Voice For Liberty

Tag: School choice

  • Teacher tenure reform starts

    The system of teacher tenure has suffered a blow that could spread to other parts of the country.

    Washington D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee has fired 241 teachers for poor performance, are more are on notice. This is in a school system where, according to Wall Street Journal reporting, “Ms. Rhee said Friday she took over a system in 2007 where 95% of teachers were rated excellent and none terminated for poor performance. Yet, students posted dismal test scores.”

    The system of teacher tenure in K through 12 education deserves examination, and if we believe that schools exist for the benefit of schoolchildren, it should be eliminated.

    Defenders of tenure say it doesn’t prevent lousy teachers from being fired. Instead, tenure simply guarantees them due process rights. But the problem is that the process is so difficult for school administrators to pursue that some school districts — New York City, famously — create “rubber rooms.” These are rooms where the truly bad teachers report every workday to sit and while away the several years that their cases can take to work their way through the system. In 2007 the New York Times reported that 760 New York City schoolteachers were doing this in 12 “reassignment centers.”

    (By the way, the “work hours” for the rubber rooms was 8:00 am to 2:50 pm. Teachers could leave for lunch.)

    Since the rubber rooms are an embarrassment for all involved, the Times has reported that the past school year was the last for the rooms. Now, the worst teachers will perform administrative duties or be sent home.

    Advocates of tenure also argue that it is necessary to protect teachers from the arbitrary decisions of school administrators. There might actually be some validity to this argument, but tenure is the wrong response to the problem.

    It is said that school administrators — in a system without tenure — would practice “crony” hiring and promotion practices. They would reward their friends and family and punish their enemies or those they simply don’t like.

    These things happen in a system insulated from market competition, and institutions don’t suffer when they do. In the private sector, when a manager makes staffing decisions based on cronyism — instead of hiring and retaining the best possible employees — the profitability of the company suffers. If managers’ compensation is tied to profitability, they suffer when making staffing decisions based on cronyism. Even if they don’t suffer pay-wise, these managers will not perform well on their own evaluations.

    A system of market competition, however, forces each institution — schools, too — to be the best they can possibly be. When schools compete for students and funding, principals might learn to like their very best teachers, even if they don’t care for them personally.

    They also might learn how to evaluate and recognize the best teachers. That’s important, as it is becoming apparent that the personal characteristics of teachers are far more important to student success than the things that schools presently use to reward teachers — credentials, additional education, and longevity.

    The characteristics of teachers are also far more important than class size, which is another factor the education establishment focuses on. Eric Hanushek has estimated that students of the worst teachers will learn just one-half a year’s material in a year, while students with the best teachers will learn one and one-half year’s material in a year. This difference is far greater than the weak effect that school class size studies have found, and even those small findings are suspect.

    Presently some states are considering using student test scores as a way to evaluate and reward teachers. Student test scores are viewed as an objective way to evaluate teachers, one that is removed from the subjective evaluations of school administrators who, as shown above, don’t have a very strong incentive to hire and retain the best teachers.

    Any meaningful reform is strongly opposed by the teachers union and the education establishment. This makes Washington D.C. schools chancellor Rhee’s accomplishment all the more remarkable.

    How did Rhee accomplish this breakthrough? Earlier reporting in the Wall Street Journal mentioned the political support of Washington’s mayor, Adrian Fenty, and the fact that the Washington schools were just terrible. Her challenge lies ahead, as the Journal noted: “Ms. Rhee’s challenge now is to use the new rules forcefully enough to drive improvements because the unions will assume they can wait her out.” The union will probably sue over these firings.

    The education bureaucracy and the system is working against Rhee too: “Unfortunately, most school chancellors are careerists who don’t want to upset the unions because they are always looking for their next job. One example: Clifford Janey, whom Ms. Rhee replaced in D.C., went on to become the superintendent in Newark, N.J., whose schools may be worse than D.C.’s. Ms. Rhee, by contrast, came to her job as an outsider willing to endure the considerable abuse that the unions and their political backers threw at her.”

    As seen in Kansas by the example of Kansas School Board Member Walt Chappell, if you’re not a team player, you’re going to suffer abuse from the education bureaucracy.

