The Next Economic Agenda

What is needed is a Deming culture in the American business model.

That was a wonderful plan, devoid of concrete details. Its easy to say “we should fix this, fix that and inspire confidence,” and, admitted by the column, much harder to actually do. I would posit its even harder to do when details fail to exist.

While I find many of William Galston’s proposals intriguing, I fail to see how this

modest adjustments needed to restore Social Security to sustainable balance

squares with this

Reducing our dependence on income and payroll taxes while expanding the role of energy and broad-based consumption taxes would yield dividends measured in growth and jobs.

Payroll taxes fund Social Security so what precisely is the author suggesting?
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I really can’t say that I’m too enamored with the idea of a VAT tax either. I’m certainly willing to examine various tax proposals but reducing our progressive income tax system and supplanting it with a consumption tax will fall disproportionately upon the middle and lower classes. Every time someone brings it up I think back to Steve Forbes making the same self-serving proposal.

Great the same old plan they have been pushing for a couple of decades now. Lots of “moderate” changes with NO specifics. Cut SS and Medicare, reduce payroll taxes and raise a consumption tax.
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Should I bend over now?

Staring down their base is all this half-assed administration has done since they were elected. The reason we get detail free analysis like this is because Obama has surrounded himself with mediocre centrists at at time when he needs visionaries.
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The Left really ought to find a new home, even though the Democrats and Republicans have cooked the books to prevent third parties from arising.

The reason we get detail free analysis like this is because Obama has surrounded himself with mediocre centrists at at time when he needs visionaries

You do realize, of course, that this analysis was done by someone from the Brookings Institute and not someone in the Obama administration, yes?

Edward Demming was a brilliant business manager, of course, but how can you apply his theories to a macroeconomic level?

I found this piece a little bit hallow since a number of things were not described.
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First, why a VAT or sales tax instead of an income tax to stimulate growth. How are the two differ in impact on economic growth.
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Second, how do you stabilize social security?
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Third, which specific programs should we cut spending and which ones should we increase spending?
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More or less, I found it too vague to have a strong opinion about (I know, my not having a strong opinion when posting is rare) or to even really understand clearly.

It can’t be imposed. However, it can be engrained. Look no further than Japan as a lesson on how to implement Deming on a national scale throughout industry.

What a bunch of nonsense. Galston doesn’t say anything.

To pick an inanity at random: The administration should adopt an explicitly pro-growth regulatory policy.

This can mean anything.

Take off-shore oil drilling. Are more regulations not “pro-growth” because they might shut down some existing or proposed operations and lead to job losses? Or are they totally “pro-growth” because massive oil spills that befoul the entire Gulf of Mexico are very bad for the economy?

Would Galston’s “explicitly pro-growth regulatory policy” increase or decrease regulations of off-shore oil drilling? If you can’t answer the question, then his statement is worthless.

This isn’t f-cking rocket science people. When the economy falters and the private sector stops lending, stops buying, and stops hiring, the federal government can step in and become the lender of last resort, the buyer of last resort, and the employer of last resort.

While I do not entirely dismiss Mr. Galston’s suggestions — vague though they may be — there there is no NEED to radically alter our tax system, regulatory system, trade policy, or immigration policy to get the economy back on track in the short term.

Mr. Galston, in classic Shock Doctrine fashion is attempting to use the present financial crisis to push through economic changes that have nothing to do with the current crisis and that he would be supporting even if the economy were booming.

The federal government just needs to step in and borrow, hire, and spend.

Japan had almost 0 economic growth for the 1990s.
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I remember clearly not because of what I studied in college only, but, I had many friends from Japan in college and Japan went from the big, dangerous gremlin to almost ignored between about 1990 to 2000.
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If the private and public sector could both put a much larger effort into quality so that it doesn’t take hours to find out who to call for a complaint to wordpress about a problem, take ten minutes on hold to pay your car insurance and an hour and a half to renew your driver’s license, as Demming’s theories have lead to, it would be great, but, I don’t think there is any Macroeconomics in Demming to be found.

The corporation I worked for a number of years ago went through the Deming faze. This was before he died in 93. Our CEO and president was Peter B. Lewis, progressive and pal of George Soros. He was always open to new theories of management.
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It is a great theory but has to be bought into 100% by management and workers. We did the “red bead” experiment. We had seminars. Peter B. came out to CA. for a Deming rally. I thought it was a great philosophy. There is one catch that companies can’t seem to buy into, not looking for short term gain. Our capitalists need immediate gratification. Eventually, management brought down Deming in our company.

Yes I do but I do see how my comment could imply I don’t. However, the policy Obama has followed is consistent with the ideas represented.

By the way Joe, speaking of jobs, you must be gleeful that 241 teachers were fired today in Washington DC based on merit tests. Isn’t it time for you to take a merit test?

While I understand your point, it appeared that you were conflating the two and subsequently blaming the WH for something they had no connection with.

