Why are teachers unionized?

Maybe I should ask: "why do we require that the people who teach our children in public schools pay union dues?"

Don't get me wrong-- I think teachers should be free to join whatever organization they want.

But why do we REQUIRE union membership (or at least payment of union dues) to teach in the public schools?

Do we think teachers are too dumb to negotiate their own salary?

Do we think that school boards and principals and superintendents will trick teachers out of fair salaries and benefits?

Unions are supposed to improve working conditions and get better salaries and benefits for their members, and there is a "free rider" problem if membership is voluntary-- nothing but Massachusetts State Law stops somebody from deciding NOT to pay for a union that is negotiating for everybody.

So it is obvious why unions and unionized workers like laws that require employees to participate in collective bargaining agreements. They get better working conditions and higher salaries and benefits!

I can see the 'public good' angle for better working conditions; working conditions for people in slaughterhouses in 1910 really were terrible, and those terrible working conditions caused external costs that weren't paid by the slaughterhouses (like sick or injured workers that had reduced life expectancies). Working conditions for teachers in 2011 everywhere besides inner-city schools seem pretty good to me, though, and I doubt they'd be worse if the teachers' union disappeared.

I can't see any public good angle for higher-than-average wages and benefits. And if you disagree and think teachers are overworked and underpaid and have to put up with tyrannical bosses and bad working conditions... then tell me again why teachers are forced to pay union dues? Wouldn't they be better off just keeping all that union dues money for themselves?

Why argue over trivia?

Scott Sumner has a very interesting take on why we spend so much time arguing over the little stuff and ignoring the big stuff:

I would like to argue that most of the really important public policy issues are not even part of the ongoing debate in the press. Here are some examples:

1. The huge rise in occupational licensing.

2. The huge rise in people incarcerated in the war on drugs, and also the scandalous reluctance of doctors to prescribe adequate pain medication (also due to the war on drugs.)

3. The need for more legal immigration.

4. The need to replace taxes on capital with progressive consumption taxes.

5. Local zoning rules that prevent dense development.

6. Tax exemptions for mortgage interest and health insurance.

These 6 policy failures impose enormous damage on the country, far more than the issues typically discussed on the evening news. Why aren’t they discussed? I would argue that it is partly because the disagreements tend to break down on values, not ideology. Most idealistic intellectuals agree with me on all of these issues. They are not issues that divide the left and the right. It’s also true that most real world politicians agree on these issues. However their views are exactly the opposite of the views of intellectuals. Hence there is no “policy debate” in either the political or intellectual arenas, and hence no “fight” for the media to report. They become invisible issues.

I've written about a few of those things in the past. Even local news seems to focus on "small in the grand scheme of things" issues. For example, the school Superintendent search has dominated local news for the last month or two. But how important is the Superintendent in the grand scheme of things? It seems to me we like to think that a Wise and Strong Leader will Lead Us to the Land of Milk and Honey, but in reality how our kids do in school is really much more a function of how we treat them at home than who is pushing pencils in the head office.

Yeah, yeah, I'm probably underestimating the impact a great superintendent can have on a school district. But in all the opinion pieces I've seen in the local news about the superintendent search I don't recall seeing even one person explaining exactly HOW a great superintendent might vastly improve the screwed-up school system we're stuck with...

When doing nothing is illegal

My last post got me thinking about how to rejigger things to encourage more donations to private charities.

Maybe we should mandate donations to private charities. Instead of raising taxes on the rich, require that they give X% of their income to the 501(c)3 charities of their choice.

I think that would definitely be better than sending the money through the Washington DC (or Beacon Hill) tax-money-sausage-factory... but would it be constitutional?

Libertarians and conservatives are arguing that the Individual Mandate in Obamacare is unconstitutional. That you can't claim that doing nothing (not buying health insurance) is illegal.

There is at least one thing you're legally required to do in the United States, even if you do absolutely nothing besides being an 18-year-old male. I was legally required to register for the draft; the Supreme Court decided that the constitutional power to "raise and support armies" makes that OK.

