It's A Great Day

Please don't listen to the commentators now on T.V. Listen to me. John Kerry had to hit a home run to have a chance of winning this race. Instead we got the "global test." I give it to Bush.

PermaLink | 10:43 PM | |

I've never see a day with so much interesting news. I wrote a post on MOMA, on the Hopper exhibit in London, and on vouchers. I would love to comment on Anne Applebaum's column today (you can check it on my new link to her site), on the bill before Congress to eliminate bans on gun ownership, on baseball in D.C., and on the Supreme Court agreeing to hear a case on eminent domain.

But tonight I'll write on the most significant event of the day. I just returned home from the first-ever back-to-school night at the William E. Doar Jr. Public Charter School for the Performing Arts. A tremendous evening. I think every parent showed up with their kids in tow. I sat in as two second grade teachers explained the math and reading programs. If these kids do not learn after the efforts exerted by these educators then students cannot learn. Phonics instruction is central to the reading curriculum. Everyday math is a proven program to teach kids to add, subtract, multiply and divide. Both teachers, although young, have years of experience and are in the process of getting their masters degrees. Parents asked lots of questions, yet supporting what the teachers were saying. These children have homework every night. Its going to be a productive year.

The night also pointed out the heavenly and hellish sides of the charter school movement. Heavenly, because these students will get a private school education for free. Hellish because we are currently educating our students in a warehouse with dividers for classrooms which results in the noise level being intolerable. I truly wish the charter school board would come see what they have created.

PermaLink | 9:44 PM | |

Sewell Chan of the Washington Post reports today on a study from a pro-voucher group out of Milwaukee that documents higher high school graduation rates (64% vs 32%) for students able to attend private schools. The authors of the study point out that in inner cities the graduation rate from high school is typically under 50%.

Julie Doar-Sinkfield and I attended yesterday's CATO Institute seminar on a marketplace in education. The most interesting part to me was the various views on charter schools. Myron Lieberman, of the Education Policy Institute, and Andrew Coulson, from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, attacked them as weak manifestations of parental choice because they lack many of the freedoms inherent in private schools. On the other hand Lisa Snell, Director of Education and Child Welfare, Reason Public Policy Institute, upheld charters as a true force in providing competition to traditional public institutions. She sits on the board of directors of a charter school in California.

Mrs. Snell, of course, has it right. When you see first hand the reaction of administrators, staff, parents and children in an education environment where there is a true customer the power of the market is like a bright light flooding the classroom.

The difference in their opinions is a direct result of seeing things from the inside compared to the outside.

PermaLink | 1:41 AM | |

I guess there were others who enjoyed the exhibition.

Maev Kennedy, arts and heritage correspondent
Saturday September 4, 2004
The Guardian

Crowds who flocked to admire some of the loneliest paintings of the 20th century have helped to make the Edward Hopper exhibition at London's Tate Modern one of the gallery's most successful.

The late American painter himself said: "The loneliness thing is overdone." But his trademark desolate figures, in bleak, harshly lit interiors, became some of the most instantly recognisable and popular of the past century.

By the time the exhibition closes tomorrow night, the Tate expects to have sold more than 420,000 tickets - a total beaten only by Matisse-Picasso two years ago.

The gallery has stayed open late every night for weeks to meet the demand.

This was the first major exhibition of his work in Britain for more than 20 years, and there is no Hopper in any British public collection.

Nighthawks and Automat, two of his most famous images of lonely people in late-night diners, were the most popular among more than 284,000 postcards sold at the exhibition. The Tate also sold 2,700 posters of Nighthawks, and 25,500 copies of the catalogue.

Sheena Wagstaff, the curator, said: "We were aware that Hopper's images have always been popular, but the fact that they continue to be so compelling to so many different audiences is remarkable."

PermaLink | 8:24 PM | |

Here is Terry Teachout on the $20.00 per person price tag for admission to the renovated Museum of American Art in New York City:

TT: Let 'em eat acrylics

From the New York Daily News, by way of our invaluable host, artsjournal.com:

Mayor Bloomberg had little sympathy yesterday for New Yorkers who find the new $20 admission to the Museum of Modern Art a bit steep.

"Some things people can afford, some things people can't," said Bloomberg, whose estimated personal fortune is $4.9 billion.

"MoMA is a private institution. It's not a city institution. And they have a right to set their own pricing policies."

Over the past five years, the city funneled $65 million in taxpayer money to help fund MoMA's expansion.

