U.S. housing starts fell for single-family projects off a 6-1/2-year high in January as ground breaking declined 2.0 percent. The Commerce Department said on Wednesday starts fell to a seasonally adjusted annual pace of 1.07 million units, while Decembers’ starts were barely revised at a 1.09 million-unit pace and January’s reading was in line with Wall Street’s expectations.
Housing starts have now been above the one million-unit mark for five straight months, and compared to January last year, groundbreaking was up 18.7 percent. But that’s not a high bar to beat, particularly with the amount of artificial risk currently being injected into the market from the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), which has assumed the burden since the financial crisis.
Non-existent wage growth is the U.S. labor market has hurt the housing market this year, as in the past several years. While some government economists — along with the housing lobby, the National Association of Realtors — argue the market is showing signs of rebound, much of the gain in households went into rentals, not home ownership.
Groundbreaking for single-family homes, which is the largest sector of the market, fell 6.7 percent to a 678,000-unit pace. Starts in this segment had hit their highest level since early 2008 in December, but again, was not a high bar to meet.
Projects in the Northeast fell by 3.5 percent, with most of the negative impact stemming from the multi-family sector. The Commerce Department blamed the terrible regional data on “harsh weather and storms.”
Meanwhile, groundbreaking in the volatile multi-family homes segment actually increased 7.5 percent to a 360,000-unit pace, offsetting some of the other segments drop offs. But rental vacancies are at their lowest level in more than two decades, indicating the American dream of home ownership remains extremely weak.
Further, multi-family starts are likely to push them even higher in 2015.
In January, permits for future home construction fell 0.7 percent to a 1.05 million-unit pace, while single-family permits fell 3.1 percent last month.
Multi-family permits rose 3.6 percent after tanking 5.2 percent in December.
For years, people assumed encyclopedias had to be created by professionals. Then Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales attempted to create an encyclopedia without central planners.
That sounded like a terrible idea to the old gatekeepers — people who hired experts to carefully fact-check and edit every encyclopedia entry. When they heard that Wales would crowdsource an encyclopedia, one Encyclopedia Britannica editor sneered, “The user who visits Wikipedia is a visitor to a public restroom.”
But today research shows that Wikipedia is as accurate as Encyclopedia Britannica. Wikipedia is now the sixth most visited website, and the hardcover Encyclopedia Britannica no longer exists.
“It’s a bit sad in a way,” says Wales. “I love Britannica. But I love candles, too, and I sure wouldn’t give up my electric light.”
When I say Wikipedia is crowdsourced, I mean that millions of readers edit the entries. Their power to correct things is weighted according to the reputation they acquire from the “crowd.” Without being paid, this army of amateurs takes pride of ownership. They work hard to keep their entries accurate.
After model/actress Anna Nicole Smith died, someone changed her Wikipedia entry to something vulgar. It was fixed within minutes.
The amateur editors specialize, says Wales. “There is a group of people who say, look, we’ve got all these entries about bridges, we want to make sure they’re all really good, because we love bridges; we’re bridge fanatics. I mean, who knew bridge fanatics exist?”
But they do. So do fanatics who want to get things right about Roman history, bacteria, spy novels and so on.
That this could be accurate without strict central planning is hard to grasp. Even Wales started out thinking that some kind of planner was necessary. He hired a Ph.D. in philosophy to edit a more centralized online encyclopedia, Newpedia. It failed.
But Wikipedia, without a central plan — just a few simple ground rules — flourished. Wales likens the lesson to economist Friedrich Hayek’s insights about why decentralized, free-market decisions are wiser than centralized, socialist planning: The crowd possesses “local knowledge” that experts can’t begin to replicate.
Many of today’s most popular websites — Google, Indiegogo, Facebook — thrive because they gave more control to users than to the founders. They also help users get things done without relying on gatekeepers at publishing houses, mainstream media or colleges.
Defenders of government and central planning often say that there are some things we just can’t leave to individuals, things that require government central planning, such as road building. But often that’s not true either.
In Britain, a highway was damaged by heavy rains. The local government promised to repair it. “After three weeks, they said it’s going to be three months. After three months, they said a year,” entrepreneur Mike Watts told me.
Mike’s wife then told him he should build the road. Although he had no road-building experience, he agreed to try. He went to the local pub and persuaded a farmer to let part of his land be used for the project.
