A Very Disturbing Report on Education

Posted on January 27, 2012 by

Have you ever heard of the 1990s Kansas City desegregation case? If you haven’t, Paul Ciotti of the CATO Institute provides a remarkable summary of this little-known episode:

For decades critics of the public schools have been saying, “You can’t solve educational problems by throwing money at them.” The education establishment and its supporters have replied, “No one’s ever tried.” In Kansas City they did try. To improve the education of black students and encourage desegregation, a federal judge invited the Kansas City, Missouri, School District to come up with a cost-is-no object educational plan and ordered local and state taxpayers to find the money to pay for it.

Kansas City spent as much as $11,700 per pupil—more money per pupil, on a cost of living adjusted basis, than any other of the 280 largest districts in the country. The money bought higher teachers’ salaries, 15 new schools, and such amenities as an Olympic-sized swimming pool with an underwater viewing room, television and animation studios, a robotics lab, a 25-acre wildlife sanctuary, a zoo, a model United Nations with simultaneous translation capability, and field trips to Mexico and Senegal. The student-teacher ratio was 12 or 13 to 1, the lowest of any major school district in the country.

The results were dismal. Test scores did not rise; the black-white gap did not diminish; and there was less, not greater, integration.

Everybody who is looking at this post should take a look at Ciotti’s full report after this post. It is very, very disturbing reading. The school district of Kansas City essentially had all the funding that it could dream of, and student performance utterly failed to improve.

Improving a country’s education system, as the example of Kansas City shows, is something in which no easy answers are available. It is perhaps one of the most complicated tasks out there. Even the full might of the American government has had little effect on improving American education throughout the decades.

It does seem, however, that simply putting in more money does not solve the problem. Indeed, the United States spends a lot of money per student on education relative to other countries in the world:

Photobucket

The results, however, are decidedly mediocre. Despite all the money spent on education, American students generally score in the middle and lower end when compared to other wealthy countries.

If more money is not the solution, then what is? That’s a very complicated question, of course. It’s a question which nobody has really answered satisfactorily in America to this day. I have written several modest suggestions and thoughts on the problem in previous posts. But I personally cannot even dream of finding a comprehensive solution if decades of experts have also failed to do so.

And here, in suggesting what Kansas City should actually have done, Paul Ciotti and the CATO Institute fall short. They do great in diagnosing the problem and in showing how one proposed solution – better funding – does not work miracles. But in suggesting a solution himself, all Ciotti has to say is this:

In the meantime, they [the Kansas City School district] ignore ideas that might work. They might fire poor teachers and reward good ones with merit pay, give parents vouchers so they could send their children to private schools, or stop trying to solve the problem of dysfunctional families after the fact and look upstream for a solution–the elimination of welfare to end the resulting social chaos.

For a thirty-five page report, this is a surprisingly short list. Let’s take a look at each one of them:

Merit Pay – This is being tried extensively today; it is the “hot” new trend in American education. We shall see how it works in a decade.

Vouchers – Studies have indicated that voucher schools don’t work. Students who go to charter schools do academically just as well or badly as students who go to public schools.

End Welfare – This sounds more like rhetorical blather than an actual proposal. In fact, the welfare reforms of 1990s did substantially reduce welfare. School districts aren’t doing much better today than they were then.

So two out of three of Ciotti’s proposals have already been experimented with and failed.

This leaves us in a rather depressing place, with a bunch of unsuccessful solutions to a seemingly unsolvable problem. How to get out of this rather depressing place is, alas, beyond the sight of me and many, many others.

Posted in Education | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Previewing the Florida Republican Primary

Posted on January 25, 2012 by

Newt Gingrich’s thorough pounding in South Carolina has set up Florida as the next important primary. If Gingrich is able to win Florida as well, then Mitt Romney will be in a heap of trouble.

At this point a Gingrich victory is an eminently possible event. Throughout November and December Gingrich was posting enormous leads in Florida; for some reason the seniors there seem to really like him. Romney’s strong performances in Iowa and New Hampshire lifted him to the lead for a while. But now Gingrich is leading again. The example of South Carolina, where Romney lost a steady lead in less than a week, shows how quickly things can shift.

Florida is a very diverse state, much more so than any of the other states which have voted so far. Its population is large enough, and each part of the state different enough, that it could very easily be split into several different states with unique cultures.

Below are some thoughts the voting patterns of each part of Florida.

Northern Florida

Northern Florida is the part which has most in common with the South; indeed, much of it is an extension of the Deep South. As the example of South Carolina indicates, Romney for some reason does very poorly in the South. In 2008, he placed a poor third in a number of Deep South states.

