More on Bad Education Benchmarks

I heard the saddest story last night. My husband was talking with an old family friend who has been a middle school librarian for ~30 years. She told him that her job has recently become boring, because many of the teachers in her school have stopped doing research projects with the kids because they are so focused on the scores on the standardized reading tests. So the students don't come to the library anymore, and they don't learn how to do research (other than using Google) or write a report.

This tactic pays off - the bored librarian works in one of the only middle schools in the county that didn't "fail" adequate yearly progress this past year. But then, it also has one of the lowest immigrant populations in the county too, so they had an advantage to start with.

Yet this county is considered to have the finest schools in the state, and parents stretch their budgets beyond the limit to pay the mortgages that get their children into these schools, which have long produced very high rates of college attendance, high SAT scores, tons of honors and AP courses, etc. But now, just in the last year or two, they've stopped teaching middle school students how to research and write papers so they can make sure even the slowest, least interested students will pass the standardized exams. Guess what that is likely to do to the SAT scores and college success of county graduates in a few years?

I'm going to have to differ with Huckabee a little bit here. He says the states should set the testing benchmarks, but the more I think about it, the more I question the utility of standardized testing for accountability. Saying that standardized tests are needed to keep educators accountable is a lot like saying standardized restaurant reviews are needed to keep restaurants accountable. True, the health inspector should ensure the food is safe, and restaurant reviews can help people pick a new one to try, but primarily the public holds them accountable by voting with their feet. Maybe the bureaucrats decide the quality of a steak is an important benchmark for a restaurant and a reviewer pans the steak at a particular establishment, but what about people who prefer salad and find their salads to be great? Should the government (whether federal, state or even local) be "failing" restaurants on the basis of non-hygiene criteria set by bureaucrats? Likewise, should the government be "failing" educators who teach students how to write a really good essay without making sure they can define the word "gerund"? Or educators that spend a lot of time making sure students understand and can use the scientific method but their students haven't memorized many random science facts they'll never need to know again?

If you want accountability, make the schools accountable to parents by giving them choices. I agree with Huckabee that private school vouchers may not be the best way to do this. Public school choice plus private school tax credits are much better, because then parents and the public get to choose whether public schools or private schools (or both) are more worthy of educational spending.

Reflections on the Health Care Quagmire

Yesterday, Dr. Scott B. Rae (a PhD in philosophy/ethics, not an MD) gave a very insightful and thought-provoking talk on health care as part of the Faith & Law lecture series (despite the name, most attendees at these great weekly lectures are Hill staff and agency staff, not necessarily lawyers). He did not offer any easy answers or talk about any Presidential candidates, but what he said underscores a lot of Huckabee's health care points.

Main theme of Dr. Rae: we want 4 things out of health care, but unfortunately it is impossible to achieve all at once: 1) high quality and innovation, 2) universal access, 3) choice of doctors and treatments, and 4) low cost. [(1) and (2) obviously work against (4). The choice factor works in favor of low cost only if individuals are personally responsible for paying for their choices, otherwise it will also work against low cost.] Because they can't all be maximized simultaneously, we have to rank them in importance. It is best if public policy enables people to rank these things for themselves, instead of having the same ranking forced on all of society.

Now for the "ah ha" moments of Dr. Rae's lecture, which really jive with Huckabee's positions:

Insightful point #1: We should stop talking about universal insurance as the goal. The real goal is access to care, which is not the same thing as insurance. A lot of people with insurance can't get the care they need and a lot of people without insurance do get care at other people's expense.

Insightful point #2: If there is a human "right" to health care, it must be understood as a right only to a minimal level of health care, not all the health care you want. As with other essential needs such as food and shelter, society (via some combination of government and charity) should guarantee a certain floor amount for everyone. Food stamps and soup kitchens are good - a just society needn't make sure everyone can eat steak or live in a McMansion. Same thing should go for health care. Health care above the floor is a consumer choice you should have to pay for yourself.

Insightful point #3: As Huckabee says, we don't spend enough on preventative care and way too much on catastrophic care. Huckabee also notes that reforming medical liability is an important way to reduce cost. Dr. Rae's lecture made me realize for the first time that reforming medical liability is absolutely essential to shifting health care dollars to preventative care. Here's why medical liability reform is a huge twofer:

• People consume more health care dollars in the last 12 months of their lives than the rest of the lives combined. Much these dollars don't come from their own pockets, though. They come from insurance (passing on costs to other insurance holders) or they are debts to hospitals and doctors that are never paid (so hospitals and doctors raise rates on routine procedures to make up for all the money they're losing on bad debts).
• A lot of this end-of-life spending is for futile treatments - things that will not cure a person. (Includes expensive treatments that only slightly extend lifespan, and treatments meant to cure that are administered after it is too late that actually can accelerate death.) Doctors very frequently give dying people futile treatments because of medical liability. If they refuse the treatment and the person dies (as they almost certainly will), the family may bring a wrongful death suit against the doctor. One doctor even admitted to Dr. Rae: "if you told me to stop treatment and your family wanted me to keep going, I would keep treating you even though you didn't want it, because you're going to be dead soon but your family will still be alive to sue me."
• Doctors are afraid of simply being sued even if there is very little chance they will be found liable for anything. Many insurance companies will raise their rates so much it puts a doctor out of business if the doctor is merely named in a suit, even if the doctor wins. Medical liability reforms won't work unless they address this factor.

