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Day: February 9, 2024
By David Brady, Jr.
School Choice has become a hot button political topic, especially for right-wing America. Conservatives, libertarians, and everyone that is to the left of the Democratic Party have grown increasingly more skeptical of the public education system. Between ideological indoctrination, what might be rightfully described as “grooming” into social contagions, and declining educational gains, public education has demonstrated its utter failures.
The obvious alternative to many conservatives and libertarians is school choice. School choice has a variety of forms, but all are focused on a core idea: that government funding of schools should follow students (rather than go directly to districts) to allow competition between schools. Surely, it does follow that allowing choice might improve quality. Money will follow the students and those schools which provide the best quality service at the lowest price. This is simple enough market analysis.
However, there are problems that might arise from a school choice system. These do not boil down to such arguments (er, questions) as “school choice defunds public schools” or “how would quality be assured in these schools”? These arguments seem to fall flat in respect to refuting school choice policies. Let’s quickly address them:
If school choice programs are implemented, they will lead to many schools being shut down as people flee them
Firstly, one must question why keeping these schools open is ideal at all. Is having more schools open necessarily a good thing? Say we have 10 schools, 5 of which deliver a quality education (by whatever standard you use to describe that) and 5 that do not. Is it ideal to keep the latter group in business?
For any other business we would reject this framework. The number of businesses isn’t a specified amount by some abstract ideal. We strive for quality and lower prices in the marketplace. If its revenue exceeds its costs, then it profits and succeeds in the marketplace. If costs exceed revenue, then it operates at a loss and should go out of business. Why should it go out of business? It is an inefficient use of resources and labor. Market prices are signals of the demand and supply of goods based on individual displayed preferences.
If one does not sell their good or service for more than the costs of producing it, they have incorrectly determined the value created from making use of the resources. That business will cease to continue operating because of its losses and likely shouldn’t. It wastes resources that might be deployed to more valuable ventures.
Schools that would experience losses because of some voucher school choice systems are clearly inefficient. Their costs are greater than the value they provide to consumers. Schools provide a service, education, to consumers, the families. Inefficient businesses should not be protected, they should be allowed to fail and more efficient ones to produce.
Everyone deserves a quality education; how do we ensure that education provided by schools under voucher systems is adequate?
One must question this largely. How does one determine what is or is not a quality education? What might be considered a quality education between a doctor and an engineer is very different. It is even very different between an optometrist (eye doctor) and otolaryngologist (ear, nose, throat doctor). There is no objective standard of education except what has been universally agreed upon based on the actions of people in the past.
Someone training to be a doctor might assign a high value to a class that educates them on a specialized aspect of their field. Thus, they may be willing to pay up to a certain amount to take such a class. Other doctors might value their time educating another person on the topic less than money given up for it. From this you get an exchange of the service that is education.
Based upon the demand for these services, which will depend on the individuals wishing to enter a field, prices can be determined for these services. It becomes easier for less specialized services like a high school education. Basic mathematic skills, reading, writing, have value to all. A certain standard is maintained for other products and services on the market, much the same regarding education.
Markets trend towards higher quality at a lower price over time, because humans want higher quality things and those things at lower prices. Businesses that innovate to provide a lower price will receive higher profits. Better programs at lower costs. There is an incentive to keep prices low enough to attract new customers, meaning that higher quality products are offered to more customers.
Competition is not a problem in terms of quality or number of locations. However, there might be other issues with a voucher system of school choice.
What some progressives would consider “quality control” is merely codeword for maintaining education’s progressive inclination. Long have government funds been used to mandate policy. Famously, the 1984 National Minimum Drinking Age Act stipulated that to receive highway funding states must raise their drinking age to 21 years of age. Terms and conditions attached to funds by government very well act as a trojan horse for progressive ideology. These conditions could very well be used to insert DEI and other progressive ideological initiatives into education.
What were once fully independent private schools can quickly become left-wing echo chambers under the pressure of new funds. What would be a new customer base quickly comes with terms and conditions applied. It is simply bad business to turn away new funds when in competition with other schools. Slowly, schools that were once free become enslaved to government progressivism.
If the government simply issues vouchers, it also poses the risk of raising prices. Guaranteeing a minimum amount of money to be spent on education presents an effective price floor for private schools. Private schools with the guarantee of voucher money could raise their tuition costs to the amount of the voucher or above it, simply adding it to the amount consumers already paid for the service.
Look only to government funding of higher education as a classic example. Starting in 1965 with Federal Family Education Loans that were guaranteed by the federal government and eventually expanding into direct government loans, the U.S. government has guaranteed income for private and public university alike. The costs speak for themselves:
(Source: Education Data)
Government guarantees of payment increase costs in higher education and are likely to do just as much for primary education. If costs are forced down to a certain level by the federal government to make vouchers cover all costs, what differentiates it from nationalizing private schools? Costs will rise and government regulation sneak in.
Government involvement in yet another market simply distorts what would otherwise be a generally clean clearing mechanism. Taxes are levied on the population. Many of those who have taxes levied on them are barred from access to the so-called service provided by it. With reduced wealth, the families who wish to get their children an education are forced between a rock and a hard place. They must either send their children to the prison camps we call public schools, or they may pay out of an already shorter pocket to send their children to another school.
