January 27, 2016 by The Sumter Item

THE SUMTER ITEM N.G. Osteen 1843-1936 The Watchman and Southron

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 27, 2016 H.G. Osteen 1870-1955 Founder, The Item

H.D. Osteen 1904-1987 The Item

Margaret W. Osteen 1908-1996 The Item Hubert D. Osteen Jr. Chairman & Editor-in-Chief Graham Osteen Co-President Kyle Osteen Co-President Jack Osteen Editor and Publisher Larry Miller CEO Rick Carpenter Managing Editor

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COMMENTARY

Education insanity

ome credit Albert Einstein, others credit Benjamin Franklin, with the observation that “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing year after year and expecting different results.” Whomever we credit, he was absolutely right. A perfect example of that insanity is education in general and particularly black education. Education Next has recently published a series commemorating the 50th anWalter niversary of Williams James S. Coleman’s groundbreaking 1965 report, “Equality of Educational Opportunity,” popularly referred to as the “Coleman Report.” In 1965, the average black 12th grader placed at the 13th percentile of the score distribution for whites in math and reading. That means 87 percent of white 12th graders scored higher than the average black 12th graders. Fifty years later there has been a slight narrowing of the math gap leaving the average black 12thgrade student at the 19th percentile of the white distribution; 81 percent of white 12th-grade students score higher. The black-white reading gap has narrowed such that the average black 12thgrader scores at the 22nd percentile of the white distribution, meaning 78 percent of white 12th-graders score higher. Eric A. Hanushek is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His Education Next contribution is “What Matters for Student Achievement: Updating Coleman on the Influence of Families and Schools.” Hanushek concludes, “After nearly a half century of supposed progress in race relations within the United States, the modest improvements in achievement gaps since 1965 can only be called a national embarrassment. Put differently, if we continue to close gaps at the same rate in the future, it will be roughly two and a half centuries before the black-white math gap closes and over one and a half centuries until the reading gap closes.” I would like to know what American, particularly a black American, can be pleased with that kind of progress and the future it

holds for black people. Many see smaller class sizes and more money as part of the general solution to our nation’s educational problems. It turns out that since 1955 the average number of students per teacher has fallen from 27 to 16. During the same period real per-pupil expenditures have increased more than fourfold. Today, expenditures per pupil in the United States exceed those of nearly every other country in the world. The Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, ranks 15-yearold student academic performance in 34 OECD countries. In 2012, the U.S. students performed below average in mathematics and ranked 27th. In reading, U.S. students ranked 17th; and in science, they ranked 20th. Such a performance gap suggests that smaller class sizes and bigger budgets, in and of themselves, are not a cure to our nation’s educational malaise, particularly that of black students. The most crucial input for a child’s education cannot be provided by schools, politicians and government. As such, continued calls for more school resources will produce disappointing results as they have in the past. There are certain minimum requirements that must be met for any child to do well in school. Someone must make the youngster do his homework, ensure that he gets eight to nine hours of sleep, feed him breakfast and make sure that he behaves in school and respects the teachers. If these minimum requirements are not met, and by the way they can be met even if a family is poor, all else is for naught. What the education establishment can do is to prevent youngsters who are alien and hostile to the educational process from making education impossible for those who are equipped to learn. That is accomplished by removing students who pose disciplinary problems, but the Barack Obama administration is even restricting a school’s power to do that. You might ask, “Williams, what are we going to do with those expelled students?” I do not know, but I do know one thing: Black people cannot afford to allow them to sabotage the education chances of everyone else. Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. © 2016 creators.com.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR DEMOCRATS CALLING REPUBLICANS DUMB SHOULD EXAMINE THEIR OWN CHOICE IN CANDIDATES I have voted for Republicans and Democrats throughout my life...(my first presidential vote was for Jimmy Carter!! HAHA...Ugh)....and it is hilarious to hear Democrats constantly talking about how stupid and dumb Republican voters and their candidates are. These same people(millions of

them) are going to line up to vote for a person that could not figure out that TOP SECRET e-mails maybe should not be included with her recipe for Grandma’s fried chicken. And they call other people dumb? JOHN SELLAR Sumter

EDITORIAL PAGE POLICIES EDITORIALS represent the views of the owners of this newspaper. COLUMNS AND COMMENTARY are the personal opinion of the writer whose byline appears. Columns from readers should be typed, double-spaced and no more than 850 words. Send them to The Item, Opinion Pages, P.O. Box 1677, Sumter, S.C. 29151, or email to hubert@ theitem.com or graham@theitem.com. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR are written by

readers of the newspaper. They should be no more than 350 words and sent via e-mail to letters@theitem.com, dropped off at The Item office, 20 N. Magnolia St. or mailed to The Item, P.O. Box 1677, Sumter, S.C. 29151, along with the full name of the writer, plus an address and telephone number for verification purposes only. Letters that exceed 350 words will be cut accordingly in the print edition, but available in their entirety at www.theitem.com/opinion/ letters_to_editor.

