Too much testing

2296

too-much-testing

Alice Thompson, writing in The Times, thinks that standardized testing in schools should be abolished. Noting that English children are formally tested 70 times by the age of 16, she makes a very good case:

Our four-year-old must be assessed on everything from personal hygiene to knowing what a phonome is. By 7, my eldest son was expected to meet a series of “attainment targets" in 14 areas, from religious studies to citizenship as well as sitting his SATs. These range from “creating and performing dances using simple movement patterns, including those from different times and cultures", to realising “that family and friends should care for each other", to being able to “record calculations, using the symbols +, -, x , ÷ and = correctly"... By Key Stage Four, at the age of 14 to 16, the curriculum resembles a giant boa constrictor wrapped around schools, squeezing the life out of them.

Once you consider the lunacy of this whole system, it's really no wonder that Britain has slipped so far down the OECD's education rankings (from 3rd to 13th) since the 1980s. The astonishing degree of over-testing is indicative of a service that is not run in the interests of its customers – the pupils and their parents – but rather to serve the purpose of its political masters. As the old saying goes, "He who pays the piper calls the tune." In this instance, the government pays, the schools play their tune, and then the children have to suffer through it.

The solution is pretty simple. All schools should be independent and self-governing, free to set their own curricula, choose the exams their pupils will sit and pick the qualifications they will be entered for from the wide range of competing options already on the market. Ultimately, what matters is that schools are made accountable to parents, rather than to the state.

Blog Review 753

2305

blog-review-753

Netsmith was going to blast this terribly silly report from the New Scientist but the Angry Economist has done it much better.

Strangely, attempting to manipulate a prediction market simply makes the predictions more accurate.

How to improve the education system by someone who actually works in that education system. Most unlike the suggestions of those that administer the education system.

Who is behind the latest incredibly stupid piece of security theatre?

One problem with increased bank regulation is going to be that the US doesn't have even national banking regulation: nor, to a great extent, a national banking system.

Evolution's not over yet, not while medical technologies continue to improve.

And finally, credit crunch jokes in the comments section.

Crime and Punishment

2304

crime-and-punishment-

Fascinating stuff this, like a press release from the Howard League on how we should treat criminals.

I'm sitting in Oslo having lunch with the director general of the Norwegian prison service – Kristin Bolgen Bronebakk – and we are discussing "Scandinavian exceptionalism". In other words, why is it that Finland, Sweden and Norway in particular, have much lower rates of imprisonment than other European countries?

Isn't that wonderful? They've managed to design a system where those who employ their rapacity upon their fellow citizens do not end up warehoused, locked in a cell for 23 hours a day, in a Victorian building. Perhaps there's something we might learn from this system, how do they do it?

Oslo had the highest rate per person in Scandinavia in terms of reported crimes, with 90 reported crimes per 1,000.

Copenhagen had 50 crimes reported per 1,000 and Stockholm had 79.

In New York, there were 22 reported crimes per 1,000 inhabitants.

As economists have endlessly pointed out, it's not just punishment for crime that reduces crime. It's a combination of the severity of the sentence, the conditions of serving it plus the liklihood of detection and conviction. All those together add up to the expected punishment for a particular action.

And whatever else the Norwegian version of social democracy might have to tell us here it seems clear that not locking up criminals does not reduce crime.

So that's one more thing that we know not to do then.

You like the Red Skelton painting?

2297

you-like-the-red-skelton-painting

Simon Jenkins is quite possibly the most engaging journalist around. His book Thatcher and Sons is certainly one of the best critiques of modern politics as it is practiced today. However, his recent article in The Guardian shows that, like self-proclaimed 'non-libertarian' David Cameron, he is not a libertarian.

In fact there are many similarities between the Tory leader and Jenkins in this article. We have of course the inevitable rant against people being paid too much, but we also have echoes of Cameron's argument last year that it is the job of politicians to make people happier. Jenkins writes:

We might even see a resurgence of the "happiness" movement of the early 1970s; of Schumacher's "small is beautiful" economic theory. We might find a new appreciation for the king of Bhutan's edict on the importance of "gross national happiness", and for John Ralston Saul's remark that the American mission of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" was nothing to do with money. Saul called for a more subtle understanding of contentment, "to escape the 20th-century idea that you should smile because you're at Disneyland".

Of course, Disneyland is not for everyone, especially it seems members of the Canadian Intelligentsia such as John Ralston Saul. Much better a night at Toronto's Opera House, I presume. Yet such judgements are limited. Better that everyone is free to enjoy their lives without the judgement of others; especially the judgement of the King of Bhutan, living in exquisite luxury, while his underlings just survive.

Jenkins writes that Britain might even "inch up the University of Michigan's world happiness survey from its present miserable ranking of 21st, below Mexico and the US". I thought all this nonsense about happiness had gone away. Any attempt politicians make to turn this into policy will result in incursions upon our freedom as well as being destined to fail.

Freedom is what matters when it comes to happiness, because happiness comes in many shapes and sizes. To quote the great Dennis Miller: "You like the Red Skelton painting? Buy the Red Skelton painting. You like "Home Improvement"? Tape it and go over it like the Zapruder film. It's your life; live it on your terms".