Agreed. But that ship has sailed. Gordon Gekko (or John Galt) ain’t no Edward Deming.
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And Joe Klein ain’t no Paul Krugman. Social Security doesn’t need “taking care of”, it’s funding the goddamned government. If he weren’t a brainwashed centrist ideologue, he’d be ranting about our ridiculous health care costs and Medicare. That, and “conservative” mendacity and malfeasance, is what’s killing us.

Apr,
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You call me out when I am out of line.
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Do you really believe Joe likes seeing teachers out of work?

“Do you really believe Joe likes seeing teachers out of work?”
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From what I’ve read from him, I’d say he doesn’t give a sh!t one way or the other, at least compared with his conceit that he has a clue how to improve our education system. This is the same guy who thinks we should make construction workers and fireman work until they’re 70 to “fix” a system that is so broken it’s generating the operating capital for the US government. It’s all academic, like whether to invade a country that was no threat to us or let the government collect our electronic communications without judicial oversight.

Are you serious Patrick. Haven’t you read any of his screeds here on teacher unions and his theory that merit tests might not be perfect, but what the heck it will weed out the chafe. Also, I have used a good deal of space refuting his points. Sorry you haven’t read either my or his statements. Of course, he puts management (superintendents and principles) in charge of this “faulty but fair” system. It will also help take cafe of those pesky, overfinanced pensions for teachers.
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Our faux liberal, JK, has no respect for working people. Note shepherdwong’s statement. And, yes, from his prior statements in Swampland, I think he delighted they have been fired. As you know, JK is one of those village pundits that is an expert on everything.

Well, I doubt I can be called a “third way” guy, but, for every one good teacher I ever had, there was one pretty bad teacher and for every great teacher I had I had some who I didn’t think were qualified to be janitors at the school.
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That doesn’t mean that I like teachers loosing their jobs, but, until good and effective retraining exists, there has to be some system – even if the teachers together create the statewide exams – to make sure that teachers teach to something.
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It, also, does not mean that I have not read what you said.
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I guess I am “third way” about this issue since I am far from gleeful to see people who have a master’s degree unable to get work in their only field of work, but, the very same teachers who demand an exact, correct answer to every question (as they should) rather than something that is mostly right, have to be held accountable to some standard of improving the student from the previous year.

“…until good and effective retraining exists, there has to be some system – even if the teachers together create the statewide exams – to make sure that teachers teach to something.”
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With a teacher-measure model for performance-improvement it can still be difficult to tease true problem workers from social or management-determined factors. These guys did something pretty impressive there:
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http://gmj.gallup.com/content/1144/first-break-all-rules-book-center.aspx
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It shows that any efforts at system-wide education improvement should probably start with better hiring and training of principals, rather than imperfect testing and punitive action against teachers. With a little more authority given to better-trained principals it could also be a direct solution to the merit teacher issue, which so vexes Joe.

Shepherd: That is exactly the point I am making. They are allowing “managers” decisions they are not really qualified to make. Teachers can be fired. It takes a principal to monitor and mentor a teacher their first year. In most states, if the teacher is not meeting the standards, they can be let go.
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Patrick: I am not going to repeat all of my disagreements with the merit system as it is constructed. Until there is a way to measure all the variables it will never be fair.
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Shepherd:
You are exactly right about better principals, better training. When I was finishing up my student teaching, principals came to my college to interview. We were told they preferred C students to A students because they could communicate better with their students. I always felt they were more concerned about their understanding the teacher.
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The best experience I had in training was when I student taught. I learned more than at any time in my teacher training. Instead of sitting in a class listening to an old professor drone on about education theory, it would be better to have 2 years of subject matter training and 2 years of student teaching. Normal schools, years ago, had 2 years of hands on training.
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As a student I had a couple of bad teachers, most were fine and did their job professionally. But, I had a few that were huge influences on my life and I will never forget them. Patrick, please read some of my past posts about what is expected of teachers today.

“Patrick: I am not going to repeat all of my disagreements with the merit system as it is constructed. Until there is a way to measure all the variables it will never be fair.”
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I read them.
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I have teachers in my family and many of the things you and two other teachers who posted sounded very familiar, but each with their own insights.
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But, when I hear teachers say “We are teaching to the exam” I think back to some (not all) of my years as a child and think “hallelujah!”
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One of my favorite classes was AP US history. It was “Taught to the exam” for the AP exam more than twenty years ago. It, also, was a good teacher I had.
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As for the tests themselves, if the teachers have legitimate complaints about them, then they should, with their union (and I do vehemently oppose the idea of forbidding or getting rid of the union since that would succeed only suppressing wages and benefits and nothing more) write the exams themselves. Better yet, let the 5th grade teachers write the exams for the 4th grade (if that is an exam year) the 11th grade teachers for the 10th grade, etc, etc.
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I had, like I said, a couple of teachers who I remember vividly 20years later because they were so good at teaching their subject and other teachers who I remember wandering off and wasting the entire classes time on totally ineffective things and so uninspiring that it was a chore just to sit there.
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Overall, I would say our education system is like the way factories were run in the 19th century where deciding who got what job (among those who have degrees in education – which is the difference from the 19th century) seemed to be totally random and arbitrary.
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No, I do not know much about principals other than the fact, for the most part, teachers do not like having to go to the principal’s office any more than the students do since principals, like many bosses, are the bearer’s of bad news very often and rarely constructive managers.
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Somewhere down the line there must be some way to say, “Billy is in the 4th grade. Now I know that I can teach Billy these things since he already has the background.”
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Of course the eventual ends are “Bill is right out of high school. I know I can do these things” and Universities will know that Bill can do the coursework without remedial classes at the University.
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As a random note, one thing I noticed was that when my grandmother was a teacher in Brooklyn before she met my grandfather, teachers were the brightest women in town. They were the female counterparts to college professors, CEOs and doctors since women were not allowed in such jobs. Although, of course, it is awful that women were not allowed in such jobs, now it is among the least qualified women who get attracted to education.
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Frankly, when I was in college, if a girl told me that she was studying elementary education my first thought was “ditzy – let me talk to the next girl.”
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(Yes, that is cold and unfair and not 100% true of the school of education girls, either.)

