Quantcast
MobileRJ | RSS TwitterTwitter FacebookFacebook E-mail Alerts
Home manage Las Vegas Review-Journal
  Jobs Cars Homes Shopping Travel Weddings Golf Best of Las Vegas Photo   Search:

RECENT EDITIONS
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

Opinion
Dec. 09, 2007
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

VIN SUPRYNOWICZ: What a return on our 'investment'!

VIN SUPRYNOWICZ
MORE COLUMNS

One of our local collectivists wrote in recently, claiming to have had "a rip-roaring good laugh over the comments" of a reader who "thinks that because parents chose to have children they should be responsible for paying for the education of their kids. ...

"What he needs to realize is that when he pays his share for education ... one of the children we are all educating might be the guy operating on us in 10 years, or the judge handing out a sentence to the guy who murdered your neighbor," asserts our cheerful would-be Young Pioneer.

Most Popular Stories
  • VIN SUPRYNOWICZ: What stops mass murderers? A gun
  • SHERMAN FREDERICK: Call evil by its rightful name
  • EDITORIAL: Terrorism on trial
  • EDITORIAL: A pre-9/11 approach to terror
  • LETTERS: Public-sector workers are still doing well
  • LETTERS: Harry Reid: Working hard for all Americans
  • EDITORIAL: They took our jobs!
  • EDITORIAL: 'That's the ticket!'
  • Our politicians are the greatest, all right
  • EDITORIAL: I believe in free speech, but ...




    • "Education has a trickle-down effect. Paying for a child's education now brings greater rewards for our society as a whole later. We can choose to educate them and give them a chance for a bright, productive future -- or we can use your tax dollars to build bigger prisons and more homeless shelters."

    Look at that word "choose." Kind of makes it sound like we're being encouraged to voluntarily "choose" to contribute to the scholarship fund for poor kids at the local academy, doesn't it?

    In fact, school taxes are no more voluntary than meeting a holdup man in a dark alley, and such "investment" rhetoric is completely bogus.

    There's no "return on investment" -- that doctor isn't going to send you a share of his earnings (or even give you free or reduced-price care) because you "contributed" to his education by paying your property taxes years ago, any more than a Russian doctor today feels obliged to pay back the neighbors who were forced to finance his care and feeding after Comrade Stalin shot his parents.

    That Russian doctor is now practicing in Miami, thank you very much, and quite rightly declares the "greater welfare of Soviet society" can go stuff itself. Russian collectivism meant medical students and their families didn't invest directly in their own educations, and weren't allowed to profit from their own educations, so the health care system worked about as well as our DMV. If you want to see the kind of wonderful care our current government schooling regime has in store for you in 40 years, go to Moscow, where male life expectancy is 59 and falling.

    Compared with the illiterate young thugs with whom the letter-writer threatens us if we don't pay up (and there doesn't seem to be a current shortage of recruits for such duty), Alexis de Tocqueville found ours to be the most literate working class in the world in 1831 -- and crime was so rare that an un-escorted woman could travel the length of the Mississippi without locking her stateroom door.

    Before we had these collectivist, compulsion schools.

    Care to try that now, after a century and a half of imposed pacifist enlightenment and busy kindling of the light of learning in the most profligate government youth camps in the history of the world?

    And why should this doctrine stop with schooling?

    Isn't it equally true that "feeding children has a trickle-down effect; paying for a child's food now brings greater rewards for our society as a whole later"? Why don't the collectivists require that I feed other people's children, too?

    Oh, wait, they do. I'm also made to fund "food stamps" and free hot breakfasts and lunches for school kids, too, whether I like it or not.

    But once the complete care of offspring becomes a collective responsibility, doesn't the Great Collective have a right to step in and limit costs by restricting families to one child apiece, requiring the abortion of any further children -- the same way it can ban helmet-less motorcycle riding because it costs "us" too much in hospital bills?

    Of course it can. The Chinese communists do this, already. Anyone who objects is just being "selfish and greedy."

    This returns us to our suggested experiment from last week.

    Let's poll a representative sampling of current high school upperclassmen or recent graduates, seeking to determine whether the government youth camps are surreptitiously propagandizing our kids on issues far afield from grammar and algebra:

    Ask our sample group whether marrying young -- at 19, say -- and starting a large family is a wise and admirable undertaking, or whether "teenage pregnancy is a dead-end behavior likely to trap you in permanent poverty" -- and please note the consistent absence of the important qualifier "unwed" before "teenage pregnancy."