    Giving Lousy Teachers the Boot

    Michelle Rhee does the once unthinkable in Washington.
    By William McGurn

    Donald Trump is not the only one who knows how to get attention with the words, “You’re fired.” Michelle Rhee, chancellor for the District of Columbia schools, has just done a pretty nifty job of it herself.

    On Friday, Ms. Rhee fired 241 teachers — roughly 6% of the total — mostly for scoring too low on a teacher evaluation that measures their performance against student achievement. Another 737 teachers and other school-based staff were put on notice that they had been rated “minimally effective.” Unless these people improve, they too face the boot.

    The mass dismissals follow a landmark agreement Ms. Rhee negotiated with the Washington Teachers Union (WTU) at the end of June. The quid pro quo was this: Good teachers would get more money (including a 21.6% pay increase through 2012 and opportunities for merit pay). In exchange, bad teachers could be shown the door.

    Continue reading at the Wall Street Journal (subscription required)

  • The long reach of teachers unions

    At one time teachers unions were professional organizations. Now they have been transformed into the same type industrial trade union that represents autoworkers or steelmakers, with the same political clout and parochial interests. This is at the same time that teachers demand respect for being professionals.

    The Education Next article The Long Reach of Teachers Unions: Using money to win friends and influence policy is a must-read for those who think the teacher union is a benign fraternal group looking out for the interests of schoolchildren.

    Even those familiar with the teachers union and their political activity may be surprised to learn that the National Education Association (NEA) has become the largest political campaign spender.

    (In Kansas, the NEA affiliate is Kansas National Education Association, or KNEA.)

    Its spending is mostly on politically liberal organizations and candidates, even though that doesn’t represent the will of all teachers. Internal NEA polls, says the article, show that union members are slightly more conservative than liberal. Other polling show that there is significant support (not majority support) among teachers for charter schools and merit pay. The fight against these two items, both supported by President Obama, consumes much of the union’s energy.

    The problem is that the teachers union leadership is liberal and out of step with their members.

    According to a Harris poll, Americans like and have respect for teachers, but they don’t trust union leaders. As the article explains, when union leaders can say they’re doing things “for the kids,” they can get a way with a lot. Newspaper reporting doesn’t help: “Press coverage of the teachers unions is usually assigned to an education reporter, which ensures the story will be framed around education issues.”

    The article recommends giving the political activities of teachers unions their proper perspective: “Coverage of teachers unions needs to emerge from its current position as an afterthought on the education beat, and assume its place alongside national fiscal and political reporting. Only then will the public see that Big Oil and Big Tobacco have a brother called Big Education.”

    The Long Reach of Teachers Unions

    By Mike Antonucci

    When the Florida legislature, on April 8th, passed a bill that sought to replace teacher tenure with merit pay, the Florida Education Association (FEA) sprang into action, organizing members and community activists to lobby Governor Charlie Crist to veto the measure. FEA, with the help of its parent union, the National Education Association (NEA), generated thousands of e-mails, letters, phone calls, and Internet posts in opposition to the legislation. When Governor Crist delivered his veto on April 15th, the union ran television and Internet ads, thanking him. A few weeks later, FEA gave a much-needed boost to Crist’s independent bid for a U.S. Senate seat by endorsing both Crist and Democratic candidate Kendrick Meek.

    If you think it’s far-fetched to suggest that a teachers union could play the role of political kingmaker, think again. The largest political campaign spender in America is not a megacorporation, such as Wal-Mart, Microsoft, or ExxonMobil. It isn’t an industry association, like the American Bankers Association or the National Association of Realtors. It’s not even a labor federation, like the AFL-CIO. If you combine the campaign spending of all those entities it does not match the amount spent by the National Education Association, the public-sector labor union that represents some 2.3 million K–12 public school teachers and nearly a million education support workers (bus drivers, custodians, food service employees), retirees, and college student members. NEA members alone make up more than half of union members working for local governments, by far the most unionized segment of the U.S. economy.

    Continue reading at Education Next

  • Herman Cain: Conservatives should dream, be united, informed, inspired

    Herman CainHerman Cain

    At this weekend’s RightOnline conference at The Venetian in Las Vegas, businessman and radio talk show host Herman Cain delivered an inspirational message to the audience of some 1,100 conservative activists from across the country.

