mjzenz – Page 4 – A Jumbled Little World

Collective Bargaining Rights and the Importance of a Strong Civil Service.

Democrats should be less concerned about the exploitation of white-collar labor and more concerned about a strong non-partisan civil service.

The “company town” provides the quintessential image of exploitation of blue-collar labor during the 20th century. Such a town was established (or sprang up spontaneously) around a large company in order to to house the company’s workers. Workers purchased and rented homes close to the factory, and because the large company dominated the local employment market workers committed themselves to staying with the company by taking actions (like buying a house) that tied them to the community. Those workers also took out loans from banks closely associated with the company in order to buy their homes, cars, and other goods. In this way they were indebted to their employer. That debt made them even less mobile. All of these factors gave the workers in the town a substantially weaker bargaining position; their decision to stay in their community became tied with the decision to work for the company, and this made them unwilling to take risks when bargaining.

The modern analog of factory-town exploitation is what one might call “specialization exploitation.” I’m not sure I’m convinced by the existence of this modern form of exploitation, but many Democrats are. This modern exploitation supposedly functions as follows. Workers, even white-collar ones, are convinced to spend significant time and resources on education and work experience that will allow them to provide particular services to the holders of capital (mainly corporations). Many of those workers incur debt obtaining that education and experience, and subsequently will be less likely to take risks or hold out for higher pay in negotiations with the capitalists. Because moving requires substantial resources, those with debt are also less likely to seek out higher paying jobs in other parts of the country. In such a non-competitive labor market, capitalists are able to exploit the desperation and immobility of white-collar laborers in order to reap greater profits. And because laborers possess the financial burden of improving their own human capital (primarily through education), and they borrow from the capitalists to obtain it, the white-collar laborer must live in debt service to the capitalists who are also her employers. This gives a morally relevant explanation to slow wage growth; it is the result of capitalist exploitation of labor.

The analogy is even stronger for those with skills specialized for public service. Unlike for a lawyer or salesperson, the school teacher or social worker who is fired faces uncertain employment prospects unless she is willing to move. In those, and many other domains of service, the government dominates. Therefore, it seems that public servants are often put in a similar bargaining position as workers in “company towns” of yore; either take what the company gives you or leave town (at often great cost).

This story comes from the intellectual descendants of early 20th century Socialists. Those who have a great affinity for Thomas Pikitty’s recent book Capital in the Twenty-first Century should probably count themselves among this group. In their view, all wage earners are in similar disadvantaged bargaining position with respect to managers and owners of capital. Social workers, teachers, and clerks are in a similar position as welders and construction workers. And the basic situation of all wage earners has changed little over the past century; even though their objective economic condition has improved immensely, relative to the capitalists they are still disadvantaged. This is one important reason why liberals are very concerned with the collective bargaining rights of public workers and other white-collar workers. It is thought that only through collective bargaining can workers of any type be on equal footing with their employers. It is a way to make sure that workers get fair compensation and treatment.

I think that something like the above story is correct, though I find the depiction of early 20th century company towns to be more convincing than the modern variant. However, I don’t think it actually matters much for Wisconsin politics whether the modern socialist view of labor economics is correct or not. What matters is the fact that most Wisconsinites generally do not buy the fact that white-collar workers need the protections of collective bargaining. And so any objections to the curtailment of collective bargaining rights of public employees justified by appeal to the disadvantaged bargaining position of white-collar public servants is bound to fail. And as we know from recent experience in Wisconsin, this argument largely does fail.

Democrats have also attempted to develop another family of arguments that associates collective bargaining with improved service to the public. In fact, the Wisconsin State Journal recently featured an op-ed by Jennifer Ruef supporting collective bargaining rights for teachers. Ruef claims that improved working conditions for teachers won through collective bargaining have also benefited the learning conditions of students. For instance, union agreements in the past capped class sizes and limited the number of sections teachers must teach in a day. These are probably good policies to benefit student learning, but of course student benefit is only incidental to any benefit to teachers. Teachers unions are representatives of teachers and not students, and as a result they have incentives only to benefit teachers. Although the interests of teachers and students will sometimes align, they often will not. For instance, administrative flexibility in firing and pay decisions likely benefit students by keeping the best teachers and getting rid of the worst ones. Administrators, rather than teacher’s unions have incentives to improve student performance, and there is no reason to think that schools are resistant to adopt policies most beneficial to students, as long as the funds are available. More importantly, the sort of argument Ruef provides (and the claim that teachers unions are out to benefit students) looks fishy to many in the public, and in politics this perception is just as important as reality.

Luckily winning over Wisconsinites to liberal economic views or favorable views of teachers unions are largely unnecessary to justifying the core protections that unions afford public workers. These protections are especially important in public service not because of the disadvantaged bargaining position of public workers but rather was a bulwark against cronyism in the civil service. A public sector labor union create a locus of power not controlled by appointed political officials. This prevents political officials from using the civil service to dole out positions as rewards for political support. Protections from being fired also allow civil servants to file reports and take actions against the wishes of political officials, without fear of political reprisals.

Cronyism is precisely what many Democrats fear in a civil service dominated by political appointees rather than career civil servants, and it is very difficult for public servants to do their jobs if they have to constantly worry about whether their actions will offend whoever happens to occupy the Governor’s Mansion. Of course, in a state dominated by Republicans, increased cronyism would likely benefit them. And this is precisely what can be seen in Governor Walker’s WEDC, which is tasked with spurring economic growth in Wisconsin. Many jobs in the agencies went to campaign supporters of Walker, and much of the money it lent went to companies that supported him. In a Wisconsin with a weaker civil service, more corruption is likely inevitable. For instance, consider whether scientists in the DNR could give an unbiased analysis of the environmental effects of a new mine, if she could be fired and replaced for any reason. A scientist should certainly think twice about being critical of the mine if the politicians who could fire her received campaign contributions from the mine owners.

