Schools: Cockamamy Ideas, Fuzzy Math

There’s a rumor being circulated by the Cato Institute that private schools are cheaper to run than public ones. More successful, too.

I’ll leave it to better-qualified critics than I to respond to the mis-use of facts, fuzzy math, twisted logic and right-wing political agenda disguised as objectivity.

As someone who attended public schools from pre-kindergarten through college, I respectfully point out that Cato neglects one of the most important factors in student success: Parent involvement.

The mere fact of selecting a non-public school can demonstrate an increased level of parent involvement.

Secondarily, I insist that the point of a public education system is far more than to be “responsive, efficient [and] high-quality,” as Cato concludes. The role of free public schools is to be society’s historian, exponent and perpetuator of its values --the common weal.

Private schools --religious and otherwise-- promote their own values. Ditto home schooling. Each has its own agenda. Not necessarily “bad.” But the word “sectarian” comes to mind.

These may be close to, or parallel with those of the overall society. But they are not identical. That’s why they are private and should be privately funded.

Progressive Taxation -Arizona Style

The prevailing view nationwide is that the U.S. tax system is generally progressive, meaning higher-income people and companies are expected to pay larger shares. Recent figures released by Arizona's Department of Revenue show the highest-earning 8.4 percent of individual taxpayers - those making $100,000 and more - paid 53 percent of all taxes from individuals in 2003, the most recent year available. But is that “progressive”?

Arizonans with adjusted gross income of $1 million or more, representing a mere 0.12 of a percent of all taxpayers, paid 13 percent of the total. Looked at another way, people who earned less than $50,000 represented 70.2 percent of all individual tax-return filers but paid only 19 percent of the take from individuals. But is that “progressive”?

The same pattern can be seen among corporations, where the top 1.1 percent of filers - firms with tax liabilities of $100,000 and up - accounted for 85 percent of all corporate income-tax revenue. But is that “progressive”?

These are interesting figures, as pointed out by Russ Wiles in the Arizona Republic on November 28, 2006. However, there is another way to look at the numbers. (Do you recall what Karl Rove said to Steve Inskeep of NPR before Election day, "You have your numbers; I have THE numbers.")

Check out an article by Ben Stein --Yes, THE Ben Stein-- in The NY Times of Sunday, Nov. 26, based on his interview with Warren Buffett --Yes, THE Warren Buffett. The title is "In Class Warfare, Guess Which Class Is Winning."

Stein discovered that, "Put simply, the rich pay a lot of taxes as a total percentage of taxes collected, but they don’t pay a lot of taxes as a percentage of what they can afford to pay, or as a percentage of what the government needs to close the deficit gap."

How did these two Republicans and giants of capitalism come to this conclusion? Stein explains:

"Mr. Buffett compiled a data sheet of the men and women who work in his office. He had each of them make a fraction; the numerator was how much they paid in federal income tax and in payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare, and the denominator was their taxable income. The people in his office were mostly secretaries and clerks, though not all.

It turned out that Mr. Buffett, with immense income from dividends and capital gains, paid far, far less as a fraction of his income than the secretaries or the clerks or anyone else in his office. Further, in conversation it came up that Mr. Buffett doesn’t use any tax planning at all. He just pays as the Internal Revenue Code requires. “How can this be fair?” he asked of how little he pays relative to his employees. “How can this be right?”

My answer: It isn't. Period.

Stein says that "conservatives were supposed to like balanced budgets. I thought it was the conservative position to not leave heavy indebtedness to our grandchildren. I thought it was the conservative view that there should be some balance between income and outflow. When did this change?

"Oh, now, now, now I recall. It changed when we figured that we could cut taxes and generate so much revenue that we would balance the budget. But isn’t that what doctors call magical thinking? Haven’t the facts proved that this theory, though charming and beguiling, was wrong?"

Medicare Math

What is it about us that makes us hate to “do the math”? And why is it that we elect legislators who act in somebody-else’s best interest, not ours?

A straight-forward plan would say to each person older than 65 that “you will pay X% of the cost of your perscription drugs and the taxpayers will pick up the tab for the balance.”