Government said it would take a year to rebuild the road. On TV one bureaucrat said, “you can’t just do what you want … (Everything must) conform to highway standards!”
But Mike built his “private road” in just 12 days. He paid for it by collecting a $3 toll. Drivers cheerfully paid because Mike’s road saved them so much time. (British private toll roads like this are where we got the word “turnpike.” Private tollbooth operators would lift a “pike” to let the horses through.)
After Mike started giving interviews about the success of his road, the local government got embarrassed and quickly finished work on its road. Mike had to shut down. He at least managed to break even.
Both he and Wikipedia are reminders that human beings can still do great things, big and small, when they stop waiting for permission from above.
Captive children held by ISIS in a cage while a burning torch is presented.
ISIS militants have burned 45 people to death in the western Iraqi town of al-Baghdadi on Tuesday, just five miles (8Km) from Ain al-Asad air base, where roughly 320 US Marines are training members of the Iraqi army’s 7th Division.
The identities of the Iraqi victims are not clear, but the local police chief told the BBC at least some are believed to be members of the security forces that have been clashing with ISIS for control of the town. ISIS fighters captured most of the town last week, just after administration officials told PPD they believe they would win the battle for al-Baghdadi within two weeks.
Apparently, that was not the case.
Col. Qasim Obeidi, who is pleading for help from the Iraqi government and international community, said a compound that houses families of security personnel and officials is now under siege.
The tragic development came just as Vice President Joe Biden kicked off the White House summit on “violent extremism,” which refuses to name Islamists as the source of the violence. The revelations also came just days after ISIS released a video purportedly showing the beheadings of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians along a beach in Libya, which prompted a palpal outcry of commendation from Pope Francis, who called the killings “barbaric.”
On Friday, a media group linked to ISIS released a four-minute video titled “Peshmerga Captives in Kirkuk Province,” which purportedly showed Kurdish prisoners — imprisoned in iron cages — being driven around on trucks in Iraq, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute.
The imagery of the prisoner convoy in orange uniforms was similar to the scenes of an execution of a Jordanian pilot. In a video released by ISIS two weeks ago, Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh was shown being burned alive in a cage.
Al-Baghdadi, which is about 50 miles northwest of Ramadi in Anbar province, is located about five miles from Ain al-Asad air base, where 400 U.S. military personnel are training Iraqi soldiers and Sunni tribesmen to take on ISIS. The base was raided last week by a small band of fighters, in what some experts believe may have been a probe in preparation for a full-scale attack.
The base has been the target of sporadic mortar fire in past weeks, and the jihadist army has been moving forces from its strongholds in Syria to Anbar Province, possibly setting the stage for a major clash with forces on the base that is now the sole bulwark between ISIS and Baghdad.
There are currently nearly 2,600 U.S. forces in Iraq, including about 450 who are training Iraqi troops at three bases across the country, including al-Asad. Forces from other coalition countries conduct the training at the fourth site, in the northern city of Irbil.
In a separate development on Tuesday, the influential Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr announced he was withdrawing his forces from an umbrella group of Shia militia fighting IS alongside the Iraqi army.
He cited what he called the bad behaviour of other militia within the Popular Mobilisation Forces, whom he accused of “wreaking havoc through murdering, kidnapping and violating sanctuaries”.
Eddie Ray Routh, the man accused in the murder trial for the shooting deaths of Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield.
STEPHENVILLE, Texas (AP) — Prosecutors rested their case Tuesday in the trial of a former Marine charged with killing “American Sniper” author Chris Kyle and another man.
Eddie Ray Routh is accused of killing the former Navy SEAL and Kyle’s friend Chad Littlefield at a rural shooting range in February 2013. Before resting, prosecutors played a recorded phone call between Routh and a reporter from The New Yorker magazine in which Routh talks about the events, The Dallas Morning News reported.
“I had to take care of business. I took care of business, and then I got in the truck and left,” Routh said in the call.
Routh, whose attorneys are mounting an insanity defense, has pleaded not guilty. The trial has drawn intense interest, partly because of an Oscar-nominated film based on Kyle’s memoir.
Kyle and Littlefield were taking Routh on the outing at the request of the troubled veteran’s mother.
Routh also said he was annoyed Littlefield wasn’t shooting.
