Sen. Tom Coburn’s (R‑OK) new report on the various federal subsidies being collected by millionaires deserves applause for not resorting to class warfare rhetoric in making the point that it’s silly for wealthy folks to receive taxpayer handouts:

We should never demonize those who are successful. Nor should we pamper them with unnecessary welfare to create an appearance everyone is benefiting from federal programs.

Coburn says that “this reverse Robin Hood style of wealth redistribution is an intentional effort to get all Americans bought into a system where everyone appears to benefit.” That’s true. Whether it is food subsidies or unemployment benefits, the cheerleaders for federal redistribution schemes would have the public believe that it’s all about “helping those in need” when in fact it’s really about fostering dependency on taxpayers. A dirty little secret that the media typically fails to recognize is that many of the people pushing for these programs stand to financially benefit themselves. And as we have documented over at Down​siz​ing​Gov​ern​ment​.org, government programs do a poor job of helping the people that they purportedly serve.

Over the last few days the Wall Street Journal has run two articles suggesting that the No Child Left Behind Act has been somewhat successful. But that’s not supported by the federal government’s own measure, the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

The WSJ’s first article appeared on Saturday, and while focusing on the stagnation of high-achieving students, it asserts that NAEP exams show “dramatic progress—sometimes double-digit increases—for the lowest achievers over the last two decades, especially after No Child Left Behind.”

Last month I debunked the idea that historically struggling groups have seen dramatic improvements under NCLB, laying out the data from numerous NAEP tests. Quite simply, looking at score gains per year, there were many periods before NCLB that saw faster improvements. Below are two more tables from the latest NAEP scores, released a couple of weeks ago. These are for the so-called “main” NAEP, which is not nearly as valuable as the long-term trends exam for seeing historical patterns, but the WSJ cites it and it does contain new information. The results are for the bottom 10 percent of performers.

As always, at what year one could start crediting results to NCLB is debatable. (Actually, you can never simply look at NAEP scores and attribute them to one factor because so many variables influence outcomes.) That date cannot be earlier than 2002, the year the law was enacted, and probably should be 2003, by which time most of the regulations were written and the law began to take real effect. To deal with this problem, the tables include only years that fully include NCLB or do not include it at all. Also note that there are two pre-NCLB time bands for reading because there are no 2000 8th grade reading scores.

Mathematics, 10th Percentile

Reading, 10th Percentile

Once again, there is is no pattern of faster improvement under NCLB than before it. Highlighting periods with greater growth than under NCLB, you can see that in 4th grade math improvements were faster before NCLB than after. In 8th grade math, it’s essentially a dead heat. In 4th grade reading, there’s sizable improvement under NCLB, and in 8th grade reading there’s an appreciable advantage before NCLB.

The second WSJ piece that gives NCLB undue credit is an op-ed from Kevin Chavous. Chavous, a tremendous advocate for school choice, implies that NCLB supplies “accountability” needed to make American kids competitive with their international peers. But as we’ve seen, there’s precious little evidence that NCLB has done anything to improve educational outcomes. Meanwhile, it has cost us a mint, with Department of Education k‑12 spending rising from $27.3 billion in 2001 to $37.9 billion in 2011.

Unfortunately, Chavous’s piece seems more aspirational than reality-based, as is often the case in education policy. “We must try to make schools and teachers accountable,” he seems to be saying. “Heaven knows the states won’t do it!”

The need to deal in reality is why Mr. Chavous’ main concern—getting school choice—is so crucial. Government schooling will never be fundamentally changed because those who would be held accountable—teachers, administrators, bureaucrats—have by far the most motivation to be involved in education politics, the greatest ability to organize, and hence the biggest store of political power. Their livelihoods, after all, are at stake. And what do they want? What we’d all probably like: as much pay as possible with as little accountability.

The only way to end employee domination of education is to fundamentally change the system: instead of having politics control schooling, let parents control education money so they can take their children out of schools they don’t like and put them into those they do. Don’t force them to undertake the endless, hopeless warfare of having to form coalitions, try to get politicians’ ears, spur politicians to move and, if they can ever get decent changes, then force them to constantly fight to keep the reforms against opponents with full-time lobbyists and political machines. No, let them vote with their feet, right away, and get their children the education they need.

