When Nanny is there all sex is unsafe sex.

We all worry about teens and the risks associated with sex. No one wants young girls to get pregnant or for teens to spread venereal diseases. Like it or not, to the extent that so-called sexting replaces actual sex as an expression of erotic needs, it replaces higher-risk sexual activities with lower-risk activities.

But state laws make all teenage sex dangerous. It isn't dangerous because there are consequences to actions that nature imposes. In nature there is always a cost to something. Governments, however, like to screw around with that premises. So they minimize the risks of some bad things by subsidizing them. For instance, government will subsidize tobacco growing, help subsidize people who get cancer from smoking, provide "insurance" to people who build in flood planes, etc. All of these are cases where government lowers the cost of risky behavior thus encouraging more of it.

At the same time Nanny increases the risks artificially in other areas. Two teens exchanging dirty photos are clearly less at risk than if they were bonking behind the swingset unless the authorities get involved. At that point it becomes very dangerous indeed. The fact is, that even the safest sex, for young people, is highly dangerous when politicians take note. This was what two randy students in Valparaiso found out recently.

The middle school students had used their cell phones to exchange nude photos. Now these two kids are charged with being child pornographers. The girl involved apparently forgot to turn off her cell phone in school. The phone rang and the teacher confiscated it. Local papers report: "The teacher told police the girl asked to delete something from the phone before it was turned over to the administration, but that request was denied."

Now this immediately raises some questions. While I can see the school requiring students to turn off cell phones, and I can even fathom why they might have the right to confiscate a ringing cell phone from a student, what I don't see is how they had any right to search the contents. Merely asking to delete somethings from the phone is not a justification for a warrantless search.

Of course, the busybody schoolteacher, and remember in government systems teachers are part of the State, apparently told the police. And somebody, and I would bet without a court order, went through the phone. That was when they discovered that a few days ago the girl, and a boy from the school, had exchanged racy photos.

Now, if you want the pure hypocrisy of the State on this matter consider the justification used by Deputy Prosecutor Cheryl Polarek. The local paper says she "said young people don't understand the ramifications of texting nude photos... She said a nude picture could end up being shared with half the school and could get in the hands of people who seek out child pornography."

Think about this. If a kid takes an erotic photo of him/herself the whole school could find out. But to protect kids from having that happen the State, in this case Cheryl acting as the State, makes sure the entire school finds out. And, to top it off, she prosecutes the kids, they can face jail time, and they can be forced to register as sex offenders depending on the whims of the prosecutors or the law.

So, to protect a couple of "stupid kids" from some bad consequences we will subject them to even worse consequences, some of which can plague them till the day they die. And need I point out that the actual consequences for the kid are worse when the photos end up, not in the hands of someone who seeks out such things, but in the hands of teachers, school officials, police officers and prosecutors.

We all know the reality of schools. Once the police got involved, and the boy and girl in question were arrested, it was only minutes before every single student knew who was arrested and why. The police may not release the names because they are minors but there is no privacy. And when all the kids knew, it was only a few hours before all the mothers knew, and when all the mothers knew, you can bet most the town found out shortly afterwards.

Now, without condoning what these kids did, can anyone tell me how the situation could have been worse for the couple, if they weren't being "protected" so much by the police and school officials? When will people figure out that most legitimate problems are merely made worse by state intervention? If the goal is to minimize harm to kids, shouldn't we keep them out of the clutches of the police and, dare I say it, the teachers.

In a related matter: I highly recommend the horrifying documentary The War on Kids, by Ceving Soling. This documentary ripes into the increasingly authoritarian nature of state education in America. As shocking as the documentary is I was even more shocked to read a positive review in the New York Times. The review said:

A shocking chronicle of institutional dysfunction, “The War on Kids” likens our public school system to prison and its disciplinary methods to fascism. At least now you know why little Johnny won’t get out of bed in the morning.

Arranged in sections that range from merely interesting to downright horrifying, this provocative documentary suggests a system regulated by fear and motivated by the desire to control. Tracing the evolution and application of zero-tolerance policies on drugs and violence, the director, Cevin Soling, amasses overwhelming evidence of institutional overreaction. When an 8-year-old can be suspended for pointing a chicken finger and saying “Pow,” we know that common sense has officially left the building.

