Jose Nino

The Teaching Elites Have Spoken

Jul 28, 2011 at 10:07 AM

By Jose Nino

Even with extensive government involvement in the education sector, the spontaneous order of the marketplace has given private sector alternatives to education such as Khan Academy somewhat of a chance to compete with the current public education monopoly.

Andrew J. Coulson, director of the Cato Institute's Center for Educational Freedom, is able to point out a damning quote from a feature story in Wired that vividly illustrates the culture of mediocrity instilled by public education:

Even if Khan is truly liberating students to advance at their own pace, it's not clear that the schools will be able to cope. The very concept of grade levels implies groups of students moving along together at an even pace. So what happens when, using Khan Academy, you wind up with a kid in fifth grade who has mastered high school trigonometry and physics-but is still functioning like a regular 10-year-old when it comes to writing, history, and social studies? Khan's programmer, Ben Kamens, has heard from teachers who've seen Khan Academy presentations and loved the idea but wondered whether they could modify it "to stop students from becoming this advanced."

The UN Still Doesn't Get It

Jul 20, 2011 at 10:39 AM

By Jose Nino

The horrors of the North Korean totalitarian state are well documented. As expected, massive amounts of the North Korean populace are starving to death from years of brutal central-planning of the economy.

The most interesting nugget from this article was the UN's World Food Programme take on North Korea's plight:

North Korea faces its worst food shortage in a decade, with six million people at risk -- a consequence of poor economic management of its centrally planned system, a series of bad harvests caused by harsh winters, flooding and exhausted agricultural land, and the regime's unwillingness to spend its dwindling hard currency reserves on buying food for its 24 million people.

As usual, the UN misses the mark. Ludwig Von Mises and F.A Hayek both aptly pointed out decades ago that there is no such thing as a good centrally-planned economic system. The problem isn't that the economy had "poor...management," but that it was managed at all. Perhaps the UN could use a reminder of this excellent video:

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Libertarianism vs. Conservatism, Round 2

Jul 15, 2011 at 6:28 PM

By Jose Nino

Due to great turnout last year, the Cato Institute will be hosting another debate between libertarians and conservatives.

Cato invites you to a thought-provoking debate about the two philosophies and their respective policy applications, as interns from the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute go head-to-head to answer the age-old question: Which is the better philosophy, libertarianism or conservatism?

You can register right now for this must-see summer event here! The debate will be held on Thursday, July 21st at 6:30 pm with a reception to follow. Chip Bishop of the Cato Institute will give the introduction and the debate will be moderated by David Barnes, Senior Policy Analyst of Economic Policies for the 21st Century.

If you can't make it to the Cato Institute, this event will be streamed live in the aforementioned links.

Libertarian vs. Conservative