As the U.S. deals with yet another mass shooting, the response to this tragedy is predictably frustrating. Liberals are calling for the an increase in gun laws and gun advocates are trotting out the typical talking points, while pretending we are on the precipice of a full repeal of the second amendment.
It is human nature to seek ideas that will prevent catastrophes from reoccurring. For example, before 1970 the leading cause of death for children under 5 was poisoning from prescription drugs which resulted in some 500 deaths per year. To address this issue, President Nixon signed the Poison Prevention Packaging Act of 1970 requiring child proof caps for prescription drugs. This simple change reduced child deaths by 45%. That same year Nixon also signed the Occupational Safety and Health Act that saw workplace deaths fall from 40 a day in 1970 to 17 a day in the 80's and 12 a day by 2009 despite the fact that the workforce doubled over that time. In response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the U.S. passed legislation to overhaul the security procedures for all airports in hopes of preventing another similar attack. More recently, due to what was seen as a methamphetamine epidemic, congress passed a law that required an ID to purchase products containing methamphetamine, required sellers to record the name and address of all purchasers and limited the amount of the products people could purchase.
Imagine if the Republicans that support these laws had applied gun advocate logic to these other problem areas. Drugs, cars and workplace equipment don't walk around killing people - people using these items kill people. So while Conservatives support registration and limitations on Sudafed to prevent unnecessary deaths, similar registration and limitations on certain types of guns is seen as a clear infringement of one's constitutional rights.
Others argue that more regulations on guns won't stop bad people from getting guns. While this might be true, it should be noted that drug laws don't stop people from getting illegal drugs. Abortion restrictions don't stop people from getting illegal abortions. Transgender bathroom laws won't stop sexual deviants from entering a women's bathroom. Voter ID laws won't stop people from voting illegally. And immigration laws won't prevent people from coming to the U.S. illegally. The point of gun laws is that making certain guns illegal acts as a deterrent for people who can't purchase a gun legally, makes obtaining a gun more difficult, and provides law enforcement a tool to get some of these bad guys off the streets. The fact that gun advocates find this important for everything other than guns tells you all you need to know about how serious this talking point is.
Some conservatives have taken this tragedy as an opportunity to purport Islamophobic views, suggesting the shooter was an Islamic terrorist despite information from the FBI that shows he was not tied to any particular terrorist group and that there could be other motives or explanations for the attack beyond his religious association. But even if this were the case, stopping attacks by religious extremists and putting restrictions on certain types of weapons that allow shooters to kill more people per attack are not mutually exclusive ideas. While religious ideology could be the motive for some of the recent mass shootings in the U.S., it only makes up a small portion of the killers that used guns to murder U.S. citizens on American soil. We should be looking for solutions to both problems instead of using one as a justification for ignoring the other.
Of course Islamophobia is only one of the many methods gun advocates have to rationalize the protection of any and all guns. As Sean Davis recently wrote in thefederalist.com, the 248 murders of Americans killed by a rifle in 2014 were far fewer than the 1,567 people murdered by a knife. While it is troubling that some 1,500 people a year are killed by knives, that doesn't make the 248 lives of those shot and killed by a rifle any less worth saving. This is like arguing that more people are killed by cars while riding their bikes than are killed by being backed over by cars so, until being backed over by a car is the deadliest type of pedestrian accident we should do nothing to prevent it.
Having said that, Davis' statistic is ideal for pointing out why restrictions on guns could very well be a good idea since the reason more people are killed by knives every year than rifles is that nearly everyone in the U.S. has easy access to a knife but only a limited number of people have access to an assault rifle. Estimates put the number of assault rifles at around 1.5 million units while the number of knives is well in the hundreds of millions. Additionally there are no regulations determining who can own a knife. The fact that over 1,500 people a year are killed by knives in a country with over 300 million guns is a cautionary tale of what the U.S. might look like if access to rifles were equivalent to that of knives.
It's possible that some mass shootings might be stopped sooner if more rifles were on the streets, but given the fact that knives are apparently deadly enough to kill more people each year than rifles yet few if any knives have been used to bring down an attacker in a mass shooting suggests that weapons are better for attacking people than stopping an attack, which means an increase in rifles per person will likely lead to a net increase in rifle deaths.
