Bacon's Rebellion

The municipal government lobby has long had a powerful presence in the General Assembly in the form of government officials and paid lobbyists. But local government leaders still feel out-gunned by powerful special interests.

So, now, members of the Virginia Municipal League are voting in an online referendum whether or not to launch a Political Action Committee, reports Jeff Schapiro in the Times-Dispatch. In an email last week, VML lawyer Mark Flynn wrote, “Political-action committees are powerful in Virginia for developing relationships with members of the General Assembly and statewide officeholders.”

That’s an understatement. As Schapiro recounted comments by Sen. Frank Wagner, R-Virginia Beach, at a meeting of his city’s GOP:

“You have money and want to buy a car. The other guy wants to buy a car but doesn’t have any money. Who do you think I’m going to waste my time talking to? The one with the money. I can’t help the other guy, and he can’t help me. … That’s the way it works in politics.”

To even register on the politicians’ radar, a local government PAC would have to contribute a minimum of $20,000 a year, Flynn wrote.

And, thus, Richmond follows the same path as Washington, D.C., toward rule by a political class and moneyed special interests….

After reading James Bovard’s blistering account in the Wall Street Journal of working a summer job for the old Virginia Highway Department back in 1973, all I can say is, yikes, I sure hope the corporate culture of the Virginia Department of Transportation has changed in the last 38 years.

As a 16-year-old flagman, Bovard writes, he was assigned to a crew that “might have been the biggest slackers south of the Potomac and east of the Alleghenies. Working slowly to slipshod standards was their code of honor. Anyone who worked harder was viewed as a nuisance, if not a menace.”

Bovard recounts a number of amusing stories, such as going on dead animal patrol. Rather than follow the required procedure of burying a dead animal along the side of the road, which might actually entail work, he and his mentor, a cigar-smoking, jelly-bellied truck drive named Bud, would wait until no cars were passing and use their shovels to heave the carcass into the bushes.

The youth also learned how not to shovel. To not shovel right, he writes, lean against the shovel handle. But don’t keep both hands in your pocket, a sure tip-off that you’re not doing anything. “The key is to appear to be studiously calculating where your next burst of effort will provide maximum returns for the task.”

Bovard’s bottom line: “The Highway Department could not competently organize anything more complex than painting stripes in the middle of a road. Even the placement of highway direction signs was routinely botched.”

U.S. Anti-Poverty Programs Are Paternalistic, But They Do Reduce Poverty
National Bureau of Economic Research
Entitlement benefits have a major impact on poverty rates in the United States, reducing the percentage of poor people from 29% to 13.5% (2005 data).

Measuring Value in Healthcare: Still Fraught with Issues
Urban Institute
Nearly everyone agrees that the U.S. healthcare system needs to shift from payments based on fee-for-service to payments based on value (cost and quality). The agreement breaks down on how to do so.

Early Results: EHRs Improve Quality of Patient Care
Robert Woods Johnson Foundation
Early data from Cleveland suggests that multibillion-dollar investment in Electronic Health Records (EHRs) is paying off with better quality care.

In Fiscal 2010, Massachusetts state and local governments spent $10 billion on public school education, or $11,068 per student — about $1.3 billion more than the minimum “foundation budget” required by state law. The authors of a new study, “Why Massachusetts Should Spend Less on Education,” ask an important question: Has that extra spending generated commensurate improvements in student performance?

The answer, in short, is, “No.” Write the authors: “We find that a marginal increase or decrease in spending in Massachusetts has only a very small effect on school performance, as measured by results [on standardized tests] for the 4th, 8th and 10th grade.” (Assess their statistical methodology for yourself. I can’t understand it.)

I’m not advocating that we cut education spending in Virginia ($10,930 in the 2008-2009 school year), which is roughly equal per student to that of Massachusetts. But I would urge policy makers to question the conventional wisdom that more spending is the antidote to stagnating educational achievement. The authors, who hail from the Beacon Hill Institute, make a very important point: While the social return on investment on educational spending tends to be very high overall, the incremental impact from either increasing or decreasing spending from current levels is very small.

Economists use the phrase “diminishing returns” to describe the phenomenon. The first $1,000 per student spent on education — teaching children how to read, write and add numbers, say — has extremely high social benefit. Successive sums of money have positive benefits, too, but those benefits shrink with each increment. In theory, at some point we reach a point where spending more money yields no positive benefit whatsoever. The Beacon Hill study suggests that Massachusetts may have reached that point.

