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Microsoft's Political Lobbying Record
pierreduFwench writes "With the U.S. national elections just around the corner, you may find this interesting: Opensecrets.org, a website focusing on 'Responsive Politics' recently published lobbying and donations info for the 2002 elections (to date). You can see the breakdown of
Microsoft's individual dossier here. Also, looking at the 'Top Donations by Industry', you may notice that Microsoft is, conspicuously, the only entry under 'Computers/Internet.'" Very interesting graphs.
what more evidence do people need?
huge organizations designed to aggregate money with all the rights and abilities as citizens. how can the interests of individuals even come close to being recognized in an arena like that?
they can't.
and this is new because... ?
the open secrets site seems to have a subconscious agenda of its own and they need to be careful about spending too much time exposing just one shady ass organization
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
As everyone knows by now, Gray Davis got money from Oracle. Shouldn't that be a Computers/Internet entry?
I like how all this lobbying started right about when the anti-trust suits started rolling in. Hell, they even set up a "Washington lobbying office". It seems that it might have worked, considering no one really knows what their 'punishment', if any, is.
'When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.' -HST
I don't think it comes as any great shock that Microsoft is doing all they can to get their hads in politicians pockets.
Microsoft walks and talks like a big tobacco company. All that's missing is Bill Gates in cowboy boots.
It's interesting how the tobacco companies (also huge lobbyists) ancestors owned slaves, whereas Microsoft has enslaved the human race with their craptacular software.
IF microsoft is spending 3 million in 2002 on contributions, how much are they spending on unreported little perks (a notebook to "try out" for a couple of years, fully functional "demo" copy of software, etc)?
Technology is most abused by the very people it was created to help
What is more interesting is that Washington Democrat Senator Maria Cantwell was elected -- "winning" by a red cunt hair against Slade Gordon -- after spending all the fake only-exists-on-paper money she "earned" from being CEO of Real Media.
3 2801.asp
She had to be bailed out after her company and their lousy spyware bloatware crashed and burned, and is now ironically bringing in lots of money from the infamous creators of Windows Media: Microsoft.
More info:
http://www.cantwellscash.com/
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/michelle/malkin0
So where's the report on KPCB?
The venture capital firm behind Netscape, Oracle, Sun, Apple, etc etc etc etc...?
Until halfway through the antitrust trial, Microsoft's donations were nearly negligible. Compare and contrast that with the above. Don't forget to include the members of the boards of directors of these companies as individuals, as well as their spouses and immediate family when looking up their donations.
You may be surprised. Microsoft is very new at this game; Silicon Valley has been doing it for YEARS.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Anyone have a mirror?
"The lesson to be learned is not to take the comments on slashdot too literally." --Vinnie Falco, BearShare
I'm surprised that MS was the focus of this story. According to the website, other computer companies donated more than MS did. Yeah, MS was the only one under "Computers/Internet," but AOL Time Warner is on there under "TV/Movies/Music." AT&T, Bellsouth, Verizon...they're also internet providers, and all four of those companies gave more than MS did.
MS clocked in with $9.5M, where AOL spent $12M, and AT&T clocked in with a whopping $17.5M!! Man, I wish they'd lobby me for something...
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
It is a sad thing that all the real power in this country lies in the big companies, ie, Microsoft, Tobacco companies, Enron, and so on. They are the ones that decide what passes and what doesn't. That's why us, the average joe, has to put up with stupid laws like the DMCA. This is a sad, but true development.
The American Federation of Teachers ($15,512,224
) is throwing in much more than Microsoft is on lobbying efforts ($9,468,287).
And look at how lopsided their contributions are toward democrats. They obviously have special interests- this needs a lot of attention from the media!
"Microsoft is, conspicuously, the only entry under 'Computers/Internet.'"" Microsoft also conspicuously has tens of billions of dollars in cash to sit on. Heaven forbid that they have any interests in politics.
And this is interesting how?
Did you know Dick Cheney was chief executive officer of Halliburton, a huge oil company?
Anyone shocked by the fact that Philip Morris, a tobacco company, is in the top 5 all time donors?
A company is bound to invest where it thinks its future revenues will lie.
In this case the future revenues will come from legislation protecting Intellectual Property monopolies. Sad but true. Every million dollars spent protecting interests in DC will return manyfold millions of dollars in terms of higher prices for product.
Maybe there is a ray of hope though. The so-called robber barons of the railroads, steel, shipping and oil back at the end of the 19th Century were eventually reined in. I wonder why they didn't lobby the hell out of government at the time, and if they did, why did they lose the battle against anti-trust legislation?
A decade ago, Chairman Bill was minor league, but decidedly democratic, by a 3:1 margin. This was back when Big Blue was the great enemy, and Microsoft wrote cool Mac software (oh, yeah, and DOS.)
As his power base has grown, and as he has become more entrenched and established, he has increasingly favored the Republicans. Of course, the decision of the Clinton white house to trustbust him can't have helped.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
Hmmm. I sometimes wonder if it wouldn't be more profitable to create than to litigate? Look at Anti GPL lobbying efforts mentioned earlier this week. I mean, you think a better defense for a company would be to just churn out out better products for lower prices. It would certainly have a chilling effect on their competition.