A strong civil service is one of the most important tools to prevent corruption in government, and a public employee union contributes significantly to a strong civil service. Of course, civil service protections can be written into state law without those employees being unionized. But when a single party controls the entire state government, which happens often in Wisconsin, the law is little restraint to corruption. This argument for public service unions works better for some parts of government than others. It is less clear why public grade school teachers would need to be protected from corruption than it is for state regulators. However, it is reasonable to think that teachers would need some protections from administrative favoritism, incompetence, and arbitrariness. At least I think that an argument can be made for the view that unions are important institutional players that require the administration to justify its decisions; and that certainly is better for both teachers and students. However, I think the argument must be made in different terms than Democrats have done up until now; otherwise they will keep on losing the argument in the eyes of the public.

Reading of Interest

Anyone who wants to learn about corruption that is rampant when there are few protections to those working in the civil service should read about the American bureaucracy during the 19th century. Protections against arbitrary firings and merit-based hiring procedures that were instituted during the early part of the 20th century significantly decreased corruption in the Federal and state governments. The following book is a rather famous depiction of the development of this modern American civil service and the corrupt systems that preceded it.

Stephen Skowronek, Building a New American State: The Expansion of National Administrative Capacities, 1877-1920. Cambridge University Press. 1982.

Being a Democrat in Wisconsin: Putting the beast on a diet

Democrats should embrace incremental agency budget cuts and increased efficiency as means of expanding the functions of government.

A recent story in the Chronicle of Higher Education is quite instructive for how the recent $250 million budget cuts (over 2 years) to the UW system might affect campuses and students. The story concentrates on UW- Eau Claire specifically, which being a mid-sized campus is a good stand-in for the UW campuses other than Madison and Milwaukee. Some of the news is bad. Eau Claire will be cutting some contract faculty and class sizes will be increasing; this is exactly what higher education advocates have insisted would be the result of such dramatic cuts.

But the bulk of the cuts at Eau Claire will be made in administration, by decreasing the amount of routine oversight of operations in the university, and not in positions that are directly related to undergraduate education. In fact, cuts may make the university more efficient by decreasing the number of people who must approve expenditures and be involved in other operational decisions made at the university; anyone who has ever worked at a large public university can attest to the fact that approvals for even mundane expenditures can spend a very long time in an administrative “black hole”. This is exactly what conservatives frequently claim is the result of their cuts; agencies find ways of doing the same things more efficiently, and in fact operate better with less money. This is the main argument against the claim made by Democrats that government funding in the post Reagan U.S. (at all levels) is generally too low. Democrats need a response.

“Starve the beast!”

According to the standard conservative line, one problem with having government fulfill various social functions is that there are no pressures on it to do things efficiently. Competition between private businesses puts downward pressure on prices, which requires businesses to operate as efficiently as possible in order to maximize profit. This automatic market process does not function for monopolies nor when funding is detached from services, and most government agencies operate as at least partial monopolies with their continued existence guaranteed by public funding. This is why conservatives think that government must severely limit the funds of its administrative offices, thus forcing them to operate as efficiently as possible. However, as long as the tax money is available to spend government is often reluctant to limit its own expenditures. This is why conservatives think that taxes must first be cut, thus limiting the funds available to government itself. Only through “starving the beast” can government become more efficient.

What is wrong with this? As with nutrition, there are two wrong ways to go regarding government funding:

“Feed the beast”

“Starve the beast”

The first is a summary of the standard American-liberal view: government funding should be expanded until the size of the American administrative state approaches that of a large European-style welfare state. Ultimately most Democrats think that taxes and government funding are too low, and that the main remedy of this is to increase both. But this is based upon a false belief that the value of services provided by a government agency increases with the funds supplied to it. However, this ignores the various problems that beset the management of organizations in which income is not directly linked to performance. When there are few constraints on resources, managers will have little reason to eliminate positions and individuals that contribute nothing to the mission of the organization, because such actions risk causing strife among those who remain in the organization. It is bad to rock the boat. Additionally, increasing the size of ones department and capturing more funds is almost always seen as a sign of success for managers, even if nothing more is accomplished by it. Therefore, the basic rational constraints on officials within the bureaucracy make it such that increased funds often lead to decreased efficiency rather than significantly increased public service. In that case you keep paying more money for similar services. (See Down’s famous Inside Bureaucracy for more about these simple rational constraints on managers.)

If you feed the beast too much it’s bound to get fat.

However, the standard conservative view that underlies “starve the beast,” that government funding can almost always be cut without hurting government services, suffers from a basic absurdity. Although it is true that organizations must be under constant funding constraints in order for efficiency to be incentivised, constantly cutting funds will always eventually lead to a decrease in the value of services provided by the organization. This is true for both private and public organizations, but unlike private organizations public ones never die from deprivation. When the income of a company, like Kodak for instance, decreases dramatically it is usually not able to respond by simply “finding efficiencies,” but rather is forced to dramatically decrease its output of products and services. This often results in a further decline in income and eventually to the death of the company. RIP Kodak.

