Conservative presidential campaigns issue promises to end the reign of big government.

As a general rule, the more conservative the candidate, the less enamored with governmental oversight. Conversely, the more liberal the candidate, the more enamored with governmental oversight.

With one glaring exception, that is. That sole exception is the grisly and carnivorous abortion industry.

By way of example, consider a Jan. 4, 2012, article from the Chicago Tribune, dateline Rockford, Ill. An abortuary closed down last September due to health and safety violations has been ordered to pay out $9,750 in fines to the state of Illinois. This sounds like great news, but it is far too little and comes far too late. (Doesn’t it seem a trifling “tribute” to pay for enjoying the state-countenanced privilege of butchering the next generation of American citizens?)

The realpolitik of the situation is this: Political pressure and troubling revelations regarding the status quo ante inside the outpatient facilities advancing the culture of death finally moved Illinois bureaucrats to action. According to The Associated Press, once Illinois officials finally caved to the political realities and inspected the Rockford mill they discovered “unsanitary practices,” informal procedures, a dearth of surgically trained nurses and an abortionist without admitting privileges at any Illinois hospital. The long-overdue inspection of this notorious front-alley abortion clinic resulted in a government-ordered shutdown lasting three months. The unsanitary conditions documented included “brown tissue” staining surgical instruments and “brown tissue” splattered into boxes of allegedly sanitary gloves. All three of the Rockford mill’s abortion procedure rooms failed the sanitary inspection.

Such outrageous medical irregularities are not unheard of in the abortion industry. My father, John Brown, purchased Fort Wayne’s former abortion clinic on Webster Street a few years back. When our family took possession of the former mill, we documented conditions that caused my Dad to exclaim, “I would not bring a cat here to be spayed.” Huge cracks in rotten window casements were stuffed with rubber gloves in a low-budget attempt to keep cold and dust out of the operating rooms. The “sterile room” included 1960s-era cabinets so poorly installed that three-inch gaping holes allowed air to waft into drawers labeled “autoclave tips” and “sterile field.” That air arose out of the 100-year-old, damp and spider-infested fieldstone basement. The three operating rooms were appointed with sinks of the kind commonly found in blue-collar residences of the 1950s, their floors stained brown and yellow after decades of highly invasive “surgeries.”

The Illinois pro-life activists standing guard outside of the Rockford clinic asked why an inspection took so long to schedule given their repeated and ongoing allegations of unsanitary conditions within the clinic. Government bureaucrats blamed a “lack of resources” on the Rockford clinic going without a full health inspection from its opening in 1996 until last September.

A lack of resources? Wrong — it was rather a lack of resolve. Liberals are wont to look the other way during the “processing” of human life, ignoring life-threatening conditions that they would never countenance at tattoo parlors, farmer’s markets or school cafeterias.

Case in point: The Fort Wayne-Allen County Board of Health inspects the aforementioned businesses at least once a year. (Tattoo parlors are inspected twice a year.) The former abortion clinic on Webster Street processed an estimated 24,000 fetuses (Latin for “little ones”) between 1978 and 2006. We know of only one government inspection during those 28 years. That sole inspection took place at the instance of the late, great Phyllis Avila in the clinic’s first year of operation, when a young lady left the clinic to die of sepsis a few days later.

Peter Breen, executive director of the Thomas More Society (a Chicago-based public interest law firm) said this in the wake of the revelations arising out of the inspection of the Rockford abortuary: “Considering the utter disregard for basic medical standards found by public health personnel, we hope they won’t wait another 14 years to re-inspect this clinic.”

Don’t hold your breath, counselor. Abortion is a sacrament of the left. True devotees fully realize that some sacrifices (beyond the little ones, that is) must be made. Those additional sacrifices sometimes include women killed by sepsis — and card-carrying pro-abortion liberals know to just look the other away when such tragedies occur, to eschew governmental oversight of that industry no matter how vile its effluence.

To bring this all home while demonstrating a faith in government oversight befitting a sincerely honest liberal, allow me to paraphrase a recent and well-worn ad campaign: “What’s in your local abortion clinic, Fort Wayne?” I dare the Fort Wayne-Allen County Board of Health to look.

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Public school superintendents are greedy, selfish, over-paid, a big waste of taxpayer dollars — or so popular thought goes. Such perceptions are fueled by news reports of superintendent compensation packages, retirement packages and contract buyouts.

The Philadelphia School District this fall bought out its superintendent’s contract for $905,000. And closer to home, an Indianapolis-area superintendent retired this year with a $1-million retirement package (but a few weeks after retirement decided to forego $200,000 of the retirement pay). Another Indianapolis-area superintendent a few years ago settled a contract buyout dispute by accepting a settlement of $470,000. A Fort Wayne-area superintendent received a retirement package of $495,000 a few years ago.

Politicians rail loudly against such retirement packages and buyouts, but there is another side to the story.

Public-school superintendents have a tough job if not an impossible one. They are supervised generally by elected school board members who have their own agendas and special interests. Often these board members disagree among themselves and do not provide a superintendent unified direction. Trying to please a divided board almost always results in a change of superintendency.

Superintendents live their life in a fishbowl. Late-night calls from angry taxpayers or parents are common. There are demands from the media for interviews at all hours of the day and night. It is a near total loss of privacy and a life of competing conflicts between special-interest groups.

Employees and citizens assume the superintendent has the authority to run the school district’s daily operations. In reality, it is individual board members who tell the superintendent what to do on many daily operations. On top of this, there are thousands of laws and regulations passed by the state legislature, Congress and state agencies that constrict the decision-making authority of a superintendent. Thus, it is a job with great responsibility but little authority to accomplish that responsibility.

