There’s an act for that! And another act, and another act, and another…

Oh, did we forget to mention the painful results? Well, federal education “gifts” do have a tendency to blow up in your face.

Tomorrow night at 8:00pm, Fox Business News will air a John Stossel special on the failures of state-run schooling and the merits of parental choice and competition in education. I make an appearance, as do Jeanne Allen and James Tooley.

News of the show is already making the rounds, and over at Demo​c​ra​ti​c​Un​der​ground​.com, one poster is very upset about it, writing:

When will these TRAITORS stop trying to ruin this country?

HOW can AMERICANS be AGAINST public education?

Stossel is throwing out every right-wing argument possible in his namby pamby singsong way while he “interviews” a “panel” of people (who I suspect are plants) saying things like preschool is a waste of money and why invest in an already-failing system.…

I hate Stossel and I hate all of those who think the way he does.

This poster goes by the screen name “Live Love Laugh.” I guess there wasn’t enough space to tack “Hate” onto the end.

What this poster–and many good people on the American left–have yet to grasp is that critics of state monopoly schooling are NOT against public education. On the contrary, it is our commitment to the ideals of public education that compels us to pursue them by the most effective means possible, and to abandon the system that has proven itself, over many many generations, incapable of fulfilling them. I wrote about this crucial point more than a decade ago in Education Week, in a piece titled: “Are Public Schools Hazardous to Public Education.”

Fortunately, a small but steadily growing number of American liberals have already grasped this pivotal difference between means and ends, as the growing Democratic support for Florida’s school choice tax credit program evinces. Giving all families, particularly low income families, an easier choice between state-run and independent schools is the best way to advance the ideals of public education.

Who said public schooling is all about the adults in the system and not the kids? Everyone knows it’s even more basic than that: Public schooling is a jobs program, pure and simple. At least, that’s what one can’t help but conclude as our little “stimulus” turns one-year old today.

“State fiscal relief really has kept hundreds of thousands of teachers and firefighters and first responders on the job,” declared White House Council of Economic Advisers head Christina Romer today.

Throwing almost $100 billion at education sure as heck ought to have kept teachers in their jobs, and the unemployment numbers suggest teachers have had a pretty good deal relative to the folks paying their salaries. While unemployment in “educational services” – which consists predominantly of teachers, but also includes other education-related occupations — hasn’t returned to its recent, April 2008 low of 2.2 percent, in January 2010 it was well below the national 9.7 percent rate, sitting at 5.9 percent.

Of course, retaining all of these teachers might be of value to taxpayers if having so many of them had a positive impact on educational outcomes. But looking at decades of achievement data one can’t help but conclude that keeping teacher jobs at all costs truly isn’t about the kids, but the adults either employed in education, or trying to get the votes of those employed in education. As the following chart makes clear, we have added teachers in droves for decades without improving ultimate achievement at all:

(Sources: Digest of Education Statistics, Table 64, and National Assessment of Educational Progress, Long-Term Trend results)

Since the early 1970s, achievement scores for 17-year-olds — our schools’ “final products” — haven’t improved one bit, while the number of teachers per 100 students is almost 50 percent greater. If anything, then, we have far too many teachers, and would do taxpayers, and the economy, a great service by letting some of them go. Citizens could then keep more of their money and invest in private, truly economy-growing ventures. But no, we’re supposed to celebrate the endless continuation of debilitating economic – and educational — waste.

You’ll have to pardon me for not considering this an accomplishment I should cheer about.

A new poll from Washington Post/​ABC News poll shows that most respondents oppose the recent Citizens United decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. Just over 70 percent of those polled want to reinstate the unconstitutional restrictions. The questions asked may be found here.

Sean Parnell asks whether the wording of the questions in this poll drove the results. William McGinley shares Parnell’s concerns and suggests some alternative questions for future polling.