Despite the taxpayers' contribution, Bloomberg - who was in last week's Forbes 400 list of richest Americans - said the city should not be involved in "pressuring" private groups about fees. Besides, he said, there are plenty to choose from. "If you can't afford [admissions] at any one, you can go to another one," he said.

Ed Skyler, Bloomberg's press secretary, later offered a tamer response. "MoMA is a great institution, and it would be incredibly disappointing if this increase prevented people from enjoying it," he said.

MoMA will reopen Nov. 20. The price of an adult ticket, which was $12, will now be $20. Ruth Kaplan, a spokeswoman for MoMA, noted that admission is free from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Fridays.

MoMA's price hike, and its potential effects on the culture of museumgoing in America, will be discussed endlessly in the art world in the weeks and months to come, and rightly so. But I think we can all agree on one thing: Mayor Bloomberg just earned himself a swift kick in the crotch for his personal contribution to the ongoing debate. (Not in the head-that wouldn't hurt him one bit.)

P.S. From the Floor has a thoughtful discussion of what the MoMA price hike might mean over the long haul. It's definitely worth a look.

Here's the direct link.

PermaLink | 7:50 PM | |

I wonder how much this will cost me?

PermaLink | 5:33 AM | |

1. Anne Applebaum's column on Dan Rather's troubles. She is dead right regarding the arrogance of the major networks which is inversely proportional to their declining significance.

2. An update by Julia Kein and Carol Vogel in the New York Times about courtroom events last week regarding the fight over whether the Barnes Museum should be permitted to move to downtown Philadelphia. The institution should definitely be allowed to go in order to prevent the need to sell sum of it's holdings, so that more people can have access to the unbelievable collection, and to restore financial stability.

3. Cristi Hegranes' article in the Village Voice about steps NYU is taking to prevent student suicides. She argues that the university's actions are controversial. I don't see it that way.

PermaLink | 9:45 AM | |

Right now Matthew Klam from the New York Times is a guest on C-Span's Washington Journal talking about his article in today's magazine about the world of blogging. Take a look.

P.S. Amazing. I sent C-Span an email as Mr. Klam was on television which said that I had my own site and that I was posting now regarding his article and his appearance on the show. C-Span then showed my email and my blog! You can watch the video yourself at C-Span.org. (I'll provide the direct link as soon as it is available.)

PermaLink | 7:55 AM | |

The Washington Post published a letter to the editor based upon one of my blog posts.

Can Charter Schools Measure Up?
Saturday, September 25, 2004; Page A22

In his Sept. 11 op-ed, "Charter Schools: Still Proving What Works," Jonathan Schorr said that "charters are not in themselves a reform strategy; they are a blank slate." I disagree. The rationale for giving public funds to charter schools is that when traditional public schools begin to lose students to the competition, they finally will implement reforms to stop the exodus.

Why are some charter schools not successful?

* Many are run by people without experience in education.

* Many are run by people with experience in education but who may not know about a better or different way of doing things.

* Like other start-up businesses, charter schools are businesses that may struggle in the beginning and need managers with crucial skills. Effective boards of directors also play an important role.

* Curriculum may not match student population.

Parents with children who are doing well in neighborhood schools almost certainly will leave them there. For those whose children are struggling or not being educated, charter schools and vouchers become an escape hatch. But when this population reaches charter schools, many are years behind academically, and the established curriculum has no answers for them. At the Cesar Chavez Public Charter High School for Public Policy, this problem was so bad that the original curriculum had to be scrapped.

* The facility allotment means that charter schools must comb the hot District real estate market for properties that rent for about $10 per square foot. The result is that kids are educated in spaces that may lack good ventilation, temperature control, noise abatement and personal space. I have seen students taking final exams while wearing their winter coats. Loan guarantees, from Sallie Mae and others, help charter schools receive needed financing, but they do not solve the basic problem of having to break the budget to rent or purchase property.

Charter schools and their accrediting bodies are learning from past mistakes, but progress is slow and that has led to much criticism.

MARK S. LERNER

Reston

The writer is a member of the board of trustees of the William E. Doar Jr. Public Charter School for the Performing Arts and is a former member of the board of the Cesar Chavez Public Charter High School for Public Policy.

Here's the original submission. You can see that it was edited by about 50% due to space considerations according to the newspaper.

Jonathan Schorr's column in your newspaper "Charter Schools: Still Proving What Works?" (September 11, 2004 Page A21) is mostly correct in his description of the charter school movement, but he makes one statement which is troubling in it inaccuracy and he leave out some important facts about the environment in which charter schools operate.

