2004

The Good Mr. Durbin

ArchPundit June 9, 2004 2 Comments

Just to make Greg have a coniption 😉

The Good Mr. Durbin yesterday made the AG very uncomfortable.

Reward Good Behavior

Durbin: And here’s the problem we have. You have said that you’re not claiming executive privilege; that’s for the president to claim. But the law’s very clear: you have two options when you say no to this committee: Either the executive claims privilege and refuses to disclose, or you cite a statutory provision whereby Congress has limited its constitutional right to information.

So which is it, Mr. Attorney General? Is it executive privilege, or which statue are you claiming is going to shield you from making this disclosure of these memos at this point?

ASHCROFT: Thank you for your remarks.

First of all, let me agree with you as it relates to the value of the Constitution both at war and at peace. I couldn’t agree more heartedly with you that the Constitution is controlling. And I would never suggest that we absent ourselves from a consideration of and adherence to and complete compliance to the Constitution of the United States.

ASHCROFT: And if there is any way in which I have suggested in my remarks today that we wouldn’t do that, I want to take this opportunity to make it very clear that the Constitution of the United States is controlling in every circumstance and is never to be disregarded.

(CROSSTALK)

DURBIN: I respect that.

But under which standard are you denying this committee the memos, either executive privilege or a specific statutory authority created by Congress exempting your constitutional responsibility to disclose? Under which are you refusing to disclose these memos?

ASHCROFT: I am refusing to disclose these memos because I believe it is essential to the operation of the executive branch that the president have the opportunity to get information from his attorney general that is confidential and that the responsibility to do that is a function of the executive branch and a necessity that is protected by the doctrine of the separation of powers in the Constitution.

And for that reason — and that is the reason for which I have not delivered to the Congress or the members of the Senate these memos, any memos.

DURBIN: Sir, Attorney General, with all due respect, your personal belief is not a law, and you are not citing a law and you are not claiming executive privilege. And, frankly, that is what contempt of Congress is all about.

You have to give us a specific legal authority which gives you the right to say no or the president has to claim privilege. And you’ve done neither.

I think this committee has a responsibility to move forward on this.

Austin Mayor on McCullough

ArchPundit June 9, 2004 1 Comment

I kind of liked it.

Voucher Accountability

ArchPundit June 9, 2004 No Comments

In response to a small point about accountability for vouchers, Jeff Berkowitz responds:

I mean, Archpundit should ask himself who sets the accountability standards for computers. Well, I think Dell knows you can go to any one of a number of competitors. That fear of losing customers tends to make Dell pretty accountable. Same with cars, watches and indeed, blogs. The reason people like Jack Ryan favor school vouchers/school choice, especially for the inner cities, is that they want low income minorities to have similar, if not identical, market power and accountability to the market power and accountability that Cong. Jackson’s parents got by sending Jesse Jr. to St. Albans, that Speaker Mike Madigan and his wife got by sending Lisa Madigan to the Latin School, that Governor Blagojevich and Patti get by sending their daughter to a Montesouri school and that affluent suburbanites get, albeit to a lesser extent, by sending their kids to high priced public schools, with the cost of admission being the ability to live in the affluent neighborhood and pay the high property taxes, mortgages and rents.

The problem is the public school choice programs demonstrate that parents often don’t have the ability to tell between a good school and a poor school. One of the larger examples is the St. Louis voluntary transfer program that operated for over 10 years below capacity despite thousands of children going to substandard schools. The Saint Louis Public Schools is riddled with bad schools (I’ve been in many of them and evaluate test scores from some on a regular basis) and yet parents despite choices to go to excellent county schools, magnet schools and now some charter schools, continue to send their kids to neighborhood schools that are often failing.

The reality that no one wants to talk about in inner-city schools is that many of the parents don’t have the capacity to make informed decisions. This is actually true of more than inner-city districts, but in other districts proxies work marginally well and parents do okay. Parents suffer from abject poverty, drugs, families that are falling apart, irregular work schedules, neighborhood violence, family violence and low generally low level of education. Given many of these parents didn’t do well in school and most had bad experiences in school, what makes them capable of evaluating the quality of a school?

One argument is that this view is paternalistic, and it is to some degree, but it also is a reality of what goes on in inner-city education. Parents are often unable or incapable of making choices that are in the best educaitonal interest of their children.

This doesn’t mean you take away the choice, but that you regulate it with standards just as we do with public schools–though the current standards are silly and pointless. Public money=public accountability. If you are going to start up a school that is receiving public money there is no reason it shouldn’t meet standards set by the public sphere. We can allow some of those standards that are based on specifically being a public school such as faith be put to the side as long as children have a choice, but in terms of instruction and standards I’m at a loss as to why we shouldn’t enforce those standards.

The assumptions of the market assume that the information is equally and freely distributed. That isn’t the case in schools and even amongst middle class parents they often make choices that we wouldn’t describe as rational. One of the better examples is Gary Orfield’s research that points out that parents often choose whiter school districts than one’s with higher performance. That isn’t rational, but it is certainly a choice. It is doubtful that they are studying the test scores as much as using race as a proxy of quality.

Putting in a voucher system that relies solely on parental choice in what schools survive and what schools don’t is asking for Harold Hills to get in the business to take advantage of poor students already being taken advantage of in our society.

We Won’t Talk About My Results

ArchPundit June 8, 2004 No Comments

But one of the better moves to improve health for teenagers would be to ban junk food from schools. In fact, that ban was pretty much in effect when I was in high school–let’s not talk about my currently oversized condition (you try and workout regularly with twins). Join Cross guys bring it up in relation to Tom Cross’ efforts to ban junk food in schools.

Illinois is actually one of the smarter states that requires physical education from grade school through high school every day with exceptions for health class and drivers ed (or those were the exceptions when I was in school). It is an important way to promote exercise and taking care of oneself–improving phys ed education for teachers would go along way to making it a field that isn’t just for coaches, but Illinois is on the right path.