Tax-funded public organizations receive income regardless of whether they adequately provide services, therefore there is no death spiral. But those who rely upon them still receive worse services, and if the public organization is a monopoly (like the IRS or Justice Department) then those who must receive services from the organization will be stuck with the new lower level of service. But many liberals think there is something even more nefarious behind the attempts of conservatives to incrementally decrease government funding. Although agencies cannot die a “natural” death like private companies, they can be dismantled by political officials. Therefore, even though conservatives may claim that they intend to make agencies more efficient when they make budget cuts, their actual intent may be to make those agencies so ineffective at providing services as to justify their replacement by private service providers. The liberal conspiracy theory — which I think has some merit — holds that “starve the beast” is really just the first step in the privatization of government functions.

If you starve the beast then it won’t be able to bear its burden.

There is a third perspective on government funding that does not suffer from the problems of the other two: keep the beast on a diet. This sounds simplistic, but the details matter. Political officials must first settle on what level of services government should provide — this will be the subject of great debate — and then settle on what “full-funding” would be required to provide those services. The set of services desired should guide tax rates, while information about what tax rates would be required for a given set of government services gives some guidance about how important those services are. If we are unwilling to pay the taxes required for a given set of services, then perhaps those services aren’t all that important to us. Through this back and forth deliberative process we finally settle on a service and taxing level that is at equilibrium; a tax increase from this level in order to provide more services wouldn’t be worth it nor would a service reduction for a cut in taxes. I take this to be standard thinking among Democrats (and others) about how budgeting should work

But in the next paragraph I say some things heretical to Democrats.

Conservatives are correct that austerity provides agencies incentive to work efficiently; therefore, government should generally fund programs below (though not substantially below) what experts take to be the level of “full” funding. Additionally, a program that meets all of its goals should be incremental and unpredictably deprived of funds in order to keep continual pressure on managers to operate efficiently. The unpredictability of cuts might be combined with salary incentives to eliminate any countervailing incentives managers might have to purposely sabotage service quality in order to avoid cuts. Even though agency funding may be cut if it is doing especially well, such cuts must not act as overall disincentives to provide quality service. And this process should not be seen as solely a way to decrease taxes, though this is how conservative will view it, but rather as a means of freeing up funds for further government services. In a similar way, so called “unfunded mandates” (the bane of all public managers) might be used to see what resources could be allocated to new services through making the delivery of other services more efficient. It is key that these cuts be relatively small, and thus manageable. The problem with recent cuts to the UW-system is that they were sudden and large. This coupled with the tuition freeze makes it impossible for the system to maintain the same level of services.

The process of placing government agencies on continual “diets” and thus expanding what they capable of doing, or decreasing the cost to tax payers, requires flexibility. This is why even a liberal might be against allowing institutional constraints on agency flexibility, such as those created by the existence of public employee labor unions. Therefore, although Walker’s recent attacks on government collective bargaining were most likely done to hurt Democrats and consolidate state power in the Governor’s office, similar actions could be justified by a “big-government” liberal who wants to increase the scope and quality of services provided by government.

Then what should Democrats think about Act 10, which eliminated collective bargaining rights for public employees? Is there reason to resist initiatives that increase government flexibility at the cost of public employee’s rights? I think there is, but I will leave that discussion for my next post.

Reading of Interest

There is much to read about the incentive structures that exist in bureaucracies, starting with Max Weber’s 19th century studies of the German bureaucratic state, though I would recommend the following short (and classic) study of the rational constraints on bureaucrats in the American context.

Anthony Downs, Inside Bureaucracy, Rand Corp., 1967.

Being a Democrat in Wisconsin: Even Walker loves La Follette

This is the first installment in a series of short essays I will be writing about Wisconsin politics. State politics, I think, are under-appreciated by politicians, political operatives, and academics. The huge federal programs of the 20th century and the states’ multiplying interconnections certainly increased the importance of national politics during the last century, but state politics still matter quite a lot. And the inability of Democrats to win state offices has certainly had a huge effect on Wisconsin policy and the lives of Wisconsinites. Anyone trying to travel from Madison to Milwaukee and Chicago or trying to receive medicaid benefits can certain attest to this. My primary interest is to explore how Democrats in Wisconsin should proceed given the political failures of the past five years; sometimes this will also be pertinent to national politics, though what makes sense for liberals in New York or California may not make sense for those in Wisconsin.

There is a story good Wisconsin Democrats often tell themselves about their state. In the beginning there was Governor (and then Senator) Fighting Bob La Follette who led a battle against wealthy business interests to win a better life for hard working Wisconsinites. Progressive politics spread across the country and morphed into the New Deal politics of the 1930s, which brought money for massive public projects, improved regulation, and transformed the social safety net into what it is today. Aldo Leopold, a wildlife management professor at UW, made similarly important contributions to environmentalism during this time. In The Sand County Almanac he argues that the environment must be treated with care just as if it were a fellow member of society, creating a new way of interacting with the environment that recognizes its value beyond its uses for humans; this is what he called the “land ethic.” That is pretty radical stuff. And it seems that modern leftist politics has deep roots in Wisconsin history, and by extension it must have similar importance for Wisconsin politics and society today. From this perspective, the recent actions by Wisconsin Republicans has been and extremely shocking change for the state.