These public schools lack proper mechanisms to gauge their performance and efficiency, only the arbitrary dictates of the Department of Education. Vouchers do not solve these issues. These simply drag competent schools into the swamp that is public administration. Money from taxpayers comes with terms, much like any deal with the devil has its conditions. Those who value the freedom of those schools should oppose opening the doors for bureaucrats. Once they are let in, they are like rats; you can never quite get them out.
- About the author: David Brady is a Catholic libertarian and economics and finance undergraduate student at Florida Southern College. He is a co-host of the “Every Week is Chaos” podcast and a Mises Apprentice.
- Source: This article was published by the Mises Institute
There are some big signs that the people of Las Vegas and the state of Nevada are getting genuine buyer’s remorse over the Oakland Athletics.
Last summer, Nevada’s state legislature approved a $380 million bill toward funding a proposed $1.5 billion new stadium for the A’s in Las Vegas. In November 2023, the A’s secured the unanimous approval of Major League Baseball owners to relocate from Oakland, California, to Las Vegas, Nevada, where the team would begin playing at its new stadium in 2028.
Where’s the plan for the new stadium?
At this point, all the A’s ownership had to do was create a concrete plan to build that stadium. They were already claiming the land the famed Tropicana Hotel and Casino currently occupies on the Las Vegas Strip, whose operators recently announced they would shut their doors in April 2024. They were supposed to deliver detailed renderings of the stadium that would be built and their plan to finance it by January 17, 2024.
But they have blown that deadline. There is no evidence that the A’s have a viable stadium design for the nine-acre site.
Where will the Oakland A’s play?
The A’s ownership also has a big hole where their plan for where the team will play its home games from 2025 to 2028 should be. While the team will play its 2024 season in the Oakland Coliseum, that’s the last season they’re expected to play there. The team was reportedly exploring options to play at a new baseball stadium in Salt Lake City, Utah, or the Sutter Health Park in Sacramento, California. The latter stadium is home to the minor league Sacramento River Cats.
Where’s the money?
There are also signs that A’s ownership doesn’t have the money to make it happen. Team owner John Fisher spoke to the Las Vegas Chamber at the end of January 2024. He pitched the prospect of selling a large share of the ownership of the A’s to local businessmen. The response among those who should be some of the A’s largest boosters was unenthusiastic, to say the least.
That event had followed the disclosure that Fisher’s Athletics Investment Group contributed $112,000 to state and local lawmakers who supported the $380 million in Nevada taxpayer dollars that would benefit the A’s. While it’s incredible what kind of return you can get by donating money to politicians if you’re a special interest, it’s not a way to build popularity with the people who vote for them. People who sense they will be stuck with a much bigger bill than they were sold.
It has gotten to the point where even the mayor of Las Vegas thinks the Athletics Investment Group needs to rethink its plans to move to Las Vegas:
Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman wants the Oakland Athletics to remain in the Bay Area, saying the team rejected an offer for land near the city’s downtown.
Goodman was interviewed on the Front Office Sports Today podcast, released Tuesday, about the A’s stadium situation.
The team said it plans to develop a ballpark on the site of the Tropicana hotel-casino, which lies in unincorporated Clark County and outside Las Vegas city limits.
The mayor told Front Office Sports that she doesn’t believe the site makes sense and the team should consider staying in Oakland.
Goodman evidently heard from a number of the politicians who banked campaign contributions from the Oakland A’s. She has since walked back some of her statement, but the damage to public support in Las Vegas from her statement is still unfolding.
It’s looking increasingly like the Oakland A’s are becoming a team without a town.
This article was published at The Beacon
By Sauradeep Bag
Over the past decade, unparalleled artificial intelligence (AI) innovation has resulted in advancements unfolding at an unprecedented pace. A multitude of novel and transformative use cases is now emerging at the forefront, making it clear that the integration of AI into development plans is not just an option but an imperative.
This area remains largely unexplored, yielding more questions than answers. However, exploring them as guiding principles for future development is essential. A potential starting point involves exploring whether developing nations could prioritise AI preparedness as a top agenda item—and potentially, whether these nations could transition into becoming “AI-first” countries, bypassing certain disruptive phases in technological evolution.
Examining the widespread use of the internet and smartphones, is it feasible to intentionally focus on a demographic proficient in AI tools from the beginning, potentially shaping a more inclusive and technologically adept workforce? The exploration is rooted in a fundamental idea: Should emerging nations rapidly gain proficiency in AI tools?
AI in action
AI is now a permanent fixture, bringing changes that are unpredictable and often incomprehensible. However, it is vital to highlight the positive aspects of this technology and strive to integrate it into our shared economic and development goals. Given the enduring nature of AI, it is imperative to focus on understanding and utilising AI effectively. AI tools could perhaps be useful. AI tools encompass software applications and systems that employ AI techniques to execute tasks traditionally requiring human intelligence. Through algorithms and machine learning, these tools analyse data, make decisions, and automate processes, enhancing efficiency and problem-solving capabilities.
