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Interesting look at education philosophies from WSJ OpEd.

I had a teacher once who called his students “idiots” when they screwed up. He was our orchestra conductor, a fierce Ukrainian immigrant named Jerry Kupchynsky, and when someone played out of tune, he would stop the entire group to yell, “Who eez deaf in first violins!?” He made us rehearse until our fingers almost bled. He corrected our wayward hands and arms by poking at us with a pencil.

Today, he’d be fired. But when he died a few years ago, he was celebrated: Forty years’ worth of former students and colleagues flew back to my New Jersey hometown from every corner of the country, old instruments in tow, to play a concert in his memory. I was among them, toting my long-neglected viola. When the curtain rose on our concert that day, we had formed a symphony orchestra the size of the New York Philharmonic.

I was stunned by the outpouring for the gruff old teacher we knew as Mr. K. But I was equally struck by the success of his former students. Some were musicians, but most had distinguished themselves in other fields, like law, academia and medicine. Research tells us that there is a positive correlation between music education and academic achievement. But that alone didn’t explain the belated surge of gratitude for a teacher who basically tortured us through adolescence.

We’re in the midst of a national wave of self-recrimination over the U.S. education system. Every day there is hand-wringing over our students falling behind the rest of the world. Fifteen-year-olds in the U.S. trail students in 12 other nations in science and 17 in math, bested by their counterparts not just in Asia but in Finland, Estonia and the Netherlands, too. An entire industry of books and consultants has grown up that capitalizes on our collective fear that American education is inadequate and asks what American educators are doing wrong.

I would ask a different question. What did Mr. K do right? What can we learn from a teacher whose methods fly in the face of everything we think we know about education today, but who was undeniably effective?

As it turns out, quite a lot. Comparing Mr. K’s methods with the latest findings in fields from music to math to medicine leads to a single, startling conclusion: It’s time to revive old-fashioned education. Not just traditional but old-fashioned in the sense that so many of us knew as kids, with strict discipline and unyielding demands. Because here’s the thing: It works.

Now I’m not calling for abuse; I’d be the first to complain if a teacher called my kids names. But the latest evidence backs up my modest proposal. Studies have now shown, among other things, the benefits of moderate childhood stress; how praise kills kids’ self-esteem; and why grit is a better predictor of success than SAT scores. …

The Journal also reviewed the latest Malcolm Gladwell offering – David and Goliath. Written by a psychology professor at UnionCollege in Schenectady, it is a first class criticism of Gladwell’s approaches.

… In a section on what Mr. Gladwell calls “the theory of desirable difficulty,” he asks: “You wouldn’t wish dyslexia on your child. Or would you?” You might if you were aware that Mr. Boies himself attributes his success to his dyslexia, as do Gary Cohn, the president of Goldman Sachs, and Brian Grazer, the Hollywood megaproducer. Examples like these are the main source of evidence Mr. Gladwell marshals for the claim that dyslexia might actually be a desirable trait. Difficulty reading is said to have forced Mr. Boies to compensate by developing skills of observation and memory, which he exploited in the courtroom. It’s an uplifting story; what seems on the surface to be just a disability turns out, on deeper examination, to be an impetus for hard work and against-all-odds triumph.

Mr. Gladwell enjoys a reputation for translating social science into actionable insights. But the data behind the surprising dyslexia claim is awfully slim. He notes in passing that a 2009 survey found a much higher incidence of dyslexia in entrepreneurs than in corporate managers. But this study involved only 102 self-reported dyslexic entrepreneurs, most of whom probably had careers nothing like those of Mr. Boies or his fellow highfliers. Later Mr. Gladwell mentions that dyslexics are also overrepresented in prisons—a point that would appear to vitiate his argument. He addresses the contradiction by suggesting that while no person should want to be dyslexic, “we as a society need people” with serious disadvantages to exist, for we all benefit from the over-achievement that supposedly results. But even if dyslexia could be shown to cause entrepreneurship, the economic analysis that would justify a claim of its social worth is daunting, and Mr. Gladwell doesn’t attempt it.

To make his point about the general benefits of difficulty, Mr. Gladwell refers to a 2007 experiment in which people were given three mathematical reasoning problems to solve. One group was randomly assigned to read the problems in a clear typeface like the one you are reading now; the other had to read them in a more difficult light-gray italic print. The latter group scored 29% higher, suggesting that making things harder improves cognitive performance. It’s an impressive result on the surface, but less so if you dig a bit deeper.