I also wonder how many tax breaks are afforded these corporations at the customer's expense - and how it might be better for the economy if we had more cash on hand to buy more of their products - versus more cash for them to lobby.
I guess it's easier to litigate than to create.
--- have you healed your church website?
The reason for this was that the broadcasters and the TV manufacturers and pretty much everyone else remotely interested in HDTV standards had tons of lobbyists working full time to push their interests, except for companies in the computer industry. A couple computer companies had a couple of part-time lobbyists working on this, or something pathetic like that.
Microsoft is not doing something bad here. The ones doing something bad are all the other companies that should be on that list but aren't.
According the site Jay Inslee has got most from MSFT, total of $237,400 - nice money already. He is one of the persons behind the "Internet Radio Fairness Act" - "designed to make the copyright royalty arbitration process more fair for smaller entities." What else has he been involved with?
Perhaps we already have one (correct me if you know), but it seems that a lot of important tech issues are being decided in Washington by the highest bidder. Two things get action in the U.S. political system...money and votes. They pay attention to groups of people - like the steel workers of america - because they vote uniformly in mass and all contribute financially to their PAC. There are way more of us (the open source community) than many of these unions...we just need organization. I'd be more than willing to give the amount I owe in taxes each year to the Free Software Foundation to balance off as a tax credit if they acted as a PAC for our cause.
It completely reaffirms why I can't stand the Republican party.
Look at the charts that are overwhelmingly Republican. Tobacco, Oil, Big Business.
Now look at the charts that are overwhelmingly Democrat. Individual Rights, Workforce Rights.
Realistically both parties completely suck, but I still don't know how anyone with any common sense or sense of social Justice can be a Republican.
maybe I'm just being paranoid, but look at it :
prior to the swinging of the executive pendulum towards the republicans, more of their money went to democrats. but ( and it would be interesting to see what they gave in 97 and 99 ) when things took a turn for the worse publicly ( interns, cigars, cum-stained clothing ), more money goes to the republicans. i'd like to see what they did in 99, when everyone sort of just said fuck it, so what if he banged an intern? look at hillary... and got over it.
looking at the numbers, i'd say they were hedging their bets in 98-00, and then went w/ the winner when dubya got in. judging from the results of the case, i'd say it paid off.
PC moderators can suck my White pierced, tattooed dick. If you think pride == hate, s/dick/Aryan meat mallet/g.
...to the grotesque and lopsided amount of influence big labor has. But wait, they're for the "little guy" just like the Democrats. Hah. Vote Libertarian.
http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/
Blue Chip Investors
Top Donor Dossiers
Here you'll find total contributions for the 100 biggest givers in American politics since 1989--information that exists nowhere else. Read the full report. Read about our methodology.
* View top organizational givers by rank
* View top organizational givers by alphabetical order
* View top individual contributors from these organizations
Search for an organization by name:
Top 10 donors:
American Fedn of State, County & Municipal Employees $30,671,426
National Education Assn $21,116,383
National Assn of Realtors $20,414,385
Assn of Trial Lawyers of America $19,931,717
Philip Morris $18,951,671
Teamsters Union $18,858,733
Intl Brotherhood of Electrical Workers $18,394,547
American Medical Assn $18,377,814
Service Employees International Union $17,647,346
Communications Workers of America $17,597,372
+5:offtopic,but anti-American
Maybe a little offtopic, but: :)
Labor lobbying is 94% slanted towards Democrats!
I'm surprised only because I always thought it was just a stereotype. Good article. Thanks for sharing
I'm a 2000 man.
Both soft-money and hard-money contributions to either political party should be flat-out illegal.
With this kind of money flying around, there's no way in hell that the Senate and Congress will represent the people, and be for and held accountable to the people. They're for the corporations and accountable to them, as well as other money-laden organizations.
Money being given to politicians for political objectives is disturbing, no matter who does it. Its obviously disturbing when its MS and the Tobacco companies giving money to politicians, especially when the government's supposed to be trialing MS for being an illegal monopoly.
Its also disturbing when teachers unions donate 15M dollars. Sure, some of that goes to make sure that the teaching of evolution isn't outlawed in schools. But most of it goes towards protecting bad teachers who should be fired. Thanks to fanatical tenure terms enforced by teachers unions, teachers who should be fired aren't. Point in case, Rita Wilson. That child-molesting bitch sexually harassed, sexually assaulted, and violated the privacy of at least twenty teenaged girls entering a school dance. Another great one is the case around Brandy Blackbeard, where some retarded teacher accused her of "casting a hex on him" and she was suspended.
Contributions to politicians from organizations are just thinly veiled bribes. In a democracy, everyone is supposed to be equal, but such contributions make that impossible. Ideas and laws are propogated not based upon how many voting citizens like them or how good they are, but on who has the most money to give to politicians. Point of case, the DMCA, and the 1998 Mickey Mouse Copyright Extention Act.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
People choose to use MS. No one chose to be a slave.
...MS Election?
