April 27th begins a new chapter in Federal Reserve history: the Fed joins other major central banks in having a press conference after its monetary policy meetings (the Federal Open Market Committee).  Apparently the record lows in public support for the Fed, along with rising gas and food prices, have driven Bernanke to attempt to change the narrative.  After all, his appearance on “60 Minutes” did wonders for the Fed’s reputation.  I’m excited to hear even more about his childhood in Dillon, South Carolina or his time working at South of the Border.  Maybe an enterprising reporter could ask how much menu prices at South of the Border have increased since Bernanke took over the Fed.

Perhaps you’ve noticed that I don’t have high expectations for his press conference.  It is probably fair to say that no Federal Reserve Chair has had as much public exposure as Bernanke.  Yet with all those public appearances, he has consistently managed to avoid any real discussion about the costs and benefits of the Fed’s actions.  Are we likely to hear concern about food and gas prices, and how such are being driven by loose money?  Probably not…just more on how increasing world demand is to blame.  Just like it was the “global savings glut” that drove  interest rates earlier this decade, it is always somebody else’s fault – never the Fed’s.  They are capable of only good.

Hopefully Bernanke will at least avoid the Obama line that it is those “speculators” that are behind the increase in energy prices.  After all, if we believe the governments of Europe, those evil speculators brought down Greece too.

As per usual, I truly hope I’m wrong here.  Bernanke has a real opportunity to be honest and straightforward with the American public.  We don’t need another lecture.  We need to hear that the Fed isn’t a slave to some imaginary Phillips Curve or that we can’t have inflation with slack in the economy (where was Bernanke in the 1970s?).   The real risk is that Bernanke uses the press conference to drown out the many voices of concern and dissent on the FOMC.  Which, of course, would be a real irony given all of Bernanke’s talk about “democratizing” the Fed when he first became chair.

Yesterday, FoxNews.com posted a story on what appears to be a growing problem for public school systems across the country: accommodating Muslim holidays. Unfortunately, the report didn’t contain the solution to the problem. It did, though, contain a very succinct discussion of the root of the problem; an example of the good intent that causes people to ignore the problem; and the kind of “solution” that is ultimately at odds with the most basic of American values.

A quote from New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg captured the essence of the problem:

One of the problems you have with a diverse city is that if you close the schools for every single holiday, there won’t be any school.

There you have the basic conundrum in a nutshell: Whenever you have a diverse population – whether in a hamlet, city, state, or nation – and everyone has to support a single system of government schools, you cannot possibly treat all people – or even most of them – equally. Either there are winners and losers, or nobody gets anything.

Understanding why public schooling  can’t handle diversity – why, simply, one size can’t fit all – is really basic common sense. So why isn’t there more outrage over, or even just recognition of, the utter illogic of our education system? Mohamed Elibiary, President and CEO of the Freedom and Justice Foundation, illustrated the attitude that likely causes lots of Americans to wear blinders:

I’m a little torn. I want Muslims to be getting the same recognition as other Americans, but at the same time I don’t want to see public education systems be a battleground between religious identities, because then we’re missing the point of why we have a public education system to begin with.

No doubt many people truly believe as Elibiary does: that a major purpose of public schooling is to bring diverse people together and, by doing so, unify them. It’s a fine intention, but also a classic case of intent not matching reality. Indeed, the reality is often very much the opposite. Rather than unifying people, public schooling has repeatedly forced religious conflict (as well as conflict over race, ethnicity, political philosophy, curriculum, and on and on).

It started almost on Day One, when Horace Mann, a Unitarian, was locked in conflict with Calvinists over what kind of Protestantism the state’s nascent “common schools” would teach. When Roman Catholics began arriving in America in large numbers, battles – sometimes deadly – erupted over who would get what kind of Christianity in the public schools. When Tennessee outlawed the teaching of evolution, the Scopes “Monkey Trial” fired the first big blast in the war over the teaching of human origins, a fight we are still very much in. In the latter part of the twentieth century, the fighting moved to what, if any, religious expression is permissible in public schools. And now, we’re getting fired up over whose holidays will get the most deference from government schools. It almost seems like war without end.

Finally, the article gropes at – but doesn’t grab – the solution to our education and diversity problem. Says Georgetown University professor Bradley Blakeman:

That’s the beauty of having a school district responsive to the localities as opposed to blanket rules that affect multiple jurisdictions, states or even countries. One size doesn’t fit all when it comes to these kinds of rules and regulations. We’re not a homogeneous nation, which makes us so great.

Blakeman is heading in the right direction (even as federal policy pushes us the opposite way): The closer that control of education gets to individual people, the more easily it can be tailored to unique needs, values, and desires. Unfortunately, Blakeman fails to identify the obvious last step: completely decoupling government funding from provision of education. In other words, instituting universal educational choice. Making matters worse, Blakeman for all intents and purposes concludes that as long as decisions are made at the local level, and the majority gets its way, everything is fine:

A school should reflect the beliefs and practices of the community that they serve. And if school boards are sensitive to their populations, that’s fine, provided the decisions of the board reflect the majority opinion of its community.

It may sound harsh, but one way to describe this is simply ”tyranny of the majority” – whatever the majority wants, it gets, as long as it is the local majority. It’s a solution that completely ignores that ours is not supposed to be a nation of majority rule, but rule of law that protects individual freedom. And, of course, one of the most basic protections is the prohibition on government tipping the scales in favor of one religion, two religions, or no religion at all. 

This solution also fails, by the way, to address the problem at hand: School districts – not states or Washington – having to accommodate diverse populations. In other words, ”local control” is ultimately no solution at all.

Universal choice is, quite simply, the only system of education compatible with the most basic of American values – individual liberty – and the only way to avoid constant, divisive battles over who will get what out of the schools. Hopefully, people will come to realize that before our conflicts get even worse.

A new Rasmussen poll has 80% of the American public supporting an audit of the Federal Reserve.  Only 9% of the public oppose, with the rest unsure.

Unfortunately the poll did not ask specific questions over whether such an audit should cover monetary policy or just the Fed’s 2008 bailout activities.  So while the poll is likely to keep pressure on Congress, during its conference negotiations over financial regulation, to retain some audit of the Fed, the likely result is that Congress will leave out any real, on-going audit of monetary policy. 

After Sen. Bernie Sanders essentially gutted his own amendment, Senator Dodd and the Obama administration agreed to a minor audit of the Fed’s emergency lending programs.  Ron Paul, sponsor of the House version of the audit, quickly labeled this as a “sell-out”.  Fortunately Congressman Paul looks to be a House conferee on the bill, so some hope remains of a full audit being included.

Opponents of a Fed audit claim this would undermine the Fed’s political independence.  Sadly what opponents, including many economists, are missing is that the Fed is currently far from independent of politics.  This is again an area where the public gets what the experts miss, as just 20% of poll respondents thought the Fed has acted independently.  A full 60% felt the Fed was too much influenced by the President, getting at a crucial point concerning Fed independence:  it is independence from the Executive branch that is critical.