Impassioned interviews with educators, authors and medical professionals — and some very perceptive students — warn of the consequences of surrounding children daily with armed security guards and surveillance cameras.

Whatever you do, get yourself a copy of this video from our friends at Laissez Faire Books.

Government versus education

The bureaucratic mentality versus reality. Amusing but also enlightening.

I'm on his side.

Here is a kid who learned about a little something about what it means to have STATE education.



As the refugee teacher from government schools, Marva Collins, noted: "He who eats my bread does my will." I'm not entirely sure there isn't another side to the story BUT I would wish we had schools filled with young people like this one instead of the usual complacent, compliant cows turned out in herds by the government controlled educational system.

Rogue choir boy threatens to bring down civilized society!

Dear Reader, I confess. I have been negligent. Far too much time has passed since I last hurled my verbal javelin at the brain-dead bureaucrats who infest government schools. I have had a good excuse -- with the presidential battle heating up there were other fish to fry, fish that stunk even more than the typical pencil-pushing imbeciles that run the schools.

Of course, it was only a matter of time before some bumbling Bozo in the school system would redirect my attention toward the menace that is state education. And, as usual, it was some poor student who had to suffer due to the duncical policies of the education establishment.

Christopher Berger is an 18-year-old high school student at Grayslake Central High School. Now often you will hear the phrase, “he’s no choir boy” when talking about teens. Not in Berger’s case. He really is a choir boy. This kid is so together that he really doesn’t need high school -- it probably stands in his way of getting an education. When he’s not in choir he’s an athlete at the school -- in three sports. He is a member of Future Business Leaders of America and spends some of his spare time training to be a fire fighter. In other words this is the sort of dream kid that government schools love to pretend they turn out.

In fact, they did turn him out, literally -- they threw him out. Worse yet, they sent the cops after the boy. If you look at the photo you will get an idea of the serious crime committed by this choir boy. In his hand he is holding something called a Multitool. Anything resembling a Swiss Army knife is a multitool. They are those weird devices that have tiny screw drivers, miniature scissors, itsy-bitsy pliers and the like, all crammed into one device. I’ve always assumed them to be more gadgety than useful. Apparently the dolts running Berger’s school see them as weapons of mass destruction.

Berger’s grandmother bought one for the boy’s father. The father decided to give it to the son. And the son accidentally left it in his jacket pocket at Christmas and forgot to remove it when he returned to school. He didn’t give much thought to it. The problem started when he accidentally left his jacket in the school cafeteria. School officials saw the jacket and searched it -- these guys are so vigilant they could work at the airport. And they discovered the multitool. Well, things went on high alert from that point on.

No doubt Homeland Security was put on full alert. President Bush immediately ordered plans for the invasion of Iran to be resurrected since this new threat was discovered. In some Pakistani cave Osama bin Laden shuddered with horror as his new plot to topple the Great Satan had been foiled. Yes, the world was saved at the very last minute. For this dangerous device contained, and I hope you are sitting down, a 2 inch knife.

When the jacket was traced to Berger he was promptly thrown out of school for two days. But these defenders of Western civilization weren’t satisfied. Office Ken Arnold (no doubt a direct descendent of Benedict) gave the poor kid a police citation which will require the boy to defend himself in court. What was our dangerous choir boy charged with? According to the Chicago Sun-Times “Officer Ken Arnold states that [Berger] endangered the life of other students by leaving a knife unsupervised.” Obviously Officer Ken’s mother beat him with a stupid stick -- often.

What is worse is that the clowns in the local police department are saying this happens all the time. They brag that students are frequently charged with endangering the lives of others for owning pocket knives.

If accidentally leaving an unsupervised multitool with a 2 inch blade is endangering the lives of others then the police better crack down on the local steak house! Have you seen the steak knives that they routinely just hand out to people? My god, the humanity!

Officer Ken was obviously being lenient. No mention was made of the tiny flashlight which is included with the tool. Do you have any idea how many people could be blinded by that? What if some Al Qaeda deep cover operative at the school grabbed this flashlight and rushed down to O’Hare airport. Before Homeland Security could figure out how to tie their shoes, this villain, who no doubt is a gay Mexican illegal immigrant, could have used that flashlight to blind pilots of departing aircraft In minutes dozens of planes could be crashing into buildings. Thank Jesus for Officer Ken.