But this ignores the political history of Wisconsin, a state that has for most of its history been under the control of the GOP. Even La Follette was a Republican. And although it is true that the transformation of the party system over the last century has made such designations less meaningful, certain elements of this GOP dominance have always been and continue to be important for Wisconsin. To begin with, it is important to understand that the GOP has typically aligned itself with rural (and eventually suburban) interests. The story of the party’s origin begins at a small meeting house in some small (Mid)-Western town (in Wisconsin or Michigan, depending upon whether you ask someone from Wisconsin or Michigan). Its period of dominance in Wisconsin has a similar rural character, which was likely most obvious during the reign of the Republican political machine during the 1800s that did the bidding of wealthy loggers. This is a striking difference from the urban origins of the (modern) Democratic party, which controlled similar political machines in northern cities during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Whereas FDR’s “new deal” politics were a reaction to the corrupt and ineffective governments of the Democratic Political Machine in New York City (“Tammany Hall”), the progressivism of La Follette was a reaction to the rural business interests in the Republican party and in support of a more direct and robust form of democracy within Wisconsin.

This is important because the politics of La Follette represents an earlier stage of progressivism than those of FDR and LBJ. Whereas the “new deal” of FDR put in place a top-down structure for federal control in the states, with the hope of decreasing corruption and improving the implementation of social and infrastructure programs, La Follette advocated greater municipal control and citizen involvement. It was FDR who oversaw the development of the federal bureaucracy into its current dominant form and LBJ who later expanded it (with “The Great Society” initiatives). Today most Democrats following in that tradition, seeing a large federal government as a indispensable tool for improving the lives of citizens who are often the victims of less competent and efficient state governments. In this way La Follette’s politics bears more resemblance to the classical liberals of the 19th century than the (statist) leftists of the 20th century. He was more similar to Theodore Roosevelt in this respect, who was another early progressive. Although FDR is clearly one of the founders of the modern Democratic party, it would be odd for Democrats to claim the elder Roosevelt to the exclusion of Republicans. Democrats should examine their own political beliefs, but most who support Obama’s (and Congress’) recent expansions of the welfare state (and the Federal Government’s role in it) have much in common with FDR and LBJ but far less in common with La Follette, Theodore Roosevelt, and other early progressives.

For instance, it is entirely possible that La Follette might have supported something like Act 10, which was the bill that created an uproar in Wisconsin in 2011 for taking collective bargaining rights away from public employees. Although he certainly stood by workers in their attempts to form unions, he might have been far less comfortable with unions formed by government officials, which are meant to give them greater leverage against the elected representatives of the people in compensation negotiations. La Follette was committed to keeping private interests of state officials from corrupting their service to the public; from that perspective public employee unions might be worrisome. There are good reasons to think that public employees should have the right to form unions, but those are ideas of modern leftist politics rather than earlier progressivism. Additionally, urban liberals should take care to remember that Wisconsin has been, and still is, a primarily non-urban state. Milwaukee and Madison do not have the populations necessary to dominate the rural and suburban parts of the state in the same way Chicago and the Twin Cities dominate Illinois and Minnesota respectively. Wisconsin is still a rural state, and that is important in explaining its GOP dominated politics.

The tradition of La Follette and the progressives doesn’t exclusively belong to modern Wisconsin Democrats; Republicans have a right to it as well. Many Republicans see themselves as reformers, taking on corrupt parts of government in the hopes of creating more responsive, efficient, and fair governance. How should Wisconsin Democrats see their role in politics today? With brief interruptions in the 1970s, Wisconsin politics has been dominated by the GOP nearly from the founding of the state. The more recent successes of Tommy Thompson and Scott Walker (and GOP dominance in the legislature) are consistent with this. But it is important to note that Democrats have had incredible success in winning federal offices during the latter half of the 20th century. Additionally, Wisconsin’s electoral votes have gone to Democrats in every presidential election since Reagan’s first. This offers a great deal of hope for Democrats, because the electorate for national elections is younger than that for state elections.

Although Wisconsin Democrats should take seriously their losses in recent years, they should not see them as a sign that the state is slipping away from them. Rather, Republican dominance is a return to the status quo. However, the state is ripe for the taking if Democrats are able to convince the more liberal majority to become involved in state and local politics in addition to national elections. I will discuss this in my next post.

Reading of Interest

There are (unfortunately) rather few political histories of Wisconsin, though I give two suggestions below. The first is Leon Epstein’s 1958 “Politics in Wisconsin.” By now this is very old, but it is a classic that covers the most important parts of Wisconsin’s political history. The second is a 2006 book by James Constant that discusses both historical and structural aspects of Wisconsin politics and government relevant to understanding public policy in the state.

Leon D. Epstein, Politics in Wisconsin, Univ. of WI Press, 1958.

James K. Constant, Wisconsin Politics and Government: America’s Laboratory of Democracy, Univ. of NE Press, 2006.

Public Schools in Wisconsin from a Quantitative Perspective

As part of his new budget proposal, Wisconsin Governor Walker has proposed the expansion of the school voucher program (Currently confined to Milwaukee and Racine) to a large number of districts, including Green Bay and Madison. Such a voucher program allows students to spend a vouchers at charter or public voucher schools. I generally don’t have strong feelings about school vouchers. They clearly have a role to play in some hopelessly failing school districts, but in most districts that allow for vouchers many of the charter schools still are failing. See the 2010 documentary Waiting for Superman, for a good example of the lottery process that decides enrollment to the best charter schools in many such school districts. In any case, I will not address the issue of school vouchers in detail here; rather, I will subject some claims about Wisconsin public schools to quantitative scrutiny. Luckily The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (WDPI) has released excellent school level demographic and achievement data that should give us some clue about what to think on this issue. In this post I will systematically consider this data, first describing it and then testing a number of hypotheses that are important for the debate over school vouchers in Wisconsin.

How are Wisconsin schools doing?