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
Notice how the site posts the following disclosure at the bottom of many of the Congressional query pages:
Quality of Disclosure:
Quality of disclosure data has been removed from the site because of errors in the Federal Election Commission's database. The FEC has informed us that it will not supply updated disclosure data until mid-October. We will post new figures on disclosure quality as soon as possible.
Convenient timing, eh? Elections are November 5th, and the FEC won't supply the updated information until "mid-October". That's probably not enough time for opensecrets to input the data before the elctions.
If the FEC supplied that information on a timely basis, I might be able to make a more educated decision on November 5th.
Suspicious timing, if you ask me.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
The corporations have no police or armies of their own to speak of (thankfully), and any power they have is given to them by a government which is available to the highest bidder(s). If that government didn't have the kind of power it does, the corporations would have to create their own force, which would alienate their customers.
It's a myth that the US government holds back the corporations and forces them to play fair. For at least a hundred years it has done the opposite. The only times it every does anything right is when some wealthy person or group pays it to.
Unfortunately, there is no graceful way to change this situation. Try to change the government and the corporations work against us. Try to change the corporations and the government works against us. It will come to a head this century.
Microsoft is, conspicuously, the only entry under 'Computers/Internet
Hold on to those conclusions cowboy, just because they are the only entry does NOT mean that they are the only technology contributor.
Opensecrets is a GREAT site, and I really appreciate their efforts[1], but their database is far from complete. I've been browsing the site over the last few days, and I notice that Opensecrets has information for many of the Democratic congressional candidates, but not for many Republican candidates.
Check out the race in my District. We have information for Barbara Lee, for the other two candidates, it says "No reports on record for this candidate. ". Not a good measure, yet.
Does this mean that Democrat$ receive more money then Republican$? NO!
It simply means that, for whatever reason, Opensecrets has the data for the Democrats, but has less information for the Republicans.
[1]: So valuable that I donated money to them, even through I just got laid off. YOU SHOULD DONATE TOO).
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Corporations are neither human beings nor are they citizens. The notion that they are entitled to donate money to a politician is ridicules. If corporations are allowed to donate money to politicians or political parties (which they are) then so should other none citizens and inanimate objects like, rocks, dirt, houses, house pets, books, computers, etc. Corporations are inanimate objects that have been granted (unfairly) anthropomorphic powers because they are the possessions of the 'super rich'. As long as this situation is allowed to endure the US should not be considered a democracy.
Yes, but Big Labor has magnitudes more people then Big Oil.
For example, AFCME has
1.3 million members, and contributed $30,671,426 between 1990 - 2002. That's a whole stinking $5 per year per member. Mostly to Democrats. Big wow.
The oil industry, on the otherhand, gave $147,101,710 between 1990 - 2002, $108,198,576 of which went to Republicans.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Conservatives keep claiming this. It's been debunked before. Here's the best example, from p. 5 of Paul Krugman's excellent piece "For Richer":
You can (and should) go read the whole thing right now: For Richer
You don't know jack about inner-city schools. The problem isn't vouchers, the problems are
1. No one wants to teach there.
2. No one wants to go to school there.
3. No one wants to live there.
In Detroit, substitute teachers get FULL health coverage (and of course Kevlar vests). The current daily substitute count is about 2,000.
As for vouchers, schools of choice, charter schools. How does this help the inner-city? Are parents going to drive their kids to the good schools in the subburbs every morning? Maybe you'd be kind enough to start a bus service.
What about reinventing education with charter schools? Charter schools have proven to be a total failure and that fact is proven out with test scores?
What about "schools of choice"? This is a fancy way of saying, we want to take our tax dollars and fund exclusive private schools that our kids go to. Also, the exclusive private schools don't have to take problem kids or handicapped kids and reserve the right to boot anyone they want back to public schools. So we get the money and the best kids, and you can turn your public school into a home for all the people we reject. Nice!
If you have an answer I'd like to hear it. The only solutions I can see are:
1. We need a lot more giving caring teacher in the innercity.
2. The innercity needs to stop having more children than they can properly parent.
3. The republicans need to stop trying to rape all the money out of public education so they can go fund "star wars" or "bombing Iraq".
Lastly, packing in bodies has nothing to do with Federal FUNDS. The reason bodies are packed in is because THERE AREN'T ENOUGH TEACHERS IN THE INNER-CITY, so class sizes grow HUGE! I am sure Deroit would love to have 15 kids per class in the lower elementary, but guess what.. there aren't enough teachers! Additionally, the Feds and State are going to pay out no matter where that kid ends up.
My apologies to the NON-Americans out there, but this offtopic post was neccessary.
Microsoft, like many other industries, is under attack by government. Microsoft, like many other industries, is trying to buy off the US government by lobbying Congress. It's a slimy, immoral thing to do, and I'd expect just that of Microsoft. But it's not illegal.
Ya know, everyone thinks corporations have too much power over the government. Thing is, everyone blames the corporations. Me, I blame the GOVERNMENT. What, they make bribery legal, and you blame people and organizations for taking advantage of the fact?