The author states, "First, charters are not in themselves a reform strategy; they are a blank slate. They are simply an opportunity to try something new, and they run the gamut from alternative schools for inner-city dropouts and incarcerated teens to International Baccalaureate academies in posh suburbs."

Sorry Mr. Schorr, but I must strongly disagree with this assertion. Charters are a reform strategy. That is exactly the rational given to justify giving public funds to non-traditional schools. The idea is to fix what is wrong with public education with the theory being that when traditional public schools begin to lose a large proportion of their student populations through competition they will finally implement reforms to stop the exodus.

Now let us turn to a more important issue which is not addressed in his editorial. Just why are some charter schools not successful? In my experience the answer has its roots in 5 causes.

1. Many are run by people without experience in education. The new schools are created with unrealistic hopes and optimism. Then the kids walk in the door and administrators realize very quickly that they don't know what they are doing.

2. Many are run by people with experience in education. As Julie Doar-Sinkfield, Executive Director of the William E. Doar, Jr. Public Charter School for the Performing Arts commented to me recently, if those in charge only have traditional public school experience then they may not know that there is a better or different way of doing things. Teachers come from traditional schools and then, not unexpectedly, teach exactly the way they did in the past.

3. Charter schools are businesses. In many ways charter schools are no different then other start-up businesses. At the beginning it is going to be a struggle and certain crucial management skills will be needed by those involved to be able to react to this dynamic environment. Effective board of directors oversight will also play an important role during this phase of the school's development.

4. Curriculum does not match student population. As opposed to the cry from charter school and voucher opponents that these schemes skim the top of the student talent pool, almost the exact opposite is true. Parents with kids who are doing well in neighborhood schools will almost certainly leave them there. They find that taking advantage of school choice is just too much trouble. But for those parents whose kids are struggling or not being educated at all charters and vouchers become an escape hatch from a dysfunctional system. When this population reaches the charter schools, many originating from homes which are feeding grounds of socio-economic problems and who are now years behind academically, the established curriculum has no answers for catching these students up to being able to do grade-level work. At the Cesar Chavez Public Charter High School for Public Policy this problem was so bad that the original curriculum had to be immediately scrapped.

5. The facilities issue. The facility allotment that charter schools receive per student means that they must comb the red hot Washington D.C. real estate market for properties that rent for about $10 per square foot. This search is a major distraction to the educational mission of these schools. The result of not being able to afford adequate space is that kids are educated in warehouses or church basements where classrooms lack good ventilation, temperature control, noise abatement and personal space. I have seen students taking final exams in December wearing their winter coats due to not enough heat and I have been in lectures in the spring in which you can hardly hear because the windows need to be open to get enough air into the classroom. Loan guarantees, that this paper recently reported are available from Sallie Mae and the one our school received from the City, help charter school receive needed financing for facilities but they do not solve the basic problem of not breaking the budget to afford to rent or purchase property.

The charter schools and their accrediting bodies are learning from past mistakes but progress is slow, agonizing, and leading to much criticism of this new movement.

PermaLink | 7:54 AM | |

I'm afraid reality is getting to the point where the truth looks no different then fiction. Take for instance John Kerry's speech at NYU yesterday (yes, it is driving our family nuts that we give all this money to a school that is the spring board for democratic ideology (if there is such a thing)). What amazes me after looking at Dan Balz's report in today's Washington Post, is not that he has another position on the war in Iraq but that he can say these things with a straight face:

"To Bush's argument, made repeatedly on the campaign trail, that despite the failure to find weapons of mass destruction he would do the same thing now as he did in the spring of 2003, Kerry said: "How can he possibly be serious? Is he really saying to America that if we know there was no imminent threat, no weapons of mass destruction, no ties to al Qaeda, the United States should have invaded Iraq? My answer: resoundingly no. Because a commander in chief's first responsibility is to make a wise and responsible decision to keep America safe."

Officials in the Bush-Cheney campaign immediately responded that Kerry had again changed his position. They cited the senator's words during the Democratic primaries, when he criticized former Vermont governor Howard Dean for saying that the Iraqi leader's capture did not make the United States safer, arguing those who believed that did not have the judgment to be president."

It feels like only yesterday that Mr. Kerry said that knowing what we know now he would still vote for giving the President the authority to go to war.

