How digital learning can save a student’s education

Posted on May 16, 2013 by

vulturecomputerDo you want a plan to give second chances to children who struggle to learn? To empower children struck by tragedy (e.g., a major injury or illness) to continue their education? To provide advanced learners the chance to reach new academic heights, improve public education for all children through modern-day innovation, and increase access to higher education?

Two words: digital learning.

The Deseret News published two news stories showing how this is happening. The first contains stories of K-12 age children whose educational lives have been saved or changed by digital learning: children who were being robbed of educational opportunities by non-Hodgkins lymphoma or bipolar disorder; children who sought to graduate high school early or get college credit while still attending high school; or children whose childhood is cut short because they have to go to work to help support their families.

These stories show how digital learning, done right, is truly centered on the child – working around the child’s individual schedule, moving at the child’s pace, and with help available from teachers “around the clock.” They show how digital learning is redefining public education to abilities – truly personalizing education based on the needs of the child, rather than adults or “the system.” They also show how digital learning, though child-centered, is improving the lives of teachers by using technology to accomplish mundane tasks like grading while allowing teachers to focus their time doing what they do best: helping children learn.

The second article details a movement to create a system of voluntary “interstate reciprocity” in which states agree to accept credit for college courses completed online in other states because they meet an agreed-upon set of standards. This would be similar to already existing reciprocity agreements in areas such as teacher licensing, for example, which allow a teacher working in another state to teach in Utah without being required to start over and get a Utah teacher’s license. With reciprocity agreements in place, digital learning opportunities in higher education would be expanded to young people who would not otherwise have access to them.

These are just a few of the many examples of how digital learning is changing education for the benefit of children. It makes one wonder about the thinking and priorities of those who claim to represent the education community while seeking to oppose or delay[1] digital learning innovations.

[1] See positions on SB 79 – Student-centered Learning Pilot Program, on page 11.

Posted in Education | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Reality check on ‘most trusted person’

Posted on May 15, 2013 by

601px-Handshake_(Workshop_Cologne_'06)The following post is a transcript of a 4-minute weekly radio commentary aired on several Utah radio stations.

Who is the most trusted person in your life? And why is that person your most trusted person? What triggers these questions is a recent Reader’s Digest poll surveying subscribers about their most trusted American. Those subscribers told Reader’s Digest that their most trusted American is actor Tom Hanks. In fact, the top four most trusted Americans are actors: Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock, Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep.

There’s a lot we could talk about here, but let’s just focus on a couple of things.

First, it’s not surprising that subscribers to Reader’s Digest would choose Hollywood actors, especially these four actors. America lives a Hollywood culture. Entertainment is America’s No. 1 pastime. We watch way too much television. We get way too many cultural cues from gossip magazines about celebrities. And, for the most part, average Americans really do believe that Hollywood actors are more intelligent and more informed than them.

Only people my age and older would remember a time when Jack Klugman, a popular television star who once played a medical examiner named “Quincy,” was actually asked by a congressional committee in the early 1980s to testify on an orphan drug bill. By the way, that bill was being blocked by Utah’s own Orrin Hatch who eventually was swayed by the actor to vote for the bill. Klugman’s experience also was no doubt responsible for the popular expression, today spun by the Holiday Inn chain, “I’m not a real doctor, I just play one on TV.” Continue reading →

Posted in Culture | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Massive regulatory costs hamper the current ‘recovery’

Posted on May 14, 2013 by

This chart is worth a thousand words:

image001

The regulatory costs of the first terms of President Clinton (1993-1996) and President George W. Bush (2001-2004) also occurred during economic recoveries, after recessions in 1991 and 2001, respectively. And, perhaps not coincidentally, those recoveries were far more robust, healthy, and, most importantly, returned far more jobless Americans to gainful employment and better lives than the current “recovery.”

Hat tip to The Weekly Standard blog for posting this chart. To see the full report from George Washington University, click here.

Posted in Regulation | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Redefining marriage: good for business?

