Monthly Archives: August 2013

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

I have spent the day a bit under the weather, but cheered up by the visit of my son Frank who came from Texas to spend the day with me,  This was my 80ths birthday, something I had not expected to see after hearing the words Brain Cancer some years ago, but here I am.

Thanks to all who have wished me well.  I’ll try to get back on track shortly.

View 785 Tuesday, August 06, 2013

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

President Barrack Obama, January 231, 2009

This exchange was in last night’s mail:

Childless Taxpayers Funding Schools

It is a common misconception that it is somehow unfair for childless people to pay taxes that fund schools. In fact, everyone who pays school taxes is simply re-paying the cost of their own education, with interest, after inflation, and generally in proportion to how much they benefited from that education.

Thanks,

Jim Melendy

 

With my reply:

Even those who went to private or religious schools? And why should it be federal? The old notion of local school boards which also controlled the school taxes made the best education system in the world at one time.

I’ve been thinking about this since. My answer was correct but insufficient.

First, there is in the “repayment” hypothesis the assumption that the education provided was worth paying for. Now some schools have alumni who clearly think the school was worth the investment. Most of them, though, were like my Christian Brothers College high school in Memphis, which gets substantial alumni support, are private schools whose pupils are there not only voluntarily, but at considerable expense. I do not know if any of the Memphis public high schools that existed when I was there in the 1940’s still exist, but I doubt that many of them get much alumni support; and I am fairly certain that few 21^st Century public schools have grateful alumni associations. I suspect there are many advocates of certain LA public schools who would gladly help raze them to the ground.

One reason these schools are so awful is the subject of yesterday’s entry, the “mainstreaming” of severely handicapped students. If the justification of tax supported public schools is that they provide an education and are now collecting, with interest, for services rendered, then it’s pretty clear that requiring the paying customers to endure constant interruptions and absorption of teacher time by severely handicapped pupils who have been mainstreamed is theft.

Comes now the question of whose responsibility it is to do something for the severely handicapped. That is not an investment question. Perhaps it should be: perhaps the question ought to be, what education can we provide these children that will help them earn at least some of the money needed for their support? But if that is the question, it’s pretty clear that the answer will be training in skills appropriate to the handicap, and that is going to be quite different from what is taught to the general student body.

As to whose obligation it is, historically it has been the children’s parents with charity as first backup and the local community — parish or county – as secondary backup. It is certainly not part of the powers and duties of the Federal Government as detailed in the Constitution of 1789 as Amended.

Now it can be argued that the communities don’t do enough. They don’t meet the needs, and therefore it is up to the general government to be generous – not with its own money, of course, but with money forcibly extracted by the tax collector backup up by the BATF and Federal executioners if needed. Of course it is easy to be ‘charitable’ with other people’s money. It is easy enough for A and B to work together to determine what C must give to destitute D. That does not justify anyone having charitable feelings about the matter of course.

But the hidden question is, what has this done for the handicapped? Some benefit by mainstreaming. Indeed it might be shown that it is beneficial to the rest of the class to have some examples of handicapped people among them, so as to learn proper ways of treating them. Education is more than just book learning. But there are limits to that, and just about everyone who studies the situation objectively agrees, it’s easy enough to so saturate a class with mainstreamed pupils who really ought not be there as to detract from the education of everyone else in the class. This means that most of the students are not getting the education they need, and it is not a long leap to suspect that this will result in higher costs of training for employers, and over time a general lessening of productivity. And with lower productivity there are fewer resources to be applied to the good of the handicapped. It may be a great favor to those mainstreamed, but it is not necessarily a great favor to the next generation of students, handicapped or not.

We had a good walk today. Sable is a happy dog despite the limp. Every day is a gift.

And it’s lunch time.

Re: telegraph wire material

You mentioned copper telegraph wires, if you look it up, I think you’ll find that most of the mileage in 1859 was composed of galvanized iron wire. Even back then, copper was too dear to be hanging thousands of miles of it out where anyone could make off with it. Just a bit of trivia on a slow day….

And the sun watchers are now saying that we’re due to experience a flip in the sun’s magnetic polarity Real Soon Now.

Stan

Stan Schaefer

Yes, I expect that’s right on reflection.  I vaguely recall that as late as 1940 the Manhattan Project was briefly stalled by shortages of copper for the centrifuge wiring, and silver from the mint was drawn into wire and loaned to the project; at least I have heard this.  Copper in 1859 would have been too dear.  Thanks.

