The Immigrants:

In economics there is only one known truism: Without population growth, there is no economic growth.

Over the past thirty years, without immigrants coming to the United States, population growth would have been nil, non-existent.

America is a country of immigrants. No surprise there, although a good many people in America seem to think otherwise. There are many misconceptions about the phenomenon, and today's New York Times addresses some of them in a story on recent research into who is coming to America, our perceptions of them, and the effects the immigrants have. The results are informative and may be surprising.

For instance, most of us have little objection to wealthy, well educated professional immigrants, while we are often upset by poor and unskilled immigrants. However, without a steady influx of both categories, the economy suffers.


Will Charlie Crist Go Rogue?

Florida governor, Charlie Crist, has bucked his own Republican party to announce a veto of a bill to directly link teacher pay and employment to how well students perform on standardized tests. The speculation now is that he might well declare himself an independent.

Florida is a state dominated by people who hate paying taxes so much that they are perfectly willing to have the children in the state remain illiterate as an alternative to paying a tax increase. Many of these folks are retired and have moved to Florida from other states, living their own children and grandchildren behind. They simply don't want to pay for other people's children to learn.

But there are serious problems with education in all fifty American states. To see just how stupid we really are on this subject, examine the following from The New York Times:

This time, the point of contention was eliminating tenure for Florida public school teachers and tying their pay and job security to how well their students were learning.

I'm sorry, folks, but there is no objective measure for "how well … students" learn. It can't be done. You can only judge product, and students are not products. You can only judge their behavior, and for the most part that's going to be set by the time they are five years old.

Certainly, there are important issues with education, including the fact that many teachers are woefully undereducated themselves, having spent most of their time in higher education's empty "education" courses and very low level "psychology" courses.

If we truly want to improve education in this country, we must develop a culture that actually values it, emphasizing the responsibility of the student for learning. That begins at home. And continues at school, in the work place, in our social lives, and then returns to the home.


The Story of Water: Chapter Three

• One out of eight people lacks access to clean water.
• 3.3 million die from water-related health problems each year.
• Washing hands with soap can reduce diarrheal disease by 45 percent.
• An eradication campaign that includes a simple water filter has cut the number of Guinea worm cases by 99.9 percent since 1986.

(See the April 2010 National Geographic.)