October 7, 1999
Educating George W.
Censoring Sensation?
The Air Force Flies Solo
Higher Education, Lower Default Rate
Educating George W.
Presidential frontrunner Gov. George W. Bush (R-Texas) offered more education proposals including expansion of federal involvement in education Tuesday, AP reports. Bush proposed mandatory state testing of students and said he would tie federal education money to such testing. Bush also proposed requiring all states to develop and administer annual tests for students in grades three to eight, and said he would require the states to participate in the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which tests a random sampling of students every two to four years.
But the Cato Handbook for Congress concludes that elimination of the Department of Education is the only option: "Education is a perfect example of one major theme of this Handbook: that even many vitally important things in American society are not the province of the federal government. No one questions the importance of education in a complex modern society. Education is the process by which we impart moral values to our children, make them part of our particular culture, develop their ability to think, and give them specific kinds of information that they will need to be productive adults, good citizens, and civilized human beings. Today there is great concern about the quality of American education. Every month brings another study on how poorly American students fare in international competition. The Third International Mathematics and Science Study, released in November 1996, found that U.S. eighth-graders scored below the average of students from 40 nations on math and just above average on science. U.S. students scored lower than students from Singapore, Korea, Japan, the Czech Republic, and Hungary. But neither the importance of education nor its poor quality means that education is an important function of the federal government. In fact, education is not mentioned in the Constitution of the United States, and for good reason. The Founders wanted most aspects of life managed by those who were closest to them, either by state or local government or by families, businesses, and other elements of civil society. Certainly they saw no role for the federal government in education."
Censoring Sensation
Congress passed a non-binding resolution calling for an end to federal funding for the Brooklyn Museum of Art, AP reports. The museum is under fire over a current exhibition of pieces by British artists entitled Sensation, which some have called anti-Catholic. Some Democrats denounced the Republican resolution as an attack on artistic free expression, but Republicans argued that taxpayers should not have to fund the show.
Novelist Bill Kauffman wrote about how art subsidies lead to state control in the Cato Policy Analysis "Subsidies to the Arts: Cultivating Mediocrity": "There is always conflict between government and artists, and no one knows it better than the East and Central Europeans. Vaclav Havel's plays were banned in Prague, as were the novels of Milan Kundera. Hungarian novelist George Konrad fought the 'state supervision' and 'state prizes' that were corrupting his native literature. Members of the Polish punk-rock band Dezerter were in and out of prison because they insisted on playing songs that the authorities had not sanctioned… American artists do not need a ministry of culture. Our writers and painters and dramatists and musicians have flourished when government has ignored them. We don't want subsidy. We don't want censorship. We just want to be left alone."
"[W]hen you have official museums, or a National Endowment for the Arts serving as a 'seal of approval' for artists, you get official history and official art--and citizens will fight over just which history and which art should have that imprimatur. We fought these battles before, in the Wars of Religion. The American Founders knew that the solution was the separation of church and state. Because art is just as spiritual, just as meaningful, just as powerful as religion, it is time to grant art the same independence and respect that religion has. It is time to establish the separation of art and state," Cato Institute Executive Vice President David Boaz said in a 1995 speech.
The Air Force Flies Solo
Despite very public worrying by all branches, only the Air Force among the military services failed to recruit and retain enough members this year to keep its active-duty ranks filled to the level required by Congress according to the Pentagon. The Air Force fell 2.8 percent of short of its 370,882 "end strength" mandated by Congress.
In the recent Cato Policy Analysis "Fixing What Ain't Broke: The Renewed Call for Conscription", Doug Bandow examined the military's alleged recruitment woes and finds that a reinstated draft would do no good: "Despite a rocky start, the All-Volunteer Force (AVF) now works exceedingly well, providing America with the best military in its history and in the world today. Yet recruiting and retention problems have begun to appear; moreover, the war against Yugoslavia has heightened concerns about the fairness of a volunteer military. The result has been an increasing number of calls for a return to conscription. The draft was bad policy during the Cold War and would constitute amazing foolishness today. For instance, renewed conscription would reduce the quality of new service personnel. Returning to the draft would also increase the costs of raising a military force. Conscription is an expensive process-for individuals, government, and society. For the armed services, a draft would yield higher turnover, thus increasing training costs. Also, because few conscripts choose to make the military a career, the Pentagon would have to hike reenlistment benefits. A draft would not improve the retention rate of skilled personnel or inculcate civic virtue. The military does have some serious personnel problems; however, such problems could be solved by returning to a foreign policy that is proper for a republic. The Clinton administration's promiscuous use of military force in conflicts irrelevant to U.S. security drives many potential recruits away from and current career personnel out of the service. Furthermore, policymakers should adjust compensation and benefits to more successfully attract both new recruits and skilled personnel in the years ahead."
Higher Education, Lower Default Rate
Defaults on student loans are declining, AP reports. The default rate is at its lowest point since the federal government began tracking more than a decade ago, according to U.S. Education Secretary Richard Riley. "This new rate exceed our expectations," Riley said.
In the Cato Policy Analysis "The Threat to Independent Education: Public Subsidies and Private Colleges", Gary Wolfram considers alternatives: "Requiring state colleges and universities to sell their services to the public would reduce the problems… as students would now choose among universities on the basis of the education they received relative to the cost of producing that education. Universities would allocate their resources to attract students, reducing costs and innovating to provide a product superior to that of their competitors… One of the primary reasons that markets are efficient is that people who make poor or inefficient uses of resources go out of business and no longer control those resources. Others who make better use of resources continue to produce. State-owned universities and colleges do not go out of business because of poor use of resources. In an extreme case, a state institution will be closed down, but as all government decisions are political, the closing of a government campus is a political decision, not an economic one. On the other hand, private colleges do go out of business if they are not able to generate enough revenue from their customers or from their donors to meet the cost of the resources they use up. There is a limit to the inefficiency of private higher education.
"Aside from increasing efficiency, moving to a full-cost tuition program matched with student loans would reduce the amount of income redistribution that occurs from the less wealthy to the wealthy through a state-owned university system. It has long been known that government support of higher education tends to redistribute income from the poorer classes to the wealthier classes…Any casual observer of a public university campus will see that those who attend college tend to be in the upper half of the socioeconomic distribution. For example, 52 percent of SUNY students had gross family income of more than $50,000. Moving to a system of student loans would at least reduce the magnitude of that type of redistribution."