This year, Indiana legislators are talking about putting salary caps on superintendent salaries and even requiring public hearings of proposed superintendent contracts. Both ideas are unsound public policy.

Indeed, it is widely reported that the pool of qualified candidates for the public school superintendency is getting smaller and smaller each year. Policymakers need to understand that there may appear to be sufficient supply of public-school superintendents when in reality many of those applicants are unlicensed, untrained and lack the experience, talent and ability to serve as a chief executive officer of a large government entity. There is in fact an inadequate supply of well-qualified superintendent candidates in Indiana today.Supply and demand make up an economic model of price determination in a market. The model concludes that in a competitive market, the unit price for a particular good or service will vary until it settles at a point where the quantity demanded by consumers (at current price) will equal the quantity supplied by producers (at current price), resulting in an economic equilibrium of price and quantity.

The four basic laws of the supply-and-demand model are:

1. If demand increases and supply remains unchanged, then it leads to higher equilibrium price and quantity.
2. If demand decreases and supply remains unchanged, then it leads to lower equilibrium price and quantity.
3. If supply increases and demand remains unchanged, then it leads to lower equilibrium price and higher quantity.
4. If supply decreases and demand remains unchanged, then it leads to higher price and lower quantity.

It is Rule No. 4 that is in play now. With salary caps and public hearings on proposed superintendent contracts, coupled with already unattractive working conditions, the supply of well-qualified superintendent candidates will grow even smaller. These two legislative proposals are artificial restraints free market. Legislators are ignoring that by artificially reducing price (superintendent salaries) they will decrease the number of people who are willing to take a most difficult job. Policymakers will find that educators will make other decisions, such as stay in the classroom, serve as a principal, or seek employment in the private sector.

Demand for superintendents, however, will remain the same as the number of superintendent jobs remains the same. Thus, according to Rule No. 4 the price goes higher. This is why superintendent salaries have escalated in the past decade. Fewer right-minded, thoughtful and qualified people want the job in today’s highly regulated and political environment. To set salary caps or to hold public hearings will do nothing to increase the supply of qualified candidates — it will have the opposite effect — resulting in even fewer such candidates seeking a superintendency. And school districts will suffer the consequences.

Jeff Abbott, Ph.D., J.D., an adjunct scholar of the Indiana Policy Review Foundation, teaches at Indiana University-Purdue University at Fort Wayne. He is a former superintendent of the East Allen County School system.

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Of all the things you have to worry about in these serious times, you don’t have to worry that the Indiana Legislature, GOP majority or not, will do anything substantive to improve Indiana’s budgetary, fiscal or economic position. With Organization Day around the corner, Nov. 22, and a governing class marking time until the gubnatorial election, that is not cynicism, merely reality.

Here are the topics that could make a difference but will not be on the table:

• Multi-Issue Legislation — The state constitution prohibits the Legislature from passing laws bunched together to limit debate and diffuse accountability, allowing a leadership clique and lobbyists to control the outcome of a session. It does so anyway, and the Indiana Supreme Court ignores it. Ditto for a slew of laws and rules that ensconce party leadership and protect incumbency. A national study this year found that more than 50 percent of incumbent legislators running for re-election faced no primary or general election competition compared with 26 percent last year.
• The Collective Bargaining Act — The absurd idea that public-sector workers have the same rights as workers in the competitive private sector has prevailed since the 1970s, thereby putting 80 percent of the state budget in the hands of unelected, unaccountable privately controlled government “unions” and creating an unassailable political machine. The basis of the law, under both Republican and Democrat majorities, has never been challenged.
• Tax Reform — Changes in the state tax system continue  to be designed to buy votes rather than create jobs. As evidence of the folly of that strategy, a recent study found tax revenue declined despite an uptick in per-capita income. The likely explanation is that Hoosiers changed their economic habits to avoid the ever-more-complicated machinations of the tax code — that and you can only get so much blood out of a middle-class, salaried turnip.
• Higher Education — Texas and other states have reformed their university systems, wresting control away from chancellors, deans and administrators, and giving parents, students and individual faculty more say in regard to the quality, cost and choice of higher education. Indiana has not. Indeed, there is a strong argument that grade inflation here is devaluing an Indiana degree.
• Private Property — Last but not least, the Legislature as well as the Indiana Supreme Court has made clear they consider private property an abstract, something that reasonable men (lawyers) can parse, disassemble or regulate. If they are wrong, if private property is an absolute and therefor essential to economic growth, Indiana will fall into the third tier of states. That possibility will not be seriously raised on the floor of either house.

Introduction of a right-to-work law and repeal of the state inheritance tax will be encouraging signs, certainly, as would a strong legislative statement opposing the twin disasters of minimum and prevailing wage. But to have the maximum effect on Indiana economics such a discussion should have begun a decade ago when other states became aware of how ruinous these measures were to investment. Also, there are indications that any reform will be watered down to the point of insignificance in respect to Indiana’s position vis-à-vis other states — a case of too little, too late.

Most troubling of all is that few in the leadership of either party share our belief that government must be kept small for smallness sake. The goal is not to run it “like a business” or make it more efficient (consolidate) but to ensure that government is simple enough that average citizens can understand and monitor its workings. The constitutional ability to do that and a passion for self-government (governing ones self), thereby reaping the rewards and accepting the consequences, are what is meant by American exceptionalism.

Nor does the current leadership appreciate that government cannot by nature be proactively involved in prosperity, that it cannot create wealth but only refrain from taking it away or destroying it. Even Republicans busy themselves in such neo-mercantile schemes as tax rebates for politically favored companies and industries, or training programs to win more contracts from the federal government. At the same time, they slap a tax on entrepreneurial activity as soon as it finds success, most recently in Internet commerce.

