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89 search results for: fix the system reform

1

Fix-the-System Reform Means Preserving the Very Things Causing the Problems

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Andy Smarick, of the American Enterprise Institute, explains how President Obama wasted a whole lot of money for zero results in education reform:

The final IES report on the SIG program is devastating to the Obama administration’s legacy. An evaluation commissioned by the US Department of Education and conducted by two highly respected research institutions delivered a crushing verdict: The program failed and failed badly.

As I’ve periodically written, fix-the-system education reforms that seek to preserve the very qualities that are causing the problem — predictable labor union incentives, central planning, the disconnect of decision making from bill paying, and a lack of direct accountability to students and parents — cannot work. We must admit this.

In any area of life except government (specifically, progressive government) it would be considered pathological to look for all sorts of complicated ways to avoid addressing the underlying problem of unhealthy behavior.  Unfortunately, the clear objective of those who do such things (specifically, progressives) is to make government do things it shouldn’t be doing, so of course perpetuating that activity becomes the irreducible factor.

2

Fix-the-System Education Reform Hits a Ceiling in Rhode Island

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Although the division between them has not yet hardened into antagonism, there are two branches of the education reform movement.

One seeks to fix the system that is currently in place, with minimally disruptive reforms to make government-run schools more accountable and responsive, prodded through competition from charter schools, over which government maintains a strong hand.  The other favors stronger competition through school choice, with the funds allocated for students’ education being directed by their parents to any schools that they choose.

For the better part of the last decade, Rhode Island has pursued reforms of the fix-the-system variety.  In both its politics and its test results, however, the Ocean State may now be proving that such reforms have a ceiling.

Continue reading on Watchdog.org.

3

DAILY SIGNAL: What’s at Stake If FBI Isn’t Fixed

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The FBI needs to be fixed, because it has become a threat to the fundamental liberties of Americans, Steve Bradbury of The Heritage Foundation argues in a lengthy new white paper released this week. “The liberty of the American people is under threat from politicized national security agencies, exemplified by the abuses of the Federal […]

4

DAILY SIGNAL: US Patent System Needs to Be Fixed, Inventor Rights Activist Says

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An American inventor is speaking out about a law he says has significantly affected the country’s ability “to lead the world in innovation and stay ahead of our adversaries.” “We’re a 501(c)(4) [tax-exempt organization], and our mission is to restore to America something that has been actually just totally destroyed by Big Tech,” Randy Landreneau, […]

5

DAILY SIGNAL: California’s Energy Grid Is a Mess. Here’s How to Fix It.

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As California continues to push for so-called green energy policies, its energy grid is suffering. Residents of the Golden State have been forced to deal with rolling blackouts on top of skyrocketing energy prices. But how much of this energy crisis may be laid at the feet of California’s government, and how much is out […]

8

Diagnosing the Education System’s Health

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While disaster in Providence schools receives a deserved proportion of Rhode Islanders’ attention, Tim Benson of the Heartland Institute suggests that we shouldn’t lose sight of problems across the whole state:

Results from the latest version of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test—also known as the Nation’s Report Card—have been released, and Rhode Island’s scores are not good.

Only 35 percent of fourth graders tested “proficient” in reading, while just 40 percent tested proficient in mathematics in 2019. These math scores were a decline from 2017. For eighth graders, just 35 percent were proficient in reading, and only 29 percent were proficient in math. Both of these results were also a decline from 2017, with reading scores being significantly down. When accounting for demographic differences across students throughout the state and control for race, ethnicity, special education status, income level, etc., Rhode Island’s scores are even worse.

Benson offers this as an introduction to his proposed solution, which is to expand the state’s tax credit scholarship program, whereby businesses receive tax credits for donating to scholarships for disadvantaged students.  Lifting the cap on that program, opening it up to non-corporate donors, and adding provisions to provide certainty to scholarship recipients would all be great changes, but of itself, that solution is wholly inadequate to Rhode Island’s problem.

One local man here in Tiverton has been on a Facebook mission to find out what went wrong with Rhode Island public schools.  There isn’t a single reason things got to their current state, and there won’t be a single fix.  The challenges are cultural, they’re institutional, and they’re deep.  Asking what went wrong is like looking at a lonely, obese, alcoholic smoker in late middle age whose house looks like it ought to be condemned for all the hazards and asking why his health is poor.

We need broad public policy reforms that open up doors for a wide variety of individualized education plans for students as part of a cultural shift in our understanding of ourselves and of government.