Everyone pisses and moans about the US being ravaged by capitalism and the free market. But the United States doesn't run under a capitalist system. It runs under a MERCANTILIST system, which is a very different animal. A truly free market can't exist when the government meddles with it, with taxes and tax credits, and regulations and licenses... A large corporation is very happy to have regulations placed on it; those rules may decrease its profits a little, but a smaller business will wither and die under that chilly wind. Do you wonder why small companies are disappearing?
Microsoft isn't the only major corporation that has been funneling money to political organizations. Looking at the top 100 list, you'll see a lot of companies with "questionable" ethics that "donate" even larger sums of money than Microsoft:
5 Philip Morris $18,951,671
12 AT&T $17,464,374
18 Citigroup Inc $14,762,646
19 United Parcel Service $14,621,284
21 Goldman Sachs $13,665,527
26 AOL Time Warner $12,195,822
28 FedEx Corp $11,555,286
29 BellSouth Corp $10,838,209
30 SBC Communications $10,695,349
31 Verizon Communications $10,255,052
33 RJR Nabisco/RJ Reynolds Tobacco $10,079,162
34 Ernst & Young $9,967,638
35 Lockheed Martin $9,862,899
36 JP Morgan Chase & Co $9,861,326
40 Microsoft Corp $9,468,287
The EFF can educate legislators and encourage people to write to them, and I believe the EFF already does this. But the EFF probably isn't allowed to do too much more with the legislative branch- certainly they can't hand money to them.
In fact, the Green Party is the only one that thinks corporate power is a problem. And we are the only party whose values line up with the open-source commuity. See for yourself at http://www.greenpartyus.org/
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
Personal safety is certainly a 'rights' issue -- you have no rights if you're trivially open to violation.
Take a look around you. Are they identical to each other in capabilities, when it comes to handling themselves with regards to violence? Probably not -- both physically (some people are larger, faster, stronger than others) and mentally (ability to take in a tactical situation, ruthlessness to follow through if need be). Even if you assume a "fair" situation, the playing field of crime is biased towards an attacker...
An attacker can bring partners and choose his victims, within reason -- there's not much point in trying to carjack pedestrians, for instance, so if he really wants a car, that slightly limits things. But say that a man wants sex, and is a sufficient asshole that he'd rather take it than earn it or pay for it. In that case, he can pick where he operates (e.g. areas with cover where he can hide), when (probably when there are minimal witnesses), and on whom (pref. a woman alone, one smaller and likely much weaker physically). Would you say it's a coin-toss, or would you say that the attacker has an edge? I'd say the latter -- while he may not be bright enough to avoid leaving evidence, that's of little consolation to the victim.
Even for a mugging, weapons aren't needed -- say, three-on-one. Two approach from behind, the third punches in the kidneys or chops at the back of the neck, follow up with groin kneestrike from the front. Even if the victim fights back -- without a weapon, as you would seem to prefer -- the attackers might expect at most a bruise or two, given the ratio, plus the victim's money and other valuables. A lethal firearm equalizes things a bit given that many thugs won't be amenable to taking a bullet (instead of a punch that can be recovered from MUCH more readily) just so his partners can split $40.
Incidentally, in Pittsburgh a serial sex offender was recently caught -- after eight or so victims. He wasn't caught by police footwork -- he was only stopped after he attacked the wrong civillian, twice in one day (the first time, she got away... and went home and retrieved her pistol). Tell the final "victim" that she shouldn't have had a gun.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
No, she wasn't just snorting coke. In fact, she was caught hiding a rock of crack cocaine, by staff at a drug treatment center, at which she was a patient. For this she received a ten day jail sentence. It should be noted that the evidence of her possessing crack was thrown out of court on a technicality, on the presumption that staff members of a medical treatment center should not be compelled to testify given confidentiality rules. However, some staff members had already publicly admitted finding the crack to journalists, so the facts had already become public knowledge.
Given that Ms. Bush has a long history of drug abuse, it's astonishing that the matter wasn't pursued further. Except for her family connections. Further proof that if you're rich or powerful criminal law simply doesn't apply.
--M
Have you heard of primaries and write-in votes, yet? People are permitted to choose their candidates; it's just that a large number feel that it's easier to choose a party affiliation, and many probably vote on the basis of party instead of the competencies and positions of individual candidates.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
D'ya mind if I pilfer your first line ...
... and wave it in all directions? That's the most succinct analysis of the issue I've seen yet.
"Personal safety is certainly a 'rights' issue -- you have no rights if you're trivially open to violation."
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
how else do you fund political campaigns? do you expect the candidates to fund themselves?
easy, the system has been successfully tried before.
Each candidate is alloted equal amount of time on the television and they use it to promote their cause. Similar things with other media etc.
The basic idea is, the government ensures that all candidates are given equal exposure.
In USA, if someone's program appeals to more people but the candidate doesn't have enough money to tell everyone about it, then the jerk with a big purse wins because people will think there is no alternative.
