November 30, 2007 by Tom Armstrong.

Royal Sargent, a local bozo, calls me names today in my home town newspaper. His letter about me is here.  

He writes:

I suggest that Tom is the one that should emigrate as he doesn’t seem to appreciate living in the USA. He thinks that everyone who believes as he does should be able to sit back and enjoy life and if our country is threatened, others will step forward to protect him ? how pathetic is that?
Tom’s arguments against a draft all assume that being drafted will dictate a person’s entire lifetime ? not true. Two or three years of military service are a small price to pay for the security and freedom of our country. Since Tom wrote his letters, I have not seen any letters which agree with his stance on a draft, but I have seen some letters which don’t. Perhaps Tom has not lived in Tennessee very long and doesn’t understand the meaning of “The Volunteer State.” Again, I suggest that Tom consider moving out of Tennessee ? San Francisco might be a good choice.

My response that I just sent to the newspaper:

Royal Sargent, ever the intellectual, resorts to name calling in his Nov. 30, 2007 letter to the editor, responding to my letters warning of the perils of military conscription.

Royal Sargent did not respond to any of my arguments; he simply resorted to a personal attack, which is the typical response of someone that does not understand the argument presented. To recap, here are my primary reasons for opposing a draft:

• A draft is akin to slavery. Free will is denied the drafted soldier, much like the free will of Mike Vick’s dogs was denied.
• Conscripted soldiers are less motivated than volunteer solders; after all, the U.S. military defeated the world’s most powerful military with an all-volunteer army in order to win its independence.
• Taxes to support these drafted soldiers result in deadweight losses.
• A draft is like a tax in kind, on the time of young persons. This tax hits the most capable workers the hardest, resulting in subsequently lower economic growth, negatively influencing prosperity in the United States.
• Government is not skilled at directing labor to its most efficient places; the price function is the mechanism by which scarce resources can be most efficiently allocated.

I’m confident Mr. Sargent does not understand the above arguments, which is why he resorts to name calling instead of responding with valid counter arguments. Here is what Mr. Sargent wrote in his letter:

• Tom Armstrong “should emigrate” to San Francisco. I can see from his response to my letters that Royal Sargent cannot follow complex arguments, but I’d expect him to at least understand that a person living in Tennessee does not “emigrate” to San Francisco. Incidentally, Mr. Sargent, I offer tutoring; feel free to join my second grade study group on Thursdays.
• He said that my arguments “assume that being drafted will dictate a person’s entire lifetime—not true. Two or three years of military service are a small price to pay for the security and freedom of our country.” Mr. Sargent makes some assumptions of his own, primarily: all soldiers return from battle. Tell the families of 60,000 deceased soldiers that served in Vietnam about their trivial two or three year commitments. In fact, tell that directly to me and my family members that have lost loved ones to warfare. Mr. Sargent, if you have any decency and respect for soldiers that have given their lives for this country, you will issue an immediate apology in this newspaper.
• Finally, Royal says I don’t “understand the meaning of ‘The Volunteer State.’” Wow! Mr. Sargent, you can’t be serious. I, you see, am the one that understands the meaning of “volunteer.” I’m the one that seeks to maintain an all-volunteer military, while Mr. Sargent seeks to eliminate all “volunteers” and replace them with forced labor.

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November 30, 2007 by Tom Armstrong.

A letter I sent off a few days ago:

With the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) looming, I’m wretched to report we’re doing our part here in Tennessee to subvert the good intentions—to hold states and schools accountable for student performance–of the No Child Left Behind Act. Ever since its enactment in 2002, Tennessee schools, as well as other schools throughout the nation, have engaged in a race to lower educational standards.

One key flaw with NCLB was to require “improvement” in high school graduation rates without defining specific, minimum, reasonable requirements for graduation. One particularly disheartening result of this omission: high schools are setting lower requirements for students to graduate, in order to obtain yearly progress in reaching the ultimate 2013-2014 school-year goal of 90 percent graduation.

In the high school at which I teach, we are currently graduating 80.1% of our students, which is well below the 90 percent 2013-2014 goal. So, for the school district to demonstrate yearly progress and ultimately reach this goal, we must either become better instructors, find or develop more motivated students, or find a loophole. Since the first two options are difficult, and would require significant effort to actually improve student achievement, which is the intent of NCLB, we have decided to go with option three: find a loophole, which happens to be the option opted for in school districts throughout the country, and it is a perfectly legitimate practice under NCLB.

Before NCLB, for instance, the high schools in our local school district required 28 credits to graduate. This school year, after failing to meet yearly progress in our graduation rate, our school board, only reacting to poorly-designed legislation, decided to offer the Tennessee High School Diploma, a 21-credit diploma that counts in calculating our graduation rate; this is occurring statewide in Tennessee. So next year, having adopted this lower standard, we will certainly show significant yearly progress in our graduation rate. Only in government are lower standards and lower student achievement regarded and reported as progress.

Some elements of NCLB, such as the graduation requirement of 90 percent nationwide, are not based on reality; instead they’re based on political visions, which are often well intentioned and intended to warm the hearts of voting constituents on the campaign trail. Do a significant number of political leaders really care if NCLB is resulting in lower educational standards and lower student achievement as long as there is an illusion of improvement? After all, politicians don’t really make educational decisions; they make political decisions.

I for one prefer to confront realty, not to continue a façade that is leaving our children behind on the worldwide educational stage. The graduation rate requirement of 90% is a noble, lofty objective; it is, however, also based on hope, not reality. And as Thomas Sowell has said, “Reality is not optional.”

Any time a goal is predicated on hopes rather than reality, perverse incentives are created. Consider that graduation rates reflect the percentage of people willing and capable of meeting some minimum standard, and by definition of the Bell Curve, 50 percent are below average, so it seems reasonable that graduation rate requirements of 90% are unattainable, unless standards are low. Therefore, the incentive created is to lower standards, since reality does not permit 90 percent of students to be at or above a reasonable average.

NCLB, which seeks to hold schools accountable for student performance, has done the opposite and created perverse incentives, which have undermined student achievement. Unfortunately, real reform that could work, such as a well-designed voucher program, is politically dead considering the influence of the teacher’s unions, so let us all encourage Congress to change NCLB to reflect reality and establish some minimum nationwide standard for graduation.

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