Dennis Oxley Jr. Finds A Job

COLUMN NOTES: I previously wrote about ex-politician Dennis Oxley when he tried to avoid arrest by claiming legislative immunity. You can read that column here.

HARBESON: Columnist flummoxed by Oxley’s hiring

In some ways, I can understand why Indiana’s Branchville Correctional Facility decided to hire Dennis Oxley, Jr. as a program director. A major part of the job will be helping inmates learn how to behave once released and as an ex-state legislator, he certainly has a lot of experience telling other people how they should live their lives. The problem is that Oxley hasn’t exactly been a shining example of good behavior lately.

If you recall, this longtime politician had his share of legal troubles last year. He was arrested for operating a vehicle while intoxicated and later, during a separate incident, he tried to avoid arrest in Indianapolis by claiming immunity because he was a legislator. There was a problem though; he wasn’t a legislator at the time. He lied, hoping to get special treatment.

So I’m having trouble understanding why state government officials think he deserves the job of preparing inmates to return to society. Maybe everyone involved thought it was the best job option since his previous work experience includes years in the government school system and the schools probably couldn’t hire someone with his history.

I also understand that someone with his record might better relate to the prisoners than someone who hasn’t lied in the hope of gaining special favors. But if a troubled past is considered a plus and if our prison system is even mildly effective, then there must be an ex-inmate out there who has turned his life around and serve as a better model. But maybe the government can’t hire someone with a prison record?

If not, then that might help explain why they chose Oxley, but it doesn’t explain how they avoided a hiring freeze. I thought a hiring freeze meant the government actually froze hiring, but I didn’t know about the State Strategic Hiring Committee, which has the power to melt the freeze and hire people anyway.

I have no idea how much extra heat blows when it involves the hiring of an ex-legislator but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s an extra surge button for politicians who need jobs.

I had already begun to shiver at the questionable ethics involved in this situation, but after I went to Branchville’s Web site and saw Oxley’s father’s name on the prison’s Citizen Advisory Committee, I just froze in astonishment.

This situation drips with special favors and special treatment, and what’s really sad is that there were a lot of people inside government who just went along with this and did not speak up. How can anyone respect a system that works like this?

Certainly, I sympathize with anyone who seems to be battling drug abuse and maybe Oxley is on a better path now, but that doesn’t mean taxpayers should ever have to put this guy back on the payroll.

Was there no one who could see how this might look to average Indiana residents who do their best to live decent lives? Could no one predict how this might make the disadvantaged and unconnected feel? What should people think who get up every day and work hard to support their families when they see the government siphoning their earnings to pay this man’s $52,000 salary?

I can’t speak for others, but if I had a choice, I would never help pay this man’s salary. There are way too many decent people in the world I’d rather voluntarily associate and trade with; people who quietly live their lives as they see fit, who do no harm to others, and who do not even think of using government to gain special treatment.

SIGLINE:
Sellersburg resident Debbie Harbeson gets heated when questionable government action leaves her feeling cold. Let’s hope she never finds a surge button.

Compulsory Attendance Laws Interfere With Education

HARBESON: Education should respect the individual

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels’ State of the State address placed a lot of emphasis on the ineffectiveness of the government school system. He told us that Indiana’s education system is failing many elementary-age kids in what most people consider to be its most basic assignment: teaching students to read.

As part of explaining the government’s latest and greatest idea on how to fix this mess, he said, “If after four years, the system has failed in this most fundamental duty, then it will simply have to try again until it gets it right.”

I just have to ask - Why, Gov. Daniels? Why do they have to try again until they get it right? Why should you or any of us assume they can get it right?

Why don’t we just admit we do not now, and never did, have an organization devoted to education? What we have instead is a compulsory attendance system that’s merely dressed up in fancy political clothing to look like it’s all about educating the individual.

Think about it, if the government education system is a wonderful, enlightening place to be, why would we need to compel attendance? And since we do compel attendance and funding, what motivation and incentive do schools really have to be competent, let alone improve from that basic level?

If the government schools truly offer a valuable service families want, then there’s no need to compel attendance. Families would voluntarily send their children there and students would be happily engaged in learning as they freely chose from a variety of interesting options offered.

