Bad Schools Aren’t Always Underfunded
“”More money can help schools succeed, but not if they fritter those extra resources in unproductive ways,” Jay Greene, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told Reason. “There is no one formula for how to spend money correctly in schools. But there are many common ways that schools blow resources. Wasteful schools tend to hire more non-instructional staff while raising the pay and benefit costs for all staff regardless of their contribution to student outcomes. If you fully disconnect compensation from performance, you can raise salaries and benefits endlessly without anyone learning more.”
While making good spending choices can help close some of the gap between affluent and non-affluent schools, it’s worth noting that student poverty has a large effect on school performance.”
Rupert Murdoch Called Trump’s Stolen-Election Fantasy ‘Really Crazy Stuff.’ Fox News Promoted It Anyway.
Facebook Says Noting the CDC’s Scientific Misrepresentations ‘Could Mislead People’
“Laboratory experiments provide good reason to believe that masks, especially N95s, can reduce the risk that someone will be infected or infect other people. But those experiments are conducted in idealized conditions that may not resemble the real world, where people often choose low-quality cloth masks and do not necessarily wear masks properly or consistently.
Observational studies, which look at infection rates among voluntary mask wearers or people subject to mask mandates, can provide additional evidence that general mask wearing reduces infection. But such studies do not fully account for confounding variables.
If people who voluntarily wear masks or live in jurisdictions that require them to do so differ from the comparison groups in ways that independently affect disease transmission, the estimates derived from observational studies will be misleading. Those studies can also be subject to other pitfalls, such as skewed sampling and recall bias, that make it difficult to reach firm conclusions.
Despite those uncertainties, the CDC touted an observational study that supposedly proved “wearing a mask lowered the odds of testing positive” by as much as 83 percent. It said even cloth masks reduced infection risk by 56 percent, although that result was not statistically significant and the study’s basic design, combined with grave methodological weaknesses, made it impossible to draw causal inferences.”
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“If wearing a mask had the dramatic impact that the CDC claimed, you would expect to see some evidence of that in RCTs. Yet the Cochrane review found essentially no relationship between mask wearing and disease rates, whether measured by reported symptoms or by laboratory tests. Nor did it confirm the expectation that N95s would prove superior to surgical masks in the field. The existing RCT evidence, the authors said, “demonstrates no differences in clinical effectiveness.””
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“Does the Cochrane review prove that masks are worthless in protecting people from COVID-19? No. But it does show that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) misled the public about the strength of the evidence supporting mask mandates”
Free Immigration Is a Core American Value
“One of the grievances behind the Declaration of Independence itself centered on immigration. King George III, the Declaration charged, had “endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither.” Volokh Conspiracy contributor Ilya Somin has noted this complaint “was aimed at a series of royal orders” that, among other things, “forbade the colonies from naturalizing aliens” and passing laws to promote migration. The regulations directly contributed to “the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States,” the Declaration explained.
No wonder—in the colonial days, immigration was both a boon to the young America and a headache for the distant Britain. In 1700, the British Parliament “limited the colonies’ ability to grant naturalization and other group rights because it believed that colonial naturalization policies weakened English citizens’ trading positions,” according to a 2021 Cato Institute paper. After a period of liberalization, Britain cracked down on certain colonial settlement and naturalization authorities. By the beginning of the Revolutionary War, about 2.2 million people were living in the colonies—”much of that growth fueled by the 346,000 European immigrants and their descendants,” the Cato paper noted.
The Founding Fathers turned to questions of citizenship and naturalization soon after the Revolution was won. During the Constitutional Convention of 1787, delegates worried that overly harsh barriers to citizenship could prevent deserving immigrants from coming to the nation. Gouverneur Morris had proposed an amendment that would require someone to have been a citizen for 14 years before being able to serve as a senator.
It sparked a vigorous debate: James Madison said he “could never agree” to the amendment since it would “give a tincture of illiberality to the Constitution” and “discourage the most desirable class of people from emigrating to the U.S.” James Wilson, himself a nonnative, lamented that he might be “incapacitated from holding a place under the very Constitution which he had shared in the trust of making.” The delegates eventually adopted a nine-year minimum as their standard.”
The “two revolutions” that explain Israel’s massive protests
“Netanyahu was elected to a sixth premiership this November, but this time with the most extreme, nationalistic, and exclusionary government in Israeli history.
From the get-go, the Israeli government has sought to make significant changes to the high court that would hollow out its independence and its power to serve as a check on the Israeli parliament, or the Knesset. The several bills put forward would restrict the court’s ability to overturn laws it sees as unconstitutional and allow a simple majority in the Knesset to reject its decisions. It would also give government lawmakers and appointees effective power over the committee of nine individuals that appoints judges, and rescind key authorities from the attorney general. These and other changes would weaken the independent judiciary’s power in a parliamentary system that otherwise lacks checks.
This is all complicated by the fact that Israel doesn’t have a constitution, but a set of regulations passed as the basic law. The proposal’s backers, like a group of Israeli academics who recently published an open letter in support, say the court has grown too powerful. But, according to a recent survey by the Israel Democracy Institute, “66 percent of Israelis think the Supreme Court should have the power to strike down a law if it is incompatible with the Basic Laws.”
