Education in TX needs serious attention...

A great education can give our children the building blocks they need to become confident and the incentive to create the basis for the ‘next big thing’ that will drive the world’s economy; from right here in Texas.

The extraordinary expansion of the world’s economy, upon which many a Texan has thrived, has been driven by advances in the Industrial Revolution and the beginning of the Information Age. The most recent century of developments in both economic drivers originated here in the USA. Texas has been a partner in these expansions, but the main innovative force has almost always been associated with the education strongholds of the east and west coasts of these United States.

There is a need to build a foundation that will allow leadership in economic growth (the next big thing) to be drawn primarily from right here in the Lone Star State. The foundation is education; from pre-K right through post-doctoral studies.

Here are some ideas to ponder for investing in education in Texas:

*Three trimesters per school year; two or three weeks break between trimesters and a week break in the middle.
* Pre-K through 12th grade would normally take 14 years, but could be accelerated to as few as 12 years or increased to as many as 16 years, as needed.
* Technical/Vocational secondary school alternatives.
* GED programs could be made available at high school and community college campuses, as needed.
* Multi-media teleconferencing could make classes available statewide, so that every school need not provide every class curriculum for itself.
* Multi-media teleconferencing could also provide study assistance for students, during and after school hours, statewide.
* Electronic texts could make the best books available statewide, easier and less expensive than providing multiple hardcopies at each and every campus.

These are just a few of the ideas I have for making schools in Texas better and more affordable, so that folks will come to know that they can find the best educated workforce and brain-trust right here in Texas.

TX government fund shuffling...

The Texas state government can not release the control of a state-wide property tax until it has a sufficient and dependable revenue stream of its own. Creating said revenue will require new and revamped taxation, that political third rail to the perpetual office holder.

Our Texas state government has created an enormous funding problem by trying to pretend that we can, "have everything and a tax reduction." Since the legislature absolutely refuses to broach the subject of new, different or increased taxation it must constantly shuffle around existing revenue or reduce state funding. Another method that the governor and legislators have tried is selling the state to private, for profit, contracting companies. Contracting state services to industry has failed each time it has been tried, but the effort continues unabated because the state doesn't have the funds to do what it has promised to Texas residents.

No matter the source of a good or service, you must decide if you need it, order it, and then arrange payment. Contrary to the Reaganesque, "government as the problem," perspective sometimes the best value provider of a good or service is a government entity.

Primarily the state must educate its youth, because education is the foundation upon which our great economy is built! But, our state legislators have consistently reduced state funding at all levels, pre-k through post graduate, such that a good public education is not necessarily available, or affordable, for a majority of Texans.

Some revenue was supposed to go to targeted agencies (e.g., hunting and fishing licenses for state parks, and the lottery would be for education expenses only), but these specifics never made it into the final edition of the requisite legislation. The legislators of Texas refused to tie their own hands, so they quietly reneged on promises made to the citizens of Texas.

How does one attempt to guarantee that, when all is said and done, what was said is done?

Term limits!

This is another of the things that our legislators, professional politicians, will not do for Texans. It will require that the majority of the voters do their Constitutional, obligatory duty and vote; force the issue!

Least cost management strikes again!

Another of Texas’ major, homegrown, successful companies has decided to outsource more of its manufacturing to Asia (read: Communist China). This is not as much of a surprise as it is a major disappointment, because a great many of the manufacturing jobs in the USA that have gone offshore have gone to Communist China.

The question that most executives need to ask themselves is, “when I replace a skilled worker making, on average $50,000 per year, with 10 much more modestly skilled factory workers making less than $2,000 per year… Who will buy my product?”

It has been the policy of the executives of most of the companies in the USA to seek the least cost solution to every problem; the panacea of modern manufacturing mentality. Why? Because least cost is most obvious, requires minimal thought, and generates the kind of immediate profits that inflate management bonuses.

In study after study, published in business journals, it has been documented that in the long run (longer than 3 months) the most efficient solution is ‘best value.’ That is the highly automated factory with a few highly skilled (read: well paid) workers generates the most efficient, highest possible quality output of goods. But this is risky (read as: more costly) because if, in that first three month period, ‘best value’ is not well managed and executed it will take longer to reflect the inherent operating efficiency; management speak for lower bonuses.

Another least cost management favorite is the imported, skilled worker. Why is this bad? Because, the least cost management practice brings these workers in to provide skilled labor who don’t expect to make as much as the prevailing wage. Instead of hiring good, local talent and training them for the job, least cost management brings in skilled foreign workers that are already experienced, and pays them less. Saves money in that critical three month window; better bonuses.

Yes, least cost management saves you money in that critical quarterly window, so be a good team player and don’t risk thinking about ‘best value,’ because if my bonus is negatively effected your long term employment…

Oh, just be a good team member!

W's subprime regulatory shuffle!

The W administration is proposing to shuffle the regulatory deck in response to the implosion of the subprime mortgage market. Of course, if regulation is the problem the solution would be to restructure the highly conflicted management of the agencies that are supposed to monitor Wall Street activity. The current regulatory agencies have senior executive ranks that are chock full of Wall Street professionals whose post-bureaucrat employment would be adversely effected were he or she to be too, or at all, strict as a regulator.

Of course tighter monitoring of more open financial reporting of all the chicanery on Wall Street would be desirable, because the depth of most recessions can be attributed to the irrational exuberance that Wall Street has always demonstrated during economic up cycles. But the most effective solution to this, and the historic Savings and Loan collapse of 1986, would be to grant authority to the bankruptcy courts to restructure the debt secured by one’s home.