Quote of the week

2301

quote-of-the-week

Depressions and mass unemployment are not caused by the free market but by government interference in the economy.

Ludwig von Mises

Blog Review 752

2303

blog-review-752

Perhaps the bailout could be best described as Hayek's Revenge?

Yes, regulation really does matter, as did Lehman.

Now that we know more than we did we need less regulation than we did need.

Contrary to popular belief, it doesn't all stem from the stupidity (or greed) of the bankers.

On the inanity of targeting, or, be careful what you measure.

A look back at the 50's literati.

Boho London is arguably the only environment in which the introduction of cocaine actually improved the general level of health.

And finally, a design icon (umm, iconic design?) celebrates its 100th birthday.

Food fights

2302

food-fights

Oh dearie me, those who would control our lives for us, we little baa lambs being quite incapable of doing so ourselves, seem to have found a new phrase to explain their actions.

But individual action is not enough. It requires choice-editing, not personal choice.

No. Sorry, but no. I'm an adult and I, like all the others who share that distinction, am entirely capable of both taking my own decisions and also of bearing the consequences of them. While you've slightly disguised your intention by calling it "choice-editing" your aim is obvious enough. You want everyone to do as you would will it, not as they, in that irritating fractious manner of free people enjoying their liberty, would. And for that, Tim Lang, you need to be assailed, even if only in a blog post.

But we should go further, and subject Mr. Lang to derision as well.

...when we produced 80% of foods consumed here that could be grown here. Now it's near 60%. Why are we using others' land to grow food we could grow here?

It's called trade laddie. That voluntary exchange, that exploitation of comparative advantages, the division of labour that makes the modern world so stinking rich. The very thing that makes it possible for two grown men to spend their time, as we both do, pondering upon food policies rather than stooped double over a hoe in the fields growing the stuff.

Which rather leads us to our second reason, beyond the curtailment of our liberty, that we should oppose such "choice-editing". Those who would be such editors simply have no idea what they're talking about anyway.

Follow the evidence

2299

follow-the-evidence

If you haven’t read Dennis Sewell's recent Spectator article on the financial crisis yet, you should. It makes a very compelling case that big government, far from being our saviour, is at the root of the current situation. To digest his argument:

• Roberta Achtenberg, President Clinton's Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), believed that racism was preventing minorities enjoying the same level of home ownership as whites.
• She set up a network to bring lawsuits against any mortgage bank suspected of practising unlawful discrimination. When HUD's investigators couldn't find any overt racism they tried to prove ‘disparate treatment’ of minority groups instead. When that didn't work, they went after ‘disparate impact’.
• The mortgage banks got the message. In contrast to previously conservative lending practices, "Mortgages were offered with only 3 per cent deposit requirements, and eventually with no deposit requirement at all. The mortgage banks fell over one another to provide loans to low-income households..." Now these banks are responsible for more than three-quarters of dodgy subprime loans.
• Meanwhile, national banks were put under a different kind of pressure: "Changes were made to the Community Reinvestment Act to establish a system by which banks were rated according to how much lending they did in low-income neighbourhoods. A good CRA rating was necessary if a bank wanted to get regulators to sign off on mergers, expansions, even new branch openings." At the same time, Congress backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to expand mortgage loans among low earners, and introduced new rules let them securitize subprime loans.

Smoking gun, anyone?

Blog Review 751

2291

blog-review-751

A nomination for the craziest piece (yet) on the financial problems.

When economic times change tastes in naked ladies change.

Another mindboggling scheme slipped out when they thought no one was watching.

Given that the banks are having such problems, why not try working without banks?

Yes, we do know how to sort out the fishing industry. Pity no politician ever listens.

If you think hte British banks have been behaving badly, look at what the German ones have been up to.

And finally, the speech that won't be given.

Bad news all round

2292

bad-news-all-round

European leaders were all looking smug earlier this week as they pumped another $250 billion into the markets and announced that the financial crisis was officially over. None more smug than Gordon Brown, of course, whose plan they had adopted.

The fact that they had been able to get together and decide anything at all gave the markets a brief boost. But now the European stockmarkets are sliding again, and our great leaders seem unusually shy about media appearances once again.

Investors know that the $250 billion will have to come from somewhere, and of course it will come from bigger borrowing, bigger deficits, rising taxes and cutbacks. The recession that everyone was waiting for has suddenly got worse. And because Europe and the US aren't going to be expanding so fast, other countries are being hit too, particularly those like Russia which produce the oil, gas, minerals and other commodities that fuel Western economic growth. The downturn just got global.

Meanwhile the bail-out plan is not alloyed good news for bank investors. It came with the price of some political demands, like banning dividends and bonuses. So banks will find themselves losing their best people to other sectors, and anyone who has any cash left will be looking for dividends elsewhere.

Given the amount of money that goes through the markets each day, $250 billion looks a modest sum. Can it really stop the rot? It seems to me that you really can't buck the market. But you can use an awful lot of taxpayers' money trying.