Hirschmann and KIPP Schools

Jay Mathews writes about the KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) schoools in DC in High Scores Fail to Clear Obstacles to KIPP Growth. KIPP has done well at the middle school level, but is having problems as they try to go up. As I read it I was reminded again of Hirschman's book on exit and voice.

As an economist, he was aware of Milton Friedman's proposal for school vouchers as a measure to increase competition. The proposal had been floated by 1969 but not implemented and Hirschman was dubious of its effectiveness. He compared it to the Big Three automakers, where "competition" wasn't really effective. He suggested that private schools would drain the public system of those parents who would fight for reform, so the public school establishment would be happy to see them go and would not react by improving their systems. From the Mathews article:

"Craig Jerald, a D.C.-based school achievement consultant who has watched KIPP's growth, said much of the response to the program has been tepid at best. He said Feinberg once told him that 'opening a KIPP school in every big city would embarrass or inspire urban districts to do better for their kids.

'I think we all underestimated how dismissive these systems can be.'"

The article also hints that KIPP may be having problems with maintenance as I blogged earlier. KIPP has succeeded in capturing the idealism and energy of the young, but the iron law of building is, the more you build, the more there is to maintain. Unfortunately, maintenance doesn't have the sex appeal of building.

Creation and Maintenance

A piece in the Washington Times today--White House eyes billions for Iraq maintenance Newspaper:

"The Bush administration is considering asking Congress later this year for at least $2 billion in new reconstruction money, primarily for maintaining completed Iraqi facilities.
Administration officials say the additional funding is needed to prevent completed projects in Iraq from falling into disrepair while the new government tries to establish a steady flow of revenue from oil and other sources to sustain the nation's infrastructure. "

The Bush administration is learning some home truths: time and decay happens to everything and that new ideas/facilities/organizations need to make connections to survive. It's rather like rooting a cutting. A cut flower may look beautiful, but will wither and die. If you can root a cutting, you've got a plant that can survive. That encapsulates one problem with "nation building" and "development aid". We can build facilities, whether roads in Afghanistan or water treatment plants in Iraq, but without rooting them they won't last. We have only to look at the history of many of the facilities colonial powers built across the world.

What do I mean by "rooting"? First is the knowledge. If Americans did the work, then Americans have the knowledge of how to repair and maintain the facility. It may be faster and more efficient to import equipment and the expertise to build a facility, but it's short-sighted in the long run. Second is the system--who is responsible for maintenance? Someone has to "own" the facility (or idea), someone who's going to be there year in and year out. And third is the money--is there a tax system in the case of Afghan highways or a fee system in the case of Iraqi water plants to get the money needed to make repairs? Knowledge, responsibility, and money all go together--it's difficult to have one without the other.

In short, you need a bureaucracy that works.

Naderism, A Gift That Keeps on Giving

Dana Milbank in the Post writes today about the antiwar Democrats in Tasting Victory, Liberals Instead Have a Food Fight. It's even more depressing than the approach of my 65th birthday.

"Cindy for the Senate!' called out moderator Kevin Zeese, a Ralph Nader acolyte. 'It's important for us to stop thinking as Democrats and Republicans and break out of this two-party straitjacket,' argued Zeese, a third-party candidate for Senate in Maryland."

Does Mr. Zeese remember that Naderism gave us George W. and Iraq, Roberts and Alito, all as one gift-wrapped package?

Exit, Voice, Loyalty; Maria Full of Grace; Samburu

Watched "Maria, Full of Grace" this weekend, the very good movie on a Columbian drug mule. Also continued reading Albert O. Hirschman's Exit, Voice, and Loyalty--see this summary at Wikipedia. And finally read this piece in the NYTimes magazine on American missionaries to the Samburu tribe in Kenya. What do they have in common?

Not much, except provoking thought on the boundaries of human loyalties and experiences. With the Samburu, the missionaries hope to bring Christianity to the tribe and eliminate female circumcision from its culture. But the tribal members seem satisfied with their religion and culture, even the females. The tribe is not in decline; members are neither exiting nor voicing discontent. Does one go along, or is there a moral obligation to change it?

The movie shows exit--Maria leaves the drug running and leaves Colombia. But one of Hirschman's points recapitulates the old "safety-valve" theory of American history: to the extent that the discontented are able to leave a human organization/group, the strength of voice--the expression of discontent and the working for change from within an organization--is weakened. (Part of the old "frontier theory" was the idea that "free land" in the West drained the cities of their poor and malcontents. Think of Horace Greeley's "go West, young man". My understanding is, while the idea seems valid, historians couldn't find many people who actually moved from cities to farms.) Anyhow, the director's commentary on Maria says 10 percent of Colombians live in the U.S., often the better educated. Does that mean that the forces of democracy in Colombia have been weakened? Do our open borders hurt the cause?