Look, Democrats already work tirelessly to extract from us the revenue to support a bloated, systemically flawed and misguided state government. Do they need Republican help? Inviting Rand Paul to Bean Dinners is not enough.

Milton Freidman famously described those trying to reform government without changing its makeup as being engaged in an attempt to transform a cat into a dog.This General Assembly may learn to bark but it will still be a cat.

Craig Ladwig is editor of The Indiana Policy Review.

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Before we sit down for the next GOP presidential debate, we need to resolve a famous exchange from the last one. The topic was health Care. It involved CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Rep. Ron Paul and the partisan crowd. It begs our most careful thought.

Blitzer asked Paul about a hypothetical 30-year-old man who refused to purchase health insurance, got sick and needed extensive medical treatment. Blitzer asked, “Who pays?”

Paul replied, “That’s what freedom is all about, taking your own risks . . .”

Blitzer interrupted him by asking, “Are you saying the society should just let him die?”A few people in the crowd shouted “Yeah.” But Paul said no — and then explained that society should and would take care of him.

Paul continued: “We’ve given up on this whole concept that we might take care of ourselves, assume responsibility for ourselves. Our neighbors, our friends, our churches would do it. This whole idea — that’s the reason the cost is so high . . . We dump it on the government; it becomes a bureaucracy; it becomes special interests; it kowtows to the insurance companies and the drug companies . . .”

Paul thus made a number of interesting and important points. But it’s clear that his reply runs counter to conventional ethics. In contrast, many (most?) people believe that we should not rely on freedom and markets. Instead, they want the government to take a lot of money from a lot of people — to support others who make bad decisions and face circumstances beyond their control.

When I heard the debate over “let ‘em die,” I immediately thought of students in a classroom. If a student decides not to study appropriately, should I “let ‘em fail”? I’ve always thought so, but maybe I should reconsider. Should I lower the grades of the successful and increase the grades of those who don’t study or just aren’t smart. (I could transfer grade points explicitly — for example, from “wealthy” A students. Or I could arbitrarily increase the grades of D and F students, devaluing the grades of A through C students.)

It turns out that the analogy is limited in two important ways. First, health care can be much more important than grades. Of course, grades are important too. If you don’t graduate from high school or college — or you graduate with a weaker major or a lower GPA — then this will have an impact on your standard of living. And much health care is not vitally important. So, the analogy only falls short when referring to catastrophic or highly significant health considerations.

Second, I don’t do anything to get in the way of my students earning a good grade. In fact, I do a lot to help them learn and succeed. In contrast, the government is quite busy making it much more expensive to obtain health insurance and more difficult to obtain care. The federal government subsidizes the purchase of health insurance through businesses, causing it to move away from the normal role of insurance in covering rare, catastrophic events. Vastly broadening the scope of health “insurance” causes a dramatic increase in the cost of health care and especially, health insurance. (Imagine the cost and accessibility of auto “insurance” if it covered door dings, oil changes, etc.) This makes Wolf Blitzer’s scenario far more likely. As the government vastly inflates the cost of health insurance, it tempts people to take their chances.

In addition, state and federal governments have all sorts of mandates and regulations on health insurance — that increase costs and decrease competition in the market for insurance. In fact, government has all sorts of other regulations — on everything from prescription drugs to labor markets. This causes all sorts of trouble but would require a far longer essay (If you’re interested, check out my paper in the Cato Journal ).

Representative Paul’s answer was to rely on markets and freedom to take care of people. The flip side of that coin is to reduce government intervention — not only taking money from A to care for B, but also government policies that dramatically and artificially increase the cost of health insurance.

Blitzer’s question will always be with us. But why do we ignore the many government policies that make his question so relevant to the problem?

Eric Schansberg, Ph.D., an adjunct scholar of the Indiana Policy Review Foundation, teaches economics at Indiana University-New Albany.

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AFA of Indiana Continues to Help Make Your Voice Heard

When the mail arrives at Indianapolis Congressman Andre Carson’s office today, his staff should receive a packet containing a cover letter and 22 pages of petition signatures asking him to apologize for his racially charged comments. As you know, the Congressman told a mostly African-American audience that there were members of congress and many in the TEA Party who want to see blacks lynched.

I want to thank the nearly 600 Hoosiers who signed our online petition launched late last week asking Rep. Carson to produce evidence of such an astonishing claim or issue a public apology for his reckless and hurtful allegation. In our letter, I assured the Congressman that I would pass along his response without any commentary from me to this e-list. Another State Stands Up to Protect Marriage

This week the legislature of North Carolina passed a measure by the necessary two-thirds margin to allow voters in the Tar Heel state to have a say on marriage protection. They may become the 31st state to pass a marriage amendment. Every time the people have been asked if the importance of gender in marriage should remain, or be discarded, they vote to keep marriage between a man and a woman.

Interestingly, in order to get 75 votes, a compromise had to be made with some Democrat opponents (though the vote to protect marriage included both Republicans and Democrats.) Rather than a November vote, which would pull in social conservatives and increase the Republican voting base, the marriage protection vote will occur instead during North Carolina’s May primary.

This wasn’t the only big news about marriage this week, though you may not hear much about this second item. A lot of money went into a congressional race in yesterday’s special election to fill the seat vacated by discredited New York Congressman Anthony Weiner. The Brooklyn and Queens district is a 3-1 Democrat district, (which is also 40% Jewish) that was previously held by ultra-liberalSen. Charles Schumer. A Democrat has held that district since the 1920’s.