    Cain has a nightly radio show and is a frequent guest host for the Neal Boortz show, which is heard in Wichita on KNSS radio. Cain has been an executive at several companies, including serving as president of Godfather’s Pizza, a unit of Pillsbury. He appears on Fox News, and WorldNet Daily carries his weekly column.

    He also runs The Hermanator PAC, which seeks to elect economically responsible conservatives to office. His name is mentioned in lists of presidential contenders for 2012, and he may launch a presidential exploratory committee.

    Speaking at Saturday’s general session at RightOnline, Cain told the audience “The tragedy in life does not lie in not reaching your goals; the tragedy lies in having no goals to reach for. It’s not a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity to have no dreams.”

    Cain said that his dream is that we return to the principles that the Founding Fathers envisioned for what turned out to be the greatest country in the world: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. “It didn’t say anything about a Department of Happy!” It is the pursuit of happiness that is mentioned.

    Cain told the audience there are three things the audience must do: First, conservatives and their citizen movements must stay united in their efforts take back our government.

    Second, conservatives must stay informed. “Stupid people are ruining this country,” he said, telling the audience that over half the people can be persuaded by a slick speech or a slick campaign ad.

    Third, conservatives must stay inspired. Telling the audience the story of his recovery from cancer, he said his inspiration for his work comes from God Almighty.

    He also related the story of the bumblebee, and how aerodynamic equations and computer models predict that the bumblebee should not be able to fly. “There’s only one reason the bumblebee flies: He didn’t get the memo that said he couldn’t. The bumblebee believes he can fly.”

    Telling the audience that they have “bumblebee power,” he believes that conservatives can take back the government in November 2010.

    Cain also mentioned what he calls the “SIN” tactics that liberals employ: First, they shift the subject, then they ignore the facts. “Liberals can’t handle the facts,” he told the audience, and that’s why they shift the subject and ignore the facts.

    Finally, liberals resort to name-calling, calling himself and other conservatives racists, a charge he said is ridiculous and has backfired.

    Later that day, I had an interview with Cain in his suite at Encore Las Vegas. Casually dressed and sipping a glass of wine, he was more relaxed than during his energetic speech earlier that day, although eventually his engaging enthusiasm broke out.

    Referring to his optimism for the chances of conservatives in the upcoming elections, I said I’m not so sure, even pessimistic. Why am I wrong, I asked?

    Cain said that callers — both to his Monday through Friday radio show and when he substitutes for Boortz and Sean Hannity — express their frustrations with the direction of the country, the stalled economy, and lack of private sector job creation. That makes him optimistic. Callers say they’ve been duped by the “hope and change” message, and they’re waking up.

    Another factor he cited is the ongoing Gallup poll showing conservatives outnumbering liberals two to one, and independents and moderates outnumbering liberals one-and-a-half to one. He said this tells him that the numbers are on our side.

    I asked Cain about the controversy about the Civil Rights Act of 1964: As a black man, who at age 64, growing up in the south, faced real and actual discrimination: Is our country better off for it?

    “Absolutely we are,” he said, for both the Civil Rights act of 1964 and the Voter Rights Act of 1965, adding that they had historical impact on our country.

    The Great Society programs and the rise of the modern welfare state: Are we better off for that? No, he said. He said that these programs didn’t provide enough incentives for people to help themselves. “That’s what’s wrong with most of the social programs today. That’s why they need to be modernized. When you provide incentives, and you provide help, but you also have requirements in there for people to help themselves: guess what? The programs will work.” But people have figured out how to game the system, and then the programs don’t work.

    “Look at systemic poverty, look at crime, look at the quality of education in our inner cities — it’s all worse than it was.” The welfare reform of the 1990s, which required people to do certain things in order to continue to receive a check, shows that when people have an incentive to help themselves, they will use assistance programs more effectively, he said.

    Since he mentioned education, I explained that in Kansas we have very few charter schools, and no school choice. What are we missing out on in Kansas? Are we behind the curve?

    Yes, he said. “Competition makes everything better.” He told about the success of the Washington DC school choice program, with over 90 percent of the students going on to college. But the Democrat-led Congress and the President would not re-authorize the program. The teachers unions don’t like competition, he said, and this was the reason why.

