Let's talk for a moment about a few things in American life that do not work. This is not meant to be a political discussion, but rather a statement of facts. Here is the list:
1. Pre-school classes for young children -- For the last fifty years or so, America has experimented with starting children in school at ages 3 or 4 rather than waiting for the traditional 5 year old who starts in kindergarten. There have been private schools as well as public programs that have been used to try to give children a leg up when the time for regular school comes around. Extensive research has shown that these programs (like Head Start) simply do not work. The provide an advantage for the kids in the first two grades, but by third grade the results achieved by students who were in these programs are no different from those achieved by students who were not in the programs. These studies control for extraneous factors like family income, family structure (single mothers vs. two parent families) and the like. The reports are not biased either. The latest one was done by the United States Department of Education under president Obama, a federal department that clearly would have liked to have found that its Head Start program functioned well and achieved its goals. The conclusions of the report were to the contrary, however.
2. Alternative Energy Programs subsidized by the Federal Government -- Starting in 1973, the federal government has periodically tried to bring about alternative sources of energy by subsidizing
"new" technologies. Each time, the new technologies have failed and most of the process has failed once the subsidies ended. This began with the federal Synfuels Corporation which was created by act of Congress in 1980. The plan was to use coal to produce natural gas. A costly plant was built in the Dakotas, but by 1985, the process was so expensive that the Synfuels Corporation was shut down. Then we had plans to use bio fuels made from corn. The federal government mandated that a certain percentage of all gasoline sold in the USA had to contain fuel from corn. The end result was to drive the cost of corn way up, to make beef much more expensive, but to replace just a tiny amount of imported oil. Absent the federal mandate, none of the corn to fuel process would survive. We also have seen the results of the large "investment" in so called "green" energy during the Obama administration. Companies like Solyndra took hundreds of millions of dollars from the government, only to fail once the subsidy payments ended. No one succeeded in these efforts except for the friends of Obama who got sweetheart deals and made millions.
3. Higher pay for teachers and higher spending per pupil -- There are states and cities that have raised pay for teachers to extremely high levels and which spend more per pupil that nearly all others. It seems not to matter. High teacher pay and expenditures per pupil do not translate into better performance by the students. The best example of this is Detroit where last year the city spent $12,800 per student compared to the national average of $10,600. The result in Detroit is that the majority of those who attend the Detroit public schools are functionally illiterate at age 18. It is hard to imagine a bigger failure. Paying teachers more to continue to fail does not work.
4. Government price fixing -- In the last eighty years, there have been a number of instances where the federal government has stepped into the market to fix or "regulate" prices in various industries. This process will work for a few years, but after a while, it just distorts reality and causes great damage. During World War II, there were wage and price controls and rationing as well. when the war ended and controls were lifted, there was enormous inflation, a savage, if short, recession and all manner of other problems. During the Nixon administration, there were again price controls put in place to combat inflation. They failed miserably and led to accelerated inflation. In the beginning of the Clinton administration, the government stepped into the housing/mortgage industry to insist that availability of mortgage money be expanded. This lowering of the cost of mortgages led to the development of sub prime mortgages and the terrible recession the country experienced in 2008 and 2009. Now the government is stepping in to limit the price of health insurance policies under Obamacare with the result that many companies are just pulling out of the market. Millions may have to go without coverage due to this interference.
It is time for people to start recognizing things that do not work. The alternative is chaos and decline.
1. Pre-school classes for young children -- For the last fifty years or so, America has experimented with starting children in school at ages 3 or 4 rather than waiting for the traditional 5 year old who starts in kindergarten. There have been private schools as well as public programs that have been used to try to give children a leg up when the time for regular school comes around. Extensive research has shown that these programs (like Head Start) simply do not work. The provide an advantage for the kids in the first two grades, but by third grade the results achieved by students who were in these programs are no different from those achieved by students who were not in the programs. These studies control for extraneous factors like family income, family structure (single mothers vs. two parent families) and the like. The reports are not biased either. The latest one was done by the United States Department of Education under president Obama, a federal department that clearly would have liked to have found that its Head Start program functioned well and achieved its goals. The conclusions of the report were to the contrary, however.
2. Alternative Energy Programs subsidized by the Federal Government -- Starting in 1973, the federal government has periodically tried to bring about alternative sources of energy by subsidizing
"new" technologies. Each time, the new technologies have failed and most of the process has failed once the subsidies ended. This began with the federal Synfuels Corporation which was created by act of Congress in 1980. The plan was to use coal to produce natural gas. A costly plant was built in the Dakotas, but by 1985, the process was so expensive that the Synfuels Corporation was shut down. Then we had plans to use bio fuels made from corn. The federal government mandated that a certain percentage of all gasoline sold in the USA had to contain fuel from corn. The end result was to drive the cost of corn way up, to make beef much more expensive, but to replace just a tiny amount of imported oil. Absent the federal mandate, none of the corn to fuel process would survive. We also have seen the results of the large "investment" in so called "green" energy during the Obama administration. Companies like Solyndra took hundreds of millions of dollars from the government, only to fail once the subsidy payments ended. No one succeeded in these efforts except for the friends of Obama who got sweetheart deals and made millions.
3. Higher pay for teachers and higher spending per pupil -- There are states and cities that have raised pay for teachers to extremely high levels and which spend more per pupil that nearly all others. It seems not to matter. High teacher pay and expenditures per pupil do not translate into better performance by the students. The best example of this is Detroit where last year the city spent $12,800 per student compared to the national average of $10,600. The result in Detroit is that the majority of those who attend the Detroit public schools are functionally illiterate at age 18. It is hard to imagine a bigger failure. Paying teachers more to continue to fail does not work.
4. Government price fixing -- In the last eighty years, there have been a number of instances where the federal government has stepped into the market to fix or "regulate" prices in various industries. This process will work for a few years, but after a while, it just distorts reality and causes great damage. During World War II, there were wage and price controls and rationing as well. when the war ended and controls were lifted, there was enormous inflation, a savage, if short, recession and all manner of other problems. During the Nixon administration, there were again price controls put in place to combat inflation. They failed miserably and led to accelerated inflation. In the beginning of the Clinton administration, the government stepped into the housing/mortgage industry to insist that availability of mortgage money be expanded. This lowering of the cost of mortgages led to the development of sub prime mortgages and the terrible recession the country experienced in 2008 and 2009. Now the government is stepping in to limit the price of health insurance policies under Obamacare with the result that many companies are just pulling out of the market. Millions may have to go without coverage due to this interference.
It is time for people to start recognizing things that do not work. The alternative is chaos and decline.
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