For Massachusetts state government, which faces a structural deficit exceeding $4 billion, it is not unreasonable to argue that cutting educational spending by 10% to save hundreds of millions of dollars is worthwhile if the impact on student achievement is de minibus. We haven’t reached the same level of fiscal distress here in Virginia so it would be difficult to make the case that education spending should be cut, but the long-term outlook is grim enough that it is worth thinking about curtailing future increases.

Drawing upon 2009 U.S. Census data, the Brookings Institution has mapped out the ratio of high, moderate and low skilled immigrants in the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas. The good news for Virginia: All three of our major metros — Washington, Hampton Roads and Richmond — are among the 44 regions in which high-skill immigrants outnumbered low-skill immigrants.

While the public stereotypes immigrants as being mostly low skilled (a stereotype that may be true in the case of illegal aliens), the share of working-age immigrants holding a bachelor’s degree has increased significantly since 1980 and now exceeds the share with less than a high school diploma.

• Among Virginia metropolitan areas, Washington had the largest immigrant population in 2009 — 1.1 million, representing 20% of the workforce. Some 375,000 of the immigrants are classified as “high skilled.”

• Hampton Roads had 98,000 immigrants, accounting for 5.8% of the population. Of those, 26,000 were classified as high skilled.

• Richmond had 76,000 immigrants, representing 6.2% of the population. Of those, 22,000 were classified as high skilled.

(Click on map for more legible image.)

Hard Child-Care Choices for Poor Working Families
Urban Institute
Problem: Poor, working parents have a hard time finding decent child care for their children. Solution: Increased federal funding for child-care assistance.

Getting Buy-In for Medical Outcomes Reporting
Robert Woods Johnson Foundation
Making medical costs and outcomes data available to the public will drive the transformation of the health care sector. But first, Aligning Forces for Quality initiatives must develop appropriate metrics and persuade the public.

How Business Can Drive Educational Reform
Institute for a Competitive Workforce
Public-private partnerships can help create change in American school systems. Businesses must remember that partnerships are a two-way street. They should press for accountability and results.

Holy Cuccinelli! In case you haven’t noticed, much of the U.S. is experiencing record summer heat and it’s only early June.

A new study by Stanford University scientists say that hotter summers are something we’re going to have to get used to unless a lot more is done to limit atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations.

Just to show the potential impact, in large parts of the globe, the coolest summers of the future will be hotter than the hottest summers previously. The Stanford scientists tracked 50 climate model experiments and ran computer simulations to come to their conclusions.

Naturally, the climate change naysayers will likely say that the Stanford people are just an extension of the East Anglia scandal and should be ignored, or investigated for fraud and prosecuted.

Meanwhile, under pressure from business groups and conservatives, the U.S. does nothing to rein in carbon emissions. Any meaningful legislation has been scuttled. No carbon caps. No nothing.

Just more accusations of fraud at the UN’s storage depot for climate change documents at a small British university. And, of course, Ken Cuccinelli and Bob Marshall with support from new, right-wing think tanks, continue to harass scientists who are saying humans have something to do with the changes.

Maybe they better investigate Stanford, too. Another of its studies says that scientists alarmed about global warming tend to have higher academic qualifications than those who do not.

Time to call the Cooch!

Peter Galuszka

Sometimes, I worry about the aimless direction of our nation’s youth.Then along comes someone like Nicole Yoder and I feel reassured.

One Saturday morning not long ago, Nicole’s father, long-time reader Keith Yoder, and her mother were discussing a Bacon’s Rebellion blog post at the breakfast table. (Perhaps I should be worrying about the aimless direction of adults as well.) Nine-year-old Nicole was fascinated by the term “Bacon’s Rebellion” and her fantasy took flight. This artwork was the result.

Nicole, you may not realize it, not only is your rendering a fine piece of artwork but it is a brilliant piece of political allegory. The bacon strips represent the producer class of Virginia: the workers, the managers, the entrepreneurs — the backbone of society. The utensils represent the political class and special interests that feed upon the producer class. The bacon strips, you see, are tired of being eaten. The utensils want the bacon strips to just shut up and lay down. But the bacon strips are finally fighting back! That is exactly what Bacon’s Rebellion is all about. If I were your teacher, I would give you an “A” for this project.