Dog Bites Man, Ben Stein Bites Management

I realize it's not fair to say Ben Stein is always pro-business, but his column today, When You Fly in First Class, It's Easy to Forget the Dots - New York Times, on United Airlines surprised me.

"So here it is in a nutshell: employees are goaded into investing a big chunk of their wages and benefits in UAL stock. They lose that. Then they lose big parts of their pay and pensions. They become peons of UAL. Management gets $480 million, more or less. 'Creative destruction?' Or looting?"

Partisan Thought Is an Oxymoron

The NYTimes Tuesday had a piece headed: A Shocker: Partisan Thought Is Unconscious .
It reported on research:

"Using M.R.I. scanners, neuroscientists have now tracked what happens in the politically partisan brain when it tries to digest damning facts about favored candidates or criticisms of them. The process is almost entirely emotional and unconscious, the researchers report, and there are flares of activity in the brain's pleasure centers when unwelcome information is being rejected."

No surprise to anyone who reads the comments on blogs on politics. Much as I struggle to fit events into historical perspective, and grant the good faith of everyone, even terrorists, even your humble writer feels emotional reactions to politicians.

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

I'm a technosnob, looking down on all late adopters [though I'm no longer an early adopter], so this from a Rummy Nation makes me fear for the nation:

"A senior analyst from the Intelligence Technology Innovation Center at the CIA came to speak to our Principles of Biodefense class today. In an old-fashioned twist, his presentation was based on overhead transparencies, not PowerPoint. "

Or, it reconfirms the idea that FBI and CIA see themselves as above technology.

Two Theories on Crystal Meth

The Times today has an article discussing the possible spread of crystal meth to the East Coast big cities, Trashy or Not, a Drug Peril Creeps Closer. So far it hasn't happened

1. One is ecological--"The theory is that addicts well supplied with cocaine in big cities haven't craved a substitute, which suits traffickers just fine since their suppliers in Colombia and elsewhere don't want the competition from largely domestic brewers."
2. The other is classist--"The general impression among African-Americans is that this [methamphetamine] is a white-trash drug," said Sally L. Satel, a psychiatrist at the American Enterprise Institute who has interviewed drug addicts about methamphetamine. "African-Americans recoil from this drug. They told me they think it is a very low-class kind of drug, and there was a kind of revulsion to it."

Risk-Taking--Smart or Self-Assured?

Virginia Postrel in today's Times, Would You Take the Bird in the Hand, or a 75% Chance at the Two in the Bush? reports on research into risk-taking, and includes a 3-question quiz for self-assessment. The results seem to say that people, especially male people, who are smart are willing to take greater risks.

"'Even when it actually hurts you on average to take the gamble, the smart people, the high-scoring people, actually like it more,' Professor Frederick said in an interview. Almost a third of high scorers preferred a 1 percent chance of $5,000 to a sure $60.

They are also more patient, particularly when the difference, and the implied interest rate, is large. Choosing $3,400 this month over $3,800 next month implies an annual discount rate of 280 percent. Yet only 35 percent of low scorers — those who missed every question — said they would wait, while 60 percent of high scorers preferred the later, bigger payoff.

Men and women also show different results. 'Expressed loosely,' he writes, 'being smart makes women patient and makes men take more risks.'

High-scoring women show slightly more willingness to wait than high-scoring men, while the differences in risk-taking are much larger. High-scoring women are about as willing to gamble as low-scoring men, while low-scoring women are even more risk-averse"

I have my doubts. [Totally unconnected to the fact I only got 2 of the 3 questions right.] I'd like to see research on self-confidence: do people who think they aced the quiz accept greater risks versus those who weren't sure. That seems to me more likely to be the key variable. Divide the universe into four sets: smart and know it; dullards who think they're smart; dullards who know it; and smart who are modest. The second group qualify for the Darwin Awards.

Better Bureaucrats Win in Palestine

As best I can tell, Hamas won in the Palestinian Authority elections because they are and/or promised to be better bureaucrats than Fatah. Even David Bernstein at The Volokh Conspiracy
appears to agree with the analysis. Apparently Hamas has competed against the PLO in two ways: greater militancy in opposing Israel and greater efficiency in caring for Palestinians. As such they parallel the Republicans, who also have promised greater militancy in opposing our enemies and greater efficiency in government.