    I'm not saying either answer is necessarily right for every young person. But as the fertility rate of Americans descended from persons who came here legally before the Second World War falls toward the replacement rate, this country faces a demographic and cultural shift reminiscent of that now confronting large sections of Western Europe, where reproduction rates below 2.1 among the older racial and cultural group facilitates a de facto takeover by immigrants of massively different race, language and culture -- a nonviolent version of the intended conquest which Charles Martel so famously halted at Tours in 732.

    (Whoops, delete that "nonviolent" part. As I write this, "disenfranchised" black and Muslim immigrant youth are burning libraries and day care centers -- noted wellsprings of racial oppression -- in the suburbs of Paris.)

    Because religions with substantial followings still advise their followers to "be fruitful and multiply," you'd expect the answer to our fertility question to be hotly debated. Instead, I suspect more than 90 percent of our test group will drone out the answer "dead-end behavior," almost as though it's memorized.

    How could this be, unless the schools have been actively propagandizing their charges on this issue?

    If foreign enemy agents were sneaking into America and poisoning our water supplies with sterilizing agents, we'd consider that important. So why shouldn't there be a wide-ranging public debate about any doctrines concerning marriage, reproduction and family size, taught surreptitiously to our young by government agents, that have the same long-term effect?

    The purpose of such surreptitious indoctrination of the young is to foreclose debate on these issues, with anyone who raises such questions being jeered as a racist, homophobe, child-hater or promoter of mass illiteracy before he or she can finish a sentence.

    But as Mark Twain warned us -- or was it Josh Billings? -- it's not the things we don't know that hurt us; it's the things we think we know that just ain't so.

    Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Review-Journal and author of the novel "The Black Arrow."

    Newsvine Digg Fark Technorati reddit StumbleUpon del.icio.us Slashdot Propeller Mixx Furl Twitter MySpace Facebook Google Bookmarks Yahoo! Bookmarks Windows Live Favorites Ask MyStuff myAOL Favorites

    Leave Your Comment 74 Reader Comments
    Terms & Conditions
    The following comments are provided by readers and are the sole responsiblity of the authors. The reviewjournal.com does not review comments before publication nor guarantee their accuracy. By publishing a comment here you agree to abide by the comment policy. If you see a comment that violates the policy, please notify the web editor.

    Some comments may not display immediately due to an automatic filter. These comments will be reviewed within 48 hours. Please do not submit a comment more than once.
    Current Word Count:

    Note: Comments made by reporters and editors of the Las Vegas Review-Journal are presented with a yellow background.

    David Tracy wrote on January 03, 2008 07:58 PM: Again, the author of the meta-analysis claims he's using more sophisticated synthesis methods that show this positive relation (supporting my position) is "large enough to be of practical importance." Got that, Ralph? "Large enough to be of practical importance." What part of "large enough to be of practical importance" don't you understand?

    Again, Ralph wrote: "There is plenty of statistically-rigorous study indicating high-dollar-per-kid does NOT translate into better-education-per-kid kid and you know it."

    To which I replied: "Actually I don't . . . " which is absolutely true. I do not. I'm not an educator. I never claimed there were no such studies. I said I didn't know of any.

    Boy, Ralph sure is confused.

    Again, the meta-analysis Ralph cites of many such studies supports my position.


    ralph wrote on December 19, 2007 07:34 AM: David, The study indeed does support there may be a correlation. However, it does not discount the *many* other reports other than to advise caution when using them.

    Again, the original point not even being related to that report itself but to prove WRONG your former (totally bs) posts claiming there were none!

    So let's start over David..

    There have been MANY MANY reports over the last decade (which also controlled for socioeconmic factors as you whined about) that support the premise "MO money don't equal MO better students"!!!! You know it and I know it. RIGHT


    David Tracy wrote on December 15, 2007 11:24 AM: Ralph wrote: "Also David, while this particular study regarding the amount of inputs--(money)- does not support either your point or mine . . . "

    Wrong. The study supported my point.


    alph wrote on December 15, 2007 09:33 AM: David..

    UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
    SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

    I'm sure YOU did not attend school there. However, if you want other references, I suggest you quote your alma mater.


    ralph wrote on December 15, 2007 09:20 AM: DAVID... to repeat. I KNEW the study supported your position more than mine, or at best supported neither. If you had actually READ my post instead of just assuming you have all the answers.. I'm sure you would have seen that.

    I'm also amazed at your "straw man" theory, again filled with plenty of pious assumptions, that at the same time allows your bloated intellect to question my source without even looking it up for your lazy self, or at least asking. You're still a tool.