“Are you gonna shoot? Are you gonna shoot? It’s a shooting sport. You shoot,” Routh said in the phone call. “That’s what got me all riled up.”
State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf is under fire for comments she made during her appearance on “Hardball” with Chris Matthews, during which she said “we can’t win by killing ISIS,” but rather that they needed jobs.
On Feb. 3, ISIS released a video for the world to see of the brutal burning death of Jordanian Air Force pilot Moath al-Kasasbeh. On Feb. 15, ISIS terrorists released a video of the beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians. It didn’t take long for Jordan’s KingAbdullah to unleash dozens of airstrikes against the terror group in Syria or for Cairo to strike ISIS in Libya, and call for a U.N.-backed coalition to get in the game.
President Obama’s response? A few targeted airstrikes, a weak and unnecessary request for congressional authorization for war, a White House summit on terrorism, minus mention of Islamism – and a record-ridiculous, “you’ve got to be kidding” moment from Marie Harf, spokesperson for the State Department.
Her claim? That all the poor terrorists need are some economic opportunities.
“We’re killing a lot of them and we’re going to keep killing more of them. So are the Egyptians, so are the Jordanians. They’re in this fight with us. But we cannot win this war by killing them,” Harf’s said during a “Hardball” interview with Chris Matthews. We cannot kill our way out of this war. We need in the medium- to longer-term to go after the root causes that lead people to join these groups, whether it’s lack of opportunity for jobs, whether –”
And that’s where Matthews interrupted to say that the poor are always going to be with us and to wonder, most reasonably, what else can we do?
“We can work with countries around the world to help improve their governance,” Harf added. “We can help build their economies so they can have job opportunities for these people.”
So let’s get this straight. Heads roll – literally. People burn. But Team Obama thinks signing the responsible parties up for some workforce training, or maybe sending in some franchise businesses with big “Help Wanted” signs in their windows, are the real keys to curbing the terror.
Could the president’s fantasy land get any larger?
Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein, the man suspected of killing two during separate weekend attacks — one at a café hosting a free speech seminar and the other, at a Jewish synagogue — had just pledged loyalty to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a post on his Facebook’s page, authorities found. A few weeks before that, four Jewish men were killed by gunmen professing allegiance to ISIS and al Qaeda, during an attack on a kosher grocery in Paris – the tail end of a terrorist wave that started at Charlie Hebdo and left a total of 17 dead.
Factor in all the hated-filled rhetoric against Israel and the Judeo-Christian dominated West, and couldn’t the Obama administration at least entertain the thought that the driving force behind ISIS is anti-Semitism, anti-Christianity – anti-all things that aren’t of narrow Shariah conformance?
Yet this administration steadfastly refuses to regard the enemy with truthful eyes and see its murderous motivations as rooted in religious radicalism. After the kosher deli massacre, Obama told Vox that Americans needn’t concern themselves with radicals who “randomly shoot a bunch of folks at a deli in Paris.” He later told CNN that he didn’t want to “quibble with labels,” because “we do ourselves a disservice in this fight if we are not taking into account the fact that the overwhelming majority of Muslims reject this [jihad] ideology.”
Quibble with labels? Those who can’t name the enemy, can’t win against the enemy. Obama’s politically correct dance around the truth is only emboldening the enemy and placing America, and our allies, at risk of more terrorist attack and harm.
President Barack Obama talks with National Security Advisor Susan E. Rice in the Oval Office prior to a phone call with President Vladimir Putin of Russia, Feb. 10, 2015. (Photo: White House/Pete Souza)
When Alfred E. Neuman said “What me worry?” on the cover of Mad magazine, it was funny. But this message was not nearly as funny coming from President Barack Obama and his National Security Advisor, Susan Rice.
In a musical comedy, it would be hilarious to have the president send out his “happy talk” message by someone whose credibility was already thoroughly discredited by her serial lies on television about the Benghazi terrorist attack in 2012.
Unfortunately — indeed, tragically — the world today is about as far from a musical comedy as you can get, with terrorists rampaging across the Middle East, leaving a trail of unspeakable atrocities in their wake, and with Iran moving closer to producing a nuclear bomb, with an intercontinental missile on the horizon.
We will be lucky to get through the remainder of President Obama’s term in office without a major catastrophe, from which we may or may not recover.