    I mentioned that often liberals are opposed to school choice because they say that poor uneducated parents are not equipped to make decisions regarding schools for their children. This is not true, Cain said. “It’s part of that whole attitude that government can make better decisions for a poor family then they can make for themselves.”

    A focus of this conference is that liberty and free markets are superior in creating prosperity for everyone. But many people believe that one person becomes rich only if others become poor. I asked: Why do people believe that? Why have we as conservatives not been successful in getting out that message? Why doesn’t the president seemed to believe that?

    Cain said that President Obama doesn’t believe this because he is “at least a socialist.” Republicans have not been good about managing “sharper, clearer messages about certain things.” He said and the Republican National Committee focuses on raising money, which is good, but they don’t do a good job of explaining what the Republican Party stands for. Cain said that while he supported current chairman Michael Steele for that job, he doesn’t know what Steele believes are the priorities or focal points for Republican candidates running for office in November.

    While we know that we have to do something about spending, taxes, and education, these are general, broad statements, he said. We even know how to fix most problems. “We just don’t have the political will or the leadership to fix some of these problems. That’s what America faces, that’s our biggest challenge.”

  • American education in 2030: teacher pay

    The Hoover Institution’s K–12 Education Task Force has produced a series of thirteen lectures on the subject American Education in 2030. These lectures take a look at what American education might look like in 20 years.

    In one lecture, Caroline Hoxby, a Stanford University economics professor who studies the economics of education, looks at the future of teacher pay and teaching. While her vision of what might happen is positive for both teachers and schoolchildren, substantial change will need to take place for this vision to be realized. Specifically, the nation will have to overcome the harmful effects of our nation’s teachers unions.

    (In Kansas, the teachers union is Kansas National Education Association (or KNEA). Locally in Wichita, the union is United Teachers of Wichita. It should be noted that Barb Fuller, the current president of the board of USD 259, the Wichita public school district, is a former president of the teachers union.)

    In the future, Hoxby said teachers will be paid and managed as true professionals. Teachers will be paid based on what they contribute to student learning. This encourages productive teachers to stay in education, while unproductive teachers are encouraged to improve their skills or find other work. This is the same dynamic that is in effect in almost all fields of work.

    In the future, good teachers will be paid well not because of union contracts, but because they are worth their high salaries. In 2010, at the present, Hoxby says that teacher pay, hiring, and training has more in common with auto industry workers than professional workers. Pay is based solely on seniority and educational credentials, not on how well teachers teach students.

    “Schools paid more to teachers with education certificates even if everyone knew that the credentials were worthless.” She criticizes the present-day schools of education that she says are more interested in “inculcating social philosophy” instead of training effective teachers.

    Factors that will work to increase our understanding of what works include longitudinal databases, which track individual students over time. These database have been helpful in understanding the effects of teacher performance on student learning. Teacher quality has been found to be a powerful effect, with the best teachers producing learning gains of half a grade equivalent per year. Some teachers consistently produced learning losses.

    Once past the first year of teaching, these teacher effects did not depend on credentials or experience, the two factors that teachers unions insist must be the only basis for teacher pay.

    A second factor that will change teaching is technology, allowing students to interact with expert teachers who are remote.

    The third factor is choice and competition among schools. With parents able to choose among schools, there is a reason for principals to seek out and reward the best teachers.

  • Study of teachers reports sharp differences in attitudes between public and private

    Last year the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice published research that examined how teachers feel about their jobs. In particular, the study compared how public school teachers and private school teachers viewed their jobs and working conditions.

    The study, which you can read by clicking on Free To Teach: What teachers say about teaching in public and private schools, uncovers a huge problem in our nation’s public schools. Here’s a passage from the executive summary:

    These are eye-opening data for the teaching profession. They show that public school teachers are currently working in a school system that doesn’t provide the best environment for teaching. Teachers are victims of the dysfunctional government school system right alongside their students. Much of the reason government schools produce mediocre results for their students is because the teachers in those schools are hindered from doing their jobs as well as they could and as well as they want to. By listening to teachers in public and private schools, we discover numerous ways in which their working conditions differ — differences that certainly help explain the gap in educational outcomes between public and private schools. Exposing schools to competition, as is the case in the private school sector, is good for learning partly because it’s good for teaching.