No one is suggesting that by limiting the sale of certain types of guns or doing background checks we will eliminate the types of mass shootings that have become an all too common occurrence in the U.S. However as Presidents Reagan, Ford and Carter once wrote “While we recognize that assault-weapon legislation will not stop all assault-weapon crime, statistics prove that we can dry up the supply of these guns, making them less accessible to criminals,”. The fact that we can't prevent all gun deaths with a single piece of legislation isn't a viable rationalization for doing nothing.
The reality is, we're not the only country with religious extremists, or mentally ill citizens, or criminals; so, unless gun advocates can present a feasible reason why the U.S. is the world leader in mass shooters that is more than embarrassing hypocritical rhetoric, they can expect the calls for gun control to continue.
Friday, June 17, 2016
Monday, June 6, 2016
Privatization of public education is a failure
This election cycle has been heavy on rhetoric and light on policy. Given that nearly 50% of Americans consider themselves angrier than a year ago - with white Republicans being the angriest - it's no wonder that rather than having substantive discussions, most solutions being offered currently are knee jerk reactions that have little to no factual support. A prime example of this are the changes many conservatives endorse for "fixing" public education.
Consider for example the panacea of conservative school improvement ideas - charter schools. The most recent data show that around 25% outperform their local public school counterpart. This means that around 75% of charter schools are no better or actually worse than the local public school. Essentially, in locations where charter schools exist they are on average no better or worse than the average public school. If the goal is to improve education, getting the same results as local schools, deemed failing by charter school advocates, is a shockingly disappointing outcome.
Of course it should be noted that charter schools never get a foothold in areas where the schools are already high performing. Given that charters can't even outperform average public schools the fact that some of the country’s best schools aren't included in this analysis only makes the results for charter schools that much more disconcerting. Perhaps, instead of spending tax dollars to spread charter schools that don't improve outcomes, we should take the model used by some of the thousands of exceptional public schools and disseminate that to the lower performing schools.
Having said that, the goal of the majority of charter schools and the politicians that support them isn't to improve student achievement. It is to siphon taxpayer money out of public schools and into the hands of wealthy donors. Because these politicians understand that the only thing that matches the Republican base's hate of government spending is their unwavering belief in the magical powers of capitalism. This mentality is why military spending accounts for 54 % of the Federal Government's discretionary spending, (more than that of the next 10 countries combined), and why few industries turned out better profits during the Great Recession than the Defense industry.
Ironically, many of the people who think that the potentially cozy relationship between some school board members and the teachers’ union leads to sweetheart deals seems unfazed by the reality that corporations outspend unions 15 to 1 when it comes to political contributions. If union spending buys special treatment, then spending 15 times as much should certainly result in some ill-gotten gains for corporations.
Based on the amount of money that corporation are pouring into political coffers, it should come as no surprise that other faux-solutions to improve education such as privatization of public schools’ services are on the docket for school boards across the country. While the companies offering these services and the politicians they have bought will argue that this is a way for schools to save money, the data show that in nearly every case it costs taxpayers more when a public service is privatized.
The reason private services typically cost more is that you are inserting a highly paid middle man into the process. Obviously the goal of any for-profit company is to make a profit, which means they will either cost more or they need to find savings elsewhere. These companies will try and sell schools on the idea that there are savings to be had which will come from eliminating inefficiencies; however, the reality is the reduction in cost will likely come from lowering employee wages and cutting corners - neither of which is good for the students.
Additionally, by outsourcing this work you are also removing local control. Does the company do the same background checks your local school would do or are they less diligent about preventing dangerous people from interacting with your child such as one company that provided two custodians with criminal records for drug and sex abuse? Does the company respond to the complaints from the administration and the community or are they willing to let some inappropriate conduct occur around young children such as in Chicago where privatization has resulted in dirty schools? Does the company provide the same quality of service as those employees hired directly by the school system or does it fail to meet the standards previous established such as in Michigan where the outsourcing of food services lead to maggots in the food?
Beyond that, the privatization of public schools takes money out of the local community and sends it to companies headquartered hundreds of miles away. It takes hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money out of the class room that is instead spent on advertising. It also makes it possible for foreign companies to rake in huge profits off of your tax dollars.