Iran has announced repeatedly that it plans to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. But you don’t need an intercontinental missile to reach Israel from Iran. Teheran is less than a thousand miles from Jerusalem. As was said long ago, “Send not to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.”
It was painfully ironic to hear Ms. Rice tell us that the danger we face today is not as serious as the dangers we faced in World War II.
Anyone who has actually studied the period that led up to World War II knows that the Western democracies followed feckless policies remarkably similar to those that we are following today. And anyone who studies that war itself knows that the West came dangerously close to losing it before finally getting their act together and turning things around.
In a nuclear age, we may not have time to let reality finally sink in on our leaders and wake up the public to the dangers.
There was lots of “happy talk” in the West while Hitler was building up his Nazi war machine during the 1930s, as the Western intelligentsia were urging the democracies to disarm.
The dangers of Hitler’s sudden rise to power in Germany during the early 1930s were played down, and even ridiculed, by politicians, journalists and the intelligentsia in both Britain and France.
A temporary political setback for the Nazis in 1933 was hailed by a French newspaper as “the piteous end of Hitlerism” and a British newspaper said even earlier that Hitler was “done for.” Prominent British intellectual Harold Laski opined that Hitler was “a cheap conspirator rather than an inspired revolutionary, the creature of circumstances rather than the maker of destiny.”
In other words, Hitler and the Nazis were the “junior varsity” of their day, in the eyes of the know-it-alls.
Even after Hitler consolidated his political power in Germany, imposed a dictatorship and began building up a massive war machine, the Western democracies continued to believe that they could reach a peaceful understanding with him.
There was euphoria in the West when British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned from a conference in Munich, waving an agreement signed by Hitler, and declaring that it meant “peace for our time.” Our time turned out to be less than one year before the biggest and most ghastly war in history broke out in 1939.
Today, when people can graduate from even our most prestigious colleges and universities utterly ignorant of history, many people — even in high places — have no idea how close the Western democracies came to losing World War II.
For the first three years of that war, the West lost battle after battle in both Europe and Asia. France collapsed and surrendered after just six weeks of fighting, and few expected the British to survive the blitzkrieg Hitler unleashed on them from the air. Americans were defeated by the Japanese in the Philippines and, as prisoners of war, faced the horrors of the infamous Bataan death march.
When the British finally won the battle of El Alamein in North Africa in November 1942, this was their first victory, more than three years after Britain entered the war.
A nuclear war is not likely to last three years, so there is unlikely to be time enough to recover from years of glib, foolish words and catastrophic decisions.
The National Association of Home Builders said on Tuesday that their index on U.S. homebuilder sentiment fell for a second straight month in February.
“For the past eight months, confidence levels have held in the mid- to upper 50s range, which is consistent with a modest, ongoing recovery,” said NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe. “Solid job growth, affordable home prices and historically low mortgage rates should help unleash growing pent-up demand and keep the housing market moving forward in the year ahead.”
The NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market index, which for 30 years has gauged builder perceptions of current single-family home sales and sales expectations for the next six months as “good,” “fair” or “poor,” fell to 55 from 57 the month before. Economists polled by Reuters had predicted the index would rise to 58.
Readings above 50 mean more builders view market conditions as favorable than poor. The index has not been below 50 since June 2014.
The single-family home sales component fell to 61 from 62, marking the first drop in the subindex since October. Meanwhile, the gauge of single-family sales expectations for the next six months was flat at 60, while component measuring buyer traffic fell five points to 39 from 44, marking a second straight monthly decline.
Regarding the closely-watched, three-month moving averages for regional HMI scores, the Northeast fell 1 point to 46, while the Midwest and South each shed two-points to 54 and 57, respectively. The West, alone, saw increases, as the region rose two points to 68.
DEVELOPING: The New York Federal Reserve’s Empire State Manufacturing Survey fell to 7.78 in February, more than the 8.50 expected, from a January reading of 9.95. Readings above 0 point to expansion, while those below indicate contraction.
The new orders index fell five points to 1.2 — which is clear evidence that orders were flat — while the shipments index ticked up to 14.1. The unfilled orders index remained negative at -6.7, though the delivery time index rose to 1.1, marking the first time it came out of negative territory in several months The index indicates that delivery times had yet to shorten as in previous months. The inventories index fell to a slightly lower -2.3, though it too has been in negative territory.
