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Opinion
Reece Terry, publisher
Mark Boehler, editor
4 • Saturday, April 5, 2014
Corinth, Miss.
The ABCs of school choice When people speak of a legacy, they usually mean something other than what the late economist Milton Friedman and his wife, Rose, left behind, namely the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice (edchoice.org). The foundation has just released a small book entitled “The ABC’s of School Choice: The comprehensive guide to every private school choice program in America.” The Friedman philosophy can be summed up in two sentences, which are posted on their web page: “School choice gives parents the freedom to choose their children’s education, while encouraging healthy competition among schools to better serve families’ needs. School choice lets parents use the public funds set aside for their children’s education to choose the schools -- public or private, near or far, religious or secular -- that work best for them.” Choice, competition and what works best for them, not what works for unions and school administrators. Choice and competition work in business, politics and virtually every other area of life, but not in the monopolistic public education monstrosity where the lack of same limit educational achievement for many and often rob children of a brighter future. One other benefit to school choice was mentioned in a column written by Dr. Friedman on Sept. 28, 2000, for The Wall Street Journal. About school voucher programs, Dr. Friedman said: “They also demonstrate the inefficiency of government schools by providing a superior education at less than half the per pupil cost.” Dr. Friedman has noted that public education remains based on a 19th-century model with children from different backgrounds brought together into a single melting pot. That doesn’t work in the 21st century. In The Wall Street Journal column, Dr. Friedman wrote, “Free market competition can do for education what it has already done for other areas, such as agriculture, transportation, power, communication and most recently, computers and the Internet. Only a truly competitive educational industry can empower the ultimate consumers of educational services -parents and their children.” The only counter arguments to this are based on everything besides what benefits the children. In the “ABC’s of School Choice” is listed the state of education choice from Alabama to Wisconsin. It’s a mixed bag with some states offering vouchers and others alternatives such as Education Savings Accounts, tax-credit scholarships and individual tax credits/deductions. These would be used at a parent’s discretion for private schools -- secular or religious, charter public schools, homeschooling, or online learning. While Dr. Friedman acknowledged that school choice would benefit poor and minority students, he maintained that all boats would be raised because competition would force every school to compete for “customers.” When businesses compete for customers the quality of their products must improve in order for them to stay in business. Various studies have shown there is little difference so far between public and alternative schools when it comes to test scores, but these studies acknowledge that testing alone is not the only standard by which education success can be measured. According to a 2006 report by the Public Policy Institute of California, which studied the San Diego Unified School District, “Black students were twice as likely as others to apply for an alternative school under one of four programs. And test scores were not the primary factor in influencing the decision to try an alternative school. Overall, the choice programs in San Diego are increasing the integration of whites and nonwhites, and decreasing very mildly the integration of students with low and high test scores.” Minority parents have shown strong interest in transferring their children from failing public schools into schools that are safer and the academics stronger. Parents want choice, students want choice. Only the unions and certain politicians stand in their way. Cal Thomas’ latest book is “What Works: Common Sense Solutions for a Stronger America” is available in bookstores now. Readers may email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribune.com.
Prayer for today Lord forbid that I should fear to change for the better or be so pleased with myself and the things which surround me that I feel no need for a higher life. Make me dissatisfied if I am not trying to grow in truth and to live in noble deeds. Amen.
A verse to share “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” -- John 14:2
The path of least resistance When Alexis de Tocqueville visited America in 1830, he was struck by how many Americans were participating in voluntary associations. It was quite a contrast with his native France, where power was centralized in Paris and people did not trust each other enough to join in voluntary groups. Tocqueville might have a different impression should he, utilizing time travel, visit the America of 2030. Or so I conclude on reading the recently released Pew Research Center report on the attitudes and behavior of America’s Millennial generation. By then the Millennials, people born after 1980, will be closing in on age 50 and will be the dominant segment of the working-age population. Today the Millennials, write the Pew analysts, are “relatively unattached to organized politics and religion,” and significantly more unattached than the age cohorts -- Generation Xers, Baby Boomers, Silent Generation -- that came before. Politically 50 percent of Milennials classify themselves as Independents rather than Democrats or
Michael Barone Columnist
Republicans, compared to about 36 percent of their elders, and less than one-third of Millennials see a great deal of difference between the political
parties. On religion most Millennials say they believe in God, but it’s a smaller majority than among older age groups, and only 36 percent say they see themselves as “a religious person,” versus nearly 60 percent of their elders. Some 29 percent of Millennials are religiously unaffiliated, a percentage that has been rising in recent years. They’re evidently moving away from their parents’ religion but not toward one of their own. One reason may be that people tend to join churches when they marry and have children -- and Millennials, so far, aren’t doing much of either. Only 26 percent of Millennials age 18 to 32 are married, far lower than other generations were at their age (Xers 36 percent, Boomers 48 percent, Si-
lents 65 percent). Millennials aren’t entirely rejecting parenthood, but 47 percent of births to Millennial women are outside of marriage. Even so, about 60 percent of Millennials, like their elders, say that having more children raised by a single parent is bad for society. Unlike Tocqueville’s Americans, and unlike the generations just before them, Millennials seem to be avoiding marriage, church and political affiliation, and to lack a sense of social trust. Only 19 percent say that generally speaking most people can be trusted, compared to 31 to 40 percent among older generations. So whom do Millennials trust? Their friends, those they are connected to in digital social networks. Some 81 percent of Millennials are on Facebook, with a median 250 friend count, and 55 percent have shared a selfie. The picture we get from the Pew numbers is of a largely disconnected generation, in touch with selfselected peers and distrustful of others. They are more likely to be college-educated but also to be hobbled by
college loan debt. They’re not doing as well economically as their elders were at their age, but they’re eerily optimistic about their economic future (only 14 percent think they won’t earn enough to lead the life they want). A Tocqueville arriving in 2030 will see whether these optimistic expectations are met, and whether the MIllennials’ connections to marriage and parenthood, religion and political party were just delayed or never widely established. He will see whether the absence of a universal popular culture, aimed at everyone, like America had from the 1920s to the 1980s, has caused atrophying social disconnectedness and trust, or whether the Millennials have managed somehow to turn current trends around. Good luck. Michael Barone, senior political analyst at the Washington Examiner, (www.washingtonexaminer.com), where this article first appeared, is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Fox News Channel contributor and a co-author of The Almanac of American Politics.
