Comments on: Conservatives Denounce Obama for Saving Jobs, Economy

By: Much to Like in Obama’s Education Themes « The Enterprise Blog

Much to Like in Obama’s Education Themes « The Enterprise Blog — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:48:37 +0000

[...] has been investing “only in reform.” Instead, they maintain that the spending was necessary given the economic crisis and that the administration did good in pushing as much reform as it did. [...]

By: Accountability for the stimulus « Meeting the Turnaround Challenge

Accountability for the stimulus « Meeting the Turnaround Challenge — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:02:40 +0000

[...] the money is spent, probably not in most cases. Kevin Carey covers this idea with greater fluency here. But RtTT and i3 are great examples of where strong leaders harnessed a good opportunity to [...]

By: Required Reading at The Core Knowledge Blog

Required Reading at The Core Knowledge Blog — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:49:37 +0000

[...] the blog-on-blog violence that has broken out between Checker Finn, Rick Hess and Kevin Carey over saving teaching jobs with economic stimulus dollars. I’m also long overdue in pointing to this excellent post [...]

By: Michael B. Horn

Michael B. Horn — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 18:13:48 +0000

I understand why the administration did it, but it is a missed opportunity. The economic pressures allow for an opportunity to transform the education system; the funding allows it to in part avoid these changes, and subsidies in this case likely only merely prolong the inevitable pain.

By: Sherman Dorn

Sherman Dorn — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 01:55:59 +0000

Yes, it's the colonic theory of school reform.

By: Drew

Drew — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:14:27 +0000

Cow-towing is an important public service we can’t afford to defund. What would we do with all the broken-down cows littering our nation’s highways?

By: Brian Garst

Brian Garst — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:47:14 +0000

The failure of basic economics is yours. Government cannot “stimulate” employment when it must first tax or borrow. It’s a good thing for the economy, in the long run, when unproductive and weak performers are trimmed. It’s the natural corrective forces of the market that keep efficiency high.

The problem is that education, as evidenced here, is utterly shielded from these forces. Moreover, given the complete and total failure of our current government education monopoly to educate children, your faith that such spending will ensure that “today’s young people will live in a more prosperous world” is entirely misplaced. There is simply no evidence for it. There is no quantitative evidence that increasing spending on government education improves outcomes. Forty years worth of increases paired with stagnant outcomes show quite the opposite. If we stop cow-towing to the teachers unions, on the other hand, and end the government monopoly on education, we can actually make a more prosperous future a reality.