I would bet you $100,000 that universal pre-k if enacted nation wide will have no discernable long term positive effects (If they pass universal pre-k to intrade I will go). Universal pre-k is a distraction that will do nothing but waste money. Jimmy Carter’s secretary of education used to say that boys should not be in school until at least age 8. he was an intelligent an learned man. Any positive affects of universal pre-k will be gone by the end of the third grade. Ezra gets goofy when he gets off of healthcare.

Ezra why not instead push for an hourly wage subsidy? Why do more of stuff that we know will not help rather than try something new. Schooling is inefficient and does not need more funding. As for schooling direct instruction may help and changing what we teach to more practical stuff may help but neither costs more money! Reducing the amount of testing may also help.

If you want to educate people more how about more funding for educational TV. Educational TV to combat the wrong crap that the mutual finds and brokerages put out. Maybe with more money PBS can make it entertaining so that the people who it could help will watch it. Try to educate the pro wrestling watching masses on how not be scammed and how to take care of themselves perhaps in ads. Make fun stuff for children that teaches reading etc.

This lets get them younger crap will not work. The state does not make such a great parent and poor parents even drug addicts can be good parents and mostly want to see their children do well. If anything try to educate the parents.

Flo, it would be easier to take you seriously if you didn't write like a high school dropout.

@Heckler so do me a favor and edit my post.

So who pays for all of this wonderful spending?

so do me a favor and edit my post.

A crap writer and lazy. Wow. This is the sort of person I know I want to listen to when talking about education policy!

Education reform is OK as long as it doesn't include fuzzy math or whole language reading.

There is something seriously wrong with the education reform movement, given that it put up with these travesties so long.

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2008/08/charles_murrays.html
My main quibble is that Murray doesn't consider why our wasteful educational system is so stable - and delivers such high financial rewards to successful students. There's even one sentence in the essay - "We will attach an economic reward to it that seldom has anything to do with what has been learned"- where Murray seems to say that employers collectively choose to overpay college grads. In an economy with millions of employers, that's crazy. (I'm not saying Murray believes in this bizarre conspiracy, just that it's easy to misinterpret him in this way).

So how can we explain the stability and pay-off of our inefficient educational system? My best guess is that educational success doesn't just signal brains and work ethic; it also signals conformity. A kid with the brains and work ethic to excel at MIT would be foolish to go to the University of Phoenix. Why? Because prospective employers would say, "What's wrong with this kid?" So I'm not optimistic about Murray's fix:

We should not teach to the test:

@Tyro and Heckler

IMO by your very posts you exalt the test over the substance. You belittle those who break the arbitrary rules of writing. I am a dolt in the area of writing and grammar so what? You guys must thank God for written the English Grammar (it was not always so) and Noah Webster’s cementing of American spelling because it allows you to feel superior to your inferiors.

There are many people who despite being very poor writers have contributed greatly to humanity. Do you feel superior to all of them?

@Tyro and Heckler

http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/welleducated.htm

No one should offer pronouncements about what it means to be well-educated without meeting my wife. When I met Alisa, she was at Harvard, putting the finishing touches on her doctoral dissertation in anthropology. A year later, having spent her entire life in school, she decided to do the only logical thing . . . and apply to medical school. Today she is a practicing physician -- and an excellent one at that, judging by feedback from her patients and colleagues.

She will, however, freeze up if you ask her what 8 times 7 is, because she never learned the multiplication table. And forget about grammar (“Me and him went over her house today” is fairly typical) or literature (“Who’s Faulkner?”). After a dozen years, I continue to be impressed on a regular basis by the agility of her mind as well as by how much she doesn’t know. (I’m also bowled over by what a wonderful person she is, but that’s beside the point.)

http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/edweek/botsnjtt.htm

Floccina, you are a dolt because you don't value learning and education. We, in this country, have ample opportunities to learn math, literature, and history in ways that other people haven't been able to, and you reject it. It makes it difficult for us to take your ideas seriously, because your mindset has prevented you from being able to even teach yourself how to be a thoughtful person who can communicate his ideas. These are the basics of education. Because the system failed you, your focus should be on ensuring that people learn more than you were able to, not on debasing the value of the things you aren't good at. If the end result of your ideas is a class of people who can't communicate coherently, then your ideas are bad ones.

It's not the job of the federal government to regulate education. There are no federal school districts. There are no federal school boards.

Moot discussion

You are a dolt because you don't value learning and education

I value learning and education. I do not value throwing money away. I have no talent at spelling and grammar. These are more talents and schooling and even study can only do so much. I have one son who does spelling and grammar well and one who does not. Same schools the latter works harder but is less talented in those areas.

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2008/08/how_schooling_i.html
Schooling has a high private financial return. But most people don't finish college; many don't even finish high school. Lots of economists are baffled by these facts, and spin complex theories to explain them.

At the same time, however, I've never heard an economist grapple with a parallel puzzle: Garbage collection has a high private financial return. But most people don't even try to be garbage collectors. The explanation for this pattern is all too obvious: The high wages of garbage collectors are a compensating differential for the unpleasantness of the job.

Is this analogy ridiculous? Well, if you've always been a good student, it probably seems that way. If you're an economist - or a blog reader - you probably liked school. I bet that many of you were formerly known as "teacher's pet."

Floccina, since reading and writing are the very basics of an education, and since you cannot handle it, then, yes, you are a dolt. An education system that turns out people who communicate as poorly as you has failed in its mission to turn out educated students. It may serve to help students master a few basic vocational and life skills, but that's it. And if that's all that you regard schools as good for, then we're starting from completely different premises.

It's hard to take your ideas seriously when you consider yourself to be a successful example of them.

When people complain about the poor quality of our schools, they're complaining about the fact that people come out without being able to analyze facts, express ideas, and solve quantitative problems. If your "fixes" for education turn out an end-result of people, such as yourself, who can't do those things at a basic level (and coherent writing is the most basic of these skills), then we have to wonder why anyone would pay attention to your opinions on the matter. The fact that you're almost proud of your inability to master this and don't consider the shortcoming a problem in your basic education is the reason why you're considered such a laughable character.

Tyro I give up on you. I think that you are also a dolt not in writing but in reasoning. Cheers.