Here is what gets me -- Officer Ken seems to be permanently stationed at the school. Ken “stupid stick” Arnold is the Student Resource Office at the school. It’s bad enough that these kids have to be around “educators” but no kid is safe in the same room with a cop. The idea of having one permanently stationed in a school ought to send shivers down the spine of every parent.

It’s bad enough one of them could be living down the road, without you knowing it, but allowing them near impressionable children is just going too far. I think we need an on-line registry so we can keep track of them. I do appreciate the uniforms and specially colored cars so we can spot this menace quickly. But some of them try to disguise themselves as decent citizens. That can’t be tolerated. Some even have pages at MySpace!

If you don’t think that America is in the grips of irrational panics and run by blithering fools then you aren’t paying attention.

Why atheists, humanists and libertarians should embrace alternative schooling.

Yesterday I reported on the role of fundamentalist extremism in causing a rise in the number, and loudness, of atheists in America. This was inspired by an article in the Washington Post on the new atheists. A second article on the topic has now appeared in the Post as part of a series of article on beliefs about religion.

The growth of atheism among young people is truly astounding. I have believed, for a couple of years now, that American fundamentalists were in trouble. They have overreached for power and they were too closely identified with Bush. They were pissing off a lot of people including other Christians and they were, as the saying goes, cruising for a bruising. And they are getting it.

In the 1980s about 11% of young people, ages 18 to 25, in Pew survey identified themselves as atheists, non-believers, agnostic or as having no religion. A follow up Pew poll that would have been done toward the end of last year said that the number had risen to 20%. The Post article mentions a recent Barna survey on religious beliefs and says “one in four four adults ages 18 to 22 describes themselves as having no faith.”

If the Barna survey is correct that means the increase in self-identified atheists, among the young, is continuing at a rather astounding pace. I remember reading a New York Times piece on the social/camming network, Stickam, which is mainly occupied by young people. I read a few articles on the site and similar ones and then browsed through the site. I randomly read the “profiles” which users left for themselves. And I remember being surprised by the number of users, mostly young, who described themselves as atheists.

The article also mentioned another phenomenon based on classical liberal principles -- the rise of alternative schooling. And that is the main thrust of what I have to write about today. The Post said that “charter schools based on humanist principles have opened in New York City and Florida” in recent years along with summer camps for kids of atheists. The alternative education principle is one I have promoted here. Too many non-conservatives, mainly progressives, have seen alternative, non-state education as a means of pushing religion and other Religious Right values.

But last February, when Utah passed a state-wide voucher system (now being opposed heavily by the self-serving teacher’s unions), I wrote:

I would like to see good quality, secular, private schools teaching kids. Instead of bitching about private education mainly being run by religious groups secular liberals need to open their own schools. Consider this my friends on the Left. You can have a school where you don’t have to turn over the ID data to the military for recruitment as you do with state schools. You can have a school where you don’t have to have some fundamentalist nutter come in with his version of sex education -- as you do in the public schools. You don’t have to worry about some board of education forcing theology on you in the form of so-called Intelligent Design.

The non-believing community ought to be embracing alternative schooling. Oddly, for decades, they were the leaders in the field. Until the late 1960s alternative education in America, outside the Catholic school system, was almost entirely operated by humanists, progressives and secularists. But when racial integration became prominent thousands of “Christian” schools were created in order to continue segregation.

Unfortunately most people have notoriously short memories. They don’t remember the work of Ivan Illich in his book Deschooling Society. It goes much further back than that. Joseph Neef founded three humanist oriented schools in the US between the years 1809 and 1827. Montessori began her first school in 1907, and Rudolf Steiner started his first school in 1919. By the 50s, 60s and 70s the alternative education movement was dominated by people like Paul Goodman, John Holt, Jonathan Kozol and Illich.

All this was forgotten by the tsunami of “Christian” segregated schools that rose up almost overnight. And in reaction to that non-conservatives clung to the state education system. The problem for them is the problem for the Religious Right today. The state is a cumbersome leviathan that creates chaos and conflict wherever it goes. If there is a job to be done they will screw it up. To have one’s ideas associated with the perpetual destruction imposed by big government is the kiss of death.