NCLB is, by most indications, an abject failure, and the very nature of government schooling doomed it to be so.

Yesterday, Juan Carlos Hidalgo pointed out that Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos became the latest world leader to recognize the need to rethink the prohibitionist policies that allow powerful drug traffickers to flourish. Santos called for a new approach to “take away the violent profit that comes with drug trafficking” and that governments around the world, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, need to debate legalizing select drugs, such as cocaine.

From Colombia to Mexico, the drug war rages on. Despite two decades of U.S.-aided efforts to eradicate drug-related violence in Colombia, the problem persists. Indeed, the trickle-down effects from Mexico southward now threaten to engulf Guatemala. Costa Rica, Honduras, and El Salvador are all experiencing alarming homicide rates at least partially related to drug trafficking. To address these spikes in violence and stem the flow of drugs, the United States has spent billions of dollars in Mexico and throughout Latin America. Sadly, there is little evidence that this policy has been successful, and the evidence mounts that it has been an outright failure.

A new policy is needed to stem the violence and consequences of the Mexican drug cartels pervasive power. In a new study released today, Ted Galen Carpenter, senior fellow, argues that the only lasting, effective strategy for dealing with Mexico’s drug violence is to defund the Mexican drug cartels. “The United States could substantially defund these cartels,” says Carpenter, “through the full legalization (including manufacture and sale) of currently illegal drugs.”

The new study, “Undermining Mexico’s Dangerous Drug Cartels,” is available here.

“The Affordable Care Act gives states incredible freedom to tailor reforms to their needs.”—HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, February 10, 2011

“We’ve taken incredible steps to reduce health care costs and improve care…”—HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, November 14, 2011

Tune in to the live stream at www​.cato​.org/live of the Cato Institute conference, “Ending the Global War on Drugs,” from 9:05 am to 6:15 pm ET today.

Join the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #EndDrugWar, and follow live tweets from the conference in English from @CatoInstitute, in Spanish from @ElCatoEnCorto, and in Portuguese from @OrdemLivre.

Over a year ago I asked a fairly simple question, why can’t we fire failed regulators? After all, lots of seemingly smart people had oversight of our financial markets, and regardless of whatever spin you might hear, our financial markets are, and have been, highly regulated. Sadly, “highly” is not the same as “well”.

Perhaps no failure was as avoidable as that of the Bernie Madoff scheme. After all outside parties basically put the case together and brought it to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Yet the SEC did nothing until it was far too late. Eventually the SEC’s human resources department and an outside law firm advised the agency on how to handle these regulatory failures. Their recommendation: fire the manager responsible. SEC Chair Mary Schapiro’s response? No, as such “would harm the agency’s work.” I’d think having incompetent employees would harm the agency’s work. But then we have yet to hear what happened to the many SEC employees that spent the crisis watching porn instead of doing their job.

This is just another example, in a long list, of why relying on the relatively weak incentives of government regulatory oversight is inferior to relying on the strong incentives contained in market participants having their own wealth on the line. But then for such incentives to be effective, we need to end bailouts and have real market discipline. Sadly we are currently stuck in the worst of both worlds: incompetent and unaccountable regulators coupled with a neutering of market discipline by these very same regulators.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos’ explicit—though lukewarm—support for the legalization of marijuana and other soft drugs. This weekend, in an interview with The Observer, Santos was blunter in saying that, “I would talk about legalising marijuana and more than just marijuana… I might consider legalising cocaine if there is a world consensus because this drug has affected us most here in Colombia.”

Once again, Santos emphasized the need for a global debate on prohibition and new approaches to drug policy. As The Guardian points out:

“It is difficult to overestimate the symbolic importance of a Colombian president entering the debate with such force, given the central role drugs have played in his country’s recent bloody history. Santos is all too aware of the symbolism and of the role he is playing.”

Tomorrow Cato will host a major conference on how to end the global war on drugs. The event will be live streamed from our website at www​.cato​.org/live beginning at 9:05am ET.