1. What exactly are charter schools? A charter school is a public school that has more lax legal requirements about funding, staffing and curriculum. For example, many states allow charter schools to hire non-certified teachers. Somebody who wants to operate a charter school must usually obtain permission from a local or state government. The ease of starting and operating a charter school varies from state to state. Arizonais a charter school hothouse, while other states have none. Depending on state law, the charter school must file reports and be inspected by state officials. Charter schools often receive funding from state or local governments.

2. Why would someone start a charter school? The reasons vary, but parents are often frustrated with existing schools and school reformers want a shot at operating a school along innovative teaching principles. School reformers see charter schools as offering more options and, sometimes, a step towards competition in education.

3. Why do people hate charter schools? Critics see charter schools as taking away resources from standard public schools and as havens for poorly qualified teachers. A few see charter schools as opportunities for people to concentrate on serving privileged students, and are a betrayal of the ideal of public education. Some charter school proponents say that charters threaten the power of teacher’s unions because the law permits schools to have non-certified teachers. Click here to read a thoroughly anti-charter school essay by Amy Stuart in the Washington Post.

4. Who goes to charter schools? This is tough because the data on charter schools is often not available to the public (MR readers should email me if they can find quality raw data). In the 1990s, the student body at charter schools seemed to resemble other schools in the area. (Click here.) A more recent Department of Education report suggests that slightly more white students attend charter schools than at other schools in the same area. The big point, which a lot of people have missed, is that charter schools have not turned out to be sanctuaries for wealthy, highly privileged students. The major migration that many feared never happened. My guess is that wealthier students already live in neighborhoods with high quality schools, either public or private, and have no reason to take a risk on a controversial new type of school. Those who work at charter schools should email me to tell me if my hunch is true.

5. The Big Question: Do charter schools help students learn more than traditional schools? Reading a few reports, I’d say that charter schools have a mixed record so far. They definitely aren’t disasters (but some individuals schools are bad) but they haven’t shown themselves to be vastly superior to either public or private schools (even though some excellent schools are charter schools). The key in reading these reports is to look for comparisons of similar students. If you simply look at average test scores of charter schools, you miss the point because education researchers know that learning is tied to factors that schools can’t control – academic aptitude/IQ, family, peer effects, etc. Eduwonk and the Constrained Vision Blog have recent posts pointing out that charter schools do OK on some measures, comparable to public schools. Their conclusions are based on findings from recent reports that were said to be devastating critiques of charter schools.

In my opinion, fans and critics miss the best thing about charter schools – bad schools close. Since people are under no obligation to attend these schools, they will actually close if they are poorly managed and do a disservice to their students. Critics see a closed charter school as a victory. Yes, it is a victory, but not for charter school opponents. It is a victory for education in general – a poorly run institution has stopped operating, something you rarely see in other schools.

Update: A reader reminds that I have omitted discussion of Hoxby’s analysis showing that charter schools do well when you control for the types of students who attend the school, which lists data sources. Click here to read the Hoxby paper. When I wrote above about scarcity of data, I was thinking of a single data set available from a data bank such as the ICPSR, not about studies that assemble data from multiple print and electronic sources. Thanks, Yesim!

Yes, at least in the gorilla world. Click here. More ammunition for the lads and dads controversy…

1. Out of thousands of colleges, only about 100 are actually competitive. That is, only about 5% of colleges will reject more students than they accept. Anybody who wants to go to college can. Charles Manski’s College Choice in America is the classic text on this subject (click here).

2. The higher education sector is growing within this country and around the world. More people are getting more education everyday. Consider the following article (click here – subscription needed) in a recent Chronicle of Higher Education. Mongolia is experiencing a college boom. In the last few years, four universities have opened their doors in the capital of Ulan Bator. The founder of one university was inspired by the Khans!

3. The for-profit education sector is growing. The University of Phoenix, just to choose one example, provides adult education for thousands. I don’t think the for-profit college will ever displace the non-profit university, but it fills an important niche that liberal arts colleges and research universities don’t cover.

The story of higher education continues to be one of expansion and growth as whole, even though individual campuses may have trouble attracting students and generating income. While it is doubtful that any individual will receive the imprimatur of an Ivy League school, most people, if they so desire, have access to an incredible range of options.

I’ve recently been reading about the work of Felix Gonzales-Torres, an artist in the 1990’s who made a big splash in the art world. Like many artists, he really loathed the art world and the system of galleries, museums and universities but he ultimatey realized you have to deal with the world of art professionals if you want an income or recognition for your work.