Let us first examine how Wisconsin schools did on the “Accountability Rating,” which is a composite measure of several factors that the WDPI deemed important for successful schools. Note that this is predominantly a measure of school success, such as meeting certain goals, and not one of student success. This means that two schools with the same accountability ratings may have students who are performing very differently (and vice versa). WDPI also provides performance only data, but I will not address that in this post. For now let us just assume that the “Accountability Rating” is a good measure of school success.

Freq Ratings

To the left is a frequency distribution of schools according to their accountability rating. The scores range from 0 to 100, though contrary to what some in the media have done, we should not immediately apply standard letter grades to them in the “standard” fashion. Remember, that these are composite scores, and thus have no natural relation to what we normally take to be letter grades. This graph affirm this. The distribution of scores is normal (it matches pretty closely the normal distribution function overlaid on the data), though its average is only about 70. Typically letter grades are either applied by using some fixed set of standards or through the use of a curving procedure. The curving procedure typically forces the set of scores to conform to a normal distribution, with the mean of the sample set to a B- or C+ (though sometimes as low as a C), and assigns each grade to some percentage of scores. Using this method, we would (roughly) assign As to the 80 – 100 interval, Bs to 72 – 79, Cs to 65-71, Ds to 59-64, and Fs to all under 59 (assuming 8% As, 30% Bs, 40% Cs, 14% Ds, and 8% Fs).

FREQRATING0

However, this would be the incorrect way to grade these scores, because WDPI has already fixed standards for grading the scores. They provide us with five grades for the achievement scores, which correspond roughly to the standard letter grades. Under this grading, 83-100 “significantly exceeds expectations”, 73-82.9 “exceeds expectations”, 63-72.9 “meets expectations”, 53-62.9 “meets few expectations,” and under 52.9 “fails to meet expectations.” Although the distribution of these grades (seen in the figure to the left) is weighted more heavily toward “meets expectations” than the standard grading distribution is weighted toward C, it roughly corresponds to the normal distribution of grades that we expect from any standard grading system.

The Governor has suggested that districts with schools that either fail to meet or meet few expectations should be opened to the school voucher program. Given that these schools are in roughly the bottom 15% of Wisconsin schools and have failed to meet a set of fixed standards, it seems reasonable to think of these schools as “failing” schools in an important sense.

enrollmentPerRating0

I will address the efficacy of vouchers at helping students in such schools soon, but let us first get a sense of how many students are in such schools as well as some important features of those students. The figures above are frequency distributions of schools, not students. Luckily WDPI provides us with enrollment figures, so we can also determine how many are in failing schools. This shows that 16.7% of students are in failing schools; the discrepancy in this figure from the percentage of failing schools is not all that unexpected. One might conclude from this that larger schools fair more poorly than smaller ones. And indeed a test of significance reveals a statistically significant negative correlation between the enrollment size of a school and the overall accountability score, meaning that larger schools seem to obtain lower scores. Some of this correlation is likely due to statistically significant lower scores in non-elementary schools, an effect which is especially strong for combined primary/secondary schools (for whatever reasons). We may be able to disentangle these effects with a more complex analysis, though I will not do this here.

Poverty is highly correlated with low school achievment

We can also characterize some of the possible causes of lower test scores. Luckily we have information for each school about the percentage of students who are economically disadvantaged as well as those not proficient in English; these are both commonly thought to negatively affect student performance. It is often thought, at least in Wisconsin, that one major problem facing schools is the rapid influx of new Spanish speaking immigrants. Thus it is thought that one way to improve schools is the adoption of an “English First” strategy, in which we ensure that all students understand English before teaching anything else. Another view holds that poverty is one of the major causes of poor school performance.

Although we cannot test these hypotheses directly with our present data, we can test whether there exist correlations in the data that are consistent with them, as well as whether either a lack of English proficiency and/or poverty are a prevalent within Wisconsin schools. Indeed, as expected, both the percentage of economically disadvantaged students and the percentage of students with limited English proficiency are negatively correlated with school overall accountability score, though the magnitude of the correlation for economic disadvantage is about twice that of limited English proficiency (-0.677 vs. -0.229). Additionally, as expected, these two factors are positively correlated with one another as well (0.411). However, these two features display very different frequency distributions , as can be seen in the plots I give here. Many schools have a relatively large percentage of economically disadvantaged students. In fact, more than half of schools have a percentage of economically disadvantaged students greater than 39%, and more than 30% of schools have more than half economically disadvantaged students.

EconvScore0

However, very few Wisconsin schools have a significant population of students who are not proficient in English; only 5% of schools have a non-proficient population that is greater than 23% of their total student population. It is very likely that schools with large proportions of students who are not proficient in English will tend to score worse, if only because language skills are important for all types of learning, but the data don’t seem to indicate that this is a major impediment to learning for most students in Wisconsin or for the success of most schools. Rather, poverty seems to be a far more widespread problem for Wisconsin schools. This seems to suggest that social programs which combat economic problems within the student population may also improve school performance. Of course, the data as it is does not support any more definitive statement about the role of poverty in school failure, but it does give us good reason to pursue that possibility further (and much has already been written on this subject already).

No support for the superiority of charter schools in the Wisconsin data

The final question I will consider is also the most interesting. Do students in charter schools perform better than similar students in normal public schools? The claim by many supporters of charter schools is that there is something wrong with poor performing public schools over and above the deficits of the students, and that charter schools generally perform better. In order to investigate this question we must find some set of charter and public schools that are well matched in other respects. This is made more difficult by the fact that just over half of all charter schools did not report accountability scores at all. Obviously this is a serious deficit for any investigation of the efficacy of charter schools, and hopefully is corrected in the future. However, we do have data from 102 charter schools, which is a pretty good sample, and so I will continue with the analysis by only considering these schools.