While the employment indexes pointed to a modest increase in employment levels, there was again little change in the average workweek. That’s yet another bad sign for wage growth.
The prices paid index inched up two points to 14.6, indicating continued moderate input price increases, while the prices received index fell nine points to 3.4, suggesting a slowdown in selling price increases.
Indexes for the six-month outlook suggests significantly less optimism among firms than seen in recent months, including the survey released in December, which showed contraction for the first time in two years. The index for future general business conditions plunged twenty-three points to 25.6, its lowest level in more than two years. The future prices paid index fell to 27.0, while the future prices received index tanked by ten points to 5.6, its lowest level in more than five years. The index for expected number of employees was also lower, but remained positive at 24.7.
The capital expenditures index skyrocketed by 18 points to 32.6 — its highest level in more than three years — and the technology spending index rose to 19.1.
A federal judge ruled large parts of President Obama’s executive immigration order unconstitutional, in the first court opinion to tackle Obama’s controversial policy changes. Now, a federal judge has put the brakes on the ruling temporary.
A federal judge temporarily blocked President Obama’s unilateral executive action on immigration impacting some 5 million illegal immigrants, allowing a lawsuit aimed at permanently stopping the orders to move forward.
U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen granted the preliminary injunction requested by 26 states Monday, which was less than one day before the action was set for implementation. Judge Hanen ruled after hearing arguments in Brownsville, Texas last month, writing in a memorandum accompanying his order that the lawsuit should go forward and that without a preliminary injunction the states will “suffer irreparable harm in this case.”
“The genie would be impossible to put back into the bottle,” Judge Hanen wrote, flat-out stating that he agreed with the plaintiffs’ argument that the burden on states from legalizing the millions of people is sufficient for standing, He said the order — if allowed to take effect — would be a “virtually irreversible” action.
The first of Obama’s orders — to expand a program that protects young immigrants from deportation if they were brought to the U.S. illegally as children — was set to start taking effect Wednesday. The other major part of Obama’s order, which extends deportation protections to parents of U.S. citizens and permanent residents who have been in the country for some years, was not expected to begin until May 19.
A statement by White House press secretary Josh Earnest insisted that Obama’s executive actions were within the bounds of legality.
“The Supreme Court and Congress have made clear that the federal government can set priorities in enforcing our immigration laws-which is exactly what the President did when he announced commonsense policies to help fix our broken immigration system,” Earnest said. “The district court’s decision wrongly prevents these lawful, commonsense policies from taking effect and the Department of Justice has indicated that it will appeal that decision.”
An appeal by the administration would be handled by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. But experts say the opinion is lawful, valid and predict it will stand.
“I’d predict the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Houston will not interfere,” says Judge Andrew Napolitano, a judicial analyst and former federal judge. “I read the 250 pages and its thorough, complete, and a very sound opinion within the law.”
Judge Hanen, who was nominated by President George W. Bush in 2002, routinely hears border cases but wasn’t known for being outspoken on immigration until a 2013 case. In his ruling in that case, the judge said the Obama administration was involved in the “criminal conspiracy” involving defendant Mirtha Veronica Nava-Martinez, a mother who paid $6,000 to smuggle her child from El Salvador to Virginia.
Hanen suggested the Homeland Security Department should be arresting parents living in the U.S. illegally who induce their children to cross the border illegally.
The coalition, which was first filed by then-Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who was solidly elected to governor last November, argued that Obama violated the Take Care Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which requires the president to faithfully execute, or enforce, the law passed by Congress, not write them. They plaintiffs also say the order will force increased investment in law enforcement, health care and education.
“Judge Hanen’s decision rightly stops the President’s overreach in its tracks,” Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement.
In their request for the injunction, the coalition said it was necessary because it would be “difficult or impossible to undo the President’s lawlessness after the Defendants start granting applications for deferred action.”
Congressional Republicans have vowed to block Obama’s actions on immigration by cutting off Homeland Security Department spending for the program. Earlier this year, the Republican-controlled House passed a $39.7 billion spending bill to fund the department through the end of the budget year, but attached language to undo Obama’s executive actions. The fate of that House-passed bill is unclear as Republicans in the Senate are six votes shy of the 60-vote majority needed to advance most legislation.
