Performance Pay – Round 1

Posted on 2008-07-11 by David

The Legislature approved funds and loose guidelines for merit pay for teachers earlier this year. I really like the first news I have heard about the issue since then:

Each district and charter school that wanted money had to come up with its own plan following broad guidelines lawmakers set earlier this year. . . .

Lawmakers have referred to the law that provided $20 million for performance pay as an experiment they hope will inform future efforts to create a long-term, statewide system. . . .

Some states have taken years to create pay-for-performance plans, but Utah districts and charters had only a few months after lawmakers passed a bill appropriating the $20 million earlier this year.

I think the Legislature was exactly right to avoid the temptation (and it probably was tempting) to try to create a central, defined system for merit pay. Instead they put out the money and let the districts provide dozens of differnt plans for how to use the money – within general guidelines. The result will be that within a couple of years we will have found a dozen approaches that are not very effective and a few approaches that look very promising.

Odds are that if the Legislature had spent money studying the issue for years to come up with The One True Approach™ they would have spent as much money as they end up losing on the plans that will end up failing from this experiement. The real difference is that they will have a higher chance of identifying good ways to implement merit pay.

Anyone who grumbles that $20 Million is not enough can be reminded that this is seed money that can show us the best aproaches and it can be increased in the future as appropriate to foster the most effective merit pay schemes.

Posted in State | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Congestion Tolls

Posted on 2008-07-10 by David

The Deseret News is recommending congestion tolls to help pay for our transportation needs. I have previously stated my generic approval of tolling while recognizing that there are issues of fairness to be addressed. (Toll roads on the west side, but not the east side is not fair.) One comment on the editorial suggested a possible approach to the fairness issue and also the issue of leaving the roads free for those who can’t pay a toll:

. . . one possible solution is only impose congestion pricing in certain lanes, leaving other lanes open to general use. We could eliminate the current HOT lane on I-15 and do two lanes of congestion priced expressway instead. Do a lane or two congestion priced on I-215 as well. And do a lane or two congestion priced on the MVC while leaving a lane or two open for general use.

(unfortunately you have to scroll down for the comment – they should provide anchors to individual comments)

The suggestion of congestion pricing on some lanes but not all is illustrated in a Reason.tv video by Drew Carey that discusses traffic congestion. (The video showing congestion pricing is between 4 and 5 minutes into the video.) I think that idea deserves to be explored.

Posted in State | Tagged , , , , , | 16 Comments

Weak Representation

Posted on 2008-07-09 by David

In a move that was anything but surprising, the Senate voted to gut the constitution rather than stand up against the politics of fear. Democrats control both houses of Congress and yet this bill passed by large margins in both chambers. Senator Obama thinks that the executive branch is using fear to extract more power and yet he halted his presidential campaigning to go vote in favor of this capitulation to the politics of fear. The New York Times explains the outcome of the vote this way:

. . . many Democrats were wary of going into their political convention in Denver next month with the issue hanging over them—handing the Republicans a potent political weapon.

In other words, the Democrats were so afraid of defending their votes that they capitulated to the minority party rather than cast their vote according to their beliefs. This indicates that they believe in re-election above all else. Maybe we should reword the oath of office to reflect reality – “I pledge to support and defend my re-election at the end of this term.” This is the same thing that had Republicans, when they were in the majority, voting to expand domestic discretionary spending at unprecedented rates in an effort to create a permanent Republican majority. The Republicans were rewarded with the loss of both houses of Congress in the midterm elections. I wonder how the Democrats will be rewarded (probably not with the loss of the majority at this time).

P.S. Naturally Hatch and Bennett voted in favor – they were probably squirming in anticipation as they waited to cast their votes.

Posted in National | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

The Rule of Law or the Rule of Fear

Posted on 2008-07-08 by David

I really liked this challenge from Obi wan Liberali related to the current FISA revision bill.

So to my Republican friends, I lay the challenge before you. If you support the FISA bill going before the Senate, justify and defend that support. If you oppose the bill, speak up to your Republican U.S. Senators Orrin Hatch and Robert Bennett.

Personally I have already contacted my senators, but I would be very interested to hear of someone trying to justify support for the bill.

Posted in National, State | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Depressing News

Posted on 2008-07-07 by David

Despite what some people may think, my outlook on life is not based on how politically active my fellow citizens are. If it was, this report from the Deseret News would have made today really lousy.

Utah now has the nation’s worst voting participation rates.

We should have participation closer to 65% like Minnesota rather than 36%. We should also have more than 58% voter registration (in fact we should have more than the 67% national average).