So how do you make art that will sell but at the same time says f*** you to the art world? The solution: create works of art that literally will disappear but sell the right to reproduce the work. Two of his more well known works: piles of posters that gallery visitors can take with them or chunks of candy the viewers are encouraged to eat. I always wondered how you can make money with such art, until I learned that his gallery sold a certificate giving the "owner" the right to reproduce the work anytime they want.

The work is ingenious – the materials themselves were aesthetically interesting (such as anti-violence posters) and at the same time undermined the idea that there is a single "piece of art" like a drawing or painting. It’s also egalitarian – in remaking the work, the "owners" are supposed to give away the work for free. But here’s the biggest irony: by selling these certificates, the artist has switched from one form of ownership to another. Gonzales-Torres stopped selling physical objects and developed intellectual property rights for his work. He passed away in the 1990s from AIDS, but I wonder if he would have taken a cue from Linux and Java to develop some kind of subversive open source art.

Daniel Ben-Ami has a nice essay at spiked-online about environmentalist thinking (click here). He notes that since the Enlightenment people have thought that human progress comes from mastery over nature and from being more productive, but many environmentalists think that human well being is harmed by being more productive. It’s an important point that leads to some real policy differences. If you think that we have too many green house gases, then you have two choices: stop manufacturing or learn to manufacture without as much pollution. Too many environmentalists opt for the first choice, which is bad because so much of the world’s poor look to gain from industry. Ben-Ami notes this as a disturbing trend among certain segments of the green movement – too many are calling for roll backs of technology, rather than searching for better and cleaner technology.

It’s past midnight for me, but we have some reasonable data so far: Bush will likely win the popular vote because Kerry did worse in the Gore states and Bush will either tie or win the Electoral college with about 275-285 votes. Ohio might tighten as the morning wears on and absentee ballots/early votes are counted. The massive number of absentee/early ballots in New Mexico might flip the state to Kerry. So I’ll wait till tommorrow to see the final EC count, but I can safely say the following…

The following folks were right:

1. The final round of pre-election polls by major news organizations and the reputable polling organizations. If you average them, you got a Bush lead – not huge – but it was there. Individual polls were wrong, but the batch was right as a whole.

2. The Iowa Electronic Markets up till Monday. The Bush vote share was selling at $.51 – probably close to final number.

3. My sociology undergraduates (scroll down to the “Poll Positions II” post below) collectively predicted a clear Bush popular vote win. The students predicted about 49.7% for Bush. They might have done better if they had not overestimated the Nader vote.

The following folks were wrong:

1. Fabio Rojas. Following the incumbent rule, I believed that the undecideds would go for Kerry. I was wrong. Plain wrong. [Note: There is a slim chance that my electoral college prediction might come true.]

2. John Zogby – Early on election day, polling world demi-god Zogby predicted a Kerry blow out. Even if Kerry wins the electoral college, it might be because of slim Kerry win in Ohio and the New Mexico lead evaporating for Bush. Kerry could take the day, but not because he won the popular vote.

3. Exit polls. I tell people that I have a very low opinion of exit polls. They are often poorly executed and are easy to misread. Today is yet another peice of evidence against exit polls.

4. Iowa electronic market on tuesday. There was a short panic when Kerry contracts sold for more than Bush contracts. I guess some traders panicked when they heard about the exit polls. Shame on them!

That’s it for now. Now back to our normal blogging at Marginal Revolution…

More election day fun:

1. In exchange for some extra credit on their upcoming exam, I asked students in my two classes to guess what the popular vote breakdown will be today. As a good rational choicer, I only give the points for accurate predictions. I averaged their predictions: 49.7% Bush, 48.7% for Kerry and Nader gets 1.9%. Let’s see how the Indiana Extra Credit Market pans out tomorrow…

2. Dave from Colorado (see item #7 in yesterday’s post) got someone to write in Vernon Smith in Washington DC. Good going, Dave!! Anybody want to write in either Tyler or Alex?

The biggest show in town is about to start – the 2004 Presidential election. A few thoughts before voters go to the polls:

1. As Dan Drezner likes to say, nobody really knows what will happen tomorrow. National polls show a tight race and they swing more than the Count Basie Orchestra. The state polls fare no better. Even if you average the state polls, either candidate has a slim to non-existent lead in key states like Ohio and Florida. When the outcome may depend on what happens in a small number of regions, unpredictable factors come into play – like ballot design, weather, road traffic and political rumors.

2. However, as a social scientist who uses surveys, I really should make a guess. My safe prediction: Kerry will score between 48.5% to 49.3% while Bush scores 48.0% to 48.8%. The rest goes to Nader, Badnarik and other 3rd parties. Why? Undecided voters often – but not always – break for challengers. Right now, Real Clear Politics has Kerry scoring about 47%, which is based on averaging polls from major news organizations and reputable independent polling firms like Zogby, Pew and Rasmussen. Estimate about 2/3 of the undecided 4% going for Kerry and you get my predictions like mine.