First, the study involved just 40 people, or 20 per typeface—a fact Mr. Gladwell fails to mention. That’s a very small sample on which to hang a big argument. Second, they were all PrincetonUniversity students, an elite group of problem-solvers. Such matters wouldn’t matter if the experiment had been repeated with larger samples that are more representative of the general public and had yielded the same results. But Mr. Gladwell doesn’t tell readers that when other researchers tried just that, testing nearly 300 people at a Canadian public university, they could not replicate the original effect. Perhaps he didn’t know about this, but anyone who has followed recent developments in social science should know that small studies with startling effects must be viewed skeptically until their results are verified on a broader scale. They might hold up, but there is a good chance they will turn out to be spurious.

This flaw permeates Mr. Gladwell’s writings: He excels at telling just-so stories and cherry-picking science to back them. In “The Tipping Point” (2000), he enthused about a study that showed facial expressions to be such powerful subliminal persuaders that ABC News anchor Peter Jennings made people vote for Ronald Reagan in 1984 just by smiling more when he reported on him than when he reported on his opponent, Walter Mondale. In “Blink” (2005), Mr. Gladwell wrote that a psychologist with a “love lab” could watch married couples interact for just 15 minutes and predict with shocking accuracy whether they would divorce within 15 years. In neither case was there rigorous evidence for such claims. …

Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit writes his weekly TODAY column on the IRS and our mistrust of government and the creeps who work there..

So last week, while most of the country was talking about football or fears of a government shutdown, Rasmussen released a poll that should worry everyone — but especially incumbent Democrats in Congress. According to Rasmussen’s survey, most Americans think the IRS broke the law by targeting Tea Party groups for harassment, but few expect it to be punished. Fifty-three percent think the IRS broke the law by targeting the Tea Party and other conservative groups like the voter-integrity outfit True The Vote; only 24% disagreed. But only 17% think it is even somewhat likely that anyone will be charged, while 74% think that criminal charges are unlikely.

So a majority of Americans think that government officials who exercise an important trust broke the law, but only a very small number think anything will be done to punish them.

There are a couple of lessons to draw from this. One is bad for the country in general, but the other is bad for congressional Democrats.

The lesson for the country is that trust in the government is very low. (In another Rasmussen poll, 70% think that government and big business often work together against consumers and investors. According to Gallup, trust in government is lower than during Watergate.) But it’s worse than that.

Believing that government officials break the law is one thing; believing that they face no consequences when they’re caught and it becomes public is another. Not only is this a sort of “broken windows” signal to other bureaucrats — hey, you can break the law and get away with it — but it’s particularly damaging where the IRS is concerned. …

Andrew Malcolm with late night humor.

Leno: Treasury Secretary Lew says the U.S. will run out of money in three weeks. I’m no financial wizard, but at $16 trillion in debt, didn’t we run out of money $16 trillion ago?

Fallon: President Obama won’t postpone his Asia trip over the government’s fiscal problems. Obama said, “Who do you think I’m gonna ask for the money?”

Leno: A happy wedding today in Washington state–a 90-year-old bride married her 93-year-old boyfriend. They both found someone they wanted to spend the rest of the month with.

Conan: Analysts say Apple’s actual manufacturing cost for the iPhone is $199. That’s just parts. When you add in the labor, it’s $200.

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Megan McArdle with the latest madness from left/liberal mess that is Detroit. 

I’m rarely speechless, but I’m having trouble putting my emotions into words after reading the latest report on the Detroit pension situation. Now, I admit it: I’m kind of naïve. Usually when I see an underfunded pension, I think to myself “poor pensioners — undone by a combination of stupid tax rules, volatile stock markets and mismanagement by trustees who tried to restore depleted fund assets with an investment approach you might call ‘desperate optimism’.” Thus, I was not entirely prepared for the new revelations about the Detroit trustees’ custom of handing out annual holiday “bonuses” to workers, retirees and the City of Detroit. Between 1985 and 2008, they handed out roughly $1 billion this way. Had they been invested, one estimate says those funds would be worth almost $2 billion today — or more than half the current shortfall in the funds.

These “bonuses” were used to lower the contribution the city was required to make, to give retirees a little something extra around Christmas time, and to fund individual savings accounts that workers are offered along with their pensions. In 2009, when the financial markets were completely frozen and the automakers were shotgunning through the bankruptcy courts, the pension trust paid 7.5 percent interest into those accounts — which is about 7.5 percent more than they would have gotten at a bank. This while the pension funds were busy losing about a quarter of their value.

