal evidence tells me that essentially ZERO consumer research is completed when it comes time to send our children to school since most of simply use the "default" choice by sending our children to whichever school the school bus will deliver them to for instruction.

American consumers can choose to shop at Target or WalMart for the exact same products but in most cases have no choice when it comes to which school to send their children to which is the issue that the media should be focused on during Black Friday.

Todd

Football and Teachers

While traveling in Des Moines, Iowa yesterday I read the USA Today at my hotel gym which included an article on the growing popularity of "7 on 7" football (that is "American" football my European friends not "soccer" -- by the way, thanks a lot for exporting David Beckham to the USA to play soccer in Los Angeles!! I predict he will be in more commercials than soccer matches given his propensity to always having an injury.). Now this 7 on 7 football is apparently popular with high school football players so they can improve their passing games. Essentially you have 6 guys on the line with a quarterback so essentially it is a game of "everyone go deep on three..................." which is nothing more than the sand lot football my generation played as kids.

Having read this article football was in the back of my mind while I attended the Professional Educators of Iowa ( http://www.peiowa.org/) annual meeting in Des Moines. One educator I ended up talking with was Emory Stewart who is a football coach for the William Penn University Statesmen (WPU) in Iowa. ( http://statesmen.wmpenn.edu/football/index.php) Only half-joking I told Coach Stewart that I still, "have my four years of eligibility to play college football........" even though I am 41 years old!! WPU is a member of the NAIA (not the NCAA) so Coach Stewart educated me when he told me that the NAIA rules allows them to provide scholarships to every one of their football players versus a set number of scholarships per team as the NCAA requires.

With summer nearly half over already that means the 2007-2008 football season is fast approaching with WPU's first game set for August 25th against Waldorf College if I read their website correctly. This season's competition on the gridiron will make better players of WPU's entire football team but these same competitive pressures will not exist for the teachers in the public schools of the City of Oskaloosa, Iowa where WPU is based due to the lack of full-blown school choice.

Good luck Statesmen,

Todd

One More Museum

"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education" – Mark Twain

English High School in Boston, Massachusetts and St. Agnes High School in St. Paul, Minnesota are two very different schools. English was founded in 1821 as the first public high school in the USA. St. Agnes is a Catholic high school founded in 1938.

But the differences go well beyond the years they were founded. Today English is one of the worst performing schools in Massachusetts according to a recent Associated Press (AP) article. However instead of closing the school as the private sector would close a poorly performing factory the State of Massachusetts is moving to salvage English. School Superintendent Michael Contompasis is quoted saying, "I would have closed English if it wasn't English," meaning that due to this school's significance as the first public school it remains open despite its terrible performance. So taxpayers will be forced (even longer) to go on supporting this failing institution. St. Agnes on the other hand, is a private school that simply had financial challenges but after the school held a fundraising event and two major donors contributed money they raised a total of $3.3 million in PRIVATE NOT GOVERNMENT donations!!

No where in the AP article did I see anyone mentioned who WILLINGLY wrote a check to keep English High School operating -- instead it will survive via forced donations which are better known as tax dollars. When the public is allowed to "vote" with their own money they (in this case anyway) they support something like St. Agnes which they have a strong affinity for versus a failing public school. Instead of "saving" English we should convert it into a museum that would symbolize a past chapter in American history.

Taxpayers, students, and teachers are not well served by keeping English High School operating as a school today.

Todd

Send Them Invoices

Now this news item has two of my pet interests intertwined -- football and education reform - set in the Iron Range of Northern Minnesota at Hibbing Community College (HCC).

HCC Provost Ken Simberg announced this past week that due to his frustration with the "perennially dismal academic performance of the college's football players" he is recommending that the the school drop its football program for the 2007-2008 school year. Such a decision would make the world worse off for two reasons -- 1.) less football would be played and enjoyed and 2.) the 63 football players (nearly all of them have academic problems according to the Pioneer Press article I read, www.twincities.com) would be academic castaways since football is the only reason many of them are in college today.

Without the discipline and structure that comes from being a football player how can anyone expect these players to succeed academically? Granted they are doing poorly academically with the team grade point average over the last five years sitting at a 1.8 out of 4.0. However, of the 63 current players on the team only 3 are from Minnesota with a total of 34 players coming from Ohio and Florida.

Since nearly 50% of these underachieving students -- despite the remedial education courses that HCC provides for these players -- are from two states let me call on the State of Minnesota to send an invoice to the governments of Ohio and Florida for the cost of this remedial education and related academic counseling the athletic department is probably providing. I am all for the concept of student-athletes and the diversity that such player recruitment provides but why should our state bail out the poorly-performing K-12 education systems in Ohio and Florida.

Let me close with a quote from Branden Bailey, a freshman football recruit from College Park, Georgia -- "I beg you, please don't take this away from us, where I come from you either sell drugs, or you do something academic-wise or athletics-wide to stay out of trouble. We might go home and do worse."

Let's help these young men and future graduates by sending a very public message by sending invoices to the high schools that "taught" these students to recover the cost of HCC educating them with a copy of the invoices released to the media. Clearly the "No Child Left Behind" federal legislation has failed these students. We need to decentralize education and inject competition into the system not federalize it with more bureaucrats checking test scores.

Competition is good for football programs and classrooms.

Todd