Then there is the "apology" by Dan Rather. This guy really has to go. Another case of not being able to differentiate telling the truth from lying. From his statement yesterday:

"We made a mistake in judgment, and for that I am sorry. It was an error that was made, however, in good faith and in the spirit of trying to carry on a CBS News tradition of investigative reporting without fear or favoritism." Here the Wall Street Journal took the time to point out that these words directly contradict comments the reporter made on August 30th:

"Asked if the media were paying too much attention to the Swift Boat Veterans' criticisms of John Kerry, Mr. Rather replied: "In the end, what difference does it make what one candidate or the other did or didn't do during the Vietnam War? In some ways, that war is as distant as the Napoleonic campaigns." Yet nine days later Mr. Rather was reporting on Mr. Bush's National Guard service as if it were the story of a lifetime."

Just when I feel like I never want to click on a publication link again in my lifetime, my extensive review of news sources uncovered the first original well written thought that I have read in months of blogging. This from my friend Marc Fisher of the Washington Post in his review of the new American Indian museum:

"The Holocaust Memorial Museum started us down this troubling path. A first-rate endeavor with a rigorous, probing approach to history, the Holocaust museum -- a privately funded enterprise on government land -- should nonetheless never have been given a spot near the Mall. Its location there opened the gate for the deconstruction of American history into ethnically separate stories told in separate buildings. Museums of black and Hispanic history are in the works."

A good place to stop.

PermaLink | 5:09 AM | |

Today's William Raspberry column perfectly represents those Ward 8 voters who lined up behind Marion Barry as their Councilman. Mr. Raspberry is asking Barry to lead the City out of its past history of failing schools and adult illiteracy.

Yet in the past when these problems were building what was the Mayor doing? Let me spell it out.

>>> Giving away resident's hard earned money and federal dollars to his friends
as gifts toward buying his re-election.
>>> Smoking crack in a downtown hotel room.
>>> Spending his days locked in a jail cell.
>>> Cruising around Buzzards Point looking for a way to get high.
>>> Shamelessly using the race issue as a distraction from his embarrassing record.

Its going to be a long long 4 years.

PermaLink | 5:22 AM | |

The following message from Clint Bollick was sent to me regarding an update on the voucher situation in Florida. The note was in a different font but in honor of Dan Rather and CBS I changed it to Times New Roman.

Sept. 17, 2004
PHOENIX-We have just learned that the Florida Court of Appeals granted a
motion to reconsider its decision en banc. That means that the entire
court has decided to reconsider the previous ruling of the three judge
panel that voted 2-1 finding that the Opportunity Scholarships were
unconstitutional.

Although that does not necessarily mean the decision will be overturned,
it is a very encouraging sign and an unusual step for a court to take.
We will continue to support the Institute for Justice and our Florida
allies as the case moves forward, and we extend them our congratulations
and good luck.

# # #

Here is Governor Jeb Bush's official statement was the program was ruled unconstitutional on August 5, 2004.

"I am disappointed in Judge Davey's ruling today denying parents the right to choose where their child goes to school. For too long parents were given no choice, and were forced to leave their children in failing schools. We changed that in Florida four years ago with the Bush Brogan A+ Plan, empowering parents to improve their child's chances for success as well as giving failing schools the tools they need to turn around. Parents in Florida should not lose the power of choice.

This decision is particularly disappointing given the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision finding Ohio's choice program constitutional. This ruling is also troubling because it suggests that the Florida Constitution requires aid programs to discriminate against parents who choose religious schools. Moreover, this decision could undermine many other vital initiatives that benefit countless Floridians, including the Florida Resident Access Grants program, the Florida Private Student Assistance Grant program, and the Bright Futures Scholarship Program. This interpretation of our state's constitution cannot be correct.

Today's ruling puts in jeopardy the education of hundreds of children in Florida. It is my hope that those children will be able to continue to attend the schools their parents have chosen.

I remain confident in the constitutionality of our Opportunity Scholarship program. We will ultimately prevail. We will appeal today's ruling and continue to fight for the rights of Florida's parents and students."
---------------

More good news! My daughter Sarah started a photography club at school and my other daughter Amy was cast in a one act play at NYU. Its very unusual for a sophomore to land a role there and she got it her first time out.

P.S. I also took some people over to the WEDJ school yesterday. What an impressive site, all these kids quietly learning in their make-shift classrooms.

PermaLink | 11:17 AM | |

My prediction is that Dan Rather does not make it through the controversy over the presumably false documents he showcased on his newscast and 60 minutes.

Unfortunately, he let his political bias shape his view of reality. Its not the first time.

Years ago I was invited to hear him speak to the American Hospital Association national convention. It was right in the middle of the Clinton's attempt to nationalize medicine. Of course I was concerned because I worked in the field. But I was more worried because of what the plan would mean to freedom in this country.