A further difficulty arises when attempting to find a comparison class of public schools which are similar to the set of charter schools in most respects. If we compare all charter schools with all public schools, we find that the public schools have significantly higher scores than the charters, but they also have significantly fewer students in poverty as well.

Because we showed previously that lower numbers of students in poverty is negatively correlated with higher scores, this is an unfair comparison. We can, however, trim down our sample of schools such that both the charter school sample and the public school sample are similar with respect to economic disadvantage (as well as English proficiency for good measure). This is not easy and requires us to limit our consideration to only those schools within what the WDPI calls “cities” (this includes large cities like Milwaukee, medium-sized cities such as Madison and Green Bay, as well as small cities such as Eau Claire and Appleton). This is significant choice in my analysis, but it is the most straightforward way to match the two samples for economic disadvantage; all larger comparison sets I tested had significantly lower rates of economically disadvantaged students and higher accountability scores than the charter school set.

Comparing charter schools to regular public schools in Wisconsin cities, we find no significant difference in the percentage of economically disadvantaged children between charter and public schools, but also no significant differences in overall accountability score (using a simple t-test hypothesis test). We obtain similar results if we just consider those schools in Milwaukee. This result was very non-significant (significance level = 0.618), with the mean accountability score of non-charter schools being higher than that of charter schools. A scatter plot of these results, with charter and non-charter schools marked in green and blue respectively, is shown above; the plotted regression lines are consistent with there being no significant difference in accountability score between charter and non-charter schools. Therefore there doesn’t seem to be any evidence from the accountability data that charter schools perform better than normal public schools. We could continue analyzing these data (perhaps with more complex methods) in an attempt to find some benefit to charter schools, though I don’t think this will provide much benefit. The proponent of charter schools would seem to have the burden of proof to demonstrate their efficacy, and this has unfortunately not been addressed in the current policy debate in Wisconsin.

Baltimore – Some communists and some coffee

Baltimore is quite similar to many other cities in the US. It has a city core that has seen some successful development, where any yuppy can walk around feeling safe and content, there are some bastions of blue collar urbanity, and some areas where no one with other options would live (or even visit). The last aspect of the city was featured in the HBO crime drama

P1010399 — Even benches speak the truth in Baltimore.

The Wire (which is pretty amazing). But I won’t talk about the last group of places, because I typically try to stay away from them (and anyway, they usually have disappointing espresso offerings). However, on a recent trip to Baltimore, Taryn and I checked out a few parts of Baltimore, and I learned a few things about the place. The most important being, that communists make pretty bad coffee (but I’ll get to that part soon).

In DC most of the large “classic” markets are dominated by yuppies and other upper-middle/upper class types. This is not the case in Baltimore. So if you are in Baltimore, go to Lexington Market (Open since 1782! – as their sign proclaims) to see what a non-yuppified market looks like. It is especially worth going to Faidleys fish market inside of Lexington. Their crab cakes are quite good, and if you order a fish sandwich they give you an entire fish on two pieces Wonder bread – good stuff.

But that all sounded like a plug for a tourist trap. We first checked out a communist coffee

shop located in the Mt. Vernon area. Red Emma’s features all of your favorite leftist books and pamphlets, including a rather impressive section of books extolling the virtues of Fidel Castro, Mao, Lenin and other communist revolutionaries. Strangely, Stalin was less well

represented; given that he was at least as good at executing capitalists and other enemies of the state as Mao, I think he deserved some more attention. Maybe I should send them a note. Anyway, I suppose history can be rather cruel to perfectly effective leaders. Oh well.

Although Red Emma’s certainly has an interesting book selection (and I’m being honest here), this socialist experiment fails in the way that matters…their coffee isn’t good at all. Being a socialist (or so I’m told), this fact frightens me a bit. I guess I had always assumed that the alienation of a barista from what she produced was behind the terrible coffee at capitalist coffee shops like Starbucks, and that the elimination of this alienation would bring about a superior drink. My experience at Red Emma’s seems to disconfirm this. Perhaps Red Emma’s needs a bit of the fascism that other socialist states have used for “quality control” purposes. Who knows; well at least they are nice enough to have several computers that just about anyone case use, whether customer or not. So, as with any socialist state, it is probably best if you don’t contribute anything but use the goods the state provides.

We then hopped on the trolly to check out the Hampden neighborhood, which is adjacent to John’s Hopkins University. The neighborhood is well known for people saying “hon” to each other (as well as the certain type of people who are called “hons” – they have really tall blue hair apparently), and they even have a Honfest every June. But hipsters have also invaded. As you walk from the trolly stop, you will walk past modest homes with (at this time of year)

P1010397 — So you know where the money is at.

awesome Christmas decorations out front. It has a definite blue-collar feel that is terribly lacking in many cities. But as you walk east, you eventually reach a decidedly hipper part of town. The stores sell expensive home-goods and clothing, and cafes sell $3 coffee. However, we had heard about a coffee shop here that many think serves the best coffee in Baltimore, and we eventually stumbled upon the little pretentious coffee house that we were seeking.