The national media sees the 6-piont victory by Republican Bob Turner over Democrat New York Assemblyman David Weprin as a rejection of President Barack Obama and his handling of the economy. There is certainly a lot of truth to this observation. Yet, it is also worth noting that Weprin recently voted to undefine marriage in New York, a week after a poll found that 56% of voters wanted marriage to remain between a man and a woman. Although this has not been mentioned in most of the national reports, it was one of the issues that came up locally in the district and hurt Assemblyman Weprin.

310 Million Americans with 310 Million Gods

While large numbers of Orthodox Jews in New York’s 9th Congressional District may not be able to accept a rewriting of God’s design for the family and raising children, it seems that more and more Americans in the last ten years are reshaping God’s expectations to fit their own desires.

A story appearing in USA Today reports that since 1991 more Americans are shaping religion according to their own preferences and drifting away from clearly defined denominational teachings. (Historically, religion is usually understood to be about principles that change man, rather than man changing religious principles.)

Pollster George Barna observes this shift noting, “”We are a designer society. We want everything customized to our personal needs — our clothing, our food, our education,” he says. “Now it’s our religion.”

Barna’s new book and survey on faith in America finds that every major positive trend line is pointed downward except for one. More Americans say that they have “accepted Christ as their Savior” than in 1991 (35% then to 40% today). However, other findings separate belief from religious practices. More Americans say that they have not been in a church in the last six months (24% then to 37% today). Fewer Americans than in 1991 read the Bible outside of church (45% then to 40% today), fewer volunteer at church (27% then to 19% today), fewer attend an adult Sunday School program (23% then to 15% today), fewer call the Bible accurate (46% then to 38% today) and fewer define God as all knowing (74% then to 67% today).

Barna explains this cultural trend, “People say, ‘I believe in God. I believe the Bible is a good book. And then I believe whatever I want.” I have to wonder if the many churches over the last decade that have been so willing to reshape faith in hope of being more relevantn and appealing have unwittingly also contributed to this pliable, cafeteria style faith.

The  USA Today article notes that studies of other religions such as one recently reported in the Jewish magazine Moment are finding similar trends. These changes  in religious practice and belief seem to reveal the depth of our postmodern society where truth is increasingly relative and up for grabs from person to person.

Don’t Know Much About History

For years there have been concerns expressed surrounding school textbooks being used by a liberal activists pushing an agenda because of what is or is not emphasized in curricula. An interesting blog post including pictures of a third grade history textbook may serve to continue those worries. The textbook, “Our American Heritage” by McGraw Hill, a company with many Indiana ties, seems to be an example of selective history helping advance an agenda.

Here is what the blog reports about this textbook published last year:

There is but one sentence devoted to the Bill of Rights. It reads, “These rights [of citizens] are listed in the part of the U.S. Constitution called the Bill of Rights.”

• Two pages cover the Declaration of Independence
• Two pages describe the Constitution, all of which are devoted to the three branches of government and separation of powers
• No pages are devoted to James Madison and the authors of the Constitution; there is no mention of federalism
• Six pages are spent describing the background of Paul Revere
• Ten pages are devoted to the history of democracy in ancient Greece.
• George Washington and Abraham Lincoln are mentioned only in passing, almost as if they are immaterial scenery on the road to diversity and social Utopia.

In the section entitled “America’s Freedom Fighters“:

• Eight pages are spent covering the life of Frederick Douglass
• Five pages on Susan B. Anthony
• Six pages on Mary McLeod Bethune, (a black educator an adviser to FDR)
• Zero pages are devoted to the life of Abraham Lincoln

In fact, the entire Civil War is described only as a backdrop to the lives of Frederick Douglas and Mary McLeod Bethune.

In the section entitled “The Fight for Freedom Continues”:

• Seven pages are spent on praise for FDR
• Six pages on Eleanor Roosevelt
• Six pages are devoted to Thurgood Marshall
• Six pages are spent on LBJ’s life and the wondrous effects of “Great Society”
• Six pages are spent on Cesar Chavez and the lionization of the labor movement

There is no list of American Presidents in the children’s textbook.

GOP Debate Reopens HPV Vaccine Controversy

The Republican presidential debate that aired on CNN this week involved a heated exchange betweenCongresswoman Michele Bachman and Texas Governor Rick Perry on the issue of an HPV vaccine.

It is not my intention to analyze the exchange or to dissect the candidates’ answers and allegations. Yet, I realize that this subject may sound familiar to many readers, as AFA of Indiana was deeply involved in this matter when an HPV bill passed the Indiana legislature a few years ago. That bill, authored by state Sen. Connie Lawson, originated as a mandate tied to school admission. We opposed the introduced version of the bill, but not the vaccine itself or the final version that reached the Governor’s desk.

At the time, the HPV vaccine was very new and there were several questions surrounding its safety and effectiveness. Our position was not automatically against a vaccine mandate. Almost all vaccine matters under Indiana law include a longstanding opt-out provision, though historically it has generally not been widely known or used outside of certain religious groups. We try to make sure that all vaccine proposals include this provision.

HPV is the Human Papillomavirus. It is a sexually transmitted disease that is largely responsible for cervical cancers, genital warts in both men and women and anal cancer among homosexual males. Unlike mumps, measles or other communicable diseases in which a mandate may be understandable due to an outbreak quickly infecting entire classrooms or schools, HPV is behaviorally spread. It is not an airborne pathogen caught by bystanders.

The greatest concern that I expressed in every media interview I could on the HPV vaccine was that the legitimate emotional desire to save women from a horrible cancer often overlooked the shortcomings of the vaccine. Gardisil only protects women from the HPV viruses strains accountable for cervical cancer. There are up to 30%, which may still cause cervical cancer that the vaccine may not touch. Gardasil also has very limited effectiveness against genital warts. Parents really needed to know this limitation.