The main topic of his talk, of course, was the crises in access to medical care. As democrats love to do, he described his first hand accounts of the problems Americans are having just seeing a physician. He asserted with confidence that he did not know what specific modifications the government would make to our healthcare system but he let the audience know that they should not worry; change was on the way. I could hardly stay seated. I got up to ask a question at the end of the lecture but I think he could see from by body language that my comments were not going to be to his liking, so he said he had run out of time right before it was my turn in front of the microphone. Of course, after I and many other invested considerable resources, the Clinton plan was defeated.

George Will has another example of ideology overshadowing truth when it comes to this man:

"On the second night of the Republican convention, Rather, perhaps determined to use some canned ad libs no matter how inapposite reality made them, declared that Arnold Schwarzenegger's speech had "slapped [Bush's] opponent, Senator John Kerry, around like a hockey puck." The number of times Schwarzenegger mentioned Kerry: zero."

But there is always hope. In case you are wondering, the picture is of the Objectivist Theater site in New York City.

PermaLink | 5:00 AM | |

Its a sad, sad, sad day for my City.

PermaLink | 6:06 AM | |

I'm sorry that I had never heard of him. Adam Bernstein of the Washington Post reports today that on September 11th Mr. Director died at the age of 102. The entire obituary is worth reading but here are some exerts regarding the life of a leading libertarian who was the brother-in-law of Milton Friedman:

"Although his writing output was slim, it was significant. He wrote a review of Friedrich A. Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom," which had a British publisher but had been turned down for publication in America. Mr. Director urged the University of Chicago to publish what would become a landmark paean to free markets by a future Nobel laureate. The book sold more than 200,000 copies and precipitated Mr. Director's own long-held wish to join the faculty at his alma mater."

And:

"In analyzing antitrust law -- his specialty -- Mr. Director took a grim view of government control and blessed market forces. He wrote that New Deal policies harmed consumers more than helped them and spent his career trying to explain perceived monopolies from a corporation's perspective."

I guess its just a coincidence that his death was reported on the same day that Congress takes initial steps of repealing the harmful restrictions on owning a gun in the District of Columbia and we say goodbye to the worthless ban on assault weapons.

PermaLink | 4:33 AM | |

I realized after seeing the movie "Garden State" that Simon and Garfunkel are to music what Edward Hopper is to art.

PermaLink | 6:01 AM | |

This is the title of Jonathan Schorr's column in today's Washington Post. He mostly correctly describes the scene regarding the charter school movement except for one glaring misrepresentation:

"First, charters are not in themselves a reform strategy; they are a blank slate. They are simply an opportunity to try something new, and they run the gamut from alternative schools for inner-city dropouts and incarcerated teens to International Baccalaureate academies in posh suburbs."

Sorry, but charters are a reform strategy. That is exactly the justification given to provide public funds to non-traditional schools. The idea is to fix what is wrong with public education.

Why are some charter schools not successful?

1. Many are run by people without experience in education. The new schools are created with unrealistic hopes and optimism. Then the kids walk in the door and administrators realize very quickly that they don't know what they are doing.

2. Many are run by people with experience in education. As Julie Doar-Sinkfield commented to me yesterday, if those in charge only have traditional public school experience then they may not know that there is a better or different way of doing things. Teachers come from traditional schools and then, not unexpectedly, teach exactly the way they did in the past.

3. Charter schools are businesses. As I've mentioned before, in many ways charter schools are no different then other start-up businesses. At the beginning it is going to be a struggle and certain crucial management skills will be needed by those involved to be able to react to this dynamic environment. Effective board of directors oversight will also play an important role during this phase of the school's development.

4. Curriculum does not match student population. As opposed to the cry from charter school and voucher opponents that these schemes skim the top of the student talent pool, almost the exact opposite is true. Parents with kids who are doing well in neighborhood schools will almost certainly leave them there. They find that taking advantage of school choice is just too much trouble. But for those parents whose kids are struggling or not being educated at all charters and vouchers become an escape hatch from a dysfunctional system. When this population reaches the charter schools, many originating from homes which are feeding grounds of socio-economic problems and many who are now years behind academically, the established curriculum has no answers for catching these students up to being able to do grade-level work. At Cesar Chavez this problem was so bad that the original curriculum had to be immediately scrapped. I still don't know that they have figured out how to teach these kids.