Even if it were 19.61% that Medicare paid and 80.39% that the Medicare recipient paid, at least it would be an up-front, here-are-the-facts plan.

Instead, we have a plan with lots of “ifs.”

IF, for example, you only spend $250 on prespecription drugs in a year, you pay 100%.

IF, however, you spend more than $250 on prescription drugs in a year you pay 25% on anything greater than $250 but up to a threshhold of $2,250.

So stop right there for a second and do the math.

IF the cost of your prescription drugs is $500 in a given year, you paid 100% on half of $500 and 25% on the other half of $500: 62.5%.

And so it goes, on up to$2,250, with the Medicare recipient’s actual share diminishing the further away he or she gets from that 100% “deductible.”

WARNING: In computing that range of $250 to $2,250, Medicare is totalling not how much IT spent on your prescription drugs and not how much YOU spent on your prescrption drugs, but on the combined total.

So the Medicare recipient is getting to that $2,250 threshhold alot faster than he or she knows --but doesn’t know how fast. That’s because the recipient doesn’t usually do the math to figure out how much Medicare’s tab is.

But rest assured, Medicare is. And when the total gets to $2,250 the largess stops. It’s like having a “second deductible.” And that second deductible is $2,850, during which Medicare pays out Zero% and the former Medicare recipient pays out 100%.

This largess continues until the total amount of one’s prescription drugs for the year reaches $5,100 --after which Medicare jumps back in and pays 95% of the cost for the balance of the year.

Math 101: At that $5,100 level the individual Medicare “beneficiary” has paid $4,100 or 80.39% of his or her prescription drugs for that calendar year --unless the grim reaper has filed a claim first!

The term “truth in advertising” comes to mind.

Not Liberal/Not Conservative

1. Government is not the enemy, any more than churches, schools, unions, businesses or anything else is the enemy. Government is made of people. Some are thieves, such as Randy Cunningham, Ken Lay or Jimmy Hoffa.

2. Government exists to perform certain functions for all of us that we couldn't --or prefer not-- to do for ourselves.

3. We vote our governments into office; we vote our governments out of office. Or at least some of us vote.

4. Sometimes we ask our government to require all of us to do something for the good of the whole, even though only some of us actually want to do it voluntarily. We ask our government to require us to go to school, follow certain public-health practices, to license our marriages and our vehicles, and to insure our vehicles. "Why?" you ask. Because there is a vested public interest in each of these areas.

For example:
A. You need to feel confident that people who vote do so with some level of knowledge, which is why you pay taxes to send them to school. Also, that they can follow instructions when you hire them, and that they can give you the proper change when you buy things from them.
B. You need to feel confident that people you encounter in public places are not carrying communicable diseases, and that the doctor who treats your medical problems is as qualified to do so as he says he is.
C. You need to know that the person who marries your son or daughter is not already in several similar relationships.
D. You need to know that the vehicle that damages yours is driven by someone who is able to pay for those damages.

5. There are some things that are simply too damned important to let people choose not to have. And when I say choose, I mean two things:
A. Be able to afford them but elect not to have.
B. Not be able to afford them.

I don't care if you have an HDTV. I have no vested interest in your having an HDTV.
But I DO care if you have a telephone or not. There are too many instances where a telephone is a vital, life-and-death device for either making or receiving calls. That's why the government passed a law in 1934 that among other things provided for "universal service." It doesn't mandate that you have a phone. It simply requires a telephone company to provide it to you at a reasonable rate, no matter where you live.

6. Health Insurance is one of those things that is simply too damned important to let people choose not to have. Good health is not a privilege in this country any more. It is a right. If the position stated in 4B above doesn't convince you, then the economics of "pay-me-now/pay-me-later" should.
A. It costs less to provide preventative care than to fix or cure entrenched diseases. (I cannot believe, for example, that my own health insurance will not cover me for an annual check-up, when the purpose of this is to catch problems before they become serious problems. No. I need to wait until I am visibly sick before I am covered for a doctor's visit.)
B. Sooner or later you will pay for the higher costs of un-insured people in the form of emergency-room care, premature death, etc. as charity or welfare costs. (When I say the costs of premature death, think of sales-tax revenues lost; think of the cost of children forced into the foster-care program as orphans.)