    Ralp;h wrote on December 15, 2007 09:09 AM: David. Please note that the intention most recent post, which I thought obvious... was not to "prove" anything other than my earlier "there are plenty of studies out there and you know it"...statement, (which you so roundly dismissed as bs), was indeed FACT.

    The article I posted, as I stated, did not necessarily, in a conclusive way, support either argument relative to schools and money.

    However, if you read the post, it CLEARLY states that there were plenty of studies conducted in the last decade, which supported "mo money don't equal better students".. which is exactly as I said. Since you piously question the source, FYI, it was the University of Chicago School of Economics. I doubt even your snooty butt could diss that joint as "not smart enough" for your approval.

    In addition, any of Rupert Murdochs creations are not my source of information. Your veiled reference to the bible thumpers is also erroneous. I'm an athiest.

    To conclude. My original comment (in essence) that there are plenty of studies out there that conclude "more money does not equal better students." STANDS. Your bs however, is just that.. bs.


    Bill Smith wrote on December 15, 2007 09:03 AM: Why do you support theft David Tracy?


    David Tracy wrote on December 14, 2007 09:09 PM: Ralph: I don't know the author of the study you cite, the professional / academic journal in which the study was published (if it was accepted and published at all) or the rigorous-ness of peer-review for the journal in which it was published.

    But I do know the author of the purported study supports my point: positive money spent on education yields positive outcomes--until the law of diminishing returns kicks in. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diminishing_returns }

    Mutineer: the ultra-right loves to frame California's problems as too much tax and regulation. So did Arnold, until he actually had to lead. Listen carefully.

    California has sucked on the teat of MEGA military largesse beginning from WW-II up through the Cold War. The liberal Bay Area had so many military bases, while the entire State was FULL of industry involved in supporting the military. Mega, mega, mega bucks. Ronald Reagan, another worthless actor ( http://www.geocities.com/thereaganyears/index.htm } was riding high in the Hollywood and gubernatorial saddle. Did I mention mega bucks? MEGA, MEGA, MEGA bucks?

    Then, the Cold War ended. The public largesse faded.

    People, a lot of people, still want to live in CA. They keep coming in. The infrastructure created by the *CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY* and *UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA* continues to attract people who can actually think. Industry (sans gaming) needs that.

    Without going back to the Gold Rush, California was built on the Cold War.

    Problem now: Few new brains coming in to pay big taxes to keep the system afloat--more moving out than moving in. New foreign immigrants LOVE California.


    David Tracy wrote on December 14, 2007 05:58 PM: ". . . This study ["Does Money Matter"] . . . shows systematic positive relations between resource inputs and school outcomes . . ." Positive relation means more bucks in (inputs) produces better results out (outcomes). He didn't say the relation was "negative," he didn't say "neutral," and he didn't say "inconclusive." Nope. He said "positive."

    Clearly, this study DOES support my point, according to the author. Thank you.

    He claims he's using more sophisticated synthesis methods that show this positive relation is "large enough to be of practical importance."

    But don't worry, because of the limitations of the data set I promise not to use it "for policy formation."


    ralph wrote on December 14, 2007 11:45 AM: Also David, while this particular study regarding the amount of "inputs"--(money)- does not support either your point or mine, please read the part below regarding the MANY studies conducted that support NO correlation between "inputs" and "outcomes". In other words David, there is plenty of research out there that suggests there is no correlation between money thrown at public schooling and the production of better educated children.

    An Exchange: Part I*: Does Money Matter? A Meta-Analysis of Studies of the Effects of Differential School Inputs on Student Outcomes

    Rob Greenwald

    Searle Fellow, specializing in school finance litigation at the University of Chicago


    Research on educational production functions attempts to model the relation between resource inputs and school outcomes such as educational achievement. Over the last decade a series of influential reviews of this literature have suggested that there is no systematic relation between resource inputs and school outcomes when controlling for student characteristics such as socioeconomic status. The inference procedure used in these reviews, vote counting, is known to be problematic. This study is a reanalysis of data from these earlier reviews, using more sophisticated synthesis methods. It shows systematic positive relations between resource inputs and school outcomes. Moreover, analyses of the magnitude of these relations suggest that the median relation (regression coefficient) is large enough to be of practical importance.While this reanalysis suggests that previous data do not support the conclusions that Hanushek and others derived from it, limitations of their data set warrant caution in using it for policy formation.




    Read All Comments