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
H.G. Wells, "The Outline of History"
If that individual is Jane Fonda by outspending them by a massive amount. To quote Counterpunch.org
Anyways a couple of points: First off much of what OpenSecrets.org is tracking here IS contributions by individuals. The methodology of OpenSecrets.org is somewhat flawed, or at least debatable. They are not just taking the contributions of Corporate PACs but also take the contributions of individuals and count them as the contributions of their employers. SO Peter Amstein giving 100% of his money to Democrats and George Spix giving all of his money to Republicans is assumed not to be because they are committed (and wealthy) partisans but because Microsoft Corp is directing their giving for the corporations purposes. This probably has *some* merit when you are talking about the very top tier of management giving hundred of thousands. But Open Secrets also includes every $200 or more contribution by every cubicle dweller at Microsoft. If you gave $200 to a candidate because you agreed with their position on Abortion, Open Secrets doesn 't see it as a healthy participation in democracy but as a nefarious plot by Micro$oft to influence Washington. Even for the big donors I think at least *some* of that money is probably donated not by corporate dictates for corporate purposes but because the individual is a partisan for one or the other party or for some cause. Jane Fonda's $12 million dollar expenditure probably has more to do with her stance on abortion than with trying to get special breaks for Universal Studios. She probably even giving money to candidates that support abortion at the *expense* of her personal financial interests - The Pro-choice Democrats she supports are likely to raise her taxes quite a bit more than the pro-life Republicans she is seeking to defeat.
Also the huge organizations designed to aggregate money (corporations) don't hold a candle next to the huge organizations whose purpose is to aggregate political power - out of the top ten groups donating money to politics only one is a corporations (Phillip Morris) three are proffessional Associations (Realtors, Trial Lawyers & Doctors) the rest are unions.
I find it noteworthy that Microsoft stayed in large part out of the political contributions arena until the government started threatening to force Microsoft to change what so far remains a lucrative business model. The fact that more cash went to the Republicans is due to a Democratic controlled Department of Justice turning up the heat. The favoring of Republicans was simply trying to test things to see if the conservatives would treat them any differently. The Democrats got some favorable financial treatment because some of them didn't like what the administration was doing any more than some Republicans.
It would have been better if the government had stayed out of the fight because:
(1) Microsoft would have stayed out of the political financing racket.
(2) Alternatives products are quietly preparing to kick Microsoft's ass in certain marketing
venues.
Point 1 backfired because it helped the Republicans which are already seen as the enemy of fair competition and the small guy. Oops. You'd think the anti-Microsoft croud would have known better than to go to the government for help because politicos only do things that increase each one's clout. Look at the DMCA as an example. Hollywood will contribute the bejesus out of politicians that go along with them.
As a conservative I look at certain things that have come from Open Source with glee. For instance I firmly believe that current Linux marketing provides an arena where distributors have to compete not on the control of a base platform, but exclusively on the value THEY ADD
to the base. The market will choose the best Value. Simple competition.
And before I forget, quite a few respondents to the original post have based their remarks on the idea that we live in a democracy. It needs to be said once again that we live in a "Representational Republic", not a democracy. We don't vote on everything. We elect officials that (hopefully) represent us when they do the voting.
And very few people in Sweden experience the deep poverty that is all too common in the United States.
Here's interesting food for thought: Swedes who have immigrated to the US also don't experience deep poverty.
It's only a few deadbeats that give America a bad name.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
Mod This Up!!!
Don't forget that they have now admitted that they have nuclear capability. Iraq has just got the potential. I'd be putting N.K on top of my TODO list instead of Iraq!
Burma?
No need to apologise, your rant fitted in with the Australian education system quite well.
Australian? Join EFA
Are parents going to drive their kids to the good schools in the subburbs every morning?
Umm... I suppose they could of course in an inner-city they could simply use public transportation to get to the (usually quite nearby) private schools. I would assume that any parent using a voucher to pay for private school would have figure this out. Some private schools, especially those that cater to the disadvantaged have transportation available.
What about "schools of choice"? This is a fancy way of saying, we want to take our tax dollars and fund exclusive private schools that our kids go to.
That is bull. Most (if not all) school choice plans that have been proposed are either means tested or are limited to children currently attending a school that is deemed to be a failure. In either case "you" don't benefit.
Also, the exclusive private schools don't have to take problem kids or handicapped kids
And yet many do, indeed many private shools ONLY take handicapped kids while others ONLY take problem kids.
So we get the money and the best kids, and you can turn your public school into a home for all the people we reject. Nice!
Even if this were the case (which it is not) the current system is to reject ALL the kids. Bright kid from a lousy neighborhood with poor parents and a lousy school - "well sorry kid you have to fail with the school because if we let you go to a decent school it wouldn't be fair to that kid that beats you up every day. You want to go to that nice private school across town? - that's only for rich kids, poor kids have to go here. Oh where do MY kids go, well I commuted in to give you this message, my kids are going to a nice school in the suburbs". As you said - Nice!
The republicans need to stop trying to rape all the money out of public education so they can go fund "star wars" or "bombing Iraq".