3. Going out on a limb: I predict an electoral college tie. Bush gets his old states, Iowa, Wisconsin and New Mexico but loses Florida and New Hampshire to Kerry. Consider unusual leads for Bush in Iowa and Wisconsin and it’s not such a crazy prediction. You heard it here first!!

4. As the resident Iowa Electronic Market junkie at MR, I’ve been watching the contract prices everyday. For a long time, the market has been slightly bullish on Bush vote share and very bullish on Bush getting the most votes… until tonight. The last time I checked in, “Kerry wins” is going for about $.509 while “Bush wins” is going for $.487. The vote share market is still mildly pro-Bush. With the Redskins win and the Iowa market moving a little toward Kerry, we just might be starting four years with John and Teresa.

5. Skeptical about the electronic market? So is Farhad Manjoo, a writer for salon.com. In a nicely written four part series (click here), Manjoo describes his foray into the Iowa electronic market. At first he thinks it’s run mainly by republican traders but he soon realizes that when you bet your own money you are more likely to focus on the underlying forces behind elections, rather than noise. Did George H.W. Bush really blow the election by looking at his wrist watch during his first debate with Clinton? Probably not, but the economy was the likely culprit. Fanjoo isn’t a convert to electronic markets, but he seems to appreciate a basic feature of markets. I think this is the key point – markets aren’t perfect, but people will probably try harder when there is something at stake.

6. Please check out Mystery Pollster, a wonderful blog about the intricacies of polling. He answers all your questions about likely voter models, cell phone users and much else. Informative, professional and clearly written. Highly recommended.

7. Vote switching scheme: I got an email from a certain Dave in Colorado. He asked if I could help him vote trade. He’ll vote for Kerry in Colorado if the other person writes in a neo-classical economist for president. The choices are: Milton Friedman, Vernon Smith, Ed Prescott, Douglass C. North, Gary Becker, James Buchanan, or Ronald Coase. Interested parties should contact bonsaidave1776 ++ at ++ aol dot com.

That’s all for now!

There will be much debate on Reagan’s legacy in the following weeks. I think friends of limited government and individual liberty can have honest disagreements about Reagan’s accomplishments, but there is one achievement that is undisputable – Reagan sent a clear message to the world that Communism was evil.

It’s hard for Westerners to believe this, but the clarity of Reagan’s message had a profound effect on those behind the Iron Curtain. People will notice when an American president unapologetically calls the Soviet Union what it was – an evil empire. This is a simple moral judgment that was lost on so many intellectuals in the West. To hear this message must have been inspiring to those who experienced the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and Hungary and other Soviet crimes. To this day, many in Eastern Europe are grateful that Reagan was not afraid to say something that was so obvious and so important.

Dave Eggers, accalimed author of works of genius, has written an article in Mother Jones bemoaning the relatively low pay of teachers (click here). Here’s a representative excerpt:

The first step to creating an education system full of the best teachers we can find is to pay them in line with their importance to their communities. We pay orthodontists an average of $350,000, and no one would say that their impact on the lives of kids is greater than a teacher’s. But it seems difficult for everyone, from parents to politicians, to shake free of a tradition in which teaching was seen as something of a volunteer project for women whose husbands brought home the real money. Today’s teachers need to, but very often can’t, support a family on their salaries. They find it difficult or impossible to buy homes, to save money, to live comfortably, and, in wealthier areas, to live in or near the towns where they teach.

Eggers misses a basic point about work: The salary one makes is determined by supply and demand. A price doesn’t indicate how important the job is, or even if people think it is important. Take a simple example: water – it’s cheap because there is plenty of it, not because we don’t think it is important!

Same goes for work – the price of someone’s labor – their salary – is the result of how badly people want the labor and how many other people do the job. People want education for their kids – they pay thousands of dollars in locals taxes, have significant college savings accounts and the most prestigious colleges can harge over $30,000/year. Seems like the demand is there.

So why the low pay? Teacher’s low pay is due mainly to the fact that there are tons and tons of teachers! There is a huge supply of teachers. Education schools have huge enrollments – and surveys routinely report that education is one of the most popular majors in the country. Click here for a short Yahoo article reporting the most popular intended majors among incoming freshmen in 2002.

Some solutions for low teacher pay are non-starters. For example, simply demanding higher pay for public school teachers isn’t going to cut it because that means shifting money from other public services. There is a political solution – limit by fiat the number of teaching certificates awarded each year. That’s why the orthodontist makes a lot of money – there are few orthodontists relative to the demand for nice teeth. This might have undesirable consequences. Wealthier school districts might employ all the teachers. Perhaps the best response to low teacher pay is to realize that it’s a signal that fewer people should go into teaching. Next time you see someone express a desire to be a teacher, just tell them that we have too many!