Posted on May 13, 2013 by

Here’s an anecdote to add to the discussion over redefining marriage.

The Blaze reported on an article from Chief Executive magazine listing the “Best and Worst States for Business.”

Meeting_clocksThe top states are:

  1. Texas
  2. Florida
  3. North Carolina
  4. Tennessee
  5. Indiana

The bottom states are:

  1. California
  2. New York
  3. Illinois
  4. Massachusetts
  5. New Jersey

Of course, correlation is not causation, but it is at least interesting that the top five states all have one really important thing in common, as do the bottom five. The top five all define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. In fact, four of the five have state constitutional amendments on that point. The bottom five all have either redefined marriage (New York, Massachusetts) or created an alternative legal status providing all the benefits of marriage to same-sex couples (California, Illinois, New Jersey).

The National Organization for Marriage published a briefing paper that very effectively addresses this question (click here to read).

Posted in Marriage | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Take a look at the taxman’s tax map: How does Utah compare?

Posted on May 10, 2013 by

How do Utah’s income tax rates compare to those in neighboring states, or states in other regions? Is Utah’s sales tax burden higher than other states’? What kind of tax (sales, income, property, etc.) does Utah government rely on the most?

If you don’t know the answers, then keep reading.

The Tax Foundation – a nonpartisan national think tank that publishes information concerning federal, state and local taxes – regularly publishes “tax maps” that compare states across the nation on areas like tax rates, tax burdens, and how heavily states rely on different kinds of taxes.

For the sake of encouraging a more informed public dialogue on taxes in Utah, we collected a variety of these maps to post on our blog. If you want to see the full list of available tax maps from the Tax Foundation, click here. Enjoy!

Tax Burdens – Sales and Income Taxes

image001

image002

Continue reading →

Posted in Taxes | Tagged , | 1 Comment

May 8: A big day for Utah in 1895

Posted on May 8, 2013 by
800px-Salt_lake_city_main_street_c1890_ug

Salt Lake City’s Main Street in the 1890s.

Wednesday, May 8, 1895, was the last formal day of the Utah Constitutional Convention.

Unlike the lawyer-dominated Philadelphia Convention, the top occupation of Utah delegates was farming, though lawyers were certainly represented. The president of the convention was John Henry Smith, and prominent delegates included Thomas F. Kearns, who would later be a U.S. senator and owner of The Salt Lake Tribune (and donor of the Governor’s Mansion), and Orson F. Whitney, who would later be a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

There were 97 delegates to the convention, 49 Republican and 48 Democrat. A full 37 had been born outside the United States. Only 28 had been born in Utah.

The Utah Constitution, like other state constitutions, typically gets much less attention than it deserves. This is a problem because under the system adopted by the Framers of the United States Constitution, states, rather than national government entities, were intended to have the most direct interaction with citizens.

The first application for statehood of what would become the Utah Territory was made in 1849, two years after the Mormon pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley. Unsuccessful applications were made five more times over the next four decades. Community leaders in the territory knew immediately (and would have that knowledge confirmed repeatedly over the years) that statehood was the way to protect local autonomy. Continue reading →

Posted in Constitution | Tagged | 1 Comment

My letter to the Boy Scouts of America

Posted on May 8, 2013 by

The following post is a transcript of a 4-minute weekly radio commentary aired on several Utah radio stations.

The Boy Scouts of America is scheduled to vote later this month on its proposed nondiscrimination policy on sexual orientation for its youth. I was asked by a BSA official to provide some thoughts on the subject in a letter and here are some of those thoughts. I wrote,

603px-Boy_Scouts_of_America_Silver_Dollar_Centennial_Commemorative_Coin_obverseSutherland Institute is sure of a few facts and consequences, if the policy is approved.

First, BSA is not being challenged legally on this issue. … In other words, this debate, as much as it has been unnecessarily contentious, is a self-inflicted wound for BSA.