The result of the judicial overhaul would be a form of majoritarian rule, where minority groups — especially Palestinian citizens of Israel, who are about 20 percent of the country’s population — would face serious threats. “Minority rights will be protected by the majority’s benevolence. That contradicts a core element of democracy, of course,” writes Natan Sachs of the Brookings Institution.”
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“It should be noted that Netanyahu is on trial for alleged corruption — charges that he’s denied but that have plagued his political life in recent years. There’s been speculation that those allegations are why he’s been pursuing a major overhaul to the Israeli judiciary, with the effect of weakening its independence.
But that’s only part of the story.
There are three pillars of his governing coalition — Netanyahu’s conservative Likud party, ultranationalist settlers, and the ultra-Orthodox — and they each have something to gain from this massive judicial overhaul. “For the first time, they have a complete alignment of interests with no daylight in between, to destroy the judiciary and institutions, for different reasons,” Shaul told me. “And that’s what makes this moment so dangerous.””
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“For the ultranationalist settlers led by Ben Gvir and Smotrich, such judicial changes would open up the opportunity of annexation of the occupied West Bank and other policies that would benefit settlers. And for the ultra-Orthodox supporters, it would — perhaps through changing the makeup of key judiciary appointments — lessen the Supreme Court’s likelihood of ruling that exemptions to the military draft are unconstitutional, among other issues of church and state important to this constituency.
In short, the judicial reforms might be the most incendiary and attention-grabbing of the coalition’s proposals at this moment, but they’re in keeping with its broader goals.”
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“Netanyahu’s government is also proposing radical changes to the way the occupation of the West Bank is administered and other legal shifts inside Israel that will severely affect Palestinians.”
The many reinventions of Ron DeSantis
“Looking back through DeSantis’s career in elected politics, the main through line isn’t policy principle or ideological fealty, but rather apparent opportunism. In just over a decade, his persona has undergone a series of quite calculated shifts based on what DeSantis evidently felt could help him climb the next rung.”
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“Being a Tea Party conservative got him into Congress. Becoming a staunch Trump defender got him the Republican nomination for Florida’s governorship. Being a pragmatist who avoided national controversies helped boost his approval rating early in his governorship. Now, his latest reinvention as an “anti-wokeness” culture warrior has helped make him the leading alternative to Trump in polls of national Republican primary voters. Each shift was optimized for his next political objective.”
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“During those Tea Party years, defining yourself as a conservative champion meant pushing for cuts to government spending, so DeSantis embraced that cause, saying he wanted to partially privatize Medicare and Social Security. He won the House seat and followed through on his commitments once in Congress, supporting the effort to shut down the government (in an attempt to defund Obamacare) in 2013 and becoming a co-founder of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus in 2015.”
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“Once President Trump was in office, DeSantis saw a new path for advancement: becoming one of Trump’s biggest congressional defenders. In August 2017, he started a push to defund special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s Russia ties, and he grilled Justice Department officials over whether the probe was politically biased. He then got to ride with Trump on Air Force One, where, according to reports, Trump pledged support for his bid for Florida’s open governorship, saying, “You’re my guy.” A presidential endorsement came by tweet in December 2017.
Still, DeSantis remained locked in a tight race with Adam Putnam, a better-known candidate tied to the state’s traditional GOP establishment. So he hugged Trump ever tighter, to the point of absurdity, with an ad showing him “building the wall” of blocks with his daughter and reading The Art of the Deal to his baby (“Then Mr. Trump said, ‘You’re fired.’ I love that part”).
It worked: DeSantis won the primary by 20 points.”
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“DeSantis recalibrated again when he took office as governor in 2019, and spent much of his first year winning praise for his approach.
Initially, DeSantis “seemed determined to govern from the center on the environment, education, marijuana, criminal justice and public accountability,” and he won “unexpected praise from both the right and the left for his efforts,” Andrew Romano later wrote for Yahoo News.
DeSantis focused on clean water. He posthumously pardoned the Groveland Four (four Black men who had been accused of rape in 1949 but are now believed to have been innocent). He pushed to raise teacher salaries. He appointed some Democrats to his administration.
It’s not that he fully abandoned the right. He still, for instance, signed a bill letting teachers carry guns in school and banned Florida cities from protecting some unauthorized immigrants from deportation. But he stayed off Fox News, in what the Tampa Bay Times reported was a concerted strategy “to avoid questions that could suck him into polarizing partisan battles.””
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“What came next turned out to be the Covid-19 pandemic and soaring conservative interest in culture-war issues, and these spurred DeSantis to abandon his conciliatory style and adopt his current persona.”
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“The memory of DeSantis being a middle-of-the-road governor who avoided hot-button cultural issues seems like a distant dream because, in the past couple of years, he’s deliberately leaned into one national controversy after another, focusing particularly on denouncing “wokeness.”
“The woke is the new religion of the left,” DeSantis said at the Conservative Political Action Conference last year. “And the problem that we face as conservatives is a lot of major institutions in our country have become infected with this woke virus.””