    Here are some revealing results from the research (response levels are given in the study document):

    Private school teachers are more likely to say:

    • “I plan to remain in teaching as long as I am able.”
    • “I have a great deal of control over selecting textbooks and other instructional materials in my classroom.”
    • “I have a great deal of control over selecting content, topics, and skills to be taught in my classroom.”
    • “I have a great deal of control over disciplining students in my classroom.”
    • “Necessary materials such as textbooks, supplies, and copy machines are available as needed.”
    • “I am given the support I need to teach students with special needs.”

    Public school teachers are more likely to say:

    • “I plan to remain in teaching until I am eligible for retirement”
    • “Routine duties and paperwork interfere with my job of teaching.”
    • “The level of student misbehavior in this school interferes with my teaching.”
    • “The stress and disappointments involved in teaching at this school aren’t really worth it.”
    • “A student has threatened to physically injure me.”
    • “A student has physically attacked me.”

    The study concludes “Private school teachers consistently report having better working conditions than public school teachers across a wide variety of measurements. Most prominently, private schools provide teachers with more classroom autonomy, a more supportive school climate, and better student discipline. It appears that the dysfunctions of the government school system — long evident in mediocre educational outcomes — are a problem for teachers as well as for students.”

    A question I have is this: Since nearly all public school teachers belong to a union and practically no private school teachers belong, what are the teachers unions doing? Don’t the unions care about the working conditions of their members?

    Last fall working conditions in USD 259, the Wichita public school district, became an issue when Larry Landwehr, president of United Teachers of Wichita, the union for Wichita public school teachers, addressed the board. In coverage at In Wichita, public school teacher working conditions are an issue, Landwehr specifically cited “current economic conditions that teachers face, the long negotiations, the increased paperwork and workload placed upon educators over the past few years, the decline in academic freedom and professional judgment of the teachers, and the added pressure of meeting AYP.”

  • In Central-Northeast Wichita, government is cause of problem, not solution

    From the November 2007 archives. Since then, the Wichita schools have a new superintendent, and Kansas has raised its minimum wage.

    An article in The Wichita Eagle “Plan offers hope for city’s troubled heart” (November 14, 2007) reports on the development of a plan named New Communities Initiative, its goal being the revitalizing of a depressed neighborhood in Wichita. The saddest thing in this article is the realization that there is consideration of a plan for large-scale government intervention to solve problems that are, to a large extent, caused by government itself.

    The article laments low high school graduation rates and the low proficiency in math and reading. We should make sure we remember that almost all these children have gone to public schools, that is, schools owned and run by government. Plans to improve public schools almost always call for more spending. While education bureaucrats do not like to admit this, spending on government schools in Kansas has been increasing rapidly in recent years. The results of these huge spending increases are just being learned, but it is unlikely that it will produce the dramatic results that are needed.

    There is a simple solution to improving schools that won’t cost more than what is already spent, and should cost even less: school choice. In parts of our country where there is school choice through vouchers — or better, through tax credits — it is low-income parents who are most appreciative of the chance for their children to escape the terrible public schools. Further, there is persuasive evidence that when faced with viable competition, the public schools themselves improve.

    In Kansas, however, there is little hope that meaningful school choice will be implemented soon. Although Winston Brooks, superintendent of Wichita schools, says he is open to competition and accountability, it is a false bravado. The political climate in Kansas is such that it is nearly impossible to get even a charter school application approved, much less any form of school choice with real teeth. (See What’s the Matter With Kansas, January 3, 2007 Wall Street Journal.) As the government schools consume increasing resources, parents find it even harder to pay taxes and private school tuition. So the government schools, responsible for graduates who can’t read and calculate, extend their monopoly.

    A continual problem in depressed areas of cities is low employment. Government again contributes to this problem by creating barriers to employment, most prominently through the minimum wage law. People have jobs because their employers value the work the employees perform more than what they pay them in wages and benefits. When government says you must pay a higher wage than what the potential employees can contribute through their labors, these low-productivity workers won’t be hired. As the minimum wage rises, which it is on the federal level, it becomes even more difficult for the least productive workers to find jobs.