Patrick: Give me an evaluation system for those who have the most impact on children and the school system:
Parents
Community
States
How would they measure up? Then tell me how to evaluate teachers based on the performance of those listed above.

“Patrick: Give me an evaluation system for those who have the most impact on children and the school system:
Parents
Community
States
How would they measure up? Then tell me how to evaluate teachers based on the performance of those listed above.”
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I am not sure if I fully grasp your question, but, indeed, parents and home life is a huge aspect if a child succeeds or fails. Community comes afterward. State? Outside of funding that has very little impact. Connecticut, where I grew up, has some of the wealthiest communities in the country and several of the very poorest in the United states and school performance, roughly goes along with that.
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But, to pick a poor city in Connecticut, Bridgeport, may have the least motivated students. I have two words for students who do not make it to meet the next year’s criteria: summer classes. A few more words for students on the boarder: after school tutoring.
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I, unlike the conservatives, believe that more money can help.
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But, if you have a high school diploma in the United States you should have the skills high enough to write papers, do Algebra, Geometry, know every War the US has been in, know about the various eras of US history (ie the progressive era, the great depression, the social movements of the 1960s, the conservative movement of the 1980s, etc) and have completed at least three books of relevant fiction per year from the 7th through the 12th grade and know how to write book reports a synopsis.
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Also, I believe that from the fifth through 12th grade they should have current events studying the world around them.
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But, as I said before, if Billy in the 3rd grade just got the minimum (say 70%) on his statewide exam and in the fourth grade gets 74%, the teacher should be commended since getting Billy to learn is hard. If April got 94% on the previous statewide exam and gets 81% on the next one, the teacher should be under consideration for retraining.
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Connecticut, where I have a relative who teaches, holds teachers accountable to the change from year to year of the same student rather than the absolute standard.
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The other side of the coin is that the student, starting at a young age, needs to given after school and summer learning if they just are that undermotivated or difficult to teach. (My way of thinking – since this means higher taxes many Republicans would start to vomit for this paragraph).

Patrick: Did you know that many European and Asian school systems have dual education systems? At a certain age it is determined whether a child goes to a trade school system or a college prep system. Those going to a trade school system are not included in their evaluation of their outcomes. That is the problem. In evaluating outcomes for education too often you are comparing apples and oranges.

I am fully aware, in particular, of the German system having gone to college with one German student who explained it to me.
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At age 11 the students are separated into College prep, which ends the year the student turn 19 (one year later than the US), high school which ends at age 18 (like us) and trade school which ends the year the student turns 17 (one year younger than us).
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(All of the parenthesis is for people who have birthdays in the Summertime or very early September who finishing high school “on time” is months before they turn 18).
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There is one catch, however, any student may move down if they prefer and, on the condition that they maintain a particular GPA, they may be at a higher level.
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That is he may test to be at the skill level to be in the construction trades (Secretarial for women I would guess) and if he/she maintains a particular GPA they may, instead, spend all of that time in college prep.
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That is one solution you have.
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Then the trade schools are “teaching to the trade”, the ordinary high schools are “teaching towards the workforce” and the college prep are “teaching to the Universities”.
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In America, our teachers before these exams taught to thin air or just whatever felt good for them to fill up the day with without too much concern about how it would benefit the student.
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However, all of those tiered systems all had fully literate students who can read well, write proficiently, do Algebra and Geometry. (Carpenters and many skilled trades need Geometry.)
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As I said, there were teachers who did teach for the future and others just seemed totally random with what they filled up our day with. Most notably the elementary schools seemed to do very little of value.
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As you can guess, there are very strict national standards for German schools and, unlike the US, each state, not each town, runs it’s schools. So, the aim of the German Federal government is to keep all of the states operating at the same level and for each state to make sure that all of the high schools, etc, all meet that standard.
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If anywhere outside of Hawaii, where this is already done, if you tried to say that the state rather than the town should control the schools, you’d better own a bullet-proof vest and have a crew of body guards since that would be the ultimate “big government” to the right wing.