It is essential to emphasise that the creation of AI tools depends on strong education and infrastructure. Developed nations may have an advantage in this aspect. However, emerging nations must work towards developing AI enterprise and expertise, a task intertwined with the establishment of a supportive educational environment and technological infrastructure. More importantly, attaining proficiency in AI tools is an indispensable prerequisite for emerging nations. Whether these tools are developed on an international scale or domestically, they play a pivotal role in empowering non-tech individuals to initiate and manage businesses through technology. The key focus lies in utilising existing AI tools to streamline business activities without the need to recreate them. This strategic approach has the potential to propel emerging nations into the status of “AI-first” nations.
The concept of an “AI-first” nation envisions a population that might lack the skills and educational background to create AI tools from the ground up. Rather than emphasising tool creation, the goal is to cultivate a population with the knowledge and skills to effectively utilise existing AI tools for building businesses and pursuing their distinct social and economic objectives. This shift in focus from tool creation to tool utilisation is positioned to empower emerging nations, enabling them to leverage the transformative potential of AI for economic growth and development.
Nurturing growth
The path forward involves governments assuming a pivotal role in fostering AI adoption. The primary emphasis should be on the integration of AI education throughout all levels of the educational system. An additional avenue worth exploring is the establishment of both government and private AI incubators. These incubators would serve as business support entities, assisting entrepreneurs in leveraging AI and other emerging technologies to enhance their ventures. It is imperative to highlight the benefits of incorporating AI into business operations, highlighting the extent to which these technologies can positively impact various aspects of business management.
However, there might be unexplored and even unconventional yet familiar methodologies that could wield significant impact. An innovative and forward-looking proposition could involve the creation of government-provided AI tools or services, resembling digital public infrastructure (DPI) in a way. These services would provide AI tools to individuals and businesses, encompassing features like AI-powered chatbots for businesses, inventory management systems, and data analysis tools. This idea envisions a scenario where governments actively contribute to democratising access to AI technologies, empowering a broader spectrum of society to leverage the advantages of artificial intelligence.
Consider India as an example. It is conceivable to envision that India holds the potential to create its own large language model (LLM) by leveraging the vast data generated through IndiaStack. This model could be intricately tailored for Indian languages and contextual nuances, effectively addressing country-specific use cases and challenges. This endeavour has the potential to be complemented or reinforced by IndiaStack, where this set of LLMs takes precedence in providing public service offerings. The objective is to extend benefits to the entire population, akin to the successes achieved with Aadhaar and UPI. In essence, this would democratise access to AI tools, particularly the essential tools required by entrepreneurs and small businesses. These tools could encompass everything from data analysis to chatbots and personal assistants, assisting in the automation of specific tasks.
The underlying logic for this concept largely remains the same, particularly in a country like India. Given the vibrant startup ecosystem and active private sector engaged in developing AI products for the public, it is entirely conceivable for the government to intervene and produce similar products for its citizens. This approach aligns with successful initiatives like UPI, demonstrating the government’s capacity to prepare the world’s most populous country for the challenges and opportunities of the fourth industrial revolution. Governments can actively shape the trajectory of AI adoption by integrating AI education, establishing AI incubators, and considering innovative initiatives akin to DPI. These strategic measures collectively work towards democratising access to AI, fostering innovation, and propelling businesses into a technologically advanced future.
Future-forward initiatives
The impact of emerging technologies will be widespread, affecting both developed and developing nations. There is a chance that emerging markets and developing economies might experience fewer immediate disruptions from AI. However, these countries often lack the necessary infrastructure and skilled workforces to fully exploit the benefits of AI, posing a risk that over time, the technology could exacerbate global inequality among nations.
Governments should take proactive action now, concentrating on supporting their citizens in acquiring proficiency in AI tools before inequality escalates, particularly in emerging economies that face a greater risk. Consider, for instance, their substantial reliance on MSMEs for growth. With improvements in internet penetration, could MSMEs leverage its power for business activities? Going a step beyond, can AI contribute to automating or assisting these businesses? This scenario represents just one potential example, albeit somewhat futuristic. AI is undeniably causing disruptions across the board. However, a shift in narrative is required to view AI as a constructive force, focusing on its potential to bring about positive changes and innovations.
- About the author: Sauradeep Bag is an Associate Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation
- Source: This article was published by the Observer Research Foundation
⚡️BREAKING #Iran breached Mossad’s security network
Spies and people affiliated with #Mossad in 28 countries of the world, in the three continents of Asia, #Africa, & #Europe, were identified during the operation.
1/2 pic.twitter.com/G3gxG2IiQn
— Southern Africa Eye (@eye_southern) February 2, 2024
⚡️BREAKING #Iran breached Mossad’s security network
Spies and people affiliated with #Mossad in 28 countries of the world, in the three continents of Asia, #Africa, & #Europe, were identified during the operation.
1/2 pic.twitter.com/G3gxG2IiQn
— Southern Africa Eye (@eye_southern) February 2, 2024