A few months ago, administrators at the University of California asked about 7,000 students who had been admitted to the prestigious UC Berkeley and UCLA campuses to defer enrollment. To save money, students were asked to enroll at a California community college for 2 years and then apply for a guaranteed transfer to the Berkeley or UCLA campuses.

The San Francisco Gate news site reports (click here) that only about 1,000 students took the offer. I don’t know whether this is good or bad, except to note that the students are probably the best judges of whether it’s better to immediately attend another college or take the UC offer. The Gate article notes that many went to very expensive private schools, suggesting that budget shortfalls could have been recouped with a price increase.

The problem this incident highlights is how the political process interferes with market mechanisms. Once the political decision to educate a certain segment of the population has been made, administrators should view a surplus of customers as a signal that the market can bear some price increases. Instead, California legislators tend to fight tuition increases because they might exclude low income students. This is truly a bad tactic because one can simply lower the price for low income students through grants and financial aid, which is what happens at many universities. Price hikes for the wealthy and subsidies for the needy is surely a better policy than arbitrary price ceilings and the exclusion of many who are able and willing to pay.

Alex and Tyler like to post advice to graduate students (click here), which is usually on the mark. Here are some reflections from someone who has just finished the first year as a professor. I hope non-academic readers will enjoy knowing what this job is about.

1. Being a professor is all about time management. It’s important to spend time preparing classes and completing research but you have to be efficient. Unlike graduate school, you can’t spend years on a single dissertation chapter. It has to go to review soon, so you had better learn to write well and quickly.

2. This is really a cool job, but it is not for everybody. Although I am at a research university, I am expected to teach a fair amount – large undergraduate classes and doctoral students – and I must do a fair amount of administrative work. Anybody who is allergic to either activity should seek other employment. But if you like teaching, and you can thrive when you are expected to produce a lot in an unstructured environment, then it can be very satisfying.

3. Success in the academy is about writing skill – even in technical areas. Tyler might be interested in knowing that I learned this from him. Having brilliant ideas and doing the research to prove you are right is only half the battle. You must work very, very hard to clearly express your ideas and persuade skeptical readers.

While I consider myself to be a happy person, I still advise people not to go into academia – it is very competitive, smart people can make much more money elsewhere, there is little security pre-tenure and you can enjoy great ideas without getting a Ph.D. by reading Marginal Revolution every day.

Discussions of media bias are a sort of political Rorschach test – what you see depends on what you already believe. Despite this, I think the evidence is consistent on a few points.

1. Journalists tend to be more liberal than the average American. A recent Pew poll confirms previous studies of journalists. In this study, journalists did not describe themselves as liberal (which previous studies did find to be very common) but their attitudes tended to be very liberal. For example, 51% of Americans thought homosexuality should be accepted, while 88% of journalists in the national media thought so.

2. Very few journalists describe themselves as conservative. In the same Pew poll, 33% of Americans described themselves as conservative while 7% of journalists said they were conservative. Previous studies have found that journalists overwhelmingly vote for Democrats, except during the 1950’s – probably because Eisenhower was the most liberal of recent GOP presidents, when compared to the competition.

3. Analysis of American news consistently shows biases. In the 1990’s, for example, numerous studies found that it was relatively rare for ex-GOP leader Newt Gingrich to get positive press coverage. I found it interesting that one study found Bob Dole’s coverage was about 50% positive/50% negative. I wonder what it was about the future Viagra spokesman that made him lovable by the media?

Those who see the media as dominated by conservatives probably focus on Rush Limbaugh, the Fox network and some other high profile conservatives. They could also justly point out that media is big business, and owners probably favor legislation that benefits them (a la Rupert Murdoch), even though some media entrepreneurs such as Ted Turner are quite liberal.

So here’s my analysis of media bias: the journalism profession, on the average, is quite liberal and they also believe in the ethic of objective reporting. This creates a situation where much reporting is probably informed by liberal values, but presented in a “manner of fact” way. As a result, there are a lot of angry conservative readers and viewers who are flustered by this type of reporting.

Since the whole journalism profession is pretty much liberal, it’s probably hard for more conservative owners to impose their will on the newsroom – although they try quite hard sometimes. The end result – an untapped market of conservative viewers that can be catered to by the likes of Limbaugh and the Fox network. The Al Frankens of the world probably focus on the high-profile conservatives (like Rush) and ignore the average news reporter, while the Limbaugh’s obsess over the New York Times – a model for much of the journalism profession – and ignore successful niche players such as Fox.