Bzzt. wrong on this one. Education is not primarily funded by the Federal government but by local and state governments - Perhaps a Republican state senator or governor is "raping" these funds (this generally means his proposed *increase* is not as big as his opponents proposal) but not to fund "star wars" or to "bomb Iraq". Also, Republicans generally can't "rape" these funds if they wanted too. Big cities are almost always dominated by Democrats as are many of the states at issue here are as well.
Lastly, packing in bodies has nothing to do with Federal FUNDS. The reason bodies are packed in is because THERE AREN'T ENOUGH TEACHERS IN THE INNER-CITY, so class sizes grow HUGE!
One proposed solution, one I'm sure the teacher's union is in favor of is to pay teachers more and to hire more teachers. There is a lot of validity to this but part of the issue is missmanagment of *existing* funds. Inner city schools have a lousy teacher to administrator ratio. They are top heavy with bureaucracy and the existing funds are wasted to fund that bureaucracy. Unfortunately there are tremendous political barriers to fixing the structural aspects of this problem and throwing more money at it suffers from diminishing returns and perverse results - a larger and larger percentage of the extra money is missmanaged as an ever larger percentage of the increased funds pay for an even more bloated system.
Another solution would be to reduce class size by allowing kids to go to schools that aren't failing. Take just half of what the average public school is spending per child ($5,987 in 1999 according to the Digest of Education Statistics - of course remembering that most inner city schools are spending ABOVE average.) and give it as a voucher to interested parents and you have almost comletely covered the average tuition for that "exclusive" private school ($3,116 - same source) or more than cover the average tuition of a parochial school ($2,178). KEEP the other half (or better) and spend it on the kids that don't chose private schools.The problem with this plan isn't that there isn't enough money to spend on the kids, it's that there isn't enough money to spend on union jobs. If (for example) half the kids choose vouchers you will have 50% of the kids left at the school but have still have 75% of the money. You can spend all of that money on retaining 75% of the teachers and have much smaller class sizes. BUT you are going to have to lay-off 25% of the teachers. It doesn't really matter to a layed-off employee that his former employer is now producing a better product. That employee's union is (appropriately) more concerned about his job than the quality of the product he produces. To bring it back on topic that union is spending more than all but any other group in the country to keep that from happening.
Blue is the obvious choice to add to our existing red (democrat), white (Republican) and green (Green) parties.
So who's ready to get the Blue party rolling?
Vote Blue: the party for Nerds and Geeks!
Energy: time to change the picture.
Another solution would be to reduce class size by allowing kids to go to schools that aren't failing. Take just half of what the average public school is spending per child ($5,987 in 1999 according to the Digest of Education Statistics - of course remembering that most inner city schools are spending ABOVE average.) and give it as a voucher to interested parents and you have almost comletely covered the average tuition for that "exclusive" private school ($3,116 - same source) or more than cover the average tuition of a parochial school ($2,178). KEEP the other half (or better) and spend it on the kids that don't chose private schools.The problem with this plan isn't that there isn't enough money to spend on the kids, it's that there isn't enough money to spend on union jobs. If (for example) half the kids choose vouchers you will have 50% of the kids left at the school but have still have 75% of the money. You can spend all of that money on retaining 75% of the teachers and have much smaller class sizes. BUT you are going to have to lay-off 25% of the teachers. It doesn't really matter to a layed-off employee that his former employer is now producing a better product. That employee's union is (appropriately) more concerned about his job than the quality of the product he produces. To bring it back on topic that union is spending more than all but any other group in the country to keep that from happening.
Thank you for collection all those statistics in one place. It seems to me that it's taken as "common knowledge" that there not being enough money is the cause of schools being bad, when from what I've seen things would get alot better if the union negotiated contracts could be changed. You see, laying off 25% of the teachers wouldn't be difficult, but it wouldn't save you 25% in salaries. The union contracts protect the teachers with longer careers and enforce mandatory yearly rases. You can't cut their salary (as high as $90,000 in some cases, and they can take a part time position in the summer too), and you can't lay them off, you have to get rid of the new teachers that only make $20-30k per year first. Guess which teaches are more likely to still care about the children? It's hard to improve the schools when the teachers union is fighting harder than you can afford to keep them the way they are.
The schools in the city do have problems. No doubts about that. The students are prepared, and are frequently hungry, which makes it quite difficult to pay attention. The parents try to support their kids, but don't have any idea what would make a school work, since many of them never saw a school that did work. etc.
... but for this to work, you've got to remove all of the taxes that were added to support the schools also.
Also, the government takes a lot more money out of the poorer areas than it ever returns in service. When the taxes started being routed through the state capital before visiting the schools, the funding per student dropped quickly. This got worse as more and more of the money made a trip to Washington before coming back. The justification of that law (a judicial decision in Californina, I don't know about elsewhere) was that fairness required equalizing the amount that was paid for schooling the students. Didn't happen. Most of the money goes to the schools that have wealthy parents, and the poorer districts are left with even less than they had originally. (Perhaps it helped for a few years...I wasn't watching things at the time.)
Things have gotten so bad that I truly believe that the best solution is to totally abolish the public school system, and let each city start it up again ab initio
Re: Vouchers.