Second, the proposed policy is a solution looking for a problem. The fact is that no one knows how many youth not in Scouting, but who would like to be, self-identify with a homosexual orientation. What everyone does know is that that number is unremarkably few….

Third, homosexuality, whether imagined or enacted, is incompatible with Scouting. … For a Scouter to think homosexual thoughts or to act on those attractions is not being one’s better self.

And, fourth, there is the issue of psychological and emotional abuse of a child. For BSA to passively accept the idea that a 10-year old has some irreversible homosexual “orientation” that seals his sexual fate for the rest of his life is psychological and emotional abuse of a child…. Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Gay Rights | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

The young and the liberal

Posted on May 7, 2013 by
providence

The Bank of America building, which is now empty, in Providence, R.I.

The 2012 presidential election campaign was framed as a choice between a former governor who knows how to get the economy producing good jobs (the Romney line) but is unacceptable in character and experience (the Obama line), and a sitting president who is “cool” and understands your life situation (the Obama line) but is economically incompetent (the Romney line).

Large majorities of young voters and self-described liberal voters (who in some cases, but not all, are the same people) voted for “cool” and understanding rather than good jobs … and it seems today that they are getting exactly what they voted for.

As noted in a summary of economic news stories reporting on the employment situation of young Americans on the Weekly Standard blog, “the official unemployment rate for those under age 25 is 16.2%, more than double the rate for the population as a whole.” Further, “only one age group has managed to go the past year without reducing its unemployment rate. It’s 20-to-24-year olds.”

And anecdotally, the same blog includes a post about news articles highlighting the economic situations of various states. In the “blue state” of Rhode Island, according to a report from the Associated Press, the state’s “tallest building” and “most distinctive feature on the Providence skyline” will “soon be its most visible symbol of the state’s long economic decline,” as the last tenant remaining in the building has left. According to the news article, the state had a 9.4 percent unemployment rate in February, and “has had one of the worst jobless rates in the nation for years.”

On the other hand, in the “red state” of Texas, the city of Midland (population 111,000) is “growing quickly as companies bring in employees to drill new oil wells.” As a result, “Midland officials are welcoming plans to erect a 53-story skyscraper that would be … the sixth tallest in all of Texas.” Housing and office space are reportedly “hard to come by.”

The lessons? First, you get what you vote for. Second, perhaps the liberal politicians and thought leaders are the real danger to the economic well-being of young people, not the corporate and political boogeymen that the liberal politicians and thinkers incessantly use to influence the votes of younger generations.

Posted in Economic Development | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Utah showing how digital learning can make public schools more cost-effective

Posted on May 6, 2013 by

800px-Lewis_Hine,_Boy_studying,_ca._1924As noted in a recent news story in The Salt Lake Tribune, Utah has begun a move away from traditional textbooks to digital textbooks (aka e-books) that is “gaining speed.” These e-books are “cheaper, more up to date and interactive,” and most importantly, “better [suit] the needs of today’s tech-savvy learners” (i.e., children).

In short, they are providing tools that help to educate children just as well as, if not better than, traditional methods, but for a much lower cost. As one person interviewed for the article put it,

They can continue to have [school] districts serve as a flow-through mechanism to funnel public money to textbook publishers, or they can redirect those funds into supporting master teachers and others and pulling together materials that are free.

One reason these digital textbooks are free is because they are “open source” – meaning they are put online for anyone to use how they see fit. The cost difference of such textbooks is striking, as one researcher who studied students in Utah who used these kinds of e-books found that they cost “less than half as much” each year than traditional textbooks. This researcher also found no negative impacts, and perhaps a small positive impact, correlated with switching to these e-books. The Utah State Office of Education is now wisely coordinating an effort to create such textbooks in science, math, and language arts.

Wise implementation of a policy to replace traditional textbooks with digital texts is just one way that digital learning – in this case blended learning – holds promise to improve the cost-effectiveness of public schools. The key to truly taking advantage of this and other benefits of digital learning in Utah that will improve the lives of children is for the public education system to embrace digital learning and learn how to use it effectively – not to replace teachers, but to use technology to turn every teacher into a “master teacher” who focuses almost entirely on helping individual children learn what they’re struggling to understand, rather than having to worry about how to keep the attention of 30 children at once, or the next test that they have to grade.