It’s interesting to ask whether Gingrich has any special appeal to the South. Gingrich is a Southerner who spent most of his life in Georgia. On the other hand, he doesn’t sound like a Southerner.

One would expect Romney to do especially poorly in northern Florida, given his weakness in the South. There is a catch, however. In 2008 Romney actually won the Jacksonville area by double-digits while losing the Panhandle badly. Whether he can replicate this performance this year is open to question. Of course, given that Romney lost Florida to John McCain, he must.

The I-4 Corridor

Covering most of Central Florida, the I-4 Corridor refers to the I-4 highway running through the region to connect all the major cities.

This is generally swing territory in the presidential election, and it will probably be swing territory in the upcoming primary as well. Romney did decently in the Orlando area in 2008, tying John McCain. He did worse in the Tampa and Hillsborough region. Whoever wins the I-4 Corridor in 2012 will probably win the Republican primary. It will be where the rubber meets the road, so to speak.

The Miami Metropolis

South Florida is the most populous and diverse part of the state. Mitt Romney cratered in this region during the 2008 Republican primaries; in Miami-Dade County, he actually did worse than Rudy Giuliani (remember him?) According to exit polls, Romney failed to break into double-digits amongst the Cuban-American vote.

Obviously, if this happens again Romney will lose the state. As for Newt Gingrich, it will be very revealing to see how he does in this part of the state. Gingrich might be attractive to conservative retirees who remember his battles with Bill Clinton. His strength with Cuban-Americans, on the other hand, is completely a mystery. Gingrich has never had to appeal to Hispanic voters in his life before; it will be a very fascinating to see how he does with them.

All in all, the way that South Florida will vote is pretty much up in the air.

Conclusions

The good news for Romney is that absentee voting has been continuously going on throughout the period in which he held the polling lead, before his loss in South Carolina. If there is anything that will lift him to victory, this is it.

Finally, there is the Hispanic vote in Florida. While most voters so far in the Republican primary belong to hard-core Republican constituencies, Hispanics do not. The performance of the eventual Republican nominee among Hispanics in Florida (especially non-Cubans) will provide an extremely important insight to the general election.

Posted in 2012 Republican Primary, Florida | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Romney’s Shifting Iowa Coalition

Posted on January 22, 2012 by

Mitt Romney has famously been running for president for the past four years. He seems to be having more success this time; at the moment, Romney is the unquestioned frontrunner for the Republican nomination.

A previous post analyzed Romney’s voting coalition based off of exit polls. Given that Romney also ran for president in 2008, there are also a lot of exit polls which provide information of Romney’s coalition in 2008.

Exit polls were conducted in both the 2008 and 2012 Iowa Republican Caucuses; the 2008 exit poll can be found here, and the 2012 exit poll can be found here. This post takes all the questions which the two exit polls had in common and then places them side-by-side. The fact that Romney got 25.2% of the vote in 2008 and 24.5% of the vote in 2012 makes the comparison especially interesting. By examining the exit polls one can get a sense of how Romney’s 2012 supporters are different from his 2008 supporters.

The results are quite revealing.

Let’s start with a pretty basic question:

Gender Romney 2008 Romney 2012
Male 26% 23%
Female 24% 25%

This is probably the least interesting of the polls. There is essentially no gender gap in Romney’s support. The differences in support are minuscule enough to be a function of sample size error.

Here is the next question, which asks about something much more interesting:

Born-Again Evangelical Christian? Romney 2008 Romney 2012
Yes 19% 14%
No 33% 38%
Evangelical vs. Non-Evangelical Support Gap 14% 24%

These exit polls indicate that Romney does substantially better amongst evangelicals than amongst non-evangelicals. In fact, in 2008 the gap between evangelical support for Romney and non-evangelical support for Romney was greater than any other divide in the 2008 exit poll questions this post examines.

What is even more revealing is that in 2012 this gap widens. Evangelical support for Romney is even less in 2012; non-evangelical support is even greater in 2012. The 2012 evangelical versus non-evangelical divide in support is also greater than all but one in support amongst the questions examined in this post.

One should be a bit cautious, of course. Saying that Romney is doing worse amongst evangelicals in 2012 than in 2008 is very premature. Exit polls are notoriously unreliable, and to draw firm conclusions from unreliable polls of just one caucus is ill-advised.

The next question also shows something very interesting:

Age Romney 2008 Romney 2012
18-29 22% 13%
30-44 23% 20%
45-64 25% 25%
65+ 28% 33%
Oldest vs. Youngest Support Gap 6% 20%

Unlike religion, age has not often been thought of as a factor in whether or not one supports Romney. Yet as these results make clear, there is actually a substantial age gap between support for Romney amongst the elderly and amongst the young. Older voters like Romney more; younger voters are less enthusiastic.