    The reason that some young people find it difficult to get jobs is that they don’t have the education, training, or experience to be very productive at a job. While no one likes to work for only, say $3 or $4 per hour, working for that wage is preferable to being unemployed when the minimum wage is $6 per hour. While working for $4 per hour the worker gains experience at a specific job, and experience at holding any job in general. Soon, as workers become more productive, their wages will rise. Sitting on the sidelines not working or wasting time in a government job-training program does the workers no good.

    The article mentions the plight of children whose parents are in prison. More generally, this neighborhood is plagued by crime and gangs. While I do not know the proportion of these people that are in prison for crimes related to drugs, it most surely is high. Gangs exist almost solely because of the trade in illegal drugs. The government’s prohibition of drugs, then, plays a huge role in the problem of crime.

    The solution is to legalize drugs. Legalize all drugs, without exception. This should not be interpreted as an endorsement of drug use, as drug abuse is a serious health problem for many people. The health problems that drug abuse causes might even increase after legalization. But the crime problem would cease to exist. No longer would people be in prison simply because they are drug addicts. With legalization, the price of drugs would rapidly decline to perhaps the cost of a pack of cigarettes or a few cocktails each day. No longer would drug addicts have to raise several hundred dollars per day through crime. No longer would gangs find selling drugs profitable, and gangs would likely disappear, or at least move on to other endeavors. Do the owners of liquor stores shoot each other over turf wars, and do their customers engage in crime each day to pay for their fix of cheap alcohol?

    The alternative to legalization of drugs is more law enforcement aimed at decreasing the supply of illegal drugs. This government action, if successful, has this consequence: by reducing the supply of drugs, it increases their price, thereby making it even more lucrative to deal in illegal drugs.

    Then there is the government’s war on poverty. The economist Walter Williams recently wrote this:

    Since President Johnson’s War on Poverty, controlling for inflation, the nation has spent $9 trillion on about 80 anti-poverty programs. To put that figure in perspective, last year’s U.S. GDP was $11 trillion; $9 trillion exceeds the GDP of any nation except the U.S. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita uncovered the result of the War on Poverty — dependency and self-destructive behavior.

    In the same article:

    There’s one segment of the black population that suffers only a 9.9 percent poverty rate, and only 13.7 percent of its under-5-year-olds are poor. There’s another segment that suffers a 39.5 percent poverty rate, and 58.1 percent of its under-5-year-olds are poor. Among whites, one segment suffers a 6 percent poverty rate, and only 9.9 percent of its under-5-year-olds are poor. The other segment suffers a 26.4 percent poverty rate, and 52 percent of its under-5-year-olds are poor. What do you think distinguishes the high and low poverty populations among blacks? … The only distinction between both the black and white populations is marriage — lower poverty in married-couple families.

    In 1960, only 28 percent of black females ages 15 to 44 were never married and illegitimacy among blacks was 22 percent. Today, the never-married rate is 56 percent and illegitimacy stands at 70 percent. If today’s black family structure were what it was in 1960, the overall black poverty rate would be in or near single digits. The weakening of the black family structure, and its devastating consequences, have nothing to do with the history of slavery or racial discrimination.

    Williams and Thomas Sowell, who have studied the issue extensively, conclude that it is government anti-poverty programs that are the cause of a permanent underclass. These programs should be canceled.

    We see that government — through its poor schools, the raising of barriers to employment through minimum wage laws, the prohibition of drugs, and the culture of dependency and family disintegration supported by welfare — has been a contributing factor, probably the most important factor, in the decline of this neighborhood. It is foolhardy to believe that more government programs can reverse the damage already done by past and present government programs. While I’m sure that the intent of the New Communities Initiative and its coordinating members is noble, the reality is that government intervention is dangerous to the future of Wichita and to this neighborhood.

  • Star Parker delivers message in Wichita

    In an energetic message delivered to an audience at Wichita State University this Monday, author and columnist Star Parker spoke about breaking the cycle of poverty and other issues facing our country.

    Early in her talk, Parker noted the irony of the welfare office in Washington (the Department of Health and Human Services) being located on Independence Avenue. The approaches that have been tried over the last 45 years to conquer poverty haven’t worked and have led to two generations of government dependence with disastrous consequences, she said.