Dr. Rae didn't say how to solve the last problem, and admittedly I don't think Huckabee has yet either. As a lawyer who has done some work in the health insurance field (not for the insurance companies), here are my two cents:

1¢: Government can and should mandate that insurance companies can't raise rates on doctors who are sued but found not liable.

2¢: Medical malpractice and medical wrongful death suits should be required to go to special courts or arbitration boards that specialize in medical issues. Ordinary jurors cannot understand whether a doctor acted reasonably or the science of medical causation. They understand is that someone is dead and their family is grieved, and plaintiffs' attorneys love to perpetuate class warfare against "highly paid" doctors (exhibit #1 John Edwards), seriously undermining the fairness of these cases.

It's the Economy Too, Stupid

I was underwhelmed by the debates last night. The only memorable moment was the Huckabee - Ron Paul dust-up, where Huckabee concluded that honor in doing the right thing in Iraq is more important than the Republican Party. And how! This is exactly why Huckabee should be the man running against Hillary in the general election, but unfortunately also why he has a hard time raising the dough and exposure to get the Republican nomination.

I think the main reason the debates were so lackluster is because the questions were designed to highlight candidate positions that we already know about. And apart from the Libertarian Party candidate crashing the event, the answers elicited were mostly remarkable in their lack of differences.

A near-total focus on national security issues is the culprit here. The debate mostly covered immigration and Iraq/Iran, and all the candidates are trying to appear strongest on the same basic positions: defend our borders and we have to finish the job in Iraq to avoid genocide. A few "family values" questions were tossed in, but only to one or two candidates each.

Notably absent: any questions about domestic policy issues such as healthcare, education and the economy. Huckabee pointed this out in his after-debate interview with Hannity & Colmes. Five debates without a single question about education?!?

The housing market, the key repository of middle class wealth, is an absolute mess right now. Homeowners are panicking over falling prices and dried-up demand. Non-homeowners are praying for the prices to fall because housing prices have more than doubled since 1999, while real median income still hasn't recovered to its 1999 level, pricing most people out of buying a first home. The credit crunch and shaky home prices dampen spending and growth in many other sectors as well. This isn't worth discussing?

The percentage of people who lack access to health care continues to grow, even while total domestic spending on health also continues to far outpace inflation. Medicare entitlements are a looming disaster. And real wages for full-time work are falling, so that middle class families can only keep up by working more and spending time with family less. None of this is worth discussing?

Though I can't say I have any data to back this up, I think a lot of Americans who say they want us out of Iraq in polls are simply sick of hearing about Iraq all the time. They want the President to start focusing on the domestic issues that directly impact them and their children, and they would tolerate a longer stay to keep the peace if they don't feel neglected at home. President Bush isn't doing that, and neither are Giuliani, Romney or McCain. I like Mike because he addresses these domestic issues with good ideas whenever he gets a chance. Too bad the moderators last night didn't give him one.

More K Street for Main Street Not Buying Fred

This just in on NRO's Campaign Spot: rumors that the Arlington Group is turning against Fred Thompson and toward Mike Huckabee.

The Arlington Group, for those outside the Beltway, is a one-stop-shop for mobilizing Christian/conservative grassroots organizations for action on Capitol Hill. I've worked with some of their lobbyists - truly the "good guys" of K Street.

Update: Another unnamed individual reinforcing the bad self-fulfilling prophecy. I'm sick of seeing good people led by the nose by conventional wisdom. The Mary Matalin machine has such great judgment that we lay people must all follow her lead? Uh, who is her husband again?

Back to School Day

NRO's Campaign Spot has taken notice of K Street Mole and acknowledged that a workplace smoking ban is consistently pro-life, but then suggests that Huckabee's priorities are misplaced, citing a litany of challenges our nation faces right now. Hold it right there. Huckabee was asked whether he would sign nationwide ban on workplace smoking into law if Congress sent one across his desk. This is hardly a pillar of his platform. You will search in vain for any mention of smoking policy in Huckabee's priorities for health care reform.

So let's move on to one of the serious issues Geraghty mentioned: "few feel like our schools are preparing our young people to work in an era of globalization." Perfect issue to address on the first day of school for many students and teachers, including my husband.

