September 28, 2007 by Tom Armstrong.

WSJ letter to the editor today from Sally Pipes.

Free-market health analysts welcome Mitt Romney’s views, thank him for returning to sanity with his national health proposal, and join him in his critique of Hillary Clinton’s big-government health-care plan. What we can’t do is stomach his self-serving rewrite of the Massachusetts health reform.

Mr. Romney, along with Sen. Ted Kennedy, blazed the bipartisan path on which Hillary walks with her individual mandate. Mr. Romney says he didn’t increase taxes or spending for his plan, but this is certainly wrong. Health spending has increased in Massachusetts, and will continue to do so, due to his building of a bureaucracy and the expansion of taxpayer-funded care.

He takes credit for lowering premiums by as much as 50%, yet this is certainly not a statewide average. Massachusetts still has the highest per-capita health spending in the nation. The plans are deemed so unaffordable that 20% of uninsured people will not be forced to comply. Expected premiums are set as high as 8% of a person’s income — and that’s before co-pays and deductibles. And what, may I ask, is a government mandate to purchase something or pay a fine if not a tax?

The list of mischaracterizations goes on and on: The new bureaucracy has not deregulated the market but set new regulations on plan designs; Mr. Romney himself signed a new individual mandate after signing the law; and so far, despite the mandate, only 7,000 people have actually purchased the non-subsidized insurance. By way of contrast, 115,000 have signed up for the completely free — that is, taxpayer-funded — option.

There’s a good reason why Mr. Romney didn’t roll out his Massachusetts plan to the nation. Being based on mandates, new bureaucracy, increased regulation and wishful thinking, it looks a lot like Hillary Clinton’s. That’s not healthy for anyone.

Sally C. Pipes
President and CEO
Pacific Research Institute
San Francisco

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September 28, 2007 by Tom Armstrong.

This opinion in the WSJ is troubling, but anyone in education should already know the story. No Child Left Behind, like most laws, has good intentions, but good intentions alone will not educate our children.

One notable line from today’s opinion:

NCLB already allows each state to define proficiency as it sees fit, which has resulted in a “race to the bottom” as states dumb down standards to make children appear smarter than they are.

The intention of the law is to improve the educational system in America. It, however, has had the opposite effect. Why? Incentives to “dumb down” the curriculum, for one. Schools are required to increase their graduation rates every year, to take one example. Eventually, the graduation rate must hit 100%. These expectations are based not on reality but on a utopian vision of the lawmakers. Schools must, therefore, adjust to meet these unrealistic expectations, which, again, are heartwarming, but not practable.

One adjustment schools make to meet the graduation rate requirement is to decrease the expectations for graduation. Teachers are told not to fail students, and if they do, administrators can have grades changed. If a teacher fails too many students, such as those that don’t come to school or do any work, he or she can be reassigned, which is typically a move to the worst school in the district. A teacher’s job has stopped being to educate; his or her job now is to pass and graduate. Kids understand this. In fact, they openly tell teachers they won’t do their work, knowing such an act will have no impact on them passing the class and graduation. The end result is an education system that is worse than before.

We need legislation that is more mindful of incentives. Better, let’s listen to Milton Friedman’s ideas.

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