: DC-X 20th Anniversary Conference in NM August 16-18

We’re coming up fast on the 20th anniversary of DC-X’s first flight later this month, and some of the people involved have organized a conference in New Mexico to mark the occasion. I’ve volunteered to help out with the conference, and that’s what I’m writing to you about today.

Much of the original DC-X team will be there, to be honored and to talk about how they did it, techniques used and lessons learned. There will also be a look at some of the many things that came of DC-X’s success, plus a Reusable Spaceplane X-Vehicles workshop looking to what should come next, as well as a tour of the New Mexico Spaceport.

This is a one-of-a-kind event. It’s very unlikely that all these people will ever be in one place at the same time again. If you have a deep interest in where "new space" came from, where it is now, and where it should go next, this event is more than worth a trip to New Mexico in August.

Conference agenda and details at http://dc-xspacequest.org/

thanks for your time

Henry Vanderbilt

founder

Space Access Society

View 785 Monday, August 05, 2013

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

President Barrack Obama, January 21, 2009

Sable is recovering from her sprained hip and wants to take our usual walk, limp and all. She remains a happy dog, and has fun sitting with us in the evenings, as well as exploiting our indulgent feelings by begging at meal times. Plenty of spirit. But every day is a blessing.

I have never thought to see this:

Washington Post to be sold to Jeff Bezos

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/washington-post-to-be-sold-to-jeff-bezos/2013/08/05/ca537c9e-fe0c-11e2-9711-3708310f6f4d_story.html

I need to think on this one. It could be important to the future of the country.

‘Mainstreaming’ Special-Ed Students Needs Debate

By

· MIRIAM KURTZIG FREEDMAN

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323309404578613532497541300.html

She is correct in identifying this as a major subject for education decisions. The debate has to start with just what is the purpose of public education? Why should taxpayers pay for the public education establishment with its unions, inefficiencies, often corruption? Of course those with children would like to have others help pay the expenses of educating them, but what do those who have no children get from the enormous public school and higher education establishments which generally eat about half the state taxes, as well as comprise a not insignificant part of their federal taxes as well.

And if part of that answer is education as an investment, and part is “fairness” to the disabled, what are the costs? Include among the costs the well established fact that putting handicapped, particularly severely handicapped, students in normal school classes – mainstreaming them – severely impacts on the education achievements of the dull normal, normal, bright normal, and gifted students in the classroom since the teacher must spend a disproportionate time on keeping the disabled from falling behind.

The first thing to note is that this has been federalized. Since the Constitution has nothing to say about education, and little to say about disabilities, it is easily argued that the federal government should have no say in the matter: it is to be left to the states, and in fact leaving it to the states can produce by experimentation and example better solutions than those of a bunch of Washington bureaucrats some with education degrees but few with much actual experience of what goes on in the classrooms.

Before 1975, more than a million students with disabilities were excluded from schools and some 3.5 million did not receive appropriate services. That year, Congress passed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, now called the Individuals With Disabilities Act of 1990. Students identified as disabled have since been guaranteed access to what the law calls a "free appropriate public education," and their parents have the right to participate in (and dispute) the school’s development of an annual "individualized education program" for their child. No other group of students or parents enjoys such rights.

Today, six million students with disabilities (about 14% of all students) have the right to a free appropriate public education and an individualized education program. Between 70% and 80% of these students have mild or moderate disabilities, including learning disabilities, speech or language impairments, social and emotional disabilities, and other conditions, such as ADHD. Only 20% to 30% have more severe disabilities, such as cognitive impairments, multihandicapping conditions, deafness or blindness.

Back before the federal government got involved in education – back when “Federal Aid to Education” was only a liberal dream, not a crushing reality — there were different approaches in different places. Some counties had special ed schools; it was sort of up to the parents to get their children to them. But back before and during World War II, different places simply did the best they could.

We had a couple of crippled children in my Capleville grade school. I don’t recall much special about them. They sat in the seats nearest the door, and walked with wooden crutches, their legs in braces; at least one was a polio survivor.  There was generally at least one in every class, and I never saw any cases of bullying of them. Everyone knew polio was still out there, and you could be next.