I can't think of any other laws that apply if you do absolutely nothing-- are there any? You have to pay income tax, but only if you earn income (which is doing something-- and besides, imposing a national income tax required a constitutional amendment). Requiring that rich people donate to charity is logically just another form of income tax... but legally? I dunno.

To keep the lawyers happy we'd probably have to jack up the tax rates on the rich and then give a tax credit for charitable donations. Which would make the whole scheme complicated enough you'd get the right complaining about high tax rates and the left complaining about rich people using tax deductions to get out of paying their fair share.

Charity and diversity

Sam Harris over at the Huffington Post has a "New Year's Resolution for the Rich."

Re-reading it, I'm a little confused as to what he's proposing-- he wants rich people to create "a mechanism that bypassed the current dysfunction of government, earmarking the money for unambiguously worthy projects..."

I'm confused because I thought that is exactly what private charities do-- you give money to charities that you think are worthy. He seems to want a charity that everybody agrees is worthy, but I don't think such a thing exists. He might think more education for already-wealthy Americans and alternative energy research are unambiguously worthy, and I agree that those are worthy charities.

But I'm more sympathetic to the priorities of the Gates Foundation-- I think saving children overseas from dying of malaria is a better use of charity dollars than making college free to all the kids who are lucky enough to be born in the U.S.A.

Why are people on the left generally so fond of one-size-fits-all solutions? Why do they talk so much about celebrating diversity, but are so anti-diversity when somebody suggests decentralized solutions to problems like saving for retirement (private accounts for Social Security) or public education (vouchers)?

Half-wrong, half-right, or just half-wit?

I made 10 predictions at the beginning of the year:

1. The Democrats will lose 7 or 8 seats in the Senate in the November 2010 election. FAIL
2. There will be a kerfuffle when images supposedly from airport backskatter X-ray machines are leaked to the Internet. Score
3. A Schleck will win the Tour De France. FAIL
4. The president will sign a Cash for Caulkers bill. FAIL
5. More than 100 banks will fail in the US. Score
6. General Motors will sell fewer cars than they sold in 2009. FAIL
7. Ford and Toyota will sell more cars than they sold in 2009. Score
8. We'll have a white Christmas. FAIL
9. Spring Town Meeting will last 5 or fewer nights. Score
10. Amherst will pass an override. Score

I said I thought each of them had a greater than 50% chance of happening.  I got 50% correct.  Oops.

What lessons I should draw from my failures, besides the general fact that I'm overconfident?

I'm a programmer, so I should expect to make off-by-one errors.  The Democrats only lost 6 seats. 

I should avoid making predictions about sports.  So even though I think the Patriots are going to win the Super Bowl, I shouldn't predict that they're going to win.  But they are.  But I'm not predicting that.  Just so you know.

I don't know lesson to learn from my 'cash for caulkers' FAIL -- maybe that predicting what legislation will catch the fancy of our congress-critters is hopeless?  Two weeks ago I would have predicted that there was almost no chance Don't Ask Don't Tell would be repealed.

I should trust large organizations more; GM and Chrysler were not horribly mismanaged after being bought by Uncle Sam.

And I've lived here long enough to know that trying to predict New England weather is just plain dumb.

But I've learned my lesson, and I'm 100% positive that my 2011 predictions will be brilliant, insightful, and accurate-- guaranteed, or double your money back!

A Charlie Brown Christmas (tree)

We're hosting Christmas for Michele's siblings; this is an email she sent them a couple of days ago.


Ok so I learned something this year.  Don't pick out a tree during a torrential rain storm.
The only day we had enough time to get a tree and set it up was last Sunday.  So even though it was raining -- off we went.

Well the heavens pretty much opened up the moment we arrived at the tree lot. Fine.  "We won't melt" Robin declared.  Fine.  Now I'm shamed into being a trooper by my 10 year old.   Except she has a hood and I cleverly forgot a hat. 