The Wall Street alchemists scream most loudly at the latter suggested regulatory move, because it would interfere directly with their efforts to try to turn arcane paper into currency. This is, of course, the best reason to do it.

2009 New President, old problem in Iraq.

January of 2009 will bring a new president who will inherit an old problem; the Revolutionary War we started in Iraq. 

In 1990-1 the H.W. Bush administration organized a real coalition of nations to bring military operations to bear on a dictator/ally who’d gotten out of control.  Saddam’s Iraq was being used to keep the Ayatollah’s Iran in check.  Saddam had thrown a near decade long war against Iran while frittering away the resources of Iraq on himself and his toadies, and needed new resources to plunder.  Saddam, underestimating international objections, raided the neighboring, oil rich, sheikdom of Kuwait.

The coalition of nations that rose up against the travesty in Kuwait included Arab nations in the region.  Two keys to getting and keeping these allies were that Israel didn’t participate and we didn’t go to Baghdad after liberating Kuwait.  The H.W. administration went along with the latter under the assumption that the Iraqis would throw out a weakened Saddam after the war; the assumption was faulty.

Nearly 10 years had transpired and Saddam was as entrenched as ever in his self-serving regime when the W. Bush administration took office.  On the 11^th of September 2001 the tragedy of an attack on the USA took place, costing the lives of thousands of innocents in fortress America. 

The W. administration’s initial reaction to the invasion of our country was to attack the regime and country giving aid and shelter to those who had attacked the USA: the Taliban, Afghanistan and Al Qaeda.  The effort was not to be the full-scale attack that the US was capable of mounting, so a strategic alliance with the enemies of the Taliban was created.  The problem with the alliances were twofold: first, the allies (the Northern Alliances) were nowhere near the capability of the US military and second, the Northern Alliances did not all like the US as much as they admired one of their own (Al Qaeda’s leader Osama bin (forgotten) Laden).  Osama escaped from encircling forces and got out of trap set in a remote valley (in the rugged terrain of the Pakistan/Afghanistan frontier), and hasn’t been seen or seriously pursued since.

Meantime, in the W. administration, holdovers from the Reagan and H.W. administrations were attempting to take advantage of the fear and confusion following 9/11 to finish what they had started in 1990; felling Saddam.  Connections to terror were fabricated and tales of WMD (weapons of mass destruction) were phenomenally exaggerated, where possible, or created as needed.  In 2003 the W. administration employed the might of the USA to begin the Iraqi Revolutionary War.

The US troops were not allowed the time to come up to the required strength of 300,000 soldiers for the invasion, nor the 500,000 troops for the planned occupation of Iraq, so this effort was also pursued at less than the capacity the US military had determined the task required.   Still our forces managed to capture Saddam, kill his heirs, fire his Baath party and fire the Iraqi Army.  Five years into the effort and W’s administration still have not admitted, if indeed they realize, that the recovery of Iraq after the revolution faces the same obstacles that it did earlier, when it couldn’t muster the cooperation needed to oust a weakened Saddam, internal strife amongst the three groups of people in Iraq: Shi’a, Sunni and Kurd.

The USA can not reconcile the differences between the three ethnic groups that quibble in Iraq, they must resolve their differences amongst themselves or the next dictator will take advantage as did the last.  We can consult in the establishment of democratic institutions, even as we restore our own.  We can also help train the new Army, should the Iraqis decide to reconcile.  Other than that the revolutionary war we won for them is just a pause between dictators.   That next step is for the Iraqi peoples to make, or not.  The USA should stand down our forces till Iraq has displayed a capacity to make said next step, and return only if our presence is requested by the peoples of Iraq.    

TX Legislature continues to do the fund shuffle...

In the latest chapter of the Republican fiction of, “everything and a tax break,” TX Senate Finance Committee Chairman, Steve Ogden proposes the next generation of fund shuffling.

After years of moving funds that were created for targeted causes (e.g. hunting and fishing license fees, fuel taxes and lottery revenue, etc…) to all the other under funded state programs, the Senator wants TxDOT to sell bonds for necessary infrastructure operation, maintenance and expansion. This method requires taxpayers to eventually pay both the original amount and the accrued interest. If that’s not enough, then let’s borrow from the Employees Retirement System, Teachers Retirement System, Permanent School Fund and Permanent University Fund (funds that already exist) to build more toll roads. If the toll roads don’t earn sufficient sums to pay back enough money, in a timely fashion, for the dedicated fund’s own expenses to be paid, Oops.

The alternative is to admit that the task is under funded and raise the long dormant fuel taxes, and then use the funds for the infrastructure tasks that are needed; some are already overdue.

New study shows the negative implications of No Child Left Behind

I had told any who would listen that, "No Child Left Behind," meant holding up everybody so that it looks like nobody's straggling! Now there are studies, from prestigious Texas Universities, that found that by shedding low performing students a school's test-based only accountability yields falsely impressive results.

Excerpts reprinted without permission from RICE News and Media Relations, 02/14/2008:

By analyzing data from more than 271,000 students, a new study by researchers at Rice University and the University of Texas-Austin found that 60 percent of African-American students, 75 percent of Latino students and 80 percent of ESL students did not graduate within five years.

...study has been published in the peer-reviewed policy journal "Educational Policy Analysis Archives" and is the first research to track the impact of high-stakes accountability on students, employing individual student-level data over a multi-year period. The executive summary is available at Rice University's Center for Education, http://centerforeducation.rice.edu/. The study can be viewed at http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v16n3/.