9

The Lamentable Process of Rhode Island Reform

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During a hearing on the state’s takeover of Providence schools, WPRI’s Steph Machado tweeted the following comment from Domingo Morel, who wrote a book on state takeovers of schools and who joined the Johns Hopkins team to review Providence:

“It’s pretty unique” that the mayor, city council and school board haven’t objected to the state taking over the PVD schools

Perhaps these amount to the same thing, but one wonders whether the reason is that they know they aren’t capable of fixing the problem or want to pass the buck for the responsibility.

On most of Rhode Island’s intractable problems, especially those that manifest most significantly at the local level, one gets the sense that the strategy goes something like this:

  1. Try to mitigate the harmful effects of the problem while not making any difficult decisions.
  2. Allow the problem to get so bad that somebody has to step in, whether it’s the electorate with permission for a big bond or tax increase or the state or federal government with a takeover.
  3. Accept (maybe even take credit for) this manifest proof of incompetence.
  4. Work to limit the impact of any actual reforms to the status quo system and to siphon any increase in funds away from the problem.
  5. Proceed to revert to the way things were once the spotlight moves away.

Of course, this process isn’t purely a function of our elected officials.  We the people, after all, allow them to bring things to this point because we’re not willing to elect and support candidates and elected officials who could turn it around.

11

Almost There on Education Reform?

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Mayor Elorza’s performance on Newsmakers reinforced the notion that Rhode Island’s leaders understand the problem but aren’t really interested in solving it.

13

NAEP Fruits of Reform in Florida Versus Rhode Island

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By way of a contrast of two states when it comes to education reform, Florida has been among the pioneers in school choice–themed education reform, especially for disadvantaged and disabled students.  Meanwhile, Rhode Island pursued a “fix the system” approach that hit a political ceiling when Democrat Governor Lincoln Chafee took the reins.

Results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test give a sense of the divergent results.  The following chart combines 4th and 8th grades and math and reading scores:

RIFL-NAEP-allgradessubjects-group-2000-2017

 

Generally, looking at the red line for “all students,” one could suggest that Florida’s reforms were more stable, compared with the now-sinking results for Rhode Island.  But look at the difference for disadvantaged groups!  Poor students (“school lunch”) have made huge progress in Florida, and “disabled” students (including all variations of learning disabilities) have at least kept pace with general improvements, while they’ve lost ground in Rhode Island.

To put it in progressive terms (or the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity’s 2012 report), look at the closing of the gaps in Florida.

14

Poorly Educated Millennials and the Urgency of Fixing Education

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Testing company ETS has released a report that puts an exclamation point on our need to pursue a comprehensive and rapid reform of our nation’s education system:

One central message that emerges from this report is that, despite having the highest levels of educational attainment of any previous American generation, these young adults on average demonstrate relatively weak skills in literacy, numeracy, and problem solving in technology-rich environments compared to their international peers. These findings hold true when looking at millennials overall, our best performing and most educated, those who are native born, and those from the highest socioeconomic background. Equally troubling is that these findings represent a decrease in literacy and numeracy skills for U.S. adults when compared with results from previous adult surveys.

As a nation, we’re failing our children and, therefore, ourselves.  We’re spending a great deal of money, and young adults are spending a great deal of time, on activities that we label “education,” but that aren’t producing results up to expectations and that seem designed more to indoctrinate our youth with a particular worldview while funding a particular ideological and political class.  Add to this anecdotal evidence in life and current events suggesting that young adults are less well equipped to handle disagreement.

We go too far, I think, in behaving as if a person’s growth ends when he or she leaves the fantasy land of education and enters “real life”; much the opposite is true.  Still, it represents a tremendous waste of resources if Americans spend the first 20-25 years of their lives being poorly educated and absorbing a corrosive ideology and then must spend the next 10-20 years developing skills they actually need while adjusting their worldviews to reality — doing damage to our culture all the while.

On both fronts, we face an urgent need to break the stranglehold that special interests have on our education system, and the tepid prodding that we’re currently doing in Rhode Island — attempting to improve things little by little without upsetting any of the harmful influences — will not work sufficiently, even if our children had time to wait for its slow implementation.