Posted in Education | Tagged , | 2 Comments

National liberal fiscal insanity, or why Utah needs a spending amendment

Posted on May 3, 2013 by

Whlogo1As noted on The Weekly Standard blog, the acting director of President Obama’s Office of Management and Budget wrote an op-ed published across the country, as well as put up on the White House blog, claiming that “the President’s Budget … shows how we can live within our means while further growing the economy, strengthening the middle class, and securing the nation’s future.”

This budget, according to White House budget projections, adds nearly $5.3 trillion to the national debt between 2014 and 2023 and creates annual deficits ranging from $439 billion to $744 billion over that time period. For perspective, adding $5.3 trillion to the national debt is the equivalent of adding nearly $17,000 in debt for every man, woman and child in America in 2012. And this, to America’s liberal political leaders, is what “living with in our means” looks like. Continue reading →

Posted in Government Spending | Tagged | 2 Comments

Selling our national soul for 30 pieces of silver

Posted on May 2, 2013 by

moneybagThe United States Senate recently voted overwhelmingly to proceed with debate on the so-called Marketplace Fairness Act, and scheduled a final vote for May 6. This law, if passed, would authorize states to require Internet-based companies without a physical presence in the state to collect and remit sales taxes to state and local governments, forcing Internet retailers to know and apply thousands of different sales tax laws – potentially one for every state, county and city in America that collects a sales tax.

The problem with this law is that it is a violation of the principle of balanced federalism, and of the spirit of the American Constitution. In order for a state to collect Internet sales taxes, the law would require states to adopt “minimum simplification standards,” because evidently the federal government cannot let sovereign states do anything without also forcing states – I’m sorry, “encouraging” states – to adopt federal standards.

By introducing “minimum simplification standards” for Internet sales taxes, the federal government would be explicitly pushing the idea that it is proper for Washington, D.C. to explicitly influence state and local sales and use tax policies. This idea violates the foundational idea of our federalist system, wherein the federal government focuses on its constitutionally delegated areas of law and public policy (e.g., federal income and excise taxes) and leaves the states, as sovereign entities, to address their areas of law and policy free of federal interference or intrusion (e.g., state and local sales taxes). The federal government has no right to impose “minimum standards” on state and local sales taxes, all twisting of the language of the federal Constitution by legal sophists aside.

Some advocates, including some in Utah, would like to see state and local sales taxes standardized nationwide, and that is their right. However, sacrificing the founding principles of America’s freedom on the Altar of Business in the name of Almighty Commerce would be to sell our nation’s soul for 30 pieces of silver.

Posted in Federalism | Tagged | 9 Comments

What makes for reasonable gun regulation?

Posted on May 1, 2013 by

Listen to the audio here:

 

Shooting_range_GlockThe following post is a transcript of a 4-minute weekly radio commentary aired on several Utah radio stations.

I’ve possessed a concealed carry permit for over five years now. I believe in the right to bear arms and I’d use a handgun or any weapon to protect me and my loved ones. I don’t believe I ought to wait for local police to protect me and what’s mine.

I’ve owned one gun in my life so far – a Tech-9, officially labeled an “assault rifle” by Congress when I purchased it back in the mid-’90s. I worked for Congress at the time and I remember when the House of Representatives voted to ban “assault weapons.” It upset my sensibilities so much that I drove out to rural Virginia and bought the Tech-9, knowing perfectly well that my purchase would be protected by any “grandfathering” of so-called assault weapons not yet banned by the United States Senate and signed into law by the president.