In 2008 the gap is not very wide. Romney’s support does rise slightly with voter age, but the divide is small enough to perhaps be a function of sample error. In 2012 the divide has widened considerably. Romney almost falls into single digits with young voters, while gaining a healthy third of the elderly vote. Much as evangelicals became less likely to vote for Romney in 2012, younger voters – cool to Romney in 2008 – are even less enthusiastic in 2012.

Let’s take a look at income:

Income Romney 2008 Romney 2012
Less than $30,000 19% 15%
$30,000 – $49,999 16% 16%
$50,000 – $99,999 27% 21%
$100,000 or more 32% 36%
Highest Income vs. Lowest Income Support Gap 13% 21%

There have been considerable attacks on Romney on the basis of class; Romney is one of the richest Americans, and it is fair to say that he has never really experienced hardship. Unsurprisingly, poor voters are not exactly enamored of Romney. As with age, there’s a steady progression of increasing support as income increases.

This was so true in 2008, where the lowest income voters were actually more likely to support Romney than the income tier above them. In 2008 the wealth attack was used much less against Romney (back then the main issue was his flip-flops on social issues). In the 2012 campaign Romney has been criticized much more on the issue of wealth, and unsurprisingly the income divide in support has correspondingly increased.

The next question deals with political philosophy:

Political Philosophy Romney 2008 Romney 2012
Very Conservative 23% 14%
Somewhat Conservative 27% 32%
Moderate 26% 38%
Moderate vs. Very Conservative Gap 3% 24%

In 2008 Romney ran as the conservative religious candidate, attempting to win Iowa by running to the right of all the major candidates. His strategy backfired when Mike Huckabee began rising in the polls, and Romney actually did worst amongst very conservative voters that year. Still, 2008 didn’t really feature a big divide in support for Romney; all three numbers are pretty much within the margin-of-error.

In 2012 Romney ran as something quite different: a moderate, business-oriented Republican. Moderates were thus much more likely to support Romney in 2012. Conservatives, however, were turned off by the similarity of his Massachusetts health care plan to “Obamacare.” Their support, always lukewarm, plummeted. In 2012, the moderate-conservative gap thus tied the evangelical versus non-evangelical gap as the largest divide in support for Romney. Out of all the divides in support for Romney, this divide widened the most between 2008 and 2012.

The next table is a bit puzzling:

Party Affiliation Romney 2008 Romney 2012
Independent 19% 19%
Republican 26% 27%
Republican vs. Independent Support Gap 7% 8%

Republicans are more likely to support Romney than Independents. Unlike the case with most of the other questions, the gap in support hasn’t really widened since 2012. This is actually a strange result; it seems to contradict the fact that moderate voters are the most enamored of Romney. It also would suggest some weakness in the general election.

The next questions involves depth of support:

Opinion of Candidate You Support Romney 2008 Romney 2012
Strongly Favor 24% 22%
Some Reservations 26% 29%
Some Reservations vs. Strongly Favor Support Gap 2% 7%

Romney’s share of voters who strongly favor their candidate and his share of voters who favor their candidate with some reservations was essentially the same in 2008. In 2012 the gap has widened somewhat (a pattern that’s coming up again and again). This is perhaps not so surprising considering the many attacks that Romney has received since 2008.

Finally, another question of some utility:

Decided Whom to Support… Romney 2008 Romney 2012
Today 18% 22%
In the last few days 26% 23%
In December 23% 22%
Before That 29% 28%
Earliest Decision vs. Latest Decision Support Gap 11% 6%

This table indicates that Romney generally does best amongst those who make their decisions earliest. This is one of two categories in which the gap between Romney’s strongest and weakest supporters in 2008 narrowed (the other being gender).

Conclusions

The differences between Romney’s 2008 coalition in Iowa and Romney’s 2012 coalition in Iowa can be revealed just by examining his strongest and weakest supporters out of all these categories. In 2008, out of these nine categories, Romney’s strongest supporters were non-evangelicals; he got 33% of their vote. His weakest supporters were people who decided whom to support on election day; Romney got 18% of them. The greatest gap between Romney supporters and opponents was the 14% gap between evangelicals and non-evangelicals.

In 2012 things were somewhat different and similar at the same time. This time, out of these nine exit polls questions, Romney’s strongest support was with non-evangelicals and moderates. The candidate took 38% of their vote. On the other hand, his weakest supporters were voters aged 18-29; Romney won a mere 13% of them. The greatest divide was amongst evangelicals versus non-evangelicals and very conservative voters versus moderate voters. In both, there was a 24% gap.