There were also the questions about the duration of the vaccine proposed for 12-year-old girls. Some reports indicated that the vaccine would not last until most women marry in their 20’s. Therefore, the vaccine has benefits, but it is not a silver bullet for cancer. Without such an understanding, it risks giving women, and parents, a false sense of security in regard to their remaining health risks and sexual choices.

This is why we were pleased that the bill was modified from a school admission mandate to a provision requiring schools to give information about the vaccine’s availability to parents who could then discuss its pros or cons with their family physician and decide if and when the vaccine is right for their child.

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But what if the number of inches per yard on football fields were falling at an unknown rate? That is, suppose that yards were getting “shorter.” Yards per rushing attempt would be rising, but the statistic would have diminished information value, particularly for making comparisons across time. Fortunately, a yard is still a yard in college football. The same cannot be said for course grades as a measure of academic achievement. An “A” today doesn’t mean as much as it did in previous years. Likewise, “A’s” at college x and college y are losing comparability. The same holds for “A’s” in, say, economics compared with English composition. Decades of college and university grade inflation, proceeding at varying rates across schools and disciplines, have stripped course grades of much of their evaluative content.

Grade-based honor rolls, deans’ lists, graduation honors, and class ranks are also becoming ho-hum awards. At our university the grade-point measures forcum laude, magna cum laude, and summa cum laude have been bumped up from 3.4, 3.6, and 3.8, to 3.6, 3.8 and 3.9, respectively.

Along these same lines, it is curious that definitions of the various letter grades no longer appear in our course catalog. At the same time, the current “Faculty and Professional Personnel Handbook” has definitions of course grades. So the current faculty members are told what the letter grades mean but current students are not. Go figure.

Those and other experiences prompted us to look at grades in 26 “threshold” (introductory) courses at our university. The table below offers evidence about grades in these courses for autumn semesters in 1990 and 2009. Column 1 lists the courses by their university cataloger titles. Column 2 indicates the number of students receiving A, B, C, D or F grades in each semester (in 2009, plus and minus grades were permitted). Columns 3 and 4 show percentages of course enrollment receiving “A’s” and “B’s” in the two semesters. Columns 5 and 6 show the grade point averages (GPA) for the two semesters. (Given that the initial year is 1990, previous decades of grade inflation are already built into the numbers.)

What immediately stood out to us was that grades rose substantially between 1990 and 2009. Of the 26 courses, the percentage of “A’s” and “B’s” rose in 24 courses. Grade-point averages rose in 23 courses.

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Incidentally, to say that our university was forthcoming with this information is a serious overstatement. Our requests were alternately ignored and stonewalled, notwithstanding the fact that scores of people on campus have such access and publicize grade point averages for various groups of students. Our request was not complicated by student privacy issues; we did not request student-specific grades, just overall course grades. We only obtained the grades via the Indiana Access to Public Records Act.

To cite one example from the table below: In 1990, 52 percent of the students enrolled in Principles of Marketing received grades of A or B; by 2009, 80 percent received A’s or B’s.

Alas, even our own department — economics — succumbed to inflation.

Some of our colleagues point to students’ rising SAT scores over the period as a rationale for the rising grades. Sorry, it doesn’t wash. Why? Well, SAT scores themselves were inflated in 1995, something SAT officials euphemistically labeled “re-centering.” Prior to 1995 the mean verbal score was 420; after 1995 it was 500. The mean quantitative score rose from 470 to 500 in 1995. Improved performance? No, pure inflation.

Our administrators never mention grade inflation publicly, but they do feign at dealing with it by convening faculty meetings directed at what is called Assurance of Learning (AOL). This is a national effort, mainly by business schools, directed at defining inputs into the college classroom.

Administrators call our AOL meetings “brainstorming” sessions. To this end, faculty members “brainstorm” about undergraduate business knowledge — that’s right, we brainstorm about knowledge. We also brainstorm business ethics, separately for undergraduates and MBA students. We wonder whether different ethical standards for undergraduates and graduates exist. Perhaps the most cosmic brainstorming sessions have been MBA sessions on “leadership management,” “change management” and “decision-making.”

We do not, however, brainstorm about grading standards and academic excellence. After all, the academic DNA of the people presiding over AOL is the same DNA that has afflicted decades of administrators who have neglected their responsibilities as custodians of their college and university grade vaults.

For decades, these same people have hidden behind an academic-freedom mantra and allowed faculty to debase standards on the grounds that they must be free to act as they wish as teachers. In our college, faculty grade distributions do not figure in the assessment of a person’s teaching when he or she is being evaluated for promotion and tenure. We think that is amazing, and we have no reason to believe this omission is unique to our college.

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Current federal and state legislative efforts to offer colleges and universities monetary incentives for graduating students in four years will only exacerbate this problem. Professors don’t have to be rocket scientists to figure out that low grades can delay student graduation, thereby undermining state funding and faculty salaries. Such a legislative “fix” will be like putting grade inflation on steroids.

The time-honored measuring rod for students’ academic accomplishments and credentials are still valuable. Unfortunately, those in charge of overseeing those measuring rods are incapable of administering the standards. So as the last strains of Pomp and Circumstance faded at graduation this year, we had a better idea about how students performed as athletes than as students. As Chester Finn of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation writes:

“Once everyone’s wearing rhinestones, you might not notice someone wearing diamonds.”

Clarence R. Deitsch, Ph.D., and T. Norman Van Cott, Ph.D., adjunct scholars of the foundation, are professors of economics at Ball State University. This article is based on work for the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, Raleigh, NC., which can be viewed here. The authors may be contacted through the foundation at ipr@iquest.net.