15

Fiddling While the Pension System Burns

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The Rhode Island media has its eye closely on the drama of the latest proposed settlement of the pension reform lawsuit — that is, the latest attempt to water down a reform that was nowhere near sufficient in the first place.  In contrast, Mike Riley is continuing to point out that the state, the labor unions, and retirees are arguing over free drinks on a sinking cruise ship:

The Rhode Island Pension fund is roughly  $8 billion dollars invested in stocks, bonds, fixed income securities, Private equity, Hedge Funds, other alternatives and cash. Im keeping the numbers simple here. The state commission, headed by Raimondo, has stated expected return of the portfolio to be 7.5% annually and this is to be achieved compounded over the next 20 to 30 years. A 7.5% return on $8 billion is $600 million for Fiscal 2015. According to the report that Treasurer Magaziner was handed, the return thus far in Fiscal 2015 shows a portfolio (Fiscal ytd )loss of 0.71% and including expenses a loss of 1.03% . This 1.03 % loss translates to a negative $80 million dollars.  The State would need to gain $680 million over the next 5 months to achieve their “expected” return.

Bill Rappleye has picked up that thread on Channel 10, but for the segment, General Treasurer Seth Magaziner spit out a bunch of squid oil to muddy the waters, selectively picking five-year investment returns to make it seem as if the state’s pension fund is doing swimmingly.  I noted the problem with this happy talk last month:

The ten-year average investment return is only 6.0 percent, which should be seen as -1.5 percent.  And the longest term number provided, back to July 2000, is 4.8 percent, which should be seen as -2.7 percent. …

If the average for the last 14 years was 4.8 percent, then the average for the next 14 doesn’t have to be 7.5 percent, but more like 10 percent, to make up the difference.  If we’re already seeing diminishing returns from the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing policy and President Obama’s binge of trillion-dollar deficits, what are the next 14 years realistically going to look like?

More importantly, I suggested, it should be the state’s general treasurer who is making this case to everybody.  It should be Seth Magaziner out in the news saying, “Hey, these negotiations are all well and good, but we may only have a few more years left until this pension reform thing starts to spring new leaks.”

Former Treasurer, now Governor, Gina Raimondo lucked out that the Obama Administration and the Federal Reserve proved to be such believers in stock-market-trickle-down theory.  Rather than ease the reins on innovators and working people, they’ve hit the loose-money throttle for the investment market.  That’s given the pension fund and the reform a brief period of looking like they might be fine, although as Riley argues, the state managed to do worse than other funds during the bubble’s latest inflation.

19

VOTER ALERT: Over 20% Fraud in Mail-in Ballots!

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Originally published by Mallory Wilson – The Washington Times – Friday, December 15, 2023 More than 20% of voters who used mail-in ballots in Biden’s 2020 win say they engaged in fraud A new survey made the startling discovery that 1 in 5 voters who used mail-in ballots in the 2020 presidential election admitted to […]

20

DAILY SIGNAL: How Crime Novel Became Reality for 8 Cities With Soros-Backed ‘Rogue Prosecutors’

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Violent criminals are being given a “slap on the wrist” and released back onto the streets in eight cities across America, says author Charles “Cully” Stimson. Between the “defund the police” movement and the election of “[George] Soros’ bought-and-paid-for rogue prosecutors, crime exploded,” says Stimson, co-author of the new book “Rogue Prosecutors: How Radical Soros […]

21

SPN’s Energy Czar Discusses the Truth About the Left’s Climate Change Agenda

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The parent organization of The Ocean State Current, the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity is a member of the State Policy Network, a national association of over 60 state-based “free market” think tanks. State Policy Network recently welcomed Amy O. Cooke as its Visiting Energy Policy Fellow. In this role, she will oversee the Energy Policy […]

24

DAILY SIGNAL: Here’s What You Should Expect From the 118th Congress

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Congress is back in session, and members have their work cut out for them. “I agree that it is one of—if not the most critical time in our nation’s history,” says Ryan Walker, vice president for government relations at Heritage Action for America.(Heritage Action for America is the grassroots partner organization of The Heritage Foundation.) […]

27

DAILY SIGNAL: Why This Solar Company CEO Wants to Drill, Build Pipelines, and ‘Deploy All Types of Energy’

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Drew Bond, co-founder and president of C3 Solutions, is a serial entrepreneur. Having founded several companies in the energy industry, he now leads an organization that helps conservatives counter the Left’s radical environmental ideas. “I would argue that many conservatives are, in fact, better environmentalists than many in the environmental community,” Bond tells The Daily […]

30

DAILY SIGNAL: Why ‘Voter Suppression’ Is a Myth

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When Georgia and other states began passing new election laws, the political left called it voter suppression. But is voter suppression actually taking place in America? Do safeguards such as voter ID requirements discourage voting? In his new book “The Myth of Voter Suppression: The Left’s Assault on Clean Elections,” Fred Lucas dives into the […]

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