I literally slapped my forehead while reading some of the explanations that the trustees offered for their behavior. …

The Cruz phenomenon covered by John Fund.

… Cruz has for now become the “it” guy for the conservative base as a result of his speech, probably boosting his presidential ambitions. But he has also helped reshape the entire approach Republicans are taking to Obamacare. House speaker John Boehner is suggesting that Republicans will seek a one-year delay in implementing Obamacare as part of any deal to continue funding the government. The Cruz speech may be partly responsible for rattling Senate majority leader Harry Reid so much that he admitted that Obamacare’s tax on medical devices was “stupid,” even while insisting he’d accept no changes in the law. Cruz’s speech may also have spurred Democratic senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia to announce that he wants a one-year delay of Obamacare’s mandate that individuals buy health insurance. And Cruz’s criticisms of Obamacare were partially validated Thursday when the White House announced it was postponing enrollment in most of the small-business exchanges, originally scheduled to open on October 1.

The editorial board of the New York Times has dismissed Ted Cruz as “the public face of the aimless and self-destructive Tea Party strategy to stop health-care reform.” In reality, his speech may have reignited intense opposition to a law many conservatives had fatalistically accepted as unstoppable. It’s too soon to know if Cruz’s speech will have a lasting impact, but the over-the-top criticism by some liberals has revealed just how worried they are about both Cruz’s potential and Obamacare’s future. Cruz “is the most talented and fearless Republican politician I’ve seen in the last 30 years,” Democratic strategist James Carville told ABC News in May. “He is going to be something to watch.”

After all, when Ronald Reagan burst into the national consciousness with his televised “Time for Choosing” speech on behalf of Barry Goldwater’s candidacy in 1964, liberals were united in their scornful dismissal of him. As I recall, the Gipper bested his critics with the last laugh — many times over.

Matthew Continetti explains why Ted Cruz is so hated.

How fitting that Senator Ted Cruz’s 21-hour anti-Obamacare speech on the Senate floor in Washington, D.C., happened to coincide with the opening of the U.N. General Assembly and the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City. Rarely is the distance separating the caste that rules our world from its few, heavily despised critics so literal.

At the midpoint of the Acela corridor, heads of state, foreign ministers, and assorted luminaries from around the world gathered to toast themselves, make new friends, snub the president of the United States, and recycle platitudes on climate change, gun control, global poverty, the health care cost curve, and the Global South, all while clogging Midtown traffic, occupying posh hotels, fooling gullible media personalities, and enjoying the best of Manhattan’s entertainment, nightlife, culture, and cuisine.

At the other end of the tracks the freshman conservative from Texas stood on the floor of the Senate and spoke for close to a day in an effort to deny money to President Barack Obama’s chief legacy—a misbegotten and unpopular law whose unintended consequences are already being felt in labor and insurance markets. Digressive, flamboyant, ideological, earnest, theatrical, self-promotional, at times touching and at other times goofy, Cruz deserved applause for his commitment and, at least, for his stamina. He established himself as the leader of the anti-Obamacare forces, forced the Democrats to defend their misbegotten law, and pulled the public discourse rightward. And while one might disagree with his strategy—neither Cruz nor his supporters have fully answered, in my view, the question of what they will do after this plan fails—one cannot help admiring the boldness and tenacity with which Cruz pursues his goal.

But that’s just me. Many other people, reasonable people, Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, and liberals, have been more than able to resist Cruz’s charms, such as they are. And their resistance has been so visceral, so virulent, so out of proportion to the reaction to earlier marathon floor speeches and filibusters that explanations seem necessary. …

Ann Coulter wants Cruz Control on all GOP models.

… Those guys waived Obamacare for themselves. If national health care is so great, why don’t they want it?

In every single category of Crap Forced On the Country by the Left, liberals always have a work-around for themselves.

They love the public schools and denounce school choice — but their kids go to St. Albans or Sidwell Friends. As Al Gore responded to a question from a black journalist for Time magazine who asked him why he opposed school vouchers while sending his own kids to private schools, “My children — you can leave them out of this!”

Oh, now I see.

Liberals are always eager to release criminals and block crucial crime-fighting strategies such as stop-and-frisk — which they announce from the safety of their antiseptic, crime-free neighborhoods. They love the homeless, but try putting a homeless shelter in their doorman buildings.