Decent, humanist schools are possible. And with various voucher programs where funding follows the students good, secular schools can be created much more easily than ever before. And it can be done without the artificial conflict created by monopolistic education. In addition such schools can't be controlled centrally by some third-rate Texas politician and changed from above. Sex education, courses I would support in a private school, became abstinence courses across the US because of the now heavily centralized, and federally funded, nature of education. This couldn't happen nearly as easily with a decentralized network of humanist schools.

I suspect one of the great tragedies of libertarian politics in recent years has be the Quixotic political campaigns for candidates with little, or no, chance of winning. These campaigns act like black holes that suck up and destroy vast financial resources and activists leaving nothing in their wake to speak of. A campaign that consumes millions of dollars, and in a few times will end, eats up enough funding to open several alternative, libertarian-oriented, secular schools. That money would not only fund them but allow them to be tuition free for years. Of course if tuition is charged the schools would could go on a lot longer.

Bob LeFevre was closer to the mark than most modern libertarians when he founded Freedom School in 1957. But instead of only educating adults he should have expanded into all ages and opened an alternative schooling system. Considering that some of his teachers included Rose Wilder Lane, Milton Friedman, Leonard Reader, Gordon Tullock, Bruno Leoni, Ludwig von Mises, and Frank Chodorov -- what a school it would have been, even if they only gave guest lectures now and then.

Any group that wants to change a culture has to change minds. Political campaigns are short-term, sound bites. They reflect already existing views, they don’t create them. They follow trends, they don’t start them. What starts trends is the minds of people changing. And that is an educational process and politics is poor at educating anyone.

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Photo: Marie Montessori.

DC Schools spends millions for people with no work to do.

Here is a perfect example of the point I was making yesterday about the problems of having schools run by unions and politicians.

Washington, DC, has one of the most expensive state run school systems in the world. And the more money it gets the worse it seems to run. People wonder why that is. First, remember that politicians tend to throw money at problems. The worse a school does the more “in need” it becomes and thus the more funds it requires.

Markets reward solutions with profits. Politics is used to address “problems”. The more problems you have the more programs and subsidies that you qualify for. The nature of political financing is perverse. It rewards dysfunctionality far more than efficiency.

Now we learn that the cash rich, results poor, DC school district is going to spend $5.4 million on staff who have no actual function under another set of reforms they are pushing.

These individuals actually have no job to perform at all. But the school district says that union contracts require them to keep these people employed. If they must fire someone they have to fire someone they need in order to keep someone they don’t need. As the morons at the union see it the only qualification for employment is seniority.

Chancellor Michelle Rhee says she could fire newer teachers who are needed but that sends the wrong message to people applying for work with the District. She says that tells other teachers that are thinking of working for the district to think a second time before actually taking the job. So the school will waste $5.4 million to keep people who have no work to actually do. That is union mandated efficiency.

And the problem becomes worse. This report notes that the DC mayor was “swept to power thanks in part to the legwork of activist unions, such as the Washington Teachers’ Union” and that the unions expect him to give them what they want -- screw those whining kids.

So we have a school district flushing $5.4 million down the toilet to employ people they don’t need because the coalition of unions and politicians demand such inefficiency.

The school budget in DC comes to about $20,000 per student. So, how do private schools do in comparison? St. Gabriel School has a tuition of $4,500. The more prestigious German School in the suburbs charges $10,000 per year. The most expensive, elite private school in the city, St. Albans charges $26,500 per year, not that far above what DC residents are paying for a school system that is in perpetual crisis.

The Washington Post reports that there are 300 private schools in the DC and that most “cost far less than St. Albans”. I have no doubts that is the case. That would mean that most private schools in DC are far cheaper than the DC schools themselves. In fact I suspect that most private schools in this area would be around $5000 to $6000 per year.

Strictly speaking the DC city council could send every child in the District to a private school and pay the full tuition and still save $14,000 to $15,000 per pupil in the process.

The students got the nessage

It has been years since I’ve seen the inside of an American school. But I was invited to give a lecture on economics to a suburban high school. I didn’t know what to expect. Perhaps that was best.

The teacher had warned me that students simply never paid attention. I was a bit taken back by that. The first thing I noticed at the school was two armed security guards. Considering that where I last lived not even the police are armed, this was a bit unnerving.

