Civitas ReviewThe Blog of the Civitas Institute

Feb

05

---

Tweet Share Email

Does school choice work?  If you ask researchers Patrick Wolf and Michael McShane the answer is a resounding yes.  Last week Wolf and McShane released the stunning results of their cost-benefit analysis of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program.

The researchers found that for every dollar spent on the Opportunity Scholarship Program, the program produced $2.62 in benefits.  That’s a return on public investment of 162 percent.  Yes, I said 162 percent!

The study is based on results of the official U.S. Department of Education evaluation of the D. C. Opportunity Scholarship Program.  The study was published in the peer-reviewed journal, Education Finance and Policy.

Feb

05

---

Tweet Share Email

A UNC-Chapel Hill professor has a rant in the N&O today. Her point, such as it was: Pat McCrory’s comments on the absurdity of North Carolina taxpayers’ shelling out their money so UNC students can get degrees that will do little to get them jobs.

The writer, Michele Rivkin-Fish, is an associate professor of anthopology. She says that McCrory’s common-sense comment is like the Soviet Union’s monopoly on education. It’s that kind of bizarre thinking that makes people outside of the campus conclude that today’s liberals arts studies are not only useless in the marketplace, but in fact actually harm students’ ability to think logically.

The liberal arts of course can enrich lives — but only if they actually do encourage students to learn to think and to study history, the arts and other subjects that can broaden their minds and souls. Sadly, too often modern liberal arts studies consist rather of indoctrination that cramps minds rather than broadens them, and too often these academic departments obsess over the cant and jargon of the left rather than the monuments of thought and culture.

For of course, McCrory was suggesting that if someone wants to study any of the liberal arts, hey, go ahead — on your own dime. Just don’t ask the taxpayers to pay for you to spend four years of your life, just so you can work at a job you could have gotten out of high school. That’s what freedom really is: You’re free to pursue your dream. Just don’t ask us to subsidize it if we can’t see how it benefits us.

There is still a scandal simmering over possible easy or nonexistent classes in one department at UNC. Here’s the real scandal: Universities that encourage students to spend four years for a degree that won’t help them get good jobs. Here’s what the McCrory and the legislature could do: order state universities to track what percentage of graduates get jobs that require a college degree. Law schools are already doing so. It would be enlightening to see how many gender studies, English or communications majors get started in good careers, and how many are working at coffee shops, clothing stores and so forth.

Oh, and as for letting students choose: We should eagerly await for a diatribe from the UNC campus about how elementary and high school students should be free to choose whichever school and course of study they desire.

Feb

01

---

Tweet Share Email

The Republican budget will result in the loss of thousands of education positions. Remember that  oft-repeated claim?  Some critics put the job losses at  10,000 or more. Were the doomsdayer’s right?

This morning the Department of Public Instruction posted public school personnel statistics for 2012 -13 to its web site.  The data is on full-time personnel and is collected annually.  It does not include charter schools. Still it allows us to assess year-to-year personnel changes.

What do we learn?

All Positions: + 1, 519. The actual number of full-time positions in North Carolina public schools actually increased, up from 175,630 in 2011-12 to 177,149 in 2012-13

Teachers: +1,182.  The number of teachers actually increased by from 93,964 to 95,146, including an increase of 1,075 state-funded teacher jobs.

Administrators: +190.  Over 190 new administrators were hired; the state hired 209 new administrators, in part to make up for the loss of 132 administrators jobs funded by the feds.

Professionals: + 495.  Nearly 500 new professional (guidance counselors, psychologists, consultants etc..) positions were added;  including 544 new state-funded positions.  There was also a decline of 107 federally-funded professional jobs.

 Other Jobs: -348.  Non-certified positions (i.e. teacher assistant, technicians, clerical staff etc…) declined by a net 348 positions. Interestingly, the number of state funded “other” positions actually increased by 1,360.  The number of local funded “other personnel increased also increased by 760. No doubt the additions at the state and local level were to offset the elimination of almost 2,500 federally-funded jobs in these categories.

Next time, be careful who you listen to.

13

Feb

01

---

Tweet Share Email

We are all familiar with William Barber’s frequent attacks on anyone who supports voter ID. WRAL reported on Freshman Representative Michael Speciale’s, R-3, letter responding to one of Barber’s hate filled emails to legislators.

I really have nothing to add to Speciale’s letter (see below) because he says it all.

From: Rep. Michael Speciale <Michael.Speciale@ncleg.net>
Date: Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 4:39 PM
Subject: RE: NC NAACP Statement as Read at Morning News Conference on Voter Suppression
To: “northcarolinanaacp@gmail.com” <northcarolinanaacp@gmail.com>

Dr. Barber,

This is as insulting a diatribe as I have seen in years. The NAACP has a proud history of working on behalf of black Americans to address the problems of society directed at them. You tarnish that with your racist diatribes and your race-baiting attitude. The photo requirement to vote is to prove that one is who they say they are. Nowhere in anyone’s minds but yours and your fellow race-opportunists is race, ethnic background, or color of one’s skin mentioned, insinuated or inferred regarding the proposed voter ID laws.

You do minorities and the elderly a disservice when you assume that they are incapable or incompetent to the point that they cannot provide a photo ID to vote. Photo ID’s are required in nearly every aspect of American life, and most Americans over the age of 16 have some form of photo ID. Your talking points make no sense, as you ramble on with Constitutional phrases to give an impression that you know what you are talking about, and it is apparent that you are grasping at straws. Your attempts to make minorities and the elderly believe that they are victims in this effort is contrary to common sense but apparently necessary to your economic survival

Your comments, both today and in the past are racist and inappropriate, therefore, I request that you remove me from your email list.
Michael Speciale

Jan

31

---

Tweet Share Email

Basic principles. So says former Alabama Congressman Artur Davis.  See what Davis means and view the compelling presentation he made on school choice at the Heritage Foundation.