Lately, I’m learning nearly daily about the ways compulsion has increased regulation so deeply that education now has nothing to do with making sensible decisions that are in the student’s best interest; it’s only about the numbers. Is that really what education is supposed to be about?

When are we going to simply look at the evidence and admit the system we created just doesn’t work well? Not only for teaching the basics of reading, but also in creating inquisitive, curious people who know how to think for themselves. People who will be skeptical of what they’re being told and who will critically examine even long-accepted standards, such as government compulsion being morally good.

Under a compulsory government-funded system, instead of treating students as individuals, we use them as pawns for political game-playing. Politicians create big ideas intended to build their version of a “superior” country or individual state and government employees at all levels are expected to carry out their grand plans. This means there can be little focus on creating an inviting place filled with attractive programs that include lots of flexibility to meet individual needs, desires and differences.

Instead, the focus is on forcing students to attend, to stay even if they are not learning, and most of all, to comply. But perhaps that’s the intent. Maybe the system really doesn’t want us to think too deeply, maybe it’s merely to get us used to complying in other ways when we are adults.

How else can we explain it when people applaud Daniels when he says Indiana will “never give up on its children?” Our children are not the state’s, yet few consider that this is precisely what this statement means at its root.

No reform will work as long as we remain convinced that compelling attendance and funding is necessary. I for one am completely ready to discard any educational system that relies on such compulsion. It’s time we started focusing on education that meets individual learner’s needs and not government’s demands.

SIGLINE:
Sellersburg resident Debbie Harbeson advises her readers that the best way to compel her attendance anywhere is to have plenty of snacks available.

It's Always Nice To Read The Thoughts of Other Voluntaryists

Saw this post, Why Voluntaryism Is the Best and Only Legitimate Moral Philosophy, on Wendy McElroy's blog. It's from a guy named Ross Kenyon, a senior in American History at Arizona State.

Excerpt: I am a voluntaryist because I respect the wishes of individuals to live their lives as they see fit so long as they are non-aggressive, and I hope that the same courtesy will eventually be shown to me. I oppose coercion no matter what costume or badge is worn and I do not acknowledge the validity of involuntary relationships.

Read more here.

Determining Graduation Rates in Government Schools

HARBESON: It’s time to get deeper with graduation numbers

If you were a business owner with eight stores and only two of them reached your minimum sales goal for the year, would you say it was a success?

What if you were in charge of a walking program created to help people complete a fitness walk and two out of eight people who participated reached the mileage goal, would you consider your program a success?

If you were a football coach and your record was 2-8, would you consider that season a success? I mean, if you’re not IU of course.

No matter how you look at it, two out of eight just doesn’t sound so great, does it? Yet this is how many Clark County public high schools reached Indiana’s 90 percent graduation rate goal. I have no idea whether that goal is reasonable or not, but government officials are the ones who set it so I assume they think it’s within reach.

So what does it mean that most of the county’s schools didn’t make the grade? Is it just a number to add to all the other numbers that really don’t mean much because they are without consequences?

Even one school who reached the goal doesn’t feel like the percentage really tells them what they need to know. Before the official graduation rate was released from the State Department of Education, Clarksville officials said their reported graduation rate of 92.6 percent doesn’t “reveal the whole truth.”

Clarksville officials felt it was important to separate out two categories included in the percentage: those who graduated on waivers and those who transferred to homeschooling.

A student who graduates with a waiver has enough credits to graduate but did not pass the State Graduation Qualifying Exam. Teachers in the subject area the student failed on the exam can certify the student as qualified in that subject.

Clarksville realizes the potential for abuse here and evidently wants to take a closer look, which sounds like a good idea. Clarksville also decided to pull out the percentage of students who transferred to homeschooling because they worry that some families might be using the ability to transfer to the home education as a way to drop out.

However, the real potential for abuse here is that a school will create what’s known as a “push-out,” a student whose family is “strongly encouraged” to homeschool because it’s an easy way for the school system to raise its graduation percentage.

It’s important to remember here that the problem isn’t homeschooling; the problem is how the government schools should count the kids they are failing to graduate. Families should voluntarily choose homeschooling as an alternative and not be pushed into it by school officials trying to improve their statistics and remove perceived troublemakers.