    Speaking of her own experience being on welfare, the rules of welfare are “don’t work, don’t save, don’t get married.” These rules are designed to keep poor people on welfare, not allow them to break out of poverty. There’s something wrong with our society, she said, if we allow this to continue.

    She believed the lie that “I was poor because rich people are rich.”

    There used to be a healthy black community, but the war on poverty has been very harmful to family life. Fathers used to be in the black home. But the government moved in and began to bankrupt family life.

    At the time, Assistant Secretary of Labor Daniel Patrick Moynihan looked at the plans for Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and recognized that it will hurt black families more than help them, Parker said. Then, black out-of-wedlock births was one in four; today it is three in four. Even though there was poverty and racism, black family life was largely intact.

    The ideas of the conservative right work for all Americans, including poor people, she said. Traditional values, including the duty to be self-sufficient and responsible in the choice they make, are an important factor in getting out of poverty.

    Who is in poverty, Parker asked? 53% of the poor live in families with only one parent. We need to “mention marriage every now and then,” she said.

    Developing a work ethic is also important, she said. “Work is how you get out of poverty.” But there is a hostile environment in Washington and elsewhere that says the wealthy need to be penalized. That means they can’t produce as many jobs as they could.

    The welfare state and moral relativism has caused harm to all of America, she said. The black family was most vulnerable, so it was hurt first. Now the rate of births out marriage for Hispanics and whites is higher than it was for blacks was when the war on poverty started.

    Regarding education and school choice, Parker made the point that the rich — even the middle class — already have school choice. It’s poor people that benefit most from school choice programs across the country. She told of the Washington, DC scholarship voucher program, where 1,700 poor children each year were able to attend better schools. Parents desperate to get their children out of DC schools applied, 40,000 of them, so there had to be a lottery to decide who would get the scholarship.

    But President Barack Obama canceled this program.

    Social security is another government program that is harmful to the poor, Parker said. The little that they might be able to save gets sent to Washington for something they don’t own, they can’t transfer, and on which they get a horrible rate of return.

    In response to a question about the redistribution of wealth through the tax system to provide basic needs such as food and shelter, Parker said that the best approach is to create an environment where people can provide these things for themselves.

    Answering another question, Parker said it’s important for youth to hear all sides. Most curriculum, she said, is slanted towards the left.

    A question about race and racism brought out Parker’s observation that whenever the left is losing on an issue, such as health care, they bring up the issue of race. This is the case even when the people on both sides are black. There’s an industry that benefits from racism, but “most of the barriers of segregation have been removed,” she said. The number one crisis facing African-Americans today is not racism, but sexual immorality, she said.

    Regarding the murder of Wichita abortion provider Dr. George Tiller, she said that people should not take justice into their own hands. The debate is intense, and we need to “take it down a notch.” The death of Tiller was a horrible thing, and it is also horrible to glorify the man and the things he did, she said.

    Additional coverage of Parker’s visit is at Kansas Watchdog.

  • Author and columnist Star Parker to speak in Wichita

    An evening with Star Parker
    Sponsored by Johnny and Marjorie Stevens

    Lecture: “Breaking the Cycle of Poverty: From Entitlement to Empowerment”

    Monday, October 5th at 7:00 p.m., with a book signing following lecture.

    The location is the CAC Theatre at Wichita State University
    (click for a Google map of the location)

    This event is free and open to the public. It is presented by The African American Student Association, The Young Democratic Socialists, WSU College Republicans, and The Center for Student Leadership. This event is part of WSU’s Civic Engagement Lecture Series.

    Star Parker
    From Welfare to Warrior

    The story of Star Parker is a chronicle of how she left the seductive life of drugs, crime, abortions and welfare fraud to become a leading advocate for the family.

    Star Parker is the founder and president of CURE, the Coalition on Urban Renewal & Education, a 501c3 non-profit think tank that provides a national voice of reason on issues of race and poverty — in the media, inner city neighborhoods, and public policy.

    Star is a syndicated columnist for Scripps Howard News Service, offering weekly op-eds to more than 400 newspapers worldwide.