The tragic bus crash in Caroline County that left four dead May 31 raises several troubling points for travelers in Virginia and elsewhere.

Good news and bad news from the Mercatus Center if you, like me, lean libertarian in your thinking. In Mercatus’ newly published “Freedom in the Fifty States,” which ranks the states on public policy affecting freedoms in the economic, social and personal spheres, Virginia ranks ninth most free in the country.

Only ninth? In a state where the motto is “Thus Always to Tyrants?” Yes, only ninth. And we’re heading in the wrong direction. That ranking represents a decline of two slots since the last survey in 2007.

But we can take some small consolation that we are less beholden to our political and bureaucratic overlords than most states on the East Coast. Remarkably, New Hampshire (motto: “Live Free or Die”) remains the freest state in the country — a beacon of light amidst the smothering Nanny State darkness all around it. Otherwise, the only other states east of the Mississippi that rank in the top 10 freest are Indiana and Virginia. Southern states tend to be free in the economic sphere, but more intrusive in the social and personal realms. Virgina follows that pattern, ranking 5th in economic freedom nationally but only 22 in personal freedom.

Among the prime offenses in Virginia: aggressive asset-forfeiture laws, high liquor taxes, a high proportion of state/local employees in proportion to state spending, and extensive mandates for health insurance coverage.

Mercatus’ analysis of Virginia is worth reproducing at some length:

Virginia is, by our count, the freest state in the South. However, like the other states below the Mason-Dixon line, it fares better in terms of economic freedom (#5) than personal freedom (#22). The tax burden, government spending, and debt are all well below national averages. However, state and local government employment is essentially at the national average.

Gun laws are decent, with much room for improvement. However, open carry is allowed. Marijuana laws are largely unreformed.

Virginia is schizophrenic on education, requiring 13 years of mandatory schooling, including kindergarten attendance, and imposing significant standardized-testing and notification requirements on homeschoolers, but otherwise leaving both private and homeschools alone.

The state has below average numbers of arrests for victimless crimes, and its drug law-enforcement rate is also quite respectable (especially among its Southern peers). However, Virginia’s asset-forfeiture laws could really be improved.

As one might expect given its history with tobacco, Virginia’s cigarette tax is quite low and smoking is not banned in private workplaces. However, it does have some smoking restrictions. Moreover, its spirits tax rate is the third highest in the country. Labor laws are solid.

Like Hawaii and Pennsylvania, Virginia has no form of community rating for health insurance. However, coverage mandates are extensive. Indeed, Virginia has more than just about any other state, adding significantly to the cost of insurance.

Natural gas and cable have been “deregulated” to the consumer. The state has one of the best liability systems in the country, and it has improved on eminent domain since the last edition of the index.

How to Rebuild the Institution of Marriage
Heritage Foundation
The institution of marriage, critical for raising healthy, productive children, is crumbling throughout the Western World. United States governments need to reform tax and welfare-policy penalties on marriage and promote stable homes instead.

Natural Disasters Hard on Extended Households
Rand Corporation
Hurricane Katrina didn’t just demolish houses: It demolished families, especially the extended families of socioeconomically vulnerable inhabitants.

Does anyone remember former Gov. Tim Kaine’s push for universal pre-K childhood education in Virginia? I do. The aim was to level the disparities in educational outcomes by ensuring that “at risk” children enjoyed the same kind of early-childhood enrichment as their more privileged peers. It was a noble goal. As it turned out, budget constraints limited the scope of the initiative. But the dreams of Nanny Staters live on.

Now comes research from Canada that calls into question the underlying assumption that pre-K is a good thing for the little tykes.

In the early 1990s, the Canadian province of British Columbia conducted what social scientists call a “natural experiment.” BC mandated a program called “dual entry” in which students would enter school at two different points in the school year rather than all at the same time. BC then abruptly canceled the program, with the result that some students were kept in Kindergarten for as few as 6 months while those only a few months younger were kept for 16 months. As a result, state the authors of a research paper, “The Long-Run Impacts of early Childhood Education: Evidence from a Failed Policy Experiment,” November-December children effectively started Kindergarten 4 months late while January-April students started 6 months early.