It’s unconscionable if homeschoolers get stuck in the middle of what is really a government school problem and I could say more about this issue, but for now, I do think it’s a reasonable idea for all schools in the county to be as open as Clarksville has been about their graduation percentage data.

So I challenge all the principals and superintendents in Greater Clark and West Clark school districts to give residents the same data Clarksville did.

What percentage of your kids graduated on waivers? Are you also doing what Clarksville is doing, and counting as homeschoolers some students you suspect should really be considered as dropouts?

If Clarksville — one of only two schools who actually reached the graduation rate goal — believes it’s important to inform the public with deeper data, shouldn’t those of you who failed to reach the goal do the same?

SIGLINE:
Sellersburg resident Debbie Harbeson suspects two out of the eight IU football fans will be mad because she made fun of the team’s record.

Government Officials Are Clueless About Costs

HARBESON: Answers are simply tough to come by

It was a simple question. I only wanted to know the cost of two recent mailings I received from a couple of state government employees who claim to represent me.

Was it an unreasonable request? I don’t know, but I’m only trying to be financially responsible and monitor how my money is spent.

Yet, I did not get an answer to my question. Oh, I received responses; they just didn’t answer the question. Maybe that’s all I can expect from politicians.

One of the mailings was an oversized postcard from State Rep. Paul Robertson informing me about several publications available from the Indiana House of Representatives.

Since I’ve been told it’s important to participate in government, I e-mailed him to inquire about the cost of mailing the postcard. He responded to me very quickly and told me it costs 44 cents to mail a postcard.

I replied explaining more clearly that I wanted to know the entire cost which would include design and production, as well as the number of postcards mailed.

Time passed with no answer, so I sent another request and this time an assistant replied, who said he was waiting on an answer from the publications office. More time passed and I sent another request reminding them of my inquiry.

Later that day, I noticed someone from a state government computer did an Internet search and found my Web site, which led to my blog, which led to this person checking out the blog’s archives. This happened minutes after resending my request.

Oddly enough, I haven’t received any response since. I wonder why. Surely exercising my free speech rights doesn’t make me less of a constituent, does it?

Around the same time, I also received a mailing from my state senator, Jim Lewis. I requested the same information about his mailing. As frustrating as my experience was with Robertson as far as getting an answer to my question, my experience with Lewis was even worse.

I received an e-mail response that was signed by Lewis but was sent from the e-mail address of another government employee named Bridget. It’s hard to say who actually wrote it, but the response did not even come close to answering the question.

If she did have a hand in writing it, I think she has a fine career ahead of her in government service.

The main message of this response was that if I didn’t want to receive these mailings, they could take my name off the list. If anyone is interested in reading this response, just e-mail me.

I’m not sure why my question was so difficult to answer. At the minimum, I’m sure they could find out how many were mailed out and then let me know where I could get further information.

I’m only trying to find out the cost of a product I’m paying for. If I received such a nonanswer when asking a private business a similar question, like the actual interest rate being paid on a loan, the Attorney General would be on their case faster than these people were out on the Internet checking me out.

I guess they don’t really have any incentive to answer this question though. It’s not like they are helping a constituent in a manner that’s going to help them gain the benefit they value most: A vote.

They say they want my participation and involvement as a citizen. But apparently that has nothing to do with digging around and trying to learn how government operates and how they spend money. I obviously misinterpreted the call to action. Silly me.

SIGLINE:
Sellersburg resident Debbie Harbeson is a simple person who asks simple questions. This is simply natural since she’s so simple-minded.

Homeschoolers Aren't The Problem

Earlier this week, I had an editorial column published in the Ft. Wayne (Indiana) Journal-Gazette.

It was in response to an editorial they published calling for increased regulation of homeschooling families in Indiana.

For some context, here's their story about the original situation that started the whole thing. However, if the story just sounds kind of strange and brings up a lot of questions for you, then for even more context, you might want to read this blog post going deeper into the possibilities of this particular situation, one in which the facts of what really happened are hard to come by.

Another Post On Federal Stimulus Jobs

I happened upon the blog post, Pity the Poor Private-Sector Workers, by Robert Higgs of The Independent Institute and I thought I'd post it here because it covers the same theme as my most recent article but from more of a macro perspective.