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Abortion Industry Won’t Easily Let Go of Our Tax Dollars

One need only look to the attack on marriage to see that when the far left cannot convince the public or our elected officials to embrace their radical agenda, the next step is to lobby unelected judges. This is also the case with Planned Parenthood after their loss in the 2011 legislature.

I had a heated argument with a newspaper editor recently in which he insisted that because existing law prohibits tax dollars from going specifically for abortion, the Schneider Amendment to HB 1210was nothing more than demagoguery and symbolism. Apparently, Planned Parenthood hasn’t sat in on this newspaper’s editorial meetings. They are set to spend tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees attempting to overturn Indiana’s new pro-life law with the hope of continuing to receive millions of our “symbolic” tax dollars.

The left’s talking points contend that the $3 million per budget for Planned Parenthood (PP) are used to help poor women. Still, it seems obvious that this battle has exposed Planned Parenthood’s true priorities. Governor Daniels has pointed out that these funds can be restored to PP if they stop doing abortions. In spite of their letters to the editor about helping Hoosier women with prenatal care, pap smear screenings and tests for sexually transmitted diseases, it seems obvious that that PP’s 5,600abortions per year are what matters more. In spite of the overwhelming and bipartisan support behind HB 1210, PP still fully expects taxpayers to subsidize their abortion business model.

The ACLU of Indiana and Planned Parenthood lost their attempt last week to have a federal court judge immediately block implementation of HB 1210. Still, they are not retreating following this initial loss. They have a hearing set for June 6th with the court, hoping for a preliminary injunction and an overturning of the law. Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller will defend the law.

Planned Parenthood is arguing that HB 1210 and its various provisions are unconstitutional. (Has PP received our tax dollars for so long that they now believe they have a Constitutional right to millions of tax dollars?) AFA of Indiana and other pro-life groups circulated legal memos to legislators countering their arguments. Here is a more recent brief observation from an attorney with Americans United for Life summarizing these events:

http://www.aul.org/2011/05/hoosiers-act-to-defund-all-abortion-mills/

Huckabee Says No Thanks, Trump Never Was, What Do You Think?

There has been a lot of talk this week surrounding the 2012 race for President and whom the Republicans might choose to run against President Obama. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who may have been the only candidate in 2008 to outperform his campaign funding and expectations, gave a very articulate and spiritually admirable explanation of why he was not running in 2012 even though many polls placed him at the top of the race.

Who do you believe would be the best presidential candidate for the GOP? This is the new poll question we are asking on the AFA of Indiana web site. Take a moment to let us know your choice through the simple poll on our site. While there, take a look around at our site. We have several articles, policy papers and other resources on the site. (If nothing else, take a look at the heartwarming John Wayne video clip I asked our webmaster to post as a cultural commentary.)

Thousands of Parents to Gather In Indianapolis Early Next Month

On June 3rd and 4th thousands of Hoosiers will descend upon the Convention Center in downtown Indianapolis for the Indiana Association of Home Educators annual convention. If you are considering home education or would like to know more about this growing alternative, make plans to attend or at least come by the vendor hall where there will be hundreds of booths offering resources to parents. You can learn more about the IAHE Convention, its workshops, general session speakers and many other resources at this site: https://iahe.net/ You can also register to attend this event online at the IAHE site.

If you are attending the convention, please come by the AFA of Indiana booth in the vendor hall and say “hello” or attend the Friday afternoon workshop I am leading featuring a Q&A panel with several state legislators who are also home school dads.

AFA of Indiana Director Speaking in Cicero at Worldview Event

I will be giving an update on the 2011 state legislature and the worldview challenges AFA faces defending our values in our postmodern world in which truth is relative. This presentation will occur Thursday evening, at 6:30 pm on June 2nd. I will be speaking as part of the Worldview Bootcampheld by Harbour Shores Church, 8011 East 216th Street in Cicero the Thursday evening before the Home School Convention. More details about this event and the speakers for July and August at this site: http://www.worldviewbootcamp.org/HQ.htm

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By Andrea Neal

Before lawmakers put finishing touches on any private-school voucher bill, they should consider the law of unintended consequences.

Opponents of vouchers worry that they’ll lead to excessive entanglement of church with state. Proponents should worry about excessive involvement of state in private and religious schools.Andrew J. Coulson, director of the Cato Institute Center for Educational Freedom, documented that problem during his recent look at voucher- and tax-credit programs in 15 states and the District of Columbia.

His paper, “Do vouchers and tax credits increase private-school regulation?” was the first empirical study of the topic. He reached an unequivocal answer:

“Voucher programs are associated with large and highly statistically significant increases in the regulatory burden imposed on private schools (compared to schools not participating in choice programs). And this relationship is, more likely than not, causal. Tax credits do not appear to have a similar association.”

Vouchers are state-funded certificates – like food stamps – that parents use to pay for private schools. With tax credits, the parent pays the tuition himself and then subtracts some or all the amount from his tax liability. Because the state has no direct involvement in the latter, policymakers appear less inclined to set conditions.

In their current forms, Indiana’s legislative measures offer vouchers or “choice scholarships” that could be applied toward non-public school tuition, beginning with 7,500 of them in 2011-12. They also would increase a tax credit available to Hoosiers who donate to organizations that provide private- school scholarships to low-income children.

Here’s where the law of unintended consequences kicks in. In order to accept voucher students, a private school would have to be accredited by the state or by an accreditation agency recognized by the state, administer the ISTEP test, comply with teacher-evaluation and data-collection requirements and meet certain school performance and improvement targets that apply to public schools.

The point of vouchers is to insert free-market forces into the educational system, thus increasing competition and causing all schools to improve. Although the strings attached to participating schools appear beneficial to students, or at worst innocuous, they would actually stifle the free-market intent.