5. The facilities issue. The facility allotment that charter schools receive per student means that they must comb the red hot Washington D.C. real estate market for properties that rent for about $10 per square foot. This search is a major distraction to the educational mission of these schools. The result of not being able to afford adequate space is that kids are educated in warehouses or church basements where classrooms lack good ventilation, temperature control, noise abatement and personal space. I have seen students taking final exams in December wearing their winter coats due to not enough heat and I have been in lectures in the spring in which you can hardly hear because the windows need to be open to get enough air into the classroom. Loan guarantees, that this paper recently reported are available from Sallie Mae and the one our school received from the City, help charter school receive needed financing for facilities but they do not solve the basic problem of not breaking the budget to afford to rent or purchase property.

The charter schools and their accrediting bodies are learning from past mistakes but progress is slow, agonizing, and leading to much criticism of this new movement.

PermaLink | 9:25 AM | |

Could the new documents featured in the 60 Minutes 2 segment be fake? Read this post by Virginia Postrel to learn more.

PermaLink | 7:36 PM | |

I wish everyone could have been at the WEDJ School this morning. There were hundreds of purple and white balloons marking the first day of our new school. Purple and white are the colors of New York University so I felt like I was with my older daughter.

Seeing all of those little kids dressed in their school uniforms, the parents who are trusting us with the safety and education of their children, and the teachers with their WEDJ shirts brought tears to my eyes and those of fellow board member Steve Pearcy.

Later in the day I reached Sewell Chan over at the Washington Post. He was interested in the information I provided him regarding the charter school movement in Washington D.C. and the work that we have done with the Ezra Company. Mr. Chan added that if I could provide him some basic information about the WEDJ school that he may do an article about it! What a day.

PermaLink | 4:07 PM | |

Sewell Chan of the Washington Post has been actively covering education in Washington D.C. from the perspective of alternatives to traditional public schools. Today his article is about the contribution that Sallie Mae has made towards helping charter schools find facilities. The facility issue is the biggest problem charter schools face. As a condition of the freedom that they enjoy in being able to set their own curriculum and administrative rules they must compete in D.C.'s hot real estate market for space with a facility allotment which allows them to pay about $20.00/square foot including renovation costs. This generally means that kids are educated in warehouses in some of the toughest areas of town.

Today's article claims that Sallie Mae has helped several schools acquire space and increase enrollment. This is not exactly true. For three years I served on the board of directors of the Cesar Chavez Public Charter High School for Public Policy and this is the first school that Mr. Chan says was helped by Sallie Mae's foundation. But in fact, while the school may have benefited by loan guarantees, the principal has been desperately searching for a building for her school. Mrs. Salcido expanded Cesar Chavez this year from being one high school to two and has opened a middle school. Yes even with Sallie Mae's help she went to the extraordinary step of contacting the Fred Ezra Company in her search for a facility. I say extraordinary because she called Anthony King, one of Ezra's brokers, who I recruited for the Cesar Chavez Board of Directors and who along with me and a few other volunteers, Mrs. Salcido removed from her board last year in her attempt to replace us with people who could contribute a lot of money. It was a terrible period since I had worked for her school as if it was my full-time job.

Anthony is an outstanding individual and he talked respectfully with Mrs. Salcido but explained to her that her school's finances did not allow for the acquisition of a facility. You see every charter school receives about $1,200 per student for a facilities allotment. As part of our $2 million loan guarantee from the city those dollars go into a lockbox that can only be used towards our lease and the renovation of our permanent home. Last Friday Anthony and Fred Ezra closed on the purchase of a building that we will move into as our permanent location. Meanwhile, I hear that Cesar Chavez had to scramble to find some space in a church basement.

Today's real story should have been about the heroic act that Fred Ezra did for us and other charter schools. (You can read about it in the Washington Business Journal by clicking here.) At least one other school will be located in our building and he has bought another site that will house one or two others. This is what Mr. Chan should have written about. I'm going to contact him and see if I can get him interested in writing another piece.

PermaLink | 5:52 AM | |

The William E. Doar Jr. Public Charter School for the Performing Arts opens it doors tomorrow! I'll be there to witness the historic event. Over the weekend Michele and I brought supplies to the school's temporary location on 8th Street N.E. and volunteered some time entering classroom books into a database. It was actually hard work.