I went to the office and told them that I was to speak to a specific class. The individual working the main information desk said he would call the teacher. While he was doing that I used the toilet. But when I came out he had still done nothing. I stood there for a few minutes and he finally called the classroom. I was told a student would come for me.

A few minutes later a young women came to escort me to the classroom. On the way there she told me not to expect much as the students don’t care. Adding her warning to the teacher’s had me wondering how bad it could be.

As I started I could immediately see that about half the students were in a walking coma. They could walk, they could talk but they were oblivious to the classroom itself.

As I started speaking, trying to get their attention as much as possible, I was surprised to see that now and then a student would simply get up and walk out. Maybe ten minutes later they would come back. Some went out and then came back and then went out again. They didn’t have to ask permission or apparently have any real reason for leaving. They came and went as they liked.

I used my best tactics to get some attention from the students. And with a great deal of effort I finally had half of them paying attention. But it was a real chore. And here is what shocked me the most. At least five times the school interrupted the class with announcements over the loudspeaker.

If they wanted one student, from one class, to come to the office they interrupted every student in every class . None of these announcements had anything to do with a student in the class to which I was speaking. The interruptions made it difficult for me to concentrate and they interrupted the students. Each time they loud speaker went off I had to get the attention of students all over again.

Toward the end of my talk I made it very clear that I would try to answer any question on any topic related to political economy. I told the students that if they only learned what I thought they should learn they would remember nothing. But if we discussed the topics that interested them they would remember. And with a little prodding the questions started coming. And some of them were good questions. One girl, pierced nose, semi-punk look, who had been drifting for the first half had finally become interested. She wanted to know what are the differences between classical liberals and modern liberals. It was a good question.

Things were finally moving along and then the damn loudspeaker went off again. I had tried to speak over it the previous times. But it still created problems each time. And I thought I would do the same thing this time. But the announcement went on and on and on.

Some man in the office was making announcements about which class won which game. And he literally meant games. He droned on about a “stick race” and dragged the announcement out. He announced which class came in fourth place. Then he would go “yaaa” and applaud over the loudspeaker. Then he went into third place, cheered again and applauded again. And then second and did it all over again. And then first and did it all over again. Now if you think it was tedious reading what he did you should have heard it live!

And he had at least four such game results to announce and each time he cheered and each time he applauded. The students did learn who came in fourth, third, second and first in the all important “nacho macho” contest but what they were not learning was anything about economics.

I was quite angry with the school. I could see in that one period that with some effort one could get through to a fair number of the students. But at least five times I was interrupted for unimportant, inconsequential announcements. All I could think was: “No wonder the kids don’t take learning seriously.” Why should they? The school itself didn’t take learning seriously.

In just that one period. the main school office sent the message to students that a “nacho macho” contest was more important than learning. They got the point across loud and clear that a “stick race” was more important than learning. Two other games, the absurdity of which I do not even remember, were both more important than learning. At least four other times the students were told that having one student come to the office was sufficient reason to stop the teaching of every single student on campus.

And that was only one period. Is it like this throughout the day? I don’t know. I hope not. But I suspect that these interruptions are common. So the students have learned what the school went out of its way to teach them: class time is not important and learning is not important. For a good number of these kids that is the one lesson they really got from the administration.

Blind leading the blind

Mayra Ramirez got an A in her driver’s education class at at a Chicago high school. But she will never drive. She is blind.

So why did she take driver’s education? She had no choice. Neither do 30 other blind and visually impaired students. The school district decided that all sophomores must take a class and pass a written test regarding the rules of the road.

In the world of government bureaucracy one size fits all.

For Mayra the class lowered her self-esteem. She said in the other classes she can do the same work as the other students. But she can’t drive and she knows it. But to sit there day after day “gives us the feeling we’re different. In a way, it brought me down, because it reminds me of something I can’t do.”

Another blind student wondered: “Why should we have to memorize how a street sight looks when we are never going to see them while driving?”

Imagine a private provider telling customers that they have to buy a product that they can’t possible use. Of course private business can’t do that. Unless the state helps them they can’t force people to buy their product. So they rely on willing buyers and they have to try to satisfy their consumers. But government doesn’t act that way. They do have the power to force people to obey them. And that means they don’t particularly care about customer satisfaction. One result of the incentives of government is that blind students are forced to take driver’s education classes.