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“he signed legislation or took executive action on all these topics. He banned trans athletes from playing girls’ or women’s sports. He signed a bill, denounced as the “Don’t Say Gay” law, to ban classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity for students in third grade and below, and then took aim at business benefits for Disney”
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“He signed an “anti-rioting” law that critics said could chill peaceful protest. He had migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. He required all books in Florida school libraries be checked for inappropriate content. He signed a law that would fine social media companies for banning candidates for office from their platforms. He appointed conservative ideologues to overhaul a small, progressive state college, and ordered the end of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives at others.”
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“Political pragmatism and opportunism can be good traits if they align the politician’s incentives with simply doing a good job for the country. But they can also be quite dangerous if the politician is willing to throw anyone under the bus to advance himself politically — for instance, by demagoguing marginalized groups.
DeSantis’s views may be less authentic than other politicians’, but that doesn’t necessarily make them less menacing to liberals. The Trumpist right remains powerful and influential, and if DeSantis continues to view their support as crucial to his success, he’ll likely do whatever it takes to get and keep them on his side.”
To Increase ‘Equity,’ This California High School Is Eliminating Honors Courses
“One California high school has eliminated honors classes for ninth- and 10th-grade students. While school officials claim that the change was necessary to increase “equity,” the move has angered students and parents alike.
“We really feel equity means offering opportunities to students of diverse backgrounds, not taking away opportunities for advanced education and study,” one parent who opposed the change told The Wall Street Journal.
Starting this school year, Culver City High School, a public school in a middle-class suburb of Los Angles, eliminated its honors English classes for ninth- and 10th-graders. Instead, students are only able to enroll in one course called “College Prep” English. The decision, according to school administrators, came after teachers noticed that only a small number of black and Hispanic students were enrolling in Advanced Placement (A.P.) courses.
“It was very jarring when teachers looked at their AP enrollment and realized Black and brown kids were not there. They felt obligated to do something,” said Quoc Tran, the district’s superintendent. According to an article by The Wall Street Journal’s Sara Randazzo, data presented at a school board meeting last year showed that Latino students made up 13 percent of 12th-grade A.P. English students, despite comprising 37 percent of the student body, while black students made up 14 percent of A.P. English students while comprising 15 percent of the student body.
“School officials say the goal is to teach everyone with an equal level of rigor, one that encourages them to enroll in advanced classes in their final years of high school,” Randazzo notes.
However, parents—and students—disagree. “There are some people who slow down the pace because they don’t really do anything and aren’t looking to try harder,” Emma Frigola, a ninth-grader at the school, said. “I don’t think you can force that into people.” She added that the curriculum has been made easier to accommodate less advanced students.”
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“When schools eliminate educational opportunities for gifted students, those who are most hurt by the change are disadvantaged, academically talented students. While wealthier families can move to a new school district or enroll their children in private school, low-income parents—and their kids—are stuck. While getting rid of honors courses was supposedly designed to help black and Latino students, it will deprive opportunities of many of the same kids it was intended to help.”
‘I hate him passionately’: Tucker Carlson was fed up with Trump after the 2020 election
“On Jan. 4, 2021, Fox News host Tucker Carlson was done with Donald Trump.
“We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. I truly can’t wait,” he texted an unidentified person.
“I hate him passionately. … I can’t handle much more of this,” he added.
By this time, Fox News was in crisis mode. It had angered its audience when it correctly said Joe Biden had won Arizona in the presidential election. Executives and hosts were worried about losing viewers to upstart rivals, most notably Newsmax.
The private comments were a far cry from what Carlson’s viewers were used to hearing from the stalwart conservative host on his prime-time show every night.
“We’re all pretending we’ve got a lot to show for it, because admitting what a disaster it’s been is too tough to digest,” he wrote in another text message, referring to the “last four years.” “But come on. There isn’t really an upside to Trump.””
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“In a group text chain from mid-November, Hannity, Ingraham and Carlson complained about their news colleagues and the network’s decision to call Arizona in favor of Biden. Fox News was the first network to do so, and the call was accurate.
“Why would anyone defend that call,” Hannity asked.
“My anger at the news channel is pronounced,” Ingraham said later in the exchange.
Carlson piped in, saying: “It should be. We devote our lives to building an audience and they let Chris Wallace and Leland [expletive] Vittert wreck it. Too much.”
Wallace and Vittert were Fox News hosts and anchors at the time.”
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“In a conversation with Fox News journalist Chris Stirewalt on Dec. 2, 2020, about a month after the election, Bill Sammon, who was then the network’s managing editor, lamented the state of the place they worked.
“More than 20 minutes into our flagship evening news broadcast and we’re still focused solely on supposed election fraud — a month after the election. It’s remarkable how weak ratings make good journalists do bad things,” Sammon said.
Stirewalt added: “It’s a real mess. But sadly no surprise based on the man I saw revealed on election night.”
Sammon replied, “In my 22 years affiliated with Fox, this is the closest thing I’ve seen to an existential crisis — at least journalistically.””