Tax incentives raise questions BY WYATT EMMERICH The Northside-Sun
Speaking before the Rotary Club of Jackson recently, Gov. Bryant addressed the issue of special tax incentives to lure big manufacturers to Mississippi. “Recently I’ve been reading that some people believe that tax cuts are not a good thing. Oh, they say it’s that corporate welfare. If you give too many tax cuts, you won’t have enough money in the general fund. Let me tell you, that is just seeding the field. If you don’t put down seed and you don’t go buy seed and invest, that garden is not going to grow. Government has been incentivizing companies with tax credits since (Mississippi) Gov. Brewer (1912 -1916) has been around. Now all of a sudden there is this idea that we ought to stop doing that. Do you think Texas is going to stop doing that? Or (governor) Bentley in Alabama is going to stop doing that? And (governor) Jerry Brown in California is going to stop doing that? We have to compete in the economic development area called the SEC. We compete with Alabama and Florida and Rick Perry in Texas. We compete with South Carolina, North
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Carolina and Tennessee. If we do not incentivize and grow our businesses, other states certainly will and then we will be the loser. Now I don’t like to lose. I like being in that top 10. I like the other governors and CNN and Fox Business News saying, ‘What’s going on in Mississippi? Why is it being so successful?’” Job growth is the most important issue in Mississippi, so Bryant’s remarks bear scrutinizing. Sticking with the governor’s farming example, the government should make sure the soil is fertile. It should not be planting the seeds. That’s the role of the free enterprise system. When a governor decides which companies to recruit and subsidize, it is government planning. Such centralized planning of the economy has never worked. Only the free market can properly allocate goods and services and maximize efficient employment. Instead, we have crony capitalism. Big corporations get states to engage in bidding wars, manipulating the egos of governors to “win” the game and have bragging rights for their speeches. The Legislature backs
these efforts. Everybody wants to appear to be on the side of job growth, but ultimately this approach backfires. Only West Virginia has a lower percentage of people working than Mississippi. Numerous academic studies verify the problems of playing favorites with incentives. A recent Cornell study “Incentive Use Among U.S. Local Governments: A Story of Accountability and Policy Learning” finds “Our model results suggest that governments that rely most heavily on incentives may face more intergovernmental competition, stagnating or declining economies, and lower tax bases. For such governments, business incentives may contribute to a cycle of destructive competition.” Good Jobs First rates Mississippi number two in the nation, per capita, with $2.3 billion in “megadeals” and a population of just three million. Only New Mexico beats us in crony capitalism. In contrast, Texas, with nine times our population, has only $3.1 billion in megadeals. Georgia, with nine million people, has half the megadeals of Mississippi. (If you added the
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Kemper power plant to the megadeal total, Mississippi would be number one in the nation by a long shot.) Basically, the money given to the big corporations comes out of the pockets of the grassroots mom-andpop businesses that are the backbone of our state. It’s a losing proposition. Now that the casinos are struggling, it’s just a matter of time before someone proposes to subsidize gambling with state funds. Should we just give up? Of course not. Having a probusiness environment in our state is crucial. But it should be done in a sensible, fair way that applies to all and respects the free market. South Dakota, Wyoming. Nevada and Washington have no corporate tax. The average unemployment in those states is two percentage points lower than Mississippi. It’s the sweetheart deals that need to go. The Tax Foundation think tank rates states for having a pro-business tax policy. Mississippi is not in the top 10. Getting in the top 10 would be a better path to growth than letting government bureaucrats pick and choose winners and losers on an ad hoc basis.
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