So off we went up and down the aisles of trees in the pouring rain.  You know what?  In the pouring cold rain all trees pretty much look the same.  So when you've forgotten a rain hat you tend to make the tree picking out process go as quickly as possible.  Robin's one constraint was that the tree be nice and bushy, so you can't see the trunk.

Upon spotting the first bushy tree
"That one looks good" says me
"OOoo" says Will (for the record he said this about every tree)
"This one is nice and bushy" says Robin
"Ok look there is daddy coming back from the ATM, let's get this one" says me as I scurry to the boy scout hut. 

The boy scouts were not out in the lot selling the trees and assisting in the customers' decision making as they normally do.  No. They were smart. They were in the boy scout hut huddled next to the wood burning stove.  Our declaration to the scouts that we'd picked out our tree was not met with joy over another sales, the benefits of which would go into the smore fund for the summer's camping adventure.  No, I believed that one of them actually groaned.  You see they were obligated carry the tree to our car and secure it to the roof with twine. 

Skip ahead a few hours.  We put the tree in the garage to 'dry' off a bit and now Gavin has carried it into the house and to the living room.  He is positioning it while I turn the dang little screws on the stand to secure the tree.

One screw isn't meeting resistance. 

me: "Gavin. There is a hole in this tree."
Gavin: "A hole?"
me: "yeah part of the trunk is rotted or something"
Gavin "well let's turn it 45˚ so the screw can bite into wood"  <-- a problem solver that Gavin!

We did and the stand is stable but the hole is still there.  And... the tree dropped two dustpans' worth of needles within a few hours.  I've never seen so much debris from a fresh tree.   Then I noticed several dead branches.  Also, if you touch the back side of the tree the needles readily fall.

No, we are not getting another tree.  This one will just have to tough it out.  We've got the lights up and the decorations and no one is to touch the back side of the tree.

And so you are all welcome for Christmas but don't make fun of our tree.  It looks fine.  It is doing its job of holding up lights and ornaments. A tree doesn't need needles to do hold up lights and ornaments, just branches.  Our tree has branches....

So don't make fun of our Christmas tree.
It isn't half dead it is..... health impaired.

-Ish

Fall Town Meeting : done in two!

We bravely forged ahead Wednesday night, and finished Fall Town Meeting in two nights.

I did something I usually don't do at Town Meeting-- I voted for a symbolic, advisory, "we the people of the Town" national-policy-interfering warrant article.

Yup, I voted to "Bring our War Dollars Home."   The rational side of me says I should have done what I usually do-- abstain, because I don't think national political issues belong at Town Meeting.

But I'm really pissed off at how much money the United States spends on the military in general and wars, and troops, overseas in particular.  If you look at polls of unpopular government spending, "foreign aid" is always near the top of the list.  And if you think about it, most of the military budget is really foreign aid, "defending" countries that are perfectly capable of defending themselves.

So, since I'm really pissed off, and since the warrant article specifically related national military spending to the Town's budget... I voted with my heart.

The only other controversial article this time around was Article 8, which tried to make some concrete changes to our zoning laws so developers are given incentives to do what the new Master Plan says people in Amherst want (and disincentives if they don't).

I hated it when I first saw it.  16 pages of new zoning regulations... bleuch!

But then I read it, and couldn't find a single thing in it that seems like a bad idea.  And the general approach is exactly the right idea-- encourage more of what we want (affordable housing, infill development, environmentally and historically sensitive development, etc) and discourage what we don't (McMansion subdivisions sprawling into open space).

Most of Town Meeting also thought it was a good idea, too... but it failed to get the required two-thirds by ten votes.  The BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone) minority defeated it.

I hope a modified version comes back before Town Meeting.  It would be tragic if the current Master Plan suffers the same fate as our last master plan (the Select Committe on Goals, which I wrote about a couple of years ago), and we continue with "business as usual" for another 40 years.