Requiring ISTEP is a case in point. As it is now, many private schools administer tests such as the ERB, NWEA or Iowa Test of Basic Skills because they are more connected to their curricula or provide more useful data. As Coulson points out, state-mandated testing “exerts a homogenizing pressure on what is taught” and this limits consumer choice.

“Reporting poor results on an official test – even one that does not well reflect a school’s mission – would put it at a competitive disadvantage. So an art-centric school that posts poor science scores is under pressure to increase the time and intensity of its science classes in order to avoid a black eye on official tests, which thereby takes away from its core mission.”

Here’s another example of how requiring ISTEP would reduce choice: “Though language learning occurs most easily in younger children, a school that opted to focus on foreign languages and history in the early grades and then turn to mathematics in the later grades would be at a grave disadvantage on official mathematics tests in the early grades, creating pressure for it to abandon its pedagogical mission.”

That’s the law of unintended consequences.

Advocates of vouchers will no doubt argue that their proposal, even with limits on scholarships and restrictions on schools, is better than nothing.

Coulson’s study suggests that a dollar-per-dollar tax credit is preferable. When the only private schools that can accept vouchers face the same curricula and testing mandates of public schools, it’s really not a free market.

Andrea Neal is an adjunct scholar with the Indiana Policy Review Foundation. Contact her at aneal@inpolicy.org.

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There is an intense argument under way in the letters columns of Indiana newspapers between the head of the Indiana State Teachers Association (ISTA) and a GOP state senator. One side thinks the other side’s estimate of the cost of teacher unionization is wrong.

The two sides, though, are not equally credible. The position of the senator is straightforward and politically courageous, i.e., a powerful private entity, the teachers union, is destructive and should be disbanded.

On the other side, the position of the ISTA, unarguably self-interested, is reactive, i.e., the opposing position is “absurd.”If King Solomon were sitting on his throne, he would want to first see the evidence of the more self-interested party. But there is nothing substantive in a recent union letter to Indiana newspaper editors, only the assumption that supporting a teachers union is the same thing as supporting classroom learning — that and attacks on any source providing information damaging to the union’s interests. As an apparant matter of policy, the union pretends that any criticism of the education system is a criticism of every individual teacher. No discernment is allowed, you see, when one is “fighting” for “the kids.”

Such specious arguments put aside, what is left is a pile of evidence on the senator’s side of the table. It begins with the simple logic that if the union does not provide significantly higher salary and benefits (costs) it could not justify its existence. That, in fact, is its purpose.

The question, then, is not whether public-sector unionization costs taxpayers money — it most decidedly does — but whether the cost is a value to the general public. It is a good question, an open question, but one dodged by the teachers union.

In an article earlier this month, Tad Dehaven, a former deputy director of the Indiana Budget Office, makes this distinction:  ” The attempt (by a government union) to make common cause with ‘working men and women’ is as repulsive as it is backward; employee compensation accounts for half of the money state and local governments spend each year. That money is taken from working men and women in the form of income, sales, property and a multitude of other levies on the private sector.”

Mr. DeHaven goes on to argue these points:

• In 2009, hourly compensation (wages plus benefits) for the average state and local government employee, including teachers, was 45 percent higher than the private-sector average.
• For retirement benefits, it is 90 percent for government workers versus 67 percent for private-sector workers; life insurance is 80 percent versus 59 percent; paid sick leave is 89 percent versus 67 percent.
• Defined-benefit pensions are offered to about 80 percent of government workers versus 20 percent in the private sector.
• In regard to job security, layoffs and discharges for government workers occur at just one-third the rate of the private sector.
• And it is not because government workers are hard pressed; they are three times less likely to quit than workers in the private sector.

Finally, I have in front of me an algebraic formula constructed by Chris Edwards for an article in the Cato Journal, “Public-Sector Unions and the Rising Costs of Employee Compensation.” The formula compares the costs in compensation for those states with unionized teachers and for those states without. Even though a full page long, the formula does not include other spending distortions (construction mandates, licensing requirements, pensions, etc.) that result from a union’s influence at a state house. Nonetheless, it shows that public-school patrons pay a premium of fully eight percent for teacher unionization.

So if the union leadership wants editors and Indiana taxpayers to believe that its activities constitute an education bargain, it will want to put forward its own numbers in a believable equation. It can no longer win the argument by simply attacking the character of those who oppose it or by hiding its special interest behind our common desire to support teachers and their students.

T. Craig Ladwig is editor of the quarterly Indiana Policy Review. Contact him at editor@indianapolicy.org.

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In his op-ed, Jacquay takes to task Indiana Senator Jim Banks for his position that breaking the teacher’s union in Indiana is a good start towards education reform, which this writer happens to agree with. In his piece, Jacquay extols the benefits of the teacher’s union, stating:

Collectively, we sit down, talk and come to a consensus about what needs to be done with the resources and staffing options we have.

Nowhere in his op-ed does he offer results. So I will give you some examples.

Fort Wayne Community School’s results 2009-2010

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Click to enlarge

She is apparently spell check challenged. That aside, included in the document is a list of what House bills 1002, 1476, 1003, & Senate bills 496, 446 &497 mean for the public school system in Indiana and what that the PTA and ISTA think are wrong with them.

Among them, SB 496, which contains a parent trigger that would allow 51 percent of families in schools in the lowest category of school performance for three years to petition for reorganization as a charter or to receive tuition for use at a private school.

What’s wrong with that?

A recent study by Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes found that students who transferred to charter schools showed greater learning gains for their first two years at the charter school compared to their peers at traditional public schools. Weesner and the PTA just want to protect the status quo.

And my next question, is this an appropriate thing for the PTA to be sending home with students?

You can see the entire document here (PDF file).