7. It's not YOUR world. It's OUR world.

There. I am finished. I doubt that I have changed your mind. Perhaps, though, I have opened your eyes to see a bit further than your own personal, what's-in-it-for-me or I-got-mine-you-get-yours interest. Like it or not, we're all together in this boat called Earth. A hole someplace risks sinking us all.

Don't Tell Me "I don't care"!

I realize that you don't care about alot of things. And here it comes, like the man downing six double-cheeseburgers who wears size triple-extra-large sweat pants that are too tight: There's a big "but" in there.

But the fact of the matter is that a very large percentage of the people on the planet DO care.

Some care because it is THEIR ox that is being gored.
Some care even though it's NOT their ox that is being gored.

You may not want to care. Even if you don't CARE, it actually does MATTER to you. Then it's just a short hop from MATTER to EFFECT you.

It mattered to you when Imperial Japan bombed the harbor on some remote Pacific Island on 12/7/41.
It mattered to you during their rape of Nanking.
It mattered to you when Nazi Germany bombed London night after night.
It mattered to you when concentration camp furnaces belched out the smoke from millions of burning bodies.
It mattered to you when ethnic cleansing began once-again in the remains of Yugoslavia.
It mattered to you when, with Bin Laden's help, the Taliban in Afghanistan, was spreading their vile version of fundamentalism.

Other things that actually do matter to you, and effect you whether or not you want to care about them are:
-That our petro-dollars go to bolster feudalism, unemployment, suppression, violence, illiteracy and, yes, religious fundamentalism. We are in essence funding both sides of our wars in the Middle East.
-That our "every-day low prices"” in big-box stores comes at the expense of sweat-shop labor in China and much of the third world. And while they "like" it, they don't "“appreciate" it.
-That my freedom to speak or to write is curtailed. Because you are next.
-That we are polluting the air that surrounds and protects our own planet, sowing the seeds of our own destruction. Whether measured in decades or centuries, alot more of the world will be under water than it is today.
-That we've built-up the most dangerously-high deficit in the the country's history by granting tax breaks to people who don'’t need them.

You may not want to believe that John Donne was right when he said in 1624 that "All mankind is of one author.... No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

Or whether you believe that Hillel was right when, at about the time that Jesus preached in Jerusalem, he wrote this:

"If I am not for myself, who will be? If I am for myself alone, what am I? If not now, when?"

Specifically addressing your "I don't care" diatribe, it was not "“Islamic people" who attacked us on 9/11. It was fanatical adherents of an off-beat fundamentalist sect of Islam, that is reputiated by most "Islamic people"” (We, too, have our very own, home-grown, off-beat fundamentalist sects and terrorists --see Jonestown; see Oklahoma City.)

And in the view of those who attacked us --and their view DOES count-- they didn't "start" it. Their primary gripe is our very presence in their region. To them, our support of oppressive kingdoms is what matters to them. No serious person believes that anyone is trying to create a Caliphate U.S.A. They want us, and our influence, out of their region.

So the two questions are:
-How do we disengage ourselves from that part of the world without being totally isolationists?
-How much do we care what they do within their region to their own people?

Now, for those readers who have not seen the original "I don'’t care" that is making its way around the Internet --albeit incorrectly attributed to a lady in Atlanta-- here it is.

I DON'T CARE


WHAT'S ALL THE FUSS?

"Are we fighting a war on terror or aren't we? Was it or was it not started by Islamic people who brought it to our shores on September 11, 2001? Were people from all over the world, mostly Americans, not brutally murdered that day, in downtown Manhattan, across the Potomac from our nation's capitol and in a field in Pennsylvania? Did nearly three thousand men, women and children die a horrible, burning or crushing death that day, or didn't they?

And I'm supposed to care that a copy of the Koran was "desecrated" when an overworked American soldier kicked it or got it wet? Well, I don't. I don't care at all.

I'll start caring when Osama bin Laden turns himself in and repents for incinerating all those innocent people on 9/11.

I'll care about the Koran when the fanatics in the Middle East start caring about the Holy Bible, the mere possession of which is a crime in Saudi Arabia.