    As a social policy consultant, Star gives regular testimony before the United States Congress, and has appeared on major television and radio shows across the country. She is a regular commentator on C-Span, FOX News, and MSNBC. Star has debated Jesse Jackson on BET, fought for school choice on Larry King Live and defended welfare reform on the Oprah Winfrey Show.

    Star Parker’s personal transformation from welfare fraud to conservative crusader has been chronicled by ABC’s 20/20; Rush Limbaugh; Readers Digest; Dr. James Dobson; the Washington Times; Christianity Today; Charisma, and World Magazine. Articles and quotes by Star have appeared in major publications including the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. Recently she co-hosted an episode of The View with Barbara Walters.

    Her books include “Uncle Sam’s Plantation” (2003) and “White Ghetto” (2006). She works in Washington, DC, and resides in California.

    (Click here for a printable flyer announcing this Star Parker lecture.)

  • Kansas needs education for prosperity

    Mark Tallman, assistant executive director of the Kansas Association of School Boards (KASB), is arguing that spending on education is more important to a state than moderate tax rates. He makes this case in a recent Topeka Capital-Journal article Education a key to prosperity.

    As reported: “Tallman said action next year by Kansas lawmakers to cut spending rather than increase investment in education through tax hikes would weaken student instruction and damage prospects of long term growth in the economy.”

    There are several problems with Tallman’s reasoning. First, high-tax states are suffering compared to low-tax states. A recent report by the American Legislative Exchange Council reports on what’s happening to high-tax states. Citing California, the report states:

    Defenders of the high-tax and high-spending conditions that precipitated this fall into the economic cellar argue that big government policies and taxes on the wealthy are necessary to protect the poor and the disadvantaged. Yet when flight occurs away from an area, it is always the highest achievers and those with the most wealth, capital and entrepreneurial drive who tend to “get out of Dodge” first, leaving the middle class, and then eventually only the poor and disadvantaged behind. In fact, it is only those individuals with wealth who have the means and thus the ability to choose where they will reside. Consequently, the poor are left victims of the misguided liberal policies that were enacted to assist them.

    Tallman is one of these defenders of high taxes and high spending. As the Capital-Journal article reported: “Nationally, [Tallman] said, high income states were more likely to be high tax states — not the reverse.”

    The problem is that Tallman has the chain of events backwards. Wealthy states like New York were wealthy before they became high tax states. Now, as taxes rise in these states — and many of these are looking to raise taxes even more to combat budget deficits — the wealthy in these states are leaving, taking their tax payments with them.

    We must avoid this flight of wealth in Kansas. We should be enacting policies that will attract high-tax state refugees. But when they read special interest lobbyists like Tallman calling for higher taxes, well, it doesn’t do much to attract people and capital to Kansas.

    I might not be so harsh on Tallman’s advocacy if what he wants — dramatically increased spending on public schools in Kansas — was a worthwhile goal. But it’s becoming apparent that in Kansas, that after years of rapidly rising spending on schools, we have little to show for it. This is important to recognize, because one thing Tallman says is true: Education is vitally important.

    Yes, our education commissioner and many local school districts claim rising test scores. This is at the same time that Kansas scores on the federal tests are flat, or rising only slowly. See Are Kansas school test scores believable? for an explanation.

    If Mr. Tallman was truly concerned about the education of Kansas children rather than the special interests of the groups he lobbies for (the above-mentioned KASB and Kansas National Education Association or KNEA, the teachers union), he could do a few things that would absolutely make a difference.

    First: These rising test scores, are they real? If the KASB and KNEA would call for an independent audit or investigation of these tests, we could then have some confidence that the claimed rise in performance is valid.

    Then, he could realize that what would give vitality to education in Kansas is what’s working in other states: charter schools and other school choice programs. Tallman and his groups consistently and ferociously beat down any attempt to introduce these innovations in Kansas. Even President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan are promoting charter schools.

    Also, differential pay for teachers — another idea that Obama and Duncan promote — would accomplish several things, such as giving truly accomplished and effective teachers recognition for their achievements. It also would give credence to the idea that teachers are professionals, recognition that teachers ask for at the same time they are represented by a labor union that strips away the responsibilities that accompany professionalism.