Mike Huckabee has more to say about education than any of the other leading candidates.

• Kudos to Giuliani for supporting school choice, but knowing the nation isn't ready for that yet, what can the President do in the near term? (And note to Giuliani and Romney - please put your policies in writing, not just video. I can't even access the longer explanation of Giuliani's education platform because the video feed isn't working.)
  
• Fred Thompson only says the federal government intervenes in state education policymaking too much. Fine, Huckabee agrees. But Thompson says "it is appropriate for the federal government to provide funding and set goals for the state to meet in exchange for that funding" but says nothing about what those goals should be. A key point that needs to be addressed.
  
• Mitt Romney also gets kudos for mentioning school choice and English-only classrooms, but a big jeer for saying anyone in the top quarter of their high school class should get a free ride for state university - a massive tax dollar giveaway. He also supports the testing requirements of No Child Left Behind without addressing any of the problems.
  
• John McCain doesn't even mention education on his issues list. (Honestly, why am I even mentioning this guy?)

Let's talk about what's wrong with No Child Left Behind. Not just the funding issues that Democrats harp on. The testing regime itself is terribly flawed because (1) it is myopically focused on certain subjects, causing education in other important subjects to be neglected, and (2) it sets up the impossible target that 100% of students will be proficient in these subjects by 2014.

Working backwards: 100% proficient? Anyone who has ever taught at the pre-college level knows this is impossible. You can lead students to water but you can't make them drink. There will always be some students who simply don't care and won't do any work, no matter how easy the teacher makes the subject or how much he or she tries to motivate them. The only way you get these students to pass a standardized exam is to take it for them. (The extreme focus on passage rates for end-of-year exams also strips teachers of time for creativity, part of the reason it is so hard to motivate the students.) And while teachers do cartwheels to try to prod and push recalcitrant learners into minimal proficiency, all the kids who really do want to learn get - you guessed it - left behind (in the sense that they get little attention and don't reach their potential).

Moreover, NCLB labels a school system as "failing" even if test scores are increasing overall, if some demographic groups do not improve as much as others. You end up with ridiculous results, like high schools listed among Newsweek's 100 best schools in the nation (on the basis of proportion of students taking AP and IB courses) that fail to make "adequate yearly progress" under NCLB. Talk about an incentive to hold back the bright students!

As for the myopic focus on reading and math: yes, reading is fundamental to everything else. But with so much pressure on grade schools to achieve universal proficiency in just these two subjects, other subjects are being jettisoned. My husband, who went to public school not so terribly long ago in the same system where he now teaches science, finds that students are now less prepared for high school science, and concern over passage rates for statewide tests (implemented after he graduated) has led some area high schools to drop their science fairs so they have more time to drill the standardized curriculum. In the NCLB era students are also spending less time learning about our government, an essential element of becoming a good citizen. And as Huckabee points out, many students are losing education in the creative subjects altogether.

Our students are learning how to take tests, but that is not a fundamental skill for competing in the global economy. Too many students are coming out of high school and college now with no ability to think, to communicate clearly, or to be creative. Huckabee understands the real reason we're falling behind other first world countries (where, incidentally, secondary students score higher on standardized tests because the students with less academic aptitude have already been culled out of the testing pool and placed in vocational education that can actually interest and benefit them, not because these countries are better at creating Lake Woebegone): "Our future economy depends on a creative generation," he says. NCLB needs a radical overhaul. "While there is value in the 'No Child Left Behind' law's effort to set high national standards, states must be allowed to develop their own benchmarks," Huckabee notes, unlike the other Republican front-runners who don't seem to see any problem with the current federal benchmarks.

Self-fulfilling Mistake?

I had a very interesting exchange today with an old friend, who I thought might be persuadable to join the Huckabee team. (Big Buchanan fan in 2000 when he was director of a non-profit; now a mole on Wall Street so he can provide for his 9 children.) Here in slightly abbreviated form for your illumination:

Wall Street Mole (in response to K Street Mole's expression of skepticism about Fred Thompson's campaign):

I'm aware of his reputation [as a "junkyard dog"], and sure it is well-earned. Hard to tell how it will play with soccer moms and core Republican women voters, and there's a minefield of Gennifer Flowers's out there ready to blow up. The abortion lobbying business is troubling, I grant you, but his voting record otherwise is solid on the issue, and he's attracted the support of solid conservatives.

FT is far from perfect and no Reagan, but I think it's too far to go and too long odds for Huckabee or Brownback, this time at least. If I'm right, the next question becomes which candidate who espouses conservative views is most likely to gain momentum and stop Hillary next November?

