July 2006 Volume 13 Number 7
- Minimum Wage Hike a Bad Idea
- July 01, 2006
- A group calling itself Raise Oklahoma is rapidly advancing an initiative petition drive to increase Oklahoma's minimum wage. By using compelling statistics and rhetoric, and capitalizing on the timing of high gas prices, the group hopes to raise the state's minimum wage by $2 in the next two years and subsequently link it to increases in inflation. This notion will... Read More >
- The Triumph of 'Education' Over Knowledge
- July 01, 2006
- The school where I was educated from my 11th to my 17th year was an English ?grammar? school ? one of those old Tudor foundations that had become incorporated into the state educational system but which still retained, in those post-war decades, the ethos of public service. The teachers were graduates of the old universities; some had returned from active service in the co... Read More >
- Ed School Follies
- July 01, 2006
- Who needs physics majors, anyway? Our future is secure as long as education majors at the state's largest universities continue plumbing the depths of gender and sexuality, altered states of consciousness, and feminist criticisms of epistemology. If you're an Oklahoma taxpayer, check out these courses (the first three offered at OU, the next five at OSU) you're subsid... Read More >
- Oklahoma's Shameful 'Bounty System'
- July 01, 2006
- Spending on Oklahoma schools is out of control, but the extra money has produced no measurable improvements in educational outcomes. Taxpayers are frustrated. Two initiatives headed toward the ballot this fall ? a taxpayer bill of rights and a mandate to spend 65 percent of school funds on ?classroom? expenditures ? are aimed partly or entirely at reining in wasteful schoo... Read More >
- How to Increase American Competitiveness
- July 01, 2006
- In his recent bestseller, The World Is Flat, Thomas Friedman warned Americans about the challenges of an era of increased globalization and international competition. In an ever "flattening" world, many jobs can easily be outsourced to skilled, lower-cost workers in other countries. Today, American workers have to compete against workers from around the world. Fr... Read More >
- Give Parents Preschool Choices
- July 01, 2006
- The current move in the United States toward more government preschool and kindergarten programs is not unprecedented. In France, Italy, and the United Kingdom, there is nearly universal enrollment of three- and four-year-olds in center-based institutions. However, we have found strong evidence that the widespread adoption of preschool and full-day kindergarten i... Read More >
- Gasoline Prices in Perspective
- July 01, 2006
- America appears to be in a state of wild-eyed panic about the rising price of gasoline. Talk radio hosts and TV populists apparently think that mass riots are imminent and that whole cities will burn unless politicians do something to save America from the long, dark economic night that is descending upon us. In truth, gasoline prices today are taking less of a b... Read More >
- Pigheaded Obstinacy and Unintended Consequences
- July 01, 2006
- There comes a point where courageous devotion to principle crosses the line into pigheaded obstinacy. And that obstinacy can end up hurting your own team. Writing in The New Democrat magazine in 1997, Tom Mirga, a former news editor of Education Week, observed: "If a public institution cannot be reformed in 15 years for $100 billion, it is fair to conclude that it... Read More >
- Government Spending Spree Continues
- July 01, 2006
- All is well in the halls of the Oklahoma state capitol. Last month legislators passed the largest budget in state history. However, all is not so well for those taxpayers who are paying for the politicians' spending spree. As the Wall Street Journal noted in a recent editorial which cited OCPA research, "most Governors and state lawmakers are spending ? money so r... Read More >
- Zero-Effect Budgeting
- July 01, 2006
- Reports on the zero-based budgeting measure adopted last month by the Ohio legislature have pointed to Oklahoma as the one other state in the union where this budgeting method is already widely practiced. Oklahoma passed a zero-based budgeting law three years ago in an attempt to control government spending. Zero-based budgeting is mandated for the whole budget and... Read More >
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