I'll care when Abu Musab al-Zarqawi tells the world he is sorry for hacking off Nick Berg's head while Berg screamed through his gurgling, slashed throat.

I'll care when the cowardly so-called "insurgents" in Iraq come out and fight like men instead of disrespecting their own religion by hiding in mosques.

I'll care when the mindless zealots who blow themselves up in search of nirvana care about the innocent children within range of their suicide bombs.

I'll care when the American media stops pretending that their First Amendment liberties are somehow derived from international law instead of the United States Constitution's Bill of Rights.

In the meantime, when I hear a story about a brave marine roughing up an Iraqi terrorist to obtain information, know this: I don't care.

When I see a fuzzy photo of a pile of naked Iraqi prisoners who have been humiliated in what amounts to a college hazing incident, rest assured that I don't care.

When I see a wounded terrorist get shot in the head when he is told not to move because he might be booby-trapped, you can take it to the bank that I don't care.

When I hear that a prisoner, who was issued a Koran and a prayer mat, and  fed "special" food that is paid for by my tax dollars, is complaining that his holy book is being "mishandled," you can absolutely believe in your heart of hearts that I don't care.

And oh, by the way, I've noticed that sometimes it's spelled "Koran" and other times "Quran." Well, Jimmy Crack Corn and ---- you guessed it, I could not have said this any better myself!

That's a fact! I don't care. Wish I could but I won't until a lot attitudes from the radical Muslim terrorist changes. That's not likely, considering their past tyrannical, conquering and inhumane behavior [believe like us, or die] over the last 1400 years.

If you agree with this view point, pass this on to all your e-mail friends. Sooner or later, it'll get to the people responsible for this ridiculous behavior! If you don't agree, then by all means hit the delete button. Should you choose the latter, then please don't complain when more atrocities committed by radical Muslims happen here in our great country.

Nay to School Vouchers

OK. We are all supporters of free, public education. But some of us see vouchers as a "safety valve" that allows parents to have greater control over how their money is spent and where it is spent.

I say “Nay!!” Rather, vouchers entice people to spend my money elsewhere.

Some thoughts:
1. Stop using the word "taxpayers." It's divisive. All residents (citizens, visitors from other planets, even tourists) pay taxes in some form or another and to some degree or another.

2. I'm not sure that the NEA is the enemy of change/improvement, any more than the AMA is or the ABA is or the ANPA is. Or even the ACLU. They each are "special interests" wearing two hats: experts in a field, and turf-protectors. We as consumers need to out-vote them, even as we heed their advice. (N.B.: Trial-Lawyers Associations seem to regularly out-flank us in the legislature. That doesn't mean that we scrap the liability system. Or does it?)

3. How would you define "free, public education"? "Free" means no cost for using it --as in most highways; as in librarys. Public means everyone goes. One could argue that every child who goes to other than a public school therefor diminishes the "public-ness" of the classroom from which he or she is absent.

4. Encouraging people --by vouchers, tax-deductions or whatever-- to opt out of the free, public education system diminishes its value to those who remain, and removes from the departed any real concern for what they left behind. They no longer have "skin in the game."

5. The keys to success in school --other than the obvious ones such as teacher-qualification & pay, class size, modern texts and equipment--are geographic proximity, parent involvement and participation in extra-curricular activities.

6. You get what you pay for: A mechanic who can't read the computer manual to work on your car, a sales-clerk who can't make change, a doctor who cannot speak your language well-enough to tell you that you are dying, a soldier who cannot speak the language of the country to which we've sent him to fight and die.

7. Pay me now or pay me later. That is, "invest" in free, public, early-childhood education now or "spend" it on prisons 20 years later.

For more on this subject see an article by Zachary M. Seward in the Wall Street Journal of Saturday/Sunday, July 15-16, 2006. In it he reports on a recent study by researchers at the Educational Testing Service, Princeton, N.J. It analyzed 2003 data from the National Assessment of Education Progress --aka "the nation's report card."

While using a statistical model that accounted for a range of student characteristics, including affluence, ethnicity, disability and background in English, Seward says that "public-school students are generally poorer, more diverse and less likely to speak English at home than their private-school counterparts."

Duh! No wonder the release of the report was delayed for more than a year.