Consider these statistics in light of the fact that Romney got essentially the exact same share of the vote in both caucuses.

Nevertheless, his coalition has changed in several interesting ways. In general, Romney is doing better with the voters who supported him the most in 2008. On the other hand, he is doing worse with the voters who were most lukewarm towards him in 2008. His coalition has become less broad but more deep.

Of course, it should be noted that one should hesitate before drawing firm conclusions. This is, after all, an analysis of a form of surveying which has proven to be flawed in the past, which has very high margins of error, and an analysis of only one caucus.

A next post will examine the differences between Romney in 2008 and Romney in 2012 with respect to the New Hampshire primary.

Posted in 2012 Republican Primary, Republicans | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Case Study of the Perils Facing Third-Party Candidates: Taiwan

Posted on January 20, 2012 by

Photobucket

In an important world event that far too few Americans knew or probably cared about, Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou was recently re-elected with 51.6% of the vote.

The election itself was quite interesting; there are several fascinating patterns that occur in Taiwanese politics. But this post will focus mainly on the travails of third-party candidate James Soong Chu-yu.

In America third-party candidates generally do terribly. Amazingly, there is not a single Congressman in the House of Representatives who is not a member of either the Democratic or Republican Party.

There is a very simple reason for this: American politics is based on a first-past-the-post system, rather than a proportional parliamentary system. Whoever gets the most votes wins.

This represents a tremendous hurdle to third-party candidates in the United States. Since the supporters of a third party would otherwise vote disproportionately for another major party candidate, third party candidates are constantly accused of “stealing” votes. A vote for Ralph Nader is a vote for George W. Bush, or so the saying goes (and, as it turned out, a vote for Ralph Nader was indeed a vote for George W. Bush). This is why a third-party candidate has never won a presidential election in the history of the United States.

In Taiwan, whoever gets the most votes also becomes president. Third party candidate James Soong Chu-yu’s positions generally leaned towards the Kuomintang. He was unsurprisingly accused of siphoning votes away from the Kuomintang candidate Ma Ying-jeou. Soong thus faced the same hurdle that all third-party presidential candidates in the United States have failed to overcome.

So how did James Soong Chu-yu do? Well, in the earliest summer 2011 polls Soong generally pulled in low double-digits, sometimes breaking the 15% barrier but never falling below 10% of the electorate’s support. As the campaign season wore on, however, his support steadily leaked away. The polls document this drip, drip, drip of support fleeing him quite well. By October Soong was dipping into the single-digits. By November he was struggling to break into the double-digits at all. The last five polls on Wikipedia’s list gave him 7%, 5.8%, 7.2%, 6%, and 6.8% of the vote. Due to Taiwanese laws, polling then ceased during the ten days prior to the election.

On election day James Soong Chu-yu got 2.8% of the vote.

In other words, a candidate who started regularly polling above 15% ended up with less than a million actual votes. James Soong Chu-yu essentially turned into a non-entity; as the possibility of him splitting the Pan-Blue coalition vote came closer and closer to reality, his support plummeted.

All in all, this result is a fascinating application of an electoral principle being applied to a country outside the United States (or outside of the Western world for that matter). When electorates in the United States and Taiwan are presented with the same situation, they react in the exact same way. This reveals that the effect of a first-past-the-post system is quite universal: the system destroys third party candidacies. Whether the third-party candidate is Ralph Nader or James Soong Chu-yu, the result is the same.

Posted in Asia, Foreign Elections | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ron Paul Is Lying

Posted on January 17, 2012 by

Libertarian Ron Paul is doing quite well in the 2012 Republican primaries; he has taken third place in Iowa and second place in New Hampshire. Perhaps the greatest controversy that Ron Paul has run into is a series of newsletters published under his name. These newsletters are written in a racist and hateful tone.

Ron Paul has defended himself by saying that he never wrote or even read the newsletters. Here is one fairly typical interview of this defense:

In this interview, the media has tended to emphasize the fact that Ron Paul abruptly walked away from the interview, although it seemed to be ending anyways.

What is much more interesting is to watch the parts of the video in which Paul specifically denies having read or written any of the newsletters. Specifically, look at 7:20. At 7:20, Paul says:

You know what the answer is, I — I didn’t read — write them. I didn’t read them at the time. And I disavow them. That is the answer.

Look at Paul’s body language when he’s saying these words. It’s fascinating. He refuses to meet Gloria Borger’s eyes. Rather, Paul looks at the floor. This is in contrast to the rest of the interview, when Paul does confidently meet the reporter’s eyes.

Ron Paul is lying.

Posted in 2012 Republican Primary | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment