A few years ago I had a conversation with my financial advisor, (LDS, btw) about this topic, specifically about investing in sub-prime mortgages. He advised strongly against it, and shared with me his aphorism about the market: “Sometimes bulls make money, and sometimes bears make money. But pigs always get slaughtered.” He also went on to help me understand that there were other considerations beyond yield.

It’s an interesting question. Many of us wouldn’t buy shares in an industry we considered morally objectionable (casinos, or alcohol producers, for instance), but unwise borrowing and lending can be just a destructive as alcoholism or gambling, literally ruining people’s lives. We are warned from the pulpit about the moral dimension of incurring unwise or excessive debt, but I guess we need to also realize that the lender who extends unwise or excessive credit is also culpable. I have read with smug satisfaction how some lenders are now losing their shirts, but I guess I need to learn to curb that impulse as well.

I think I have a slightly different view of the market than you do, since I believe it does not so much drive behavior as simply reflect it. In this case, the market is holding up a mirror in front of us, and you’re right, it isn’t pretty.

As to the overall educational philosophy, Harvard has an interesting paradigm – admitting and graduating a few who are world class in something but most who are well-lopsided. That’s my vision for such a school – identifying natural strengths as early as possible, ensuring adequate base knowledge in many things, focusing on natural strength and/or passion in each student to create well-lopsided students. I would make it a year-round school, with the standard summer months being dedicated to individual and/or group exploration of non-traditional topics or projects. I would hire half-time substitute teachers (one per department / category, preferably former teachers or retired professionals) to allow for regularly scheduled professional development of the full-time faculty.

I would be happy to discuss the overall picture with you in more detail; if you have the resources or connections to make it happen, I would rearrange my life to help. I would contact everyone I know in the educational publishing industry to help produce or identify unique electronic textbooks and technological tools.

If you really are interested in pursuing this, send me an e-mail; I will give you my phone numbers, as well.

I think people would flock to that type of environment and philosophy – so I guess I agree with Perry at least on a limited basis. If you built it right, they will come.

I enjoyed your post.

Liz J.

I really don’t understand teachers’ solidarity with their management. I can’t think of any other industry where workers fight so hard to protect their managers’ jobs.

My best guess is that the bureaucratic nature of government schools has steered entrepreneurial types like me into other professions, resulting in teachers being disproportionately risk-averse and comfortable being led by authority (a soft Erich Fromm “Escape from Freedom” mentality) or a strong conformist ethic (adopting management’s goals as their own). But that’s just my guess, and I’d be interested in your theory.

kevinf, I think the concern about radical schools is misplaced. I spent a lot of time in law school talking about vouchers, especially during my Education Law class. My liberal (and atheist) friends admitted that the reason they opposed vouchers was a desire for the state to intervene between religious parents and their children, to at least give “reason” a fighting chance. Let parents choose their schools, and we’d become a nation of irrational God believers. I think they are right to think that many parents would choose to place their children in a parochial school, just as many Mormons choose BYU, but I don’t think there’s really a market for what *I* consider to be moonbat private schools. And of course we could (and would) provide guidelines on which private schools are eligible for vouchers. The Utah law specifically forbade schools that encouraged anything illegal (there goes the polygamist school and the Unabomber Academy.)

I’m glad the government ignores the atheist complaint that BYU students are eligible for federal aid despite BYU’s honor code, promotion of prayer, and religious class requirements. Let the people choose.

Why did virtually all developed societies adopt state-run compulsory educational systems?

I agree with your assessment that vouchers won’t make much difference, especially in Utah. And you invoke historical and present-day instances of bigotry and racism to demonstrate that people are unwilling to help their neighbors. I could, of course, provide lots of examples of affluent people working to better the lives of those in inner cities and humble circumstances, but I wouldn’t be saying anything you don’t already know.

Regarding the desegregation of schools in the South, I have to wonder whether you think that, had the government not stepped in when it did, those schools would remain segregated today, all else being equal? It seems to me that society was heading in the right direction anyway, thanks to the valiant efforts of some courageous souls. If President Eisenhower hadn’t sent federal troops into Little Rock in 1957 (and I’m NOT saying he shouldn’t have!), would schools in the south in 2007 be segregated the way they were fifty years ago?

Because it seems to me that whenever we identify a clear problem in society, we immediately turn to the government to solve it, rather than giving society itself a little time to work through it and resolve it on its own. The danger of using the government in this way is that the citizens become complacent and ignorant and apathetic; they leave everything to the government and shun personal responsibility. The reliance on the botched federal cleanup after Katrina is a prime example; yesterday’s override of Bush’s veto of the $23 billion anti-flooding bill is another. As though communities couldn’t find ways to prevent future flooding themselves, on their own, without griping and complaining in Washington until Congress coughs up some money to throw at the problem?

I had to chuckle when I noticed that your second example, that of Jackie Robinson and baseball integration, is a perfect demonstration of people rising up against evil and triumphing, entirely independent of governmental involvement and coercion. I’m not sure why you cited that one? It seems to reinforce what I’ve been failing at convincing you of, rather than supporting your contention that without the government to force people to be good, they won’t.

You can call it realism; I don’t dispute that it reflects the current reality in many ways. But people don’t step up to the plate (sorry – you’ve got me thinking about baseball now) when they’re already forced to give a portion of their income to support massive, sluggish bureaucracies which prohibit them from making any real decisions or changes. They get frustrated and (perhaps like you?) pessimistic. We’ll never know if the so-called libertarian ideal will work if we don’t ever give it a try.

You imply (if I read you correctly) that government-free education in America has been tried over and over and over again. In fact, it has never been tried, but given the sad state of education in our country and around the world, it ought to.

In a nutshell, I simply believe, based on my years of experience in education, that most people in the world still have not risen above the natural man enough to share their resources in a way that would be necessary to do what you envision – especially knowing that doing so will reduce what is available for them to provide directly to their own children, grandchildren and community.

Desegregated schools happened at gunpoint by governmental force, not because of charitable benevolence. Baseball was integrated socially largely by one man’s determination in the face of widespread bigotry. There are almost no suburban, White volunteers in predominantly Black, inner-city schools – and in the vast majority of these schools, there are *no* such volunteers. A few years ago, Ohio allocated millions of dollars on an attempt to increase parental and community involvement in the state’s schools. This effort caused an immediate swell in volunteers in many districts – that lasted for one school year and then faded away to previous, pitiful levels once the initial emphasis wore off due to lack of funds to continue the extra emphasis. People simply stopped participating when they no longer were being encouraged constantly to do so – when it was left up to them.

That’s not pessimism; it’s reality. I still dream; I still lobby for change; I still look for ways to reform the system. However, I don’t spend time trying to make something work that has been tried over and over and over again without success. The classic definition of insanity is, “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” I’m looking for different ways to do it, and the voucher systems I have analyzed are, imo, just more of the same old same old. Not one of them has been radical enough to make any difference – even in a state like Utah, where the problem is much more minor than many other states.