I was not surprised by the result. Polls have long found that substantial majorities support something called “campaign finance reform.” Over two years ago, a poll found that 71 percent of Americans wanted to limit corporate and union spending on campaigns. 62 percent also supported limiting the amount of money a person could give to their own campaign, even though such donations could not involve the possibility of corruption. (This desire to restrict self-funding, by the way, has been patently unconstitutional for over thirty years).

The history of public opinion also should be kept in mind. Fifty years ago, when mass polling started, researchers found that the public both supported and opposed the First Amendment. Surveys found overwhelming support for “the First Amendment” and other abstractions like “the Bill of Rights.” They also frequently detected less than majority support for actual applications of the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights. Majorities opposed, for example, permitting Communists or other disfavored groups to speak at a local school.

Not much has changed over the years. In 2007, a survey funded by the First Amendment Center reported the following opinions related to First Amendment freedoms:

• Only 56 percent believe that the freedom to worship as one chooses extends to all religious groups;
• 50 percent agree “A public school teacher should be allowed to use the Bible as a factual text in a history or social studies class.”
• 58 percent of Americans would prevent protests during a funeral procession, even on public streets and sidewalks;
• 74 percent would prevent public school students from wearing a T‑shirt with a slogan that might offend others;
• majorities thought “the government should be allowed to require television and radio broadcasters to offer an equal allotment of time to conservative and liberal commentators.”
• That same poll also revealed that 66 percent of the public thought “the right to speak freely about whatever you want” was essential. Moreover, 74 percent found “the right to practice the religion of your choice” to be essential.

In the abstract, Americans continue to support First Amendment freedoms. In concrete cases, majorities still often oppose the exercise of such freedoms. Citizens United vindicated the First Amendment in a specific case that a majority does not support. This gulf between principle and application has been and continues to be common among Americans.

These findings suggest two thoughts. Liberals are now saying Citizens United should be undone because majorities oppose the decision. The principle that First Amendment rights should be overturned by majority sentiment may not please liberals in the future. Freedom of religion, in particular, attracts minority support in many concrete applications.

The more important lesson here involves an often ignored truth: the U.S. Constitution does not establish a government through which a majority can do anything it likes. The Bill of Rights marks a limit on political power even if a majority controls the government. (James Madison might have said especially if a majority controls the government). We have a Supreme Court to enforce those limits against government officials and against majorities. In Citizens United, the Court finally did what it should have done: protecting unpopular groups from the heavy hand of the censor. The fact that a majority favored and favors giving unchecked power to the censor matters not at all.

Still doubt that the Church of Universal Coverage is a bona fide religion? Consider:

1. The American people have been solidly against the Democrats’ universal-coverage plan since July 2009.
2. Roughly 60 percent of the public wants Congress to scrap that legislation and start over.
3. President Obama will nevertheless use that legislation as the starting point for negotiations with Republicans at next week’s health care summit.

Mmmm, that’s good fervor.

Republican summiteers shouldn’t spend too much time discussing their own ideas — which aren’t going anywhere, and really aren’t that great anyway — lest they unwittingly aid Democrats in changing the below-illustrated narrative. They should instead focus like a laser beam on the dangers of the Democrats’ legislation, and how dangerously close it is to becoming law.

Then they can all return to the drawing board and come back with better ideas.

On the first anniversary of the stimulus bill’s passage, administration officials are traversing the country (on the taxpayer dime) touting its alleged successes.

But the inconvenient truth is that no number of orchestrated press events can mask the threat massive deficit spending poses for future living standards.

What administration officials are calling “investment” is really the opportunity cost of the government borrowing resources out of the economy. As a result, to the degree there has been any “stimulus,” it has been in the stimulation of government jobs and debt. 

It is the private sector that fuels job growth and wealth creation, whereas government spending necessarily comes at the private sector’s expense. Fortunately, it appears that a growing segment of the populace is beginning to understand that there’s no free lunch when it comes to government spending.

In typical Washington, D.C. fashion, the capitol city is convincing itself that it has a role in “saving” journalism from the technological and market forces that are now reshaping it.

Adam Thierer summarizes his remarks this morning—aimed at bursting D.C.‘s bubble—in this TechLiberationFront post.