They don't pay enough to put a kid into a decent school. Not even into a decent babysitting service. So the parents have to be wealthy enough to make up the difference. And you know that the size of the voucher won't increase with inflation. So this is just a fancy way of subsidizing the private school education of the rich kids.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
You see, laying off 25% of the teachers wouldn't be difficult, but it wouldn't save you 25% in salaries. The union contracts protect the teachers with longer careers and enforce mandatory yearly rases.
;) It is much harder for an illiterate graduate to rebound from the misfortune the system is visiting upon him.
Good point. All the more reason for the teacher's union to oppose any potential solution that threatens jobs, regardless of it's merits. The fact is they would have still have to cut the budget by 25% - they may have to cut a full 50% of the staff to get that 25% budget cut - and if they really screw up such a transition, inflexible unions, incompetant managment, poltically motivated decisions they could screw it up to the point where they simply dissolve away. It must be said that this would be profoundly unfair to the many dedicated and caring teachers that would lose their jobs. But the current system is even more spectacularly unfair to many thousands of kids. The teachers are adults, they will find another job (the nearby private schools will probably be hiring
That's funny - it seems to me I always hear about how we need campaign finance reform to stop evil corporate interests from electing evil Republicans to pass evil laws that favor *gasp* business.
The numbers here show 60% of all money reported on the website for this election cycle went to Democrats. This is odd, as the author of the page seems to favor Democrats (this is not 100% factual - I'm basing that on the fact that most big Democrat contributions are explained by some sort of "fear" of what the Bush administration will do to hard working Americans while most big Republican contributors are written off as "corporate interests")
It would seem that the idea of this page was to encourage campaign finance reform. For a look at what "reform" really means check this out (same source) This is the effect of "reform." The disproportional amount of money going to the Democrat party can be explained by finance reform focusing mostly on corporate donors while ignoring the big labor unions which, as you can see, donate as much money as any corporation.
This supports the idea that Congress should NOT try to regulate the amount of money spent on getting a message out about a particular candidate, as this is directly limiting how "free" a person's speech really is. (ie. Say what you want about whatever candidate you like - until you spend more than X amount saying it, then you'd better shut up or we'll throw you in jail)
For a good article on campaign finance reform, check here.
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Even if this were the case (which it is not) the current system is to reject ALL the kids. Bright kid from a lousy neighborhood with poor parents and a lousy school - "well sorry kid you have to fail with the school because if we let you go to a decent school it wouldn't be fair to that kid that beats you up every day. You want to go to that nice private school across town? - that's only for rich kids, poor kids have to go here. Oh where do MY kids go, well I commuted in to give you this message, my kids are going to a nice school in the suburbs". As you said - Nice!
The "nice" was meant to be sarcastic. As in, "yes" we will give you a voucher, but it geographically unworkable for you. Many cities, especially Detroit, don't have decent mass transportation, thus it would impossible for kids to use their vouchers. The geography creates a barrier that can't be easily overcome.
And as for the picking teachers, give me a break. How would you like to trade your current salary for a teachers salary? Additionally, teachers are "always on", every minute they are in the classroom. With private sector jobs, you can sluff-off, congregate at the water cooler, and get a nice big fat check at the end of the week.
Most teachers I know are both caring and compotent. However the amount of administrivia required by teachers is sickening. For example, teachers all have email so that School Board Administration can contact them with the latest useless form they need to fill out. Classrooms now have phones, so that the administration or parents can call anytime. Additionally, "kids have rights" and kids know it, which makes discipline a lot tougher than a "swat on the bum".
Teachers need to spend their precious time on teaching and not babby sitting, collecting lunch money, or other administrivia BS that does not directly benefit the education experience.
Anyone who thinks it's easy and piece of cake ought to give it a try and make your "HOW-TO" video tape available. Our society could benefit from it greatly. Perhaps start with a 1st grade elementary classroom in the innercity and show us how to get all those kids reading at 1st grade level by the time they leave.
We need more teachers, smaller class sizes, and better parents.
how can the interests of individuals even come close to being recognized in an arena like that?
Well, you'll get plenty of folks arguing about one kind solution to this problem: limiting the power and influence of corporations. It's too easy to get angry about things like this.
The only other solutions I see are:
- Increase the power of citizens by increasing the amount of money they have.
- Increase the power of citizens by granting them some of the same kinds of powers that corporations enjoy, such as limited liability.
Yes, I recognize that getting the amount of money to citizens is a real difficult problem to solve, since the money supply is limited and every effort of the powers that possess money is to keep the status quo (that's why many people with money tend to be called "conservatives"). But I wanted to state the obvious because it's often overlooked.I haven't thought much about the second answer, but it seems like there could be problems, like if you decide to "go public" and sell rights to yourself in the marketplace, SEC disclosure requirements, etc.
Historically, though, money has always gotten access to power and vice versa.
I keep hoping that with a democratic republic, free sources of information and a sufficient number of enlightened citizens means that government can be moved gradually and intelligently towards being more responsive to its citizens rather than catastrophically when things just get too untenable for most people.