They tell us guns won’t protect us — and then we find out the loudest of them all have armed guards. Staunch gun-control advocate Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago had three armed guards with him at all times, as well as an armored car. Mayor Rahm Emanuel also has armed guards and an armored car. Chicago aldermen are allowed to carry any guns they like. But until very recently (we hope!) the people of Chicago were virtually prohibited from being armed.

Are you beginning to see the pattern?

Liberals love affirmative action — provided their offspring still get into Harvard, Yale or Princeton. How about they give up their kids’ seats to disadvantaged minorities?

Class warriors Warren Buffett and the Nation magazine’s Katrina vanden Heuvel hired phalanxes of lawyers to fight the IRS when informed they weren’t paying the government what they owed. George Soros and the Kennedy family stash their money in offshore accounts, safe from U.S. taxation.

Liberals also strongly support every manner of environmental regulation — unless it blocks the view from the Kennedy compound. In deference to Teddy Kennedy’s ferocious opposition to wind farms off the coast of Cape Cod, the federal government reduced the number of turbines, moved them farther off the coast and ordered them painted white to blend in with the view.

And now these government do-gooders shoving Obamacare down our throats have managed to exempt themselves from its wonderful provisions. Supreme Court justices won’t have to suffer under Obamacare, but will continue to have their health care subsidized by us, the hapless taxpayers forced into this rotten system. …

Peter Wehner will have none of this. He thinks Cruz is a disaster.

… As I’ve argued several times before (including here), this whole gambit was based on the fiction, perpetrated by Cruz and others, that the Affordable Care Act could be defunded (without even a single Democratic vote, according to Cruz). That was never true. That goal was an illusion. A mirage. A delusion. And surely Mr. Cruz, an intelligent and well-educated man, knew it. There was simply no way a Democratic Senate and Barack Obama would abolish his signature domestic achievement. And defunding the ACA would require just that.

No matter. Senator Cruz, along with several of his colleagues, convinced many grassroots conservatives and Tea Party members that the end game was to put a stake through the heart of ObamaCare, once and for all. If you sided with them, you were a principled conservative who opposed ObamaCare; if you were against them, you were part of the “surrender caucus.” This was cast as a Moment of Truth. 

Now the whole thing is being exposed for what it was – a game. And the (inevitable) failure by Cruz and the others will leave these people crushingly disappointed and enraged. They were led to believe something that was simply not true – and many of them still don’t know they were misled.

Beyond all that is the damage this inflicts on conservatism. Conservatism, after all, is a political philosophy that is (or should be) anti-utopian, empirical, prudent, somewhat modest in its expectations and firmly grounded in reality. That’s certainly not all that conservatism is, but those elements comprise it. Yet here we are, with a large part of the conservative movement having taken a journey through the looking glass.

This whole episode was a low moment for genuine conservatism.

Victor Davis Hanson on the late great middle class.

… Obama promised to restore the middle class. In truth, he has enacted the very policies that have done it the most damage in years. That paradox may explain why his base of support remains the very rich and the very poor. Goldman Sachs, federal bureaucrats, and aid recipients are helped in a way that the strapped hardware-store owner, Starbucks barista, and part-time welder are not.

For all the talk of infrastructure or stimulus, the latest $6 trillion in federal borrowing seems to have been wasted on bailing out insider banks and green companies, growing the federal work force, regulating the private sector into stasis, and subsidizing those who are not working.

The Federal Reserve still keeps interest rates at near zero. That mostly helps Wall Street, where money flows madly in search of any sort of return.

Most real interest rates for consumer purchases somehow remain exorbitant. Banks obtain their money cheaply and lend it out expensively. No wonder that so many Wall Street and banking executives — Timothy Geithner, Jack Lew, Peter Orszag, Gene Sperling, Larry Summers — revolve in and out of the highest levels of this “no revolving door” administration.

Middle-class workers see little chance of retiring when their meager savings earn almost no interest, so they are apt to stay on the job longer. Their continuance only makes unemployment rates for young entry-level workers even worse.

Obama always threatened higher taxes on the well-off. He achieved that goal with a new 39.6 percent federal rate on upper incomes, a rate paid on top of state and payroll taxes. Yet such steep taxes do not much affect the super-rich. Their income is often exempted through sophisticated tax avoidance or, more often, earned through lower-taxed capital gains. …