K Street Mole:

Here's my question: why has FT attracted the support of so many conservatives? As far as I can tell, it is because:
1. His votes in the Senate were reliably conservative.
2. He does not espouse socially liberal views (Giuliani).
3. He is not anti-first-amendment, pro-illegal-immigration (McCain), or Mormon (Romney).
4. He has been on a TV show, so people recognize his face.

Numbers 1-3 explain why conservatives are willing to vote for him, despite the bimbo erruptions to come. Number 3 explains why he wouldn't completely bomb in a general election. But only #4 is a positive factor suggesting he could capture swing voters in the general election. I think that's a pretty weak positive, and could backfire because people might not take an actor seriously. I have strong doubts that face recognition will trump distaste over his personal life. Particularly because liberals willing to overlook his personal life will not be attracted by 1/2.

So what is there in FT to attract the type of people who voted for Bill Clinton despite his indiscretions? Nothing, I would say. Can you think of any reason he is likely to gain momentum among independents and beat Hillary? I'd be willing to get on board the train if someone could answer me that.

I think Huckabee has something positive to offer swing voters, which is fresh perspective on domestic issues people really care about. So what if those swing voters never saw him before he got the Republican nomination? Simply by virtue of being the candidate he would get tons of media exposure to overcome that issue. And he is already getting attention from the MSM because the interesting dark horse angle, and the attraction of the populist elements of his campaign rhetoric. Earned media is worth more than grainy attack ads that the big donors pay for.

Wall Street Mole was essentially rendered speechless by this. His response:

I would be thrilled to see Huckabee take off, btw. Just don't see it happening. I know that people like me saying that is self-fulfilling, but I'm out of the mix these days, watching from the electronic wings. If Thompson impresses from the hustings, he has a shot. Most people vote on image, and he's got a leg up.

Yes, my Wall Street friend, people like us saying that Huckabee has no chance and Thompson is the one with "image" IS self-fulfilling. The key word in the next sentence is IF. IF Thompson impresses swing voters he has a shot. But Wall Street Mole can't tell me - and no one can - what evidence there is that Thompson will impress swing voters. As far as I can tell, the only reason he has traction with conservatives is because he's getting attention from the likes of Sean Hannity and National Review. That won't sway the Reagan Democrat in Ohio whose employer went bankrupt last year. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised next week, but I am terribly afraid the conservative opinion leaders have hitched their wagon to the wrong horse.

The only way to turn around a bad self-fulfilling prophecy is to stop repeating it and start acting to reverse it.

Pro-Life Means Pro-LIFE

Are "pro-life" and "anti-abortion" precisely synonyms, only different in revealing the bias of the speaker? Or does pro-life really mean something more than anti-abortion?

Anti-abortion means you believe that abortion is killing a human person with a right to life, and therefore abortion should never or very rarely be legal.

Pro-life means you believe the same thing as someone who is anti-abortion. But it can mean so much more:

- Pro-life means you support the local crisis pregnancy centers and maternity homes that help women in desperate situations give life to their babies. It's more than a bumper sticker - it is time or money shared to give life to individual persons in need.

- Pro-life means you don't support the death penalty whenever there is any reasonable doubt that the person is guilty of pre-meditated murder. (Yes, I know a jury already decided the person was guilty beyond reasonable doubt. But can you really expect a dozen people with no knowledge of legal standards or scientific/evidentiary methods of proof to decide to acquit an accused when loved ones of the victim are clearly grieved before them, on the basis of "reasonable doubt"?)

- Pro-life means society gives people the means to be healthy and stay alive. Stay-at-home parents and people too sick to work need access to healing professionals just as much as employees, children and seniors. (The best way to do this is highly debatable by people of goodwill, but a pro-life person agrees this should be the goal.)

- Pro-life means you don't believe you are entitled to carry on activities that endanger the lives of others. You are not entitled to blow carcinogenic smoke into other people's lungs, you are not entitled to sell food or products that carry health risks without at least informing customers about the hazardous contents, and you are not entitled to drunk or reckless driving.

Some Republicans may bristle at some of these aspects of being pro-life. Particularly the last one -- according to some, this is supporting a "nanny state." No. A nanny state tells you that you can't eat Doritos or smoke in your own house. A pro-life state says that Frito Lay has to tell you what is in those Doritos and says you can't smoke in public places where other people have to breathe your exhaust fumes. A nanny state pays for your condoms and Cialis. A pro-life state tells insurance companies they can't refuse to give ongoing necessary treatment to people with chronic conditions like multiple sclerosis or Lyme Disease.

Huckabee is not just anti-abortion. He is pro-LIFE. That's why I think he deserves the votes of all pro-life citizens, regardless of party affiliation. Let libertarians sulk about smoking bans - if you are a pro-family traditionalist, a social-justice Christian, or anyone else who believes that the number one duty of government is protecting our right to life, Huckabee is your man.