The authors then tracked the subsequent educational achievement of the two age groups. In findings strikingly at odds with the prevailing sentiment that more early-childhood education is better, they concluded (my emphasis) that “starting Kindergarten one year late substantially reduces the probability of repeating the third grade, and meaningfully increases tenth grade math and reading scores. Effects are highest for low income students and males. Estimates suggest that entering kindergarten early may have a detrimental effect on future outcomes.”

Further, the authors write:

[The BC policy] approximate[s] the potential impact of introducing a pre-K program where one did not previously exist. Introducing such a program would increase time spent in school, which comes at the expense of time spent at home, and would also lower a student’s entry age and readiness. For both grade repetition and tenth grade test scores, the estimates imply poorer outcomes for children who participate in such a program.

Will this research alter the thinking of people who believe as a matter of faith in the power of the state to cure the failings of dysfunctional families? No. But it may give pause to everyone else.

Foreclosure’s Forgotten Victims: The Children
Urban Institute
Families evicted through foreclosure often wind up in new school districts. Residential instability and school switching among children is associated with lower test scores.

If a proven entrepreneur comes up with a great new dining concept, he has no problem finding the money to create a chain of restaurants. If a real estate developer discovers a profitable model for erecting shopping centers or residential communities, he can raise hundreds of millions of dollars to build more of the same. But public schools are different. Bad schools don’t go out of business, and good ones don’t grow.

In the past decade or so, big-league philanthropists have tried to change that dynamic by underwriting promising charter schools with the goal of replicating their educational DNA and reproducing what works. We haven’t seen much of that in Virginia because only four charter schools operate in the state. But perhaps we could learn from the experience of other states.

One thing we could learn from reading a new Cato Institute report, “The Other Lottery: Are Philanthropists Backing the Best Charter Schools,” is that the philanthropists may not be getting it right either. Focusing on California, which has the largest number of charter schools in the country, Andrew J. Coulson ranks charter school networks by performance in standardized tests (adjusted for student characteristics and peer effects) and the level of philanthropic support they generate. He finds that the three highest-performing networks rank 21st, 27th and 39th in terms of private grant funding out of 68 networks. “The results are discouraging. There is effectively no correlation between grant funding and charter network performance,” he concludes. Philanthropic funding is like a lottery, with funds distributed randomly.

Free markets work when failing business models go out of business and successful business models take their place. In public education, failing schools don’t go out of business — they get subsidized — and successful schools have no incentive, or means, to recreate what they do elsewhere. As a result, the system remains static and largely impervious to change. The beauty of charter schools is that they allow experimentation that would not occur otherwise. However, charter schools are hardly a panacea. Some charter experiments are successful, others are not.

Research sponsored by foes of chartered schools suggests that on average, charter schools add no more value than traditional public schools. Putting the emphasis on average results obscures the fact that some charter schools are very good and others are failed experiments. The goal shouldn’t be to ban all charter schools, it should be to replicate the successes and retire the failures.

The problem is the lack of a clearly defined “bottom line.” Businesses have a bottom line: Are they making a profit or not? Schools have no bottom line. How does one measure the success of a school? By standardized test scores? That’s not fair because students of diverse cultural and socio-economic backgrounds score differently for reasons that have nothing to do with the school. What schools need is a measure of educational achievement added, which adjusts for the background of its students and allows performance to be compared fairly. But even that is a tricky proposition, for the issues are so complex.

Computing profits is not an easy thing to do. That’s why businesses have evolved Generally Accepted Accounting Procedures (GAAP). The educational system needs something similar, like Measures of Educational Value Added (MEVA), that has wide buy-in from educators and those who fund them.

The existence of widely accepted metrics would allow philanthropists to base their funding decisions on more than personal relationships and self-serving data provided by school administrators desiring to look good. Such metrics also would allow state governments to compare the performance of school districts, school boards to compare the performance of schools and principals, and principals to compare the performance of teachers.

Virginia was a leader in instituting standardized tests. Perhaps we could take the next step and become a leader in measuring educational value added.

Integrating Community Colleges into Regional Economic Development
Brookings Institution
Regions should develop an integrated workforce and economic development strategy in which community colleges ensure a stable supply of skilled workers for employers.