Spro coffee boasts the most impressive selection of coffee types and brew methods that I have ever seen. You can have your cup made by Aeropress, Chemex, Clever, Eva solo, french press, pour over, Vac Pot, or espresso. However, it is quite expensive; a cup of one o f the more exotic roasts can range anywhere from $3-$7. We passed on the fancy brews this time; I ordered a cappuccino and Taryn ordered a spiced chai latte. The place is tiny, but we luckily were able to get a table.

Our drinks took a while, and the baristas seemed rather disorganized, without an efficient system for making drinks. I found this rather odd, given that people seemed to be mostly ordering espresso and pour over, and there were three people working behind the counter. My cappuccino came eventually and looked beautiful, but Taryn was given a normal latte instead of a chai latte. Although the latte was good, for a latte, she told them about the mix-up and they seemed quite confused.

Eventually Taryn’s chai latte came out, and it was quite good, with an interesting spice combination. The cappuccino had excellent art, and the foam consistency was very good. This foam added a good body and sweetness to the drink that any good foam should. However, the espresso itself seemed a bit flat, without any interesting characteristics of its own. It simply had some basic chocolate elements, but even those were not very vibrant. So the cappuccino was ok, but I expected more from a place as pretentious as Spro. However, because I didn’t try a non-espresso drink (which seems to be their specialty), I’ll not pass judgment for now. I’ll certainly be back next time I’m in Baltimore. And I will be back; this is a cool town.

Peregrine Espresso – As good as it gets in DC

Peregrine Espresso

1718 14th St NW
Washington DC 20009

and

660 Pennsylvania Ave SE
Washington DC 20003

www.peregrineespresso.com/

Read about my planned cappuccino tour around the DC area.

Read about my first visit to the 14th street Peregrine just after its opening.

14thstPeregrine — Peregrine along 14th st. NW (from a previous post)

I discovered Peregrine Espresso shortly after moving to DC, and I have been going there pretty frequently since. As I wondered around the DC espresso scene, I soon realized that they likely have the best cappuccino in the district, but I haven’t had a chance to do a review. But last week, I took my camera with me to 14th street location to drink a cappuccino and get some work done. It was as good as always.

Peregrine has two locations; one in the lovely Eastern Market neighborhood of SE DC, and one on 14th St NW in the Midcity neighborhood. It was started by an ex-barista of Murky Coffee, which was at the Eastern Market location before its owner Nick Cho was banished from DC. The Eastern Market shop is Peregrine’s original location, and is a little larger than the 14th street location (though they are both small), but both have the same sunny interior.

This time I checked out the 14th St. location, because it is on the green line of the Metro (and I wanted to head to College Park afterward), but I usually prefer the Eastern Market location because its neighborhood is one of the nicest in DC. The large market there is open every day and carries many meats, fishes, and vegetables; there is also farmers market and flea market on Saturdays and Sundays. It is all worth checking out. That said, 14th street is a pretty interesting area as well, close to the U st corridor, featuring several music venues, bars, restaurants, galleries, and furniture stores (actually, a ton of furniture for some reason).

Ok, now to the consumables. Peregrine has really good muffins and other baked goods, but the real show is the espresso. They serve Counter Culture Coffee, which is phenomenal stuff. I almost always order the cappuccino, though their espresso and

PeregrineCap — Sometimes the latte art is even better.

pour-over coffee are also great. I’ll give my tasting notes from this week’s visit, but it was entirely consistent with my other visits there. The latte art was exceptional, and the microfoam was perfect. The underlying espresso was a bit nutty and sweet, with the microfoam and milk mixing in to yield some nice milk chocolate notes. Exceptional all around. Ok, the numbers (all out of 5):

Smoothness: 4.8

Presentation: 5

Strength: 5

Complexity: 4.2

Foam: 5

Mean: 4.8

SD: .35

If you are in DC, you should head to one of Peregrine’s locations; it will be worth the trip. I’m going to predict that this will be the best cappuccino that I find in DC, though there are several others that might come close. In the next few weeks, I’m going to try to hit some of the places that I think are top contenders to match Peregrine’s cappuccino. So we shall see.

Pound Coffee now on Capitol Hill

Today I checked out Pound Coffee (621 Pennsylvania Ave SE, Washington, DC 20003), which recently moved to Capitol Hill from NOMA. I hadn’t yet tried Pound at its previous location, but my interest perked once I heard that they are now serving Kickapoo Coffee from Viroqua, WI. My favorite cafe in Madison, WI (and by extension, the world…) serves coffee from this roaster, so I had high hopes for a shop that serves it. It was also apparently the best microroaster in 2010 (by Roast Magazine), so I’m not the only one who loves this stuff.

So Taryn and I stopped by Pound coffee to give it a try. Luckily, I overheard a conversation between some of the baristas and a manager about the introduction of new size tomorrow….the classic cappuccino, which is 6ozs. Their normal

cappuccino has apparently been 12 oz. So I inquired as to whether I could obtain one of these new fangled cappuccinos, and the manager seemed pretty excited that I was interested (he was complaining how Starbucks has made many customers expect every espresso drink to be at least 12 oz). So I might have gotten the first “proper” cappuccino produced by Pound Coffee (that’s going to be my last snobbish sentence in this post, I promise). It was pretty good. The foam was near perfect, and the taste was quite nice. I didn’t take a picture until it was half gone, but the cappuccino had some decent latte art when it was first made. It didn’t quite match Peregrine, which is just down the street, but it gave me some faith that they will be making excellent cappuccinos in short order. I also had an espresso, which was ok, but a bit awkward. I imagine that any failings in their cappuccinos are coming from the underlying espresso. It is possible that they haven’t quite adjusted for the change in coffees.