For those of you that do support education reform, take note.

Rally for Reform ~ http://edreformrocksrally.com/

March 30

11 am – 2 pm

Indiana State Capitol Building – North Atrium

“Make your voice heard and join Hoosiers from around the state in supporting student-centered education reforms. Make sure lawmakers know that kids come first.”

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There is an argument underway in the letters columns of Indiana newspapers between the head of the Indiana State Teachers Association (ISTA) and a GOP state senator. One side thinks the other side’s estimate of the cost of teacher unionization is too high.

The two sides, though, are not equally credible. The position of the senator, however politically motivated, is straightforward, i.e., a private entity, the teachers union, is destructive and should be disbanded.On the other side is the position of the ISTA leadership, in this case a gentleman in the employ of the private entity and therefore inarguably self-interested. It is reactive, i.e., the opposing position is “absurd.”

If King Solomon were sitting on his throne, he would want to know first of all what evidence the more self-interested party could put forward in defense of its existence. There is no such evidence in a recent union letter to Indiana newspaper editors, only the assumption that supporting a teachers union is the same thing as supporting classroom learning.

There is a pile of evidence to the contrary, though. It begins with the simple logic that if the union in fact did not provide significantly higher salary and benefits — that is, costs — it could not justify its existence. The question is not whether public-sector unionization costs but whether the cost is a value to the general public.

It is a good question, an open question, but one dodged by the teachers union.

In an article this week, Tad Dehaven, a former deputy director of the Indiana Budget Office, makes this distinction: ” The attempt (by a government union) to make common cause with ‘working men and women’ is as repulsive as it is backward; employee compensation accounts for half of the money state and local governments spend each year. That money is taken from working men and women in the form of income, sales, property and a multitude of other levies on the private sector.”

DeHaven goes on to make these points:

• In 2009, hourly compensation (wages plus benefits) for the average state and local government employee, including teachers, was 45 percent higher than the private-sector average.
• For retirement benefits, it is 90 percent for government workers versus 67 percent for private-sector workers; life insurance is 80 percent versus 59 percent; paid sick leave is 89 percent versus 67 percent.
• Defined-benefit pensions are offered to about 80 percent of government workers versus 20 percent in the private sector.
• In regard to job security, layoffs and discharges for government workers occur at just one-third the rate of the private sector.
• And it is not because government workers are hard pressed; they are three times less likely to quit than workers in the private sector.

Finally, I have in front of me an algebraic formula constructed by Chris Edwards for his article in the Cato Journal, “Public-Sector Unions and the Rising Costs of Employee Compensation.” The formula compares the costs in compensation in those states with unionized teachers and in those states without. Even though a full page long, it does not include other spending distortions (new construction, licensing requirements, pensions, etc.) that result from a union’s influence at a state house. Nonetheless, it shows that public-school patrons pay a premium of more than 8 percent for teacher unionization.

If the union leadership wants Indiana taxpayers to believe that its activities constitute an education bargain, it will want to put forward its own numbers in an equally believable equation.

Only one thing is certain:  Given today’s economy, the ISTA can no longer win the argument by disguising its special interest as our universal desire to support teachers and their students.

Craig Ladwig is the editor of the Indiana Policy Review
Contact him at cladwig@inpolicy.org

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This morning Northrop High School art teacher Albert Jacquay emailed what appears to be every teacher at the following schools.

—–Original Message—–
From: Jacquay,Albert
Sent: Sunday, March 06, 2011 9:40 PM
To: Jacquay,Albert; _Nebraska Staff; _North Side Staff; _Northcrest
Staff; _Northrop Staff; _Northwood Staff; _Portage Staff; _Price Staff;
_Shambaugh Staff; _Shawnee Staff; _Snider Staff; _South Side Staff;
_South Wayne Staff; _Study Staff; _Towles Staff; _Washington Staff;
_Washington Center Staff; _Wayne Staff; _Waynedale Staff; _Weisser Park
Staff; _Young Staff; sbrace@ista-in.org; Amin,Robin; _Grile Staff

Subject: This is what we are up against. Maybe a stronger letter or
phone call would help educate this “angry white boy” from Columbia City.

Below are the visitors from Fort Wayne Community Schools just within the last 6 minutes. Since Mr. Jacquay set his email out at 9:40, there has been over 75 connections logged into the blog from k12.in.us.

Get back to work teaching the kids. You can come to the website when you’re off duty.

Angry White Boy
Who’s On Your Site?
Detail Domain Name Location Last Page View Page Views Visit Length

k12.in.us
Fort Wayne, Indiana
10:56:18 am 1 0:00

http://www.angrywhiteboy.org/ind…1/03/03/why-not-break-the-union/

k12.in.us
Fort Wayne, Indiana
10:55:55 am 1 0:00

http://www.angrywhiteboy.org/ind…1/03/03/why-not-break-the-union/

k12.in.us
Fort Wayne, Indiana
10:52:37 am 1 0:00

http://www.angrywhiteboy.org/ind…1/03/03/why-not-break-the-union/

k12.in.us
Fort Wayne, Indiana
10:50:52 am 1 0:00

http://www.angrywhiteboy.org/ind…1/03/03/why-not-break-the-union/

k12.in.us
Fort Wayne, Indiana
10:47:22 am 1 0:00

http://www.angrywhiteboy.org/ind…1/03/03/why-not-break-the-union/

k12.in.us
Fort Wayne, Indiana
10:45:24 am 1 0:00

http://www.angrywhiteboy.org/ind…1/03/03/why-not-break-the-union/

k12.in.us
Fort Wayne, Indiana
10:50:42 am 4 40:10

http://www.angrywhiteboy.org/ind…1/03/03/why-not-break-the-union/

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