Education: Tinkering with the engine.

There are a lot of problems in California schools-- bad test scores, systems that reward trying to teach to the aformationed tests rather than measuring true achievement, a system that on the one hand can be tremendously stressful on teachers and yet on the other hand rewards simple seniority... suffice it to say, our school system has a number of issues.
And this is a vital problem, because California can only compete with other states and nations by remaining on top of the tech curve and providing a skilled workforce that motivates companies to move here even if they might have higher expenses because the work force is just that good.
But right now, this is hard to do-- the sad fact of the matter is the time to make changes like this is when you have the money to do it right and do it without raiding the piggy bank-- and California has not been in that position for some time.
So what to do? Well, as much as I'd like to shout out "burn the edifice" that's not going to happen, nor should it. However, we should be looking at what sort of minor tweaks we can make that might produce a more effective use of school time, without requiring the upfront investment of money that the state simply cannot afford right now.
And from Japan, we have one, a very good one. It's one of those ideas that is so simple that you almost wonder why you didn't think of it yourself.
In Japanese high and junior high schools, between class periods the students don't move-- the teachers move between classes. So instead of having hundreds or even thousands of students in the corridors, you have a few dozen teachers moving from room to room.
Anyone who has ever been in that tide of humanity called "between periods rush" in a high school can attest to just how much chaos occurs. It's a period that makes it hard to supervise students, easy for students to skip school or be disruptive and of course involves the joy of having to take roll call again. Even in the best organized school, often it means that better than ten minutes of a 50 minute class period are occupied with taking roll, getting everyone settled down and then finally getting started with the traditional disruptions of the fashionably late arrivals.
Having the teachers move, instead of the students, ends most of those issues. It does not cost anything more, and requires no changes to the lesson plan, and in fact can be done with a simple change of schedule.
Given our money problems now, it is criminal to not try and make the absolute best use of every minute of educational time we have, and this is one way to do that. Later on, I'll talk about some others.

When will the good times return?

When will the people be able to borrow on their house, buy that Big Screen TV and live the life they wanted? When will our current belt tightening era go away?
Well, according to the various politicians out there, "soon", or maybe when the stimulus goes through, or perhaps once there's a rebound in housing prices, or maybe the magical pixy fairies will deposit economic fairy dust on our bank accounts.
The answer is: They won't. At least not like we've had them over the last 10 or so years.
The problem, just as the Japanese found out when their bubble collapsed was that this is imaginary money. Your house really isn't worth 250,000 dollars, not until someone buys it for that. The banks were handing out easy credit based on the fond belief that the perpetual motion machine would keep driving prices up, and so people would just keep refinancing and would never, ever have to actually make good on these debts.
Don't blame the banks alone. Yes, they bear much of the blame for the situation, but honestly, how many people said: NO! when they were told they qualified for that loan? There needs to be far more regulation of these markets, that's obvious, but remember that nobody was forced to take these loans.
Today we have billions and billions in bad loans. Homes that are likely going to be sold for pennies on the dollar at auction. Unless you're very lucky, you probably have at least one house in your neighborhood becoming a weed trap after the occupants left.
And so, even after we create some stability in the economy, it's very, very unlikely that banks will be so eager to hand out these loans. Get ready to prove your income, to prove your financial worthiness to prove that yes, you are good for this loan. The same thing is happening in the credit industry, especially now that Congress is moving to end some of the nastier practices that have traditionally made much of the money for the credit card industry.
That means that the coming economy, even if nothing else goes wrong, will likely be far less tolerant of amassing large amounts of debt.
Is that bad? In my opinion, no. But it will mean that a great deal of consumer spending will either be scaled back or cease. A large number of people who have been disguising a lack of actual work based income via the use of various sorts of credit dodges will now have to confront the fact that no, they don't have enough money to "live the dream."
And that's why the good times are not going to return-- over the last ten or so years we've enjoyed the mother of all New Years Eve Parties. However, now, it's the next morning, we have a hang over, the living room is trashed and now comes the very hard job of cleaning things up, and explaining to the police why there is a goat tethered to our mail box.

Paul Krugman nails it on health reform

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/676/

I don't always agree with him, but Krugman knows what he's talking about and has his facts down, so agree or not, you could do worse than to follow his column.

Fiddling while Rome burns.

Well, today we have a budget. That is to say, a budget that will likely destroy the state of California, even if it manages to get past all the deserved lawsuits. In terms of public policy, it's an example of a farmer deciding to eat this year by devouring all the seed corn he'll need for next year.