And just in time for the first day of class Jay Mathews of the Washington Post has written an article on the controversy surrounding applying the theory of multiple intelligences to teaching. Howard Gardner's theory forms the basis for the educational model at WEDJ. Here is the school's mission and philosophy from our application to the D.C. Charter School Board:

"The Mission of WEDJ PCS is to provide a rigorous, college-preparatory academic and artistic learning environment that challenges students to reach their maximum intellectual, social, emotional and artistic development as rapidly as their talents permit. Combining a rigorous program with high educational standards, the school is committed to graduating well-rounded, responsible young men and women.

"The philosophy of WEDJ PCS reflects our full support of the ideology of child development presented in Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences. We believe that all children learn differently, that comprehensive Education in the Arts is one of the greatest gifts on can provide a child as they learn and grow, and that success comes from full community support of and focuses on collective goals."

Who could argue with these goals?

PermaLink | 5:23 AM | |

At least according to Brendan Miniter of the Wall Street Journal.

PermaLink | 5:14 AM | |

by Walter E. Williams

In 1970, the telecommunications industry employed 421,000 switchboard operators. In the same year, Americans made 9.8 billion long distance calls. Today, the telecommunications industry employs only 78,000 operators. That's a tremendous 80 percent job loss.

What should Congress have done to save those jobs? Congress could have taken a page from India's history. In 1924, Mahatma Gandhi attacked machinery, saying it "helps a few to ride on the backs of millions" and warned, "The machine should not tend to make atrophied the limbs of man." With that kind of support, Indian textile workers were able to politically block the introduction of labor-saving textile machines. As a result, in 1970 India's textile industry had the level of productivity of ours in the 1920s.

Michael Cox, chief economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, and author Richard Alms told the rest of the telecommunications story in a New York Times article, "The Great Job Machine." Spectacular technological advances made it possible for the telecommunications industry to cut its manpower needs down to 78,000 to handle not the annual 9.8 billion long distance calls in 1970, but today's over 98 billion calls.

One forgotten beneficiary in today's job loss demagoguery is the consumer. Long distance calls are a tiny fraction of their cost in 1970. Just since 1984, long distance costs have fallen by 60 percent. Using 1970s technology, to make today's 98 billion calls would require 4.2 million operators. That's 3 percent of our labor force. Moreover, a long distance call would cost 40 times more than it does today.

Finding cheaper ways to produce goods and services frees up labor to produce other things. If productivity gains aren't made, where in the world would we find workers to produce all those goods that weren't even around in the 1970s?

It's my guess that the average anti-free-trade person wouldn't protest, much less argue that Congress should have done something about the job loss in the telecommunications industry. He'd reveal himself an idiot. But there's no significant economic difference between an industry using technology to reduce production costs and using cheaper labor to do the same. In either case, there's no question that the worker who finds himself out of a job because of the use of technology or cheaper labor might encounter hardships. The political difference is that it's easier to organize resentment against India and China than against technology.

Both Republican and Democratic interventionists like to focus on job losses as they call for trade restrictions, but let us look at what was happening in the 1990s. Cox and Alm report that recent Bureau of Labor Statistics show an annual job loss from a low of 27 million in 1993 to a high of 35.4 million in 2001. In 2000, when unemployment reached its lowest level, 33 million jobs were lost. That's the loss side. However, annual jobs created ranged from 29.6 million in 1993 to a high of 35.6 million in 1999.

These are signs of a healthy economy, where businesses start up, fail, downsize and upsize, and workers are fired and workers are hired all in the process of adapting to changing technological, economic and global conditions. Societies become richer when this process is allowed to occur. Indeed, because our nation has a history of allowing this process to occur goes a long way toward explaining why we are richer than the rest of the world.

Those Americans calling for government restrictions that would deny companies and ultimately consumers to benefit from cheaper methods of production are asking us to accept lower wealth in order to protect special interests. Of course, they don't cloak their agenda that way. It's always "national security," "level playing fields" and "protecting jobs". Don't fall for it -- we'll all become losers.

PermaLink | 8:59 AM | |

Already the articles are coming out describing the panic Democrates are experiencing over how John Kerry can fix his campaign to make up the ten point lead President Bush now has in public opinion polls in the race for President. I don't think there is much Kerry can do. What a mistake it was for the Democrates to focus their convention on the four months Kerry spent in Vietnam. That opened the door for the people who have been criticizing his actions in that war and the statements he made upon his return to go on the attack. It did not help that Kerry and Edwards failed to paint a coherent picture of how things in the U.S. would be better under their administration.

I heard many people say that President Bush should go to New York and explain why we went to Iraq. I thought that this subject had already been covered to the point of exhaustion. Boy, was I mistaken. The Republican convention used the Iraq war to define for America what leadership meant, why a post 9/11 world called for the need of a strong leader and why President Bush was the only one who could play this part.