I don't think the Power$ That Be are only susceptible to either threats of violence or to feeling guilty about making other people miserable. I think that they are responsive to money flow, so that actions such as buying decisions, if organized, can influence things, too. That's a situation where aggregation of citizen's money can effectively become a power and an influence, too.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
- Corporations don't have a death expectancy, so they could be around for hundreds of years without having to pay any form of inheritance tax.
- Some people seem to think that the corporations with the most money know what's best for the nation. This is not correct. Any form of goverment relies on the integrity of it's leaders. Corporations also do not represent the general public: their purpose is to make a profit and provide an income for their employees without much thought as to the well being of the people they receive money from. There is also no system of checks and balances.
In recent history private industry has been entrusted with much power in an effort to manage national resources more efficiently. People started to believe that mergers and privatization were the solutions to all problems. Now as we lower our expectations of the integrity of big business, we see the aftermath in a market downturn.
With power comes responsibility.
Someone being kidnapped from Africa, shoved in a boat and held in horrible conditions to cross the Atlantic is not the same as an indentured servant.
Granted I thought of that too when posting but the people that were indentured servants (this still exists today btw, I know of people from vietnam that went through the same thing). Indentured servants are trying to escape a bad situation in the hope of something better for themselves or at least their children. A slave in all likelihood was taken from a place they didn't want to leave.
The "nice" was meant to be sarcastic
As was mine. Listen inner-city public schools are completely failing their students. We have known this for many years, attempts have been made all along to fix them but they are still failing. I think it is (figuratively) criminal that we won't give the kids that could *for less money* escape from this system the option to do so. It is (sarcasm)"Nice"(/sarcasm) that we are willing to wait for generations for reform after reform to (maybe) work rather than give these kids the chance to get into schools that are already succeeding in the same environment.
but it geographically unworkable for you. Many cities, especially Detroit, don't have decent mass transportation, thus it would impossible for kids to use their vouchers. The geography creates a barrier that can't be easily overcome.
A) While many cities may not have decent mass transportation most cities have mass transportation sufficient to solve many of the problems we are talking about. (I see private school kids using the "T" in Boston or the crappy RIPTA busses in Providence all the time - *particularly* in poor neighborhoods). B) Many troubled neighborhoods already have private schools - no geography problem!. C) Some private schools do offer transportation and/or are willing to help coordinate efforts to solve this problem.
This geography issue is a red herring. Wherever private charity has stepped into a failing school system with private vouchers or in the few pilot government voucher programs (Clevland and Milwaukee) they have been SWAMPED with far more people than they had vouchers (usually a third or better of those that qualified for the program). All those parents seemed to think they could overcome the "problem" of transportation. The parents that DID get the vouchers managed to find solutions.
How would you like to trade your current salary for a teachers salary?
In a heartbeat. (you must have missed the spot where I lamented my current poverty). I did teach (briefly) in a private school, as did my wife - believe me most private school teachers would LOVE to have a public school salary. You seem to be under the illusion that all private schools are Andover Acadamy - that simply is not the case, most private schools are rather modest affairs with shoe-string budgets & facilities that are often on par (albeit cleaner & better maintained) with the worst public schools.
And as for the picking teachers, give me a break.
I didn't mean to pick on teachers as such, But it is true that most teachers in failing schools *choose* private schools (despite their relatively meager income) or commute from suburbs with decent schools. In Detroit public school teachers are twice as likely to send their kids to private schools than the population as a whole. THIS IS THE RIGHT THING FOR THEM TO DO!! They shold NEVER sacrifice their own childrens well being at the altar of ideology. BUT in as much as their union is willing to sacrifice OTHER peoples children on that altar they are fair game to be picked on. As it turns out even while their union strenously opposes vouchers many public school teachers (one suspects the most altruistic, and caring ones) SUPPORT school vouchers - the Association of American Educators surveyed its members (90 percent of whom are government school teachers) and discovered that 62 percent were in favor of school choice (including vouchers) while only 32 percent opposed. This pretty much agrees with my own observations of public school teachers I know. The public school teacher I know who is most vociferously opposed is my father-in-law. He opposes vouchers because he fears government involvement that might come with the money would screw up the *private* schools - and then where would he send his kids? After teaching for years in the inner-city, observing chronic failure, apathy, social promotion, and intense violence including the murder of a teacher by a kid he knew and a quite credible death threat against himself - well, lets just say he's grown a bit cynical.
As for the rest of your comments about the crushing burden of administration, babby sitting etc. I totally agree. Unfortunately the system is currently impossible to reform. I believe the only hope of reform is if there is effective competition.
Perhaps start with a 1st grade elementary classroom in the innercity and show us how to get all those kids reading at 1st grade level by the time they leave.
Umm... try taking a walk to the closest parochial school in the most run-down section of the city. Serving the EXACT SAME socio-economic group with all the same problems and pathologies. They have been built from the start with the reforms you claim you want (but seem impossible to attain) in the public schools: effective discipline, smaller class sizes, focus on education rather than on tertiary concerns. They are already succeeding but the cost, even though it's only a little more than a third of what we spend per pupil in public schools, is too high for most inner-city parents.