I didn’t need a Tech-9 to protect my home, though it clearly does that. That Tech-9 represents my right to bear arms. Continue reading →

Posted in Constitution, Regulation | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Politics of nihilism

Posted on April 30, 2013 by

St_johannis_fire_goettingenAt a recent discussion sponsored by the invaluable John Adams Center, someone remarked on the seeming incoherence of current progressive politics. As I understood the analysis, the progressivism of the early 20th century had reasonably clear (if tragically misguided) aims, but the progressives of today seem only interested in promoting the next novelty.

The nihilist Basarov in Ivan Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons accepts the charge of wanting to “destroy everything.” He says “the ground wants clearing.” Specifically, he challenges his interlocutor to “bring forward a single institution in our present mode of life, in family or in social life, which does not call for complete and unqualified destruction.”

This calls to mind the Occupy “movement” with its incoherent and idiosyncratic demands, but that is only a more colorful manifestation of the “relentless cult of novelty” (Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s phrase). Nor is it confined to the more paranoid segments of street activism. The official positions of the national government and of politicians of both parties, not to mention the entertainment and media cultures, reflect hostility to fixed standards (e.g., the left’s family policy). They are increasingly “striking at restraints without considering what they preserve” (Richard M. Weaver, Visions of Order 50 [ISI edition 1995]). Continue reading →

Posted in Miscellaneous | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Scouts, Saints and ‘sexual orientation’

Posted on April 29, 2013 by

603px-Boy_Scouts_of_America_Silver_Dollar_Centennial_Commemorative_Coin_obverseIn 1993, between congressional jobs, I briefly worked on Capitol Hill for a national pro-family lobby. I remember a conversation with a former colleague who thought that whether a person was “born gay” or not was irrelevant to the ongoing discussion about civil rights based on “sexual orientation.” He shared with me, adamant about the correctness of his position, that it doesn’t really matter which human weaknesses we’re born with, all that matters is how we choose to act when confronted with human weakness. A man with a weakness for gambling can choose not to gamble. Likewise, my colleague insisted, a person with same-sex attraction can choose not to have same-sex sexual relations.

He added, regardless of the innateness of any human weakness, society is justified, to the degree it feels it must, to frown upon bad behavior.

My colleague argued that just because a man has a sexual weakness for young children, for instance, doesn’t mean that society should condone pedophilia. A predatory act such as pedophilia is immoral, inherently wrong for human beings, in and of itself. His argument came at a time when all sorts of bad human behaviors were thought to have some genetic connection – smoking, alcoholism, drug abuse, pornography, etc. – and also at a time when we began seeing Hollywood make movies about “natural born killers” and other miscreants who seemingly could not control their bad behaviors, the poor souls. Continue reading →

Posted in Gay Rights | Tagged , , | 14 Comments

Grand jury report says Gosnell case is partially a result of pro-abortion politics

Posted on April 26, 2013 by
Drawing by Leonardo da Vinci

Drawing by Leonardo da Vinci

In a thoughtful and compelling article published by The Wall Street Journal, James Taranto argues that the gruesome case of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell illustrates the need to end the legal “Roe regime” of “abortion on demand.” He cites the Philadelphia grand jury report, the writings and comments of pro-abortion activists, the two reigning U.S. Supreme Court decisions (Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey), and the personal stories of former pro-abortion activists to make his case.

One of the more particularly noteworthy, and disturbing, quotes from the grand jury report states, in regards to the Pennsylvania Department of Health’s inspection efforts towards Gosnell’s clinic:

After 1993, even that pro forma effort came to an end. Not because of administrative ennui, although there had been plenty. Instead, the Pennsylvania Department of Health abruptly decided, for political reasons, to stop inspecting abortion clinics at all. The politics in question were not anti-abortion, but pro. With the change of administration from Governor [Bob] Casey to Governor [Tom] Ridge, officials concluded that inspections would be “putting a barrier up to women” seeking abortions. Better to leave clinics to do as they pleased, even though, as Gosnell proved, that meant both women and babies would pay.

For those who consider it important to think seriously about the issue of ending the possibility of life that abortion represents, the whole piece is worth a read.

Posted in Abortion | Tagged , | 3 Comments