Others supporting Obama’s executive order include a group of 12 mostly liberal states, including Washington and California, as well as the District of Columbia. They filed a motion with Hanen in support of Obama, arguing the directives will substantially benefit states and will further the public interest.
A group of largely unelected law enforcement officials, including the Major Cities Chiefs Association, also filed a motion in support of the order. While the vast majority of vocal elected sheriffs are opposed to the order, the chiefs at the MCCA argue the executive action will improve public safety by encouraging cooperation between police and individuals with concerns about their immigration status.
The states now suing Obama over his unilateral amnesty order now includes Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
While the involved states are largely concentrated in the mid-West and the South, voters nationwide are opposed to the president’s move. Polls conducted both prior and after the president took executive action, are conclusive.
This marks the second ruling on the order, though the first dealt with an unrelated lawsuit. U.S. District Court Judge Arthur Schwab in Pennsylvania said in December that Obama’s immigration order was effectively “legislation” handed down from the Executive Branch, thus invalid and unconstitutional.
“President Obama’s unilateral legislative action violates the separation of powers provided for in the United States Constitution as well as the Take Care Clause, and therefore, is unconstitutional,” Judge Schwab wrote.
A young girl in Douglas County (Colorado Springs) protests the legal challenge to a pilot voucher program, school choice program implemented by the then-newly elected conservative school board.
Opponents of charter schools have claimed that these schools are “cherry-picking” the students they admit, and that this explains why many charter schools get better educational results with less money than public schools do.
Many controversies about how students should be admitted to educational institutions, especially those supported by the taxpayers, betray a fundamental confusion about what these institutions are there for. This applies to both schools and colleges.
Admitting students strictly on the basis of their academic qualifications, which might seem to be common sense, is rejected by many college admissions committees.
A dean of admissions at Harvard, years ago, said, “the question we ask is: how well has this person used the opportunities available to him or her?” In other words, the issue is seen as which of the competing applicants are more deserving. Since some people have had far better educational opportunities than others, that is supposed to be taken into account in deciding whom to admit.
This myopic view of admissions decisions, as a question of choosing between applicant A versus applicant B, totally ignores the reason for the existence of educational institutions in the first place. These institutions were not created in order to dispense favors to particular individuals, but to confer benefits on society at large, by supplying graduates with skills valuable to the other members of society.
When Jonas Salk applied to selective Townsend Harris High School in New York, and later to the then-selective City College of New York (CCNY), there might well have been some other student, not quite as academically qualified, who could have been admitted instead, on the basis of having overcome greater handicaps than Jonas Salk had.
But the relevant question is: Would that other student have been equally likely to create a vaccine that would banish the scourge of polio?
This is not a question of elitism versus egalitarianism. The vanquishing of polio was a boon to millions of people, rich and poor alike, to people of every race, color and creed, in countries around the world. Thank heaven Salk was not kept out of selective educational institutions for the sake of “social justice” to one other individual who could have been admitted in his place.
The track record of New York’s selective public high schools — especially the most selective, Stuyvesant, Bronx Science and Brooklyn Tech — includes graduates whose contributions have created social benefits that have led to all sorts of awards and prizes, up to and including Nobel Prizes, seven Nobel Prizes in physics alone for graduates of the Bronx High School of Science alone.
Attacks on selective educational institutions, including attacks on academic qualifications as prime criteria, have been made across the country, for years on end. In New York, the attack on strict academic admissions standards at CCNY succeeded decades ago, while attacks on the selective public high schools have not yet succeeded.
Those who attacked the strict admissions standards at CCNY demanded “open admissions” — which was an impossible demand from the outset. If just anybody could get into CCNY, then it would no longer be CCNY in any meaningful sense, so what would those admitted accomplish by getting in? They could get into the buildings but there was no longer the same education there.
Turning what had once been known as “the poor man’s Harvard” into just another failing institution was apparently an object lesson. “Open admissions” was dropped.
Today teachers’ unions are attacking charter schools for supposedly “cherry-picking” which students to admit. In reality, the students are usually chosen by lottery, but there is selectivity in the sense that the most concerned parents are more likely to put their children’s names in the lottery, and the most successful children are the ones most likely to stay on to graduate.
Any hope of successfully educating poor minority children depends on separating them from the hoodlums who make education impossible in so many ghetto schools. If charter schools do that, more power to them.
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His website is www.tsowell.com.
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