PermaLink | 7:32 AM | |

Sowell Chan finally accurately captured the educational environment surrounding school vouchers in Washington D.C. in his Washington Post article today co-authored with Valerie Strauss. Their pieces paints the picture of a marketplace of options available to parents of all income levels who make rational choices as to where to send their kids to school based upon the best fit for the needs of their children. Now we need to expand the program so that true competition for students can take place.

What got me excited was the wide variety of schools that have decided to accept vouchers. It would be extremely interesting to read why brave institutions such as Sidwell Friends (tuition $22,490/year) and the Rock Creek Elementary School (tuition $17,995) decided to participate at a rate of $7,500 per voucher. When I reached this issue in graduate school I found that some private schools in Milwaukee with high tuitions accepted voucher students in order to augment their fundraising needs.

PermaLink | 7:15 AM | |

So a few administrators lost their jobs at Eastern High School last week when students could not begin the first day of classes because their schedules had not been completed on time. Yawn. I guess they were fired because this was a highly visible dereliction of duty. But what about all the teachers and others who must have realized that the first day of school was not going to go smoothly? What about all of those responsible for the educational malpractice that has been the norm in the nation's capital for decades. What about the fact, as the Washington Post mentions today, that SAT scorers declined last year in many of the city's high schools? When will someone realize that hundreds are going to have to lose their positions before this thing can be turned around? Perhaps only three were terminated because that is as high as administrators there can count.

PermaLink | 9:18 AM | |

The domestic policy part was a big let down. Considering all the hype regarding the "Ownership Society" I felt that his commitment to ideas such as Health Savings Accounts and privatizing social security came across as a glancing interest. His other proposals to increase funding for community colleges, job training, blighted neighborhoods and health insurance for the poor signaled to me that four more years of Bush will mean more government spending and an increased federal deficit. There is no way to confuse him with a libertarian.

But when he returned to recalling 9/11 I have to admit that I lost it. Our family had a great New York City vacation in July 2001 and we stayed at the Embassy Suites Hotel that backs to the World Trade Center. We had to opportunity to get to know lower Manhattan. We returned to New York for a day that August to catch "The Producers" on our way to a Cape Cod vacation.

It took us until November to get back to our city. We went to ground zero on a freezing cold day. We bought hats, scarves, and gloves on the street in order to walk around. As you can image it was sad and strange and lonely where the trade towers used to be.

Then we went into Times Square. It was if nothing had changed. It was busy and crowded. It showed us that New York City was already on the rebound.

Bush's speech reminded me of that trip. Despite the tragedy there was hope in the air. We were attacked because of our belief in individual freedom and liberty and it was clear that those values were going to persevere over evil.

George Bush reminded me of those days and the endless possibilities for the future.

PermaLink | 11:33 PM | |

Sewell Chan has a story today in the Washington Post reporting that of the 1,359 private school vouchers awarded this year 290 families have declined to utilize them.
Therefore the title of the piece is "Many D.C. Vouchers Go Unused."

Of course, my take on this is completely different. I see the families of the children who are using this important escape valve from D.C. public schools as extremely brave. Here they are sending their kids to an educational facility they do not know, with students who may not be from their neighborhood, in an environment in which their offspring will be sitting next to others who had to go through an application process to be admitted. The voucher recipients most likely will be getting up in the morning way earlier than their peers to take public transportation to get to their new schools and they are facing an academic year which will be characterized by their obvious lack of basic skills in grasping the material being presented.

But have no fear. If you were to go into these schools and watch the reaction of these students, you will see them fighting the fight of their short lifetimes in an effort to succeed. These people deserve our highest admiration.

PermaLink | 8:02 AM | |

I was much more impressed with the Governor then I thought I would be. He treaded on dangerous grounds defining what it means to be a Republican. His criteria:

"If you believe a person should be treated as an individual, not as a member of an interest group, then you are a Republican.

If you believe your family knows how to spend your money better than the government does, then you are a Republican.

If you believe our educational system should be held accountable for the progress of our children, then you are a Republican.

If you believe this country, not the United Nations, is the best hope for democracy, then you are a Republican.

And, ladies and gentlemen, if you believe that we must be fierce and relentless and terminate terrorism, then you are a Republican.

Now, there's another way you can tell you're a Republican. You have faith in free enterprise, faith in the resourcefulness of the American people and faith in the U.S. economy."

I could not agree more.

PermaLink | 7:54 AM | |