The taxman cometh T

his just in: According to the latest survey from the American customer satisfaction index, the federal government has joined the ranks of the bottom-of-the-barrel industries in customer satisfaction. Who knew? We’re shocked. The survey tells us Americans’satisfaction level in dealing with federal agencies has fallen for the third consecutive year, thus reaching an eight-year low. As for the lowest ranked department among the feds, it’s that old standby, the U.S. Treasury department. They’re the friendly folks

EDITORIAL

who oversee the IRS, the beady-eyed tax collectors who shake us down every April while uttering their slogan, “I’m from the federal government and here to help you.” Within a federal government teeming with inefficiency thanks to the tender mercies of the Obama administration, Treasury is the gold standard, so to speak, and it creates an abundance of heartburn in the spring of the year for taxpayers. Any time a government agency takes money from citizens, it’s

bound to generate low satisfaction among taxpayers. Even Founding Father Thomas Jefferson had little use for big government. He wrote this to a friend: “I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.” And from one Elbert Hubbard comes his words of wisdom of how government could be regarded: “A kind of legalized pillage.” Thus we are forewarned that soon the taxman will cometh and a substantial part of our income will goeth. It’s the American way.

Will Obama’s overreach be policed?

ASHINGTON — During Watergate, Henry Kissinger’s mordant wit leavened the unpleasantness: “The illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer.” President Obama often does both simultaneously, using executive authoritarianism to evade the Constitution’s separation of powers and rewrite existing laws. Last week, however, the Supreme Court took a perhaps momentous step toward correcting some of the constitutional vandalism that will be Obama’s most significant legacy. The court agreed to rule on Obama’s unilateral revision of immigration law. Seeking re-election in 2012, Obama stretched the idea of “prosecutorial discretion” — supposedly “on an individual basis” — to cover a delay in efforts to deport approximately 770,000 persons who were brought to America illegally as children. But he said that with this he had reached the limit of his powers: “If we start broadening , then essentially I would be ignoring the law in a way that I think would be very difficult to defend legally.” In 2014, however, he expanded the sweep and protections of that program. His executive fiat would have shielded perhaps 4.5 million illegal immigrant adults with children who are U.S. citizens or lawful residents. His expansion made them eligible to work and receive Social Security retirement and disability benefits, Medicare, the earned income tax credit, unemployment insurance, driver’s licenses, etc. Led by Texas, a majority of states (26) asserted standing to sue because of the costs of complying with the new policy. When they won an injunction, the Obama administration appealed to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. It lost there, too, and then asked the Supreme Court to rule on the

COMMENTARY legality of Obama’s action. The court should not, and probably will not, rule for the president. George The court Will has asked to be briefed on a matter the administration must be reluctant to address; the Justice Department requested that the court not insert a “constitutional question” into the case. The question the court will consider is: Did Obama’s action violate the Take Care Clause? Obama has sworn to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution,” which says the president shall “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” Josh Blackman of the South Texas College of Law in Houston and adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute in Washington says that only three times has the court relied on the Take Care Clause to limit executive actions, and the justices have never asked for a briefing on this clause. In their brief, the states argue that “Congress has created a detailed, complex statutory scheme for determining” who qualifies for “lawful presence” in this country. No statute empowers the executive to grant this status to any illegal immigrant it chooses not to deport, let alone to confer “lawful presence” status on a class of many millions. The states say presidents cannot “change an alien’s statutory immigration classification.” So, Obama is not merely exercising discretion in enforcing the Immigration and Nationality Act. He is altering this act so that previously prohibited conduct no longer violates the act. Executive overreach has

been increasing for decades. For example, although the Troubled Asset Relief Program was for financial institutions, the George W. Bush administration diverted more than $17 billion for auto companies. Obama’s usual justification for his unusually numerous unilateral legislating is that Congress refuses to act on this or that subject. But regarding who qualifies for legal status and for the right to work, Congress has acted with notable specificity. Obama simply wants to grant to millions of people various benefits in violation of Congress’ will as written into law. For seven years, Obama has treated the Take Care Clause as a mild suggestion. He considers it insignificant compared to his virtuous determination to “work around” Congress in order to impose his policies regarding immigration, health care, education, contraception, welfare, gun control, environmentalism, gay rights, unauthorized wars and other matters. Both leading Democratic presidential candidates praise Obama’s radical understanding of the Constitution’s Article II presidential powers. The leading Republican candidate would replace the Constitution’s 7,591 words with the first-person singular pronoun: He promises many unilateral presidential wonders, including a global trade war and a more holy national vocabulary: “If I’m president, you’re going to see ‘Merry Christmas’ in department stores.” But no Obama executive order has yet repealed Article III’s judicial powers. So, come June we will learn whether the judicial branch will do its duty by policing the borders of the separation of powers. George Will’s email address is georgewill@washpost.com. © 2016, Washington Post Writers Group