But perhaps the biggest question supporters of the conservative plan to convert public schools to private entities is, if outsourcing services is such a great idea then why do so many charter schools hire their own support services staff? Do the principles of economies of scale somehow no longer apply to charter schools? Is the core competency of charter schools somehow different than that of public schools? Would charter schools somehow not benefit from the competition privatization of services creates?
Most Americans want to see the U.S. towards the top of educational rankings; however, it should be noted that while politicians continue to push capitalism as a cure for our so-called "failed" public school system, every country that outperforms the U.S. on standardized tests uses a more socialist system. Now that's something to be angry about.
Consider for example the panacea of conservative school improvement ideas - charter schools. The most recent data show that around 25% outperform their local public school counterpart. This means that around 75% of charter schools are no better or actually worse than the local public school. Essentially, in locations where charter schools exist they are on average no better or worse than the average public school. If the goal is to improve education, getting the same results as local schools, deemed failing by charter school advocates, is a shockingly disappointing outcome.
Of course it should be noted that charter schools never get a foothold in areas where the schools are already high performing. Given that charters can't even outperform average public schools the fact that some of the country’s best schools aren't included in this analysis only makes the results for charter schools that much more disconcerting. Perhaps, instead of spending tax dollars to spread charter schools that don't improve outcomes, we should take the model used by some of the thousands of exceptional public schools and disseminate that to the lower performing schools.
Having said that, the goal of the majority of charter schools and the politicians that support them isn't to improve student achievement. It is to siphon taxpayer money out of public schools and into the hands of wealthy donors. Because these politicians understand that the only thing that matches the Republican base's hate of government spending is their unwavering belief in the magical powers of capitalism. This mentality is why military spending accounts for 54 % of the Federal Government's discretionary spending, (more than that of the next 10 countries combined), and why few industries turned out better profits during the Great Recession than the Defense industry.
Ironically, many of the people who think that the potentially cozy relationship between some school board members and the teachers’ union leads to sweetheart deals seems unfazed by the reality that corporations outspend unions 15 to 1 when it comes to political contributions. If union spending buys special treatment, then spending 15 times as much should certainly result in some ill-gotten gains for corporations.
Based on the amount of money that corporation are pouring into political coffers, it should come as no surprise that other faux-solutions to improve education such as privatization of public schools’ services are on the docket for school boards across the country. While the companies offering these services and the politicians they have bought will argue that this is a way for schools to save money, the data show that in nearly every case it costs taxpayers more when a public service is privatized.
The reason private services typically cost more is that you are inserting a highly paid middle man into the process. Obviously the goal of any for-profit company is to make a profit, which means they will either cost more or they need to find savings elsewhere. These companies will try and sell schools on the idea that there are savings to be had which will come from eliminating inefficiencies; however, the reality is the reduction in cost will likely come from lowering employee wages and cutting corners - neither of which is good for the students.
Additionally, by outsourcing this work you are also removing local control. Does the company do the same background checks your local school would do or are they less diligent about preventing dangerous people from interacting with your child such as one company that provided two custodians with criminal records for drug and sex abuse? Does the company respond to the complaints from the administration and the community or are they willing to let some inappropriate conduct occur around young children such as in Chicago where privatization has resulted in dirty schools? Does the company provide the same quality of service as those employees hired directly by the school system or does it fail to meet the standards previous established such as in Michigan where the outsourcing of food services lead to maggots in the food?
Beyond that, the privatization of public schools takes money out of the local community and sends it to companies headquartered hundreds of miles away. It takes hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money out of the class room that is instead spent on advertising. It also makes it possible for foreign companies to rake in huge profits off of your tax dollars.
But perhaps the biggest question supporters of the conservative plan to convert public schools to private entities is, if outsourcing services is such a great idea then why do so many charter schools hire their own support services staff? Do the principles of economies of scale somehow no longer apply to charter schools? Is the core competency of charter schools somehow different than that of public schools? Would charter schools somehow not benefit from the competition privatization of services creates?
Most Americans want to see the U.S. towards the top of educational rankings; however, it should be noted that while politicians continue to push capitalism as a cure for our so-called "failed" public school system, every country that outperforms the U.S. on standardized tests uses a more socialist system. Now that's something to be angry about.
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