I've read What's the Matter with Kansas, a great book which gives you a window into what exactly makes working people ignore their own interests and march to lower the taxes of the super-rich. But I still marvel that anti-pension, anti-tenure, anti-union, anti-benefit propaganda resonates with the public.

Rather than complain about benefits teachers have, why aren't they out with torches and pitchforks demanding the same rights for themselves? Is the allure of multiple jobs with few or no benefits that strong?

In Spanish they say, "Common sense is the least common of all the senses."

Ed, I'm sure Mike and Bob appreciate your suggestion that it is time for them to retire, but alas, their retirement plans do not allow them to retire in their fifties and then return to the university to continue teaching. So, they'll just have to continue rubbing you the wrong way for some time to come.

I notice you like to sling denigrating nicknames around: "right wing think tanker", and "Walton School of everyday low benefits", etc. Perhaps you have been spending a bit too much time in junior high classrooms? Here in Adult Land, we like to debate on the merits of the issues.

Brush up on your reading comprehension and debating skills; perhaps I'll bother reading your "opinions" then.

If the "Show Me Institute," isn't a right wing think tank, what is it? And I agree that "Mike and Bob" are free to continue to try to rub me the wrong way. It's just that this is, in and of itself, a pretty silly goal in Adult Land. As is the idea that the best way to improve everything is to shift risk onto the people doing the work. In the end, that's all that vouchers, individual pay for test scores, and pension privatization are.

"a pretty silly goal...the idea that the best way to improve everything is to shift risk onto the people doing the work. In the end, that's all that vouchers, individual pay for test scores, and pension privatization are."

Ed, am I reading this correctly? You are saying that people enter the field of education assuming that it is a NO RISK endeavor? In general, the level of risk is correlated with potential benefits. I see no reason education should be exempted from the general rule. Competition for clients, performance evaluations, personal responsibility for retirement plans, these are standard for high-paying professions. Risk/benefits: part of the same equation.

In answer to your first question, the automatic dismissal of any research think tank as "right wing" or "left wing" or any other easy label is unscientific and unscholarly, if not downright juvenile. Certainly ad hominem attacks do not strengthen your arguments.

No, you're not reading this correctly. And if "Mike and Bob" can have automatic policy prescriptions, don't you think that "automatic dismissal" is at least an option we should put on the table?

Also, you commented before as "public school customer" please try to maintain a consistent pseudonym. It will be helpful to the proprietors and readers alike.

Apologies for the different names; that was accidental.

I don't agree that the authors have any automatic policy prescriptions. Both have been working in the field for many years, and their current positions/prescriptions have been determined as a result of a lot of research. Many of their thoughts about education have evolved considerably over time. "Automatic dismissal" is the refuge of those who are afraid to consider new opinions--surely those who are professional educators do not wish to be among that crowd.

We do disagree on this. Also, this isn't a "new option" It failed in West Virginia and Nevada already.

The problem with this specific work is that there is no particular reason to say privatization of pensions are a solution to any issues that the paper might identify. In fact, given that how good an investor you are is going to determine your pension in the system they propose, it creates the potential for just a different set of peaks and valleys.

But, despite the illogic of their preferred free market solution, there it is at the end of the paper. Really, I do think I could have set my watch by it.

Happy Thanksgiving

I don't think it's juvenile or ad hominem to label a right-wing think tank as such. I think it's important to remember the folks who told us the smoking gun might become a mushroom cloud, that there were WMDs in Iraq, that Sadaam was in league with Al Queda, that they'd welcome us with flowers, that it might be six days, six weeks, they doubt six months, that the mission was accomplished, that catching Sadaam's kids would end the war, that catching Sadaam would end the war, that things were getting better, that if we didn't fight them there we'd fight them here, and whatever other notions they'd created.

It's important to identify them for who they are and check their track records, as we sink further into crushing debt (for my chid, no less) and remind them of it when they attack working people, who've had just about as much of them and their preposterous ideas as they can stand.

I�d prefer reading in my native language, because my knowledge of your languange is no so well. But it was interesting!