Our school had two grades to the room, and above 20 pupils to the grade. Numbers varied because this was the only school for miles around. We had no blind pupils, and I am not sure what provision if any was made for their education. As to mentally handicapped, they were either ‘mainstreamed’ at Capleville or their parents found other means – home schooling, transporting them to a Memphis school for the retarded, institutionalizing – for taking care of them. But not all of them. When I was in 5-6 grade – about 48 desks, not quite all of them filled – we had a 15 year old girl among us. She was quiet, well behaved, pleasant and actually rather well liked, and not as noticeably dull as you would think given that she was among 10 year olds. She could read. She didn’t comprehend what she was reading, and on one occasion read the picture captions in the history text book along with the text itself, making no distinction – words was words, and she could read words just fine even if she didn’t know what they meant. When a few in the class giggled or tried to correct her, the teacher rather gently instructed the class to be quiet. We learned a lesson in kindness, and I don’t think I was much the worse for less of the teacher’s attention – but then I had started history with Hillyer when I was 6, and had read Van Loon before I got to 5^th grade, and there was little in the text that I needed to learn, and nothing the teacher was going to teach me. The teacher left me pretty well to my own devices, which consisted of reading library books, some young adult novels like Blueberry Mountain, all the Jack London I could find, and various other stuff available to a 9 year old out in the middle of the countryside. I couldn’t haul a Britannica volume into class – that would have been too conspicuous – and comic books were forbidden, but so long as I looked busy and didn’t cause disruptions I was pretty well left to my own devices. On reflection, I was treated just about the same as Maria the 15 year old trapped in 5^th grade, and we both learned about the same amount from the classroom. Which was probably about the best result that could have been expected.

So: I open the subject for discussion. I start with the proposition that the first thing to do is to repeal the Individuals with Disabilities and the Education for all Handicapped Children Acts. The matter should be returned to the states. Given the massive state education bureaucracies that probably will do little good, but it may make some experimentation possible. Surely there are a few places where the sentiment favors the proposition that schools are places for learning, and those who aren’t learning – either because they will not, or because they cannot – should be somewhere else. The remedy to the problems of the handicapped are not to cripple those more fortunate, and indeed that is counterproductive. It is a lot easier to divide a large pie than a small one, and without an educated work force you will not get large pies. While we are at it in this debate, it may be time to open the question of differential education: as production gets more complicated and demands more mental resources, nations which don’t develop their intellectual capital won’t have any big pies to distribute. As to what happens to those who used to contribute to the economy but whose jobs have been automated forever, that’s another discussion and one of great importance.

It’s time to go write something, so I’ll leave this for another day, and yes, I am aware that is two items I owe you: the rest of the autism and inoculation story, which is important but complex and has implications for both public policy and science resource investment; and a continuation of the education entitlement concept. Obviously to assert that every child is entitled to a world class pre-university prep education is to say that no one is entitled to it, because if everyone is to have an equal education the standards must be kept really low. Nor can everyone be entitled to a shot at a world class university prep education: at some point they have to be weeded out so that the ones who may benefit from it can be taught. We’ve been through this before, but it’s time to look in detail.

I await suggestion and discussion.

It’s unfair to leave the story of Maria without giving the surprising ending. Recall this was in World War II. After the United States entered the war and sent an expedition to North Africa, the Army took increasing numbers of prisoners of war. Some were German, but most of the earliest prisoners were Italian. It happens that Memphis was surrounded by small farms. Many of these grew vegetables, which were trucked into Memphis markets – there were still mom and pop corner grocery stores, weekend farmers markets, and such as well as Kroger, A&P, and other “Supermarket” chains. The small vegetable gardens located 10 to 20 miles from the city were known as “truck gardens” because the farmers used to pack their harvests into trucks and take them to the city to sell directly to stores or in the farmers markets. Most truck gardeners were Italian. Maria was the only daughter of Italian (second generation American) truck gardeners. The US didn’t have any prison camps, but it was clear that most of the Italian POW’s had no enthusiasm for war against the United States, and within weeks it became the common practice to parole Italian POW’s to American farmers as low paid farm hands, thus solving the problems of the labor shortage brought on by the war, and the logistics of feeding thousands of POW’s who were no threat to the United States. The program worked brilliantly.

One of the POW’s was paroled to Maria’s home. Romance ensued resulting in marriage. At the end of the war he stayed in the US – he had his sponsors – and eventually inherited the farm. Maria’s parents were delighted: she had a husband. Maria was delighted. She had a husband. The young caporal was delighted. He inherited the farm, became an American citizen, and last I heard had three perfectly normal children as well as a wife of good disposition who adored him. She could even read although she didn’t really understand what she was reading. But then she didn’t have to.