But can they seriously compete with Peregrine? Well, if you really just want the best espresso in the city, then head on over to Peregrine; but Pound also has a full food menu (which looked pretty tasty), and Peregrine only has baked goods. So if you want very good coffee and are a bit hungry then Pound should prob

McPSQ1 — Occupy DC tent city in McPherson Square

ably be your destination.

I also headed over to the White House area today for the first time since the “occupation” started. I have to say, McPherson Square

is a mess.

I think I’m going to try to do some more dc cappuccino reviews this week; I have a lot of grading to do….

Big Bear Cafe – Hip but Relaxed

Big Bear Cafe

1700 1st Street, NW

Washington, DC 20001

http://bigbearcafe-dc.com

Read about my planned cappuccino tour around the DC area.

Although much of the recent development in DC has occurred along the green line of the Metro in NW, these are not the only areas that have been changing. One of these neighborhoods is Bloomingdale, and is composed mostly of rowhouses and some small commercial areas (especially along North Capitol St.); consequently,

the area is quieter than the more densely populated neighborhoods to its east and west. In fact, many consider Bloomingdale to be one of the best areas to find a deal on a home in an otherwise overpriced DC housing market.

Big Bear Cafe opened up in a building that was previously a liquor store on a pretty crappy corner, and has managed to make the area a pleasant reflection of the best elements of the neighborhood that surrounds it. It is a very relaxed place compared to other coffee shops in DC, and that adds to its charm. They have an often-changing menu with normal cafe fare, and they often use local ingredients. I didn’t have anything fancy while I was there (they had a number of sandwiches and breakfast items made with ingredients from local farmers), though I did have a bagel topped with apple butter, which was delicious. The cafe inside has quite pleasant, with high ceilings and a decent amount of seating (for DC at least). There was also ample seating outside.

Big BearCap — It was prettier before I shook it trying to open a door...

I ordered the cappuccino, and I was pleasantly surprised by the decent art; this is usually a good sign, as good art is only possible with well prepared foam. Big Bear uses Counter Culture Coffee and Trickling Springs Creamery milk (from PA), both of which are popular among top coffee shops in the DC area, so I expected a good showing. The foam was excellent, with the sweetness of the milk adding quite a bit to the overall taste of the drink. The espresso was somewhat nutty, which was interesting, though the flavor overall was a bit “hazy,” with a slight bitter element. This made me wonder whether the milk to espresso ratio was a bit too high. Ok, here are the scores, all out of 5:

Smoothness: 4.7

Presentation: 4.8

Strength: 4.4

Complexity: 4.0

Foam: 4.9

Mean Score: 4.6

SD = .36

Overall I was impressed, and I’ll certainly be back to try more of their food. Going here is certainly a good excuse to see the Bloomingdale neighborhood, one of the (pleasantly) quieter corners of DC.

A trip to Chicago’s Intelligentsia Coffee

276 — I knew there would be good coffee the moment I spied the fixies out front.

Taryn and I take a yearly trip back to Wisconsin from DC, and this year we decided to spend a few hours in Chicago before heading up to Milwaukee. Neither of us have spent any significant time in the city, so we thought this would be a good chance to do some exploring. The original idea was to visit one of Chicago’s northern neighborhoods (Lakeview), where Intelligentsia Coffee has its original coffee shop (at 3123 N. Broadway St.), via the L. Intelligentsia is one of the best coffee roasters in the country, and some of the best coffee shops all around the country use their beans, so their shop seemed like a good excuse to travel out of the Loop. So that was the plan. Plans don’t always work out, and we found ourselves at the downtown location instead (apparently L stations require exact change…my fault! Though I have to say that my short experience with the L made me long for the New York Subway, or even DC Metro).

But everything turned out ok, because Intelligentsia’s coffee shop at 53 E. Randolph St.is beautiful and spacious. It is really quite shocking, for someone used to the cramped coffee shops of DC, to see what reasonable rents can allow. So there was no trouble finding a seat. We both ordered cappuccinos, and the

latte art was beautiful (and unique) on both of them. The foam texture itself was nearly perfect. The espresso was quite complex, with hints of both berries and cocoa, though there was a slight bitterness that was slightly off-putting. We both speculated that a sweeter milk may have helped this a bit. I won’t give a rating but I think this cappuccino fell just short of some of the best coffee shops in DC (Peregrine) and Madison (Bradbury’s), though daily variability likely places Intelligentsia in the same league as those other places. However, from what I tasted, I certainly don’t think that Intelligentsia is significantly better than these other places (many claim that they serve some of the best espresso in the country), and it doesn’t match the phenomenal cappuccino that I had at 9th Street Espresso in New York last summer (although the latte art was exceptional, I don’t give this a great deal of weight – cappuccinos are primarily for drinking, not looking). But if you are in Chicago, go to one of Intelligentsia’s locations; you won’t be disappointed.

New Peregrine Espresso location on 14th st. NW

I finally got a chance to check out the new second location of Peregrine Espresso, which opened up a few weeks ago at 1718 14th st. NW (a few blocks south of the U st. metro stop). The shop is a little smaller and a bit more urban industrial (exposed brick abounds) than the Capitol Hill location, but the coffee and baked goods are just as good. I have yet to formally review Peregrine (I’ll get back to some more reviews next week), but in my opinion they serve some of the best cappuccinos DC. Some of the baristas who have created such wonderful espresso drinks on Capitol Hill have moved to this location, so you can expect the same artful deliciousness. Outdoor seating should be set up in the next few months. Happy (coffee) drinking!