Posted in State | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Independence From What

Posted on 2008-07-06 by David

In church today there were a number of things spoken related to Independence Day. One of the people who spokle wa a woman from the UK who noted that the celebration was of independence from Great Britain. Of course that is a natural perspective, but I think that we need to recognize that that what we are really celebrating is independence from oppresive government. In Eighteenth Century America the government of Great Britain was the embodiment of government oppression.

Today we should still be mindful of any government oppression and assert our continued independence by participating in the system and holding government accountable because freedom from government oppression can only be had by clinging to an authority higher and more lasting than the current administration. That is why each officer of government at all levels pledges to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States – now if they would all keep their pledge.

Posted in life | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Patriotic Rivals

Posted on 2008-07-04 by David

I really enjoyed Lyall pointing out the Op-Ed articles on patriotism from McCain and Obama yesterday. I think he was quite right to point out a major flaw in McCain’s statement that patriotism should come “before anything” but I don’t agree that without that flaw the editorial would have been perfect.

I really liked McCain’s reference to the patriotic rivalry of Adams and Jefferson. Though the stature of the rivals is not nearly so great, I consider the contest between McCain and Obama, like most presidential rivals, to be a contest between real patriots. These men almost universally have a great love for their country depite any individual flaws. McCain asks a very good question about our current American spirit of patriotism:

Would they (Adams and Jefferson) find that love of country was just as strong in the hearts of today’s Americans?

Unlike McCain I do not believe they would find our current love of country to be as strong among the nation as a whole. We certainly have patriots today – probably numerically more than in the 18th century – but overall and as a percentage of the population I think that they would find our patriotism to be comparatively lacking. The evidence is in the smallness of most of our individual thinking and in the bitter emptiness of most of our political dialog.

At one time I believed that Obama had the potential to be another Adams or Jefferson, but despite his gift for rhetoric he has been showing himself to be a modern politician, speaking of principles but standing on political expediency. Once again Obama demonstrates his ability to articulate truths which are hard to describe and even harder to implement:

. . . each generation must understand that the blessings of freedom require our constant vigilance, and that true patriotism also means a willingness to sacrifice . . . the liberty we defend {is} the liberty of each of us to follow our dreams. . . . the equality we seek {is} not an equality of results but the chance of every single one of us to make it if we try. (emphasis added)

Obama’s editorial was closer to perfect than McCains, but his actions are no closer to perfectly implementing those high ideals than McCain’s are.

Posted in culture, National | Tagged , , , , | 51 Comments

Very Well (Under)Stated

Posted on 2008-06-28 by David

“There’s always the chance that politics are involved in politics.” Steve Urquhart

I wonder if Steve chuckled to himself when he crafted that bit of wisdom today.

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GOOOH – Elect Regular People

Posted on 2008-06-27 by David

I’m always interested in ways to open up government to the average voter so I was interested when I learned about GOOOH (Hat Tip – Mark Towner). Their mission is to change the way we elect representatives and try to make those representatives more accountable to their constituents.

Because GOOOH is a process for selecting representatives (not an agenda-based party platform) we expect a very liberal candidate to be selected in San Francisco and a very conservative one in Colorado Springs — but it will be up to the GOOOH members in each district to decide.

They obviously recognize that some of their ideas will generate some friction:

The most controversial part of GOOOH is that the founder, Tim Cox, has proposed excluding politicians, actively prosecuting attorneys, and individuals with family assets over $11.5 million (250 times the median income) from the process. They are excluded not because they are bad people, but because they are overly represented in government today and, generally speaking, no longer seem to represent the common man.

Personally, as I have spent lots of time thinking and discussing the issue of term limits, I also have a problem with their current stance of promoting a limit of two terms (4 years) in the House -that seems excessively strict to me. On the other hand, it sparked an idea that I would like to explore sometime about the possible ramifications of having a bicameral legislature where one house is term limited and the other is not – allowing voters to be the term limiters in one house and forcing voters to seek fresh faces regularly in the other.

So I like the general idea and I figure that if I want to have any impact in massaging the positions of the group now is the time to act. In any case it’s worth looking into and I would recommend that anyone who is interested in improving our government should go have a look and decide if this is worthy of their support.

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A Fresh Face in Congress

Posted on 2008-06-25 by David

I really don’t mind so much if the voters in Utah always choose Republicans to represent them in Congress so long as they replace at least one incumbent on a regular basis (I’d say at least one new face every other election cycle). For that reason, if for no other, I was happy to hear that Jason Chaffetz ousted Chris Cannon in the Republican primary yesterday. District 3 will have a new face and we are guaranteed to have another new face by 2012 with the addition of District 4.

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