politicalcivility.com Blog

I been reading through two education focused books recently.

1. Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind
2. Clayton Christensen’s Disrupting Class

The combination of reading the two books side by side got me thinking again about part of the education reform debate that keeps bugging me.  And until now I hadn’t been able to put my finger on it.  I think in the whole education debate we’ve been starting out with the wrong question.  The current question is “How can we reform, improve our system of education today?”

Here is the question I think we need to start with and I’d be interested in your thoughts regarding the answer: “What is the purpose of education?”  I think we’ve been operating under the wrong answer to that question for more than a century now, namely that education is to produce people, who are good workers and who can keep America competitive in the “global marketplace.”  To me there is something wholly incomplete in that definition of what the purpose of education is.

I’d be interested in your thoughts.

After reading this Letter to the Editor in the DesNews, I got down on my knees and gave thanks for the kind of woman I married.  I know of only a few other people (Mother Theresa comes to mind) who are so wholly focused on blessing the lives of others and who are so genuinely concerned about the well-being of those they work to serve and love. 

I think Emily is the “proof in the pudding” of why my generation is referred to by Dr. Jean M. Twenge and other social scientists as ”Generation Me.”  Twenge sums up the Me Generation thusly, “Today’s young americans are more confident, assertive, entitled — and more miserable than ever.”

I am sure Emily is a nice enough person, but her letter, describing how mature and smart she was for waiting until 30 to get married, shows me that she’s not as ready to marry as she may think she is.  Perhaps the saddest part about the letter to the editor was that in her effort to demonstrate her maturity she abundantly showed her self-centered “me” orientation as noted in this one great sentence: “Single, I have been able to discover myself (ME), fend for myself (ME), depend on myself (ME) and develop skills I (ME, ME, and MORE ME) otherwise would have not had.” (As if a mother in her twenties hasn’t learned all of that and more.)

If Emily were sitting across the table from me, this would be my response to her: “Emily, here is a great book.  It’s called ‘A Purpose Driven Life.’  The first couple of lines made me think about your letter.  Rick writes, ‘It’s not about you. The purpose of your life is far greater than your own personal fulfilment, your peace of mind or even your happiness.’ For all your self discovery Emily you’ve missed the most important discovery of all.  The problem is you won’t discover it until you stop focusing on you.”  

I’ll be the first to admit that I am far from perfect in following my own advice to Emily.  But I can tell her for sure that I learned more about myself while being a father to our three children, than I could have ever done without having to give up myself for someone (in this case my children) else’s case. 

I am probably being hard on Emily. Perhaps her only problem was that she missed that one family home evening with her church group where they shared the scripture, “He that findeth [discovering myself] his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for My sake shall find it.” (Matthew 10:39)

Now that ExxonMobil has seen the light (green light that is), we’re going to have to find a new corporate whipping boy who dares to fund research that shows that global warming is not a man-made phenomenon. 

And to think, I thought people grew out of peer pressure when they became adults.

A recent study by the American Council for Capital Formation highlights what the US can do for real economic stimulus versus handing out checks that came as a result of us borrowing more money.  ACCF’s study showed the adverse effect of corporate taxes on investment.  This is significant for the US because has the second highest corporate tax burden in the world, and yet we wonder why jobs are going overseas (hint: it’s not just because the labor is cheaper).

If we really want to turn the economy around, we have to stop punishing businesses for being profitable and allow them to keep their earnings, which they in turn reinvest in growing their businesses and creating new jobs.

Link to the study findings: http://accf.org/publications/newsletter/volumes/jan-feb2008.html#study

It looks like more Florida students are gaining greater access to school choice thanks to bipartisan support for real reform.  Hopefully Utah can learn from Florida’s example.

From the WSJ:

When Florida passed a law in 2001 creating the Corporate Tax Credit Scholarship Program for underprivileged students, all but one Democrat in the state legislature voted against it. Earlier this month, lawmakers extended the program – this time with the help of a full third of Democrats in the Legislature, including 13 of 25 members of the state’s black caucus and every member of the Hispanic caucus. What changed?

Our guess is that low-income parents in Florida have gotten a taste of the same school choice privileges that middle- and upper-income families have always enjoyed. And they’ve found they like this new educational freedom. Under the scholarship program, which is means-tested, companies get a 100% tax credit for donations to state-approved nonprofits that provide private-school vouchers for low-income families.

The program already serves some 20,000 students. The expansion will allow it to assist an additional 6,000. It’s no surprise that poor families would embrace educational options, given that their government-assigned schools are clearly failing their children. The high school graduation rate for black students in Florida is 45% overall, 38% for black males. The 52% graduation rate for Hispanics is also nothing to brag about.

What’s encouraging is that these parents have managed to convey their pro-choice sentiments to their representatives, who are responding even though voucher programs infuriate powerful liberal special interest groups like the teachers unions. Given that 70% of the program participants are black or Hispanic, you’d think Democrats would be taking the lead on a measure that mostly benefits their traditional constituency. Apparently they needed a little prodding, but we’re glad to see they did the right thing.

I have to admit that my thinking regarding the immigration issue has changed significantly over the past couple of years as I have spent more time reading and listening the to arguments on both sides.  One of the major shifts occured when I began to look at and study the difference between types of law: malum in se and malum prohibitum.

Here’s a quick overview from Cafe Hayek:

A critical distinction in Anglo-American law is that between actions that are malum in se and actions that are malum prohibitum.  Some actions are malum in se — wrong in themselves.  Examples are murder, rape, theft, and fraud.  These actions are now formally prohibited by legislation, but their wrongness — indeed, their very illegality — exists independently [emphasis added] of legislative prohibition.  If, say, the Virginia legislature were to repeal its statutory prohibition on murder, murder would still be wrong and criminal in Virginia.  Murderers would still be wrongdoers and criminals.  If the State government refused to punish such criminals, people would do so privately.

Other actions are malum prohibitum — “wrong” merely because the government proclaims these actions to be wrong.  One example is avoiding taxes.  If Uncle Sam tomorrow abolishes the federal income tax, failure of Americans to send money to Washington would be neither wrong nor criminal, and persons who send no money to Washington would not be regarded by their neighbors and co-workers as despicable louts whose company should be avoided.

Immigration law is clearly a malum prohibitum type law, as such it is a-moral, meaning that if we removed all immigration law people coming here would not be considered immoral.  Thus it follows that the “criminality” aspect of an immigrant not following the law is no different that a legal citizen breaking the speed limit.