I wish BCPS administrators would read Glenn Reynolds on the K-12 "lower education bubble"

Some highlights from Glenn's piece in the Washington Examiner:

In recent months, I've written in these pages about a "higher education bubble" [but] we're also starting to see the deflation of what might be called a "lower education bubble" - that is, the constant flow of more and more money into K-12 education without any significant degree of buyer resistance, in spite of the often low quality of the education it purchases.

. . . at the K-12 level, we've got an educational system that in many fundamental ways hasn't changed in 100 years - except, of course, by becoming much less rigorous - but that nonetheless has become vastly more expensive without producing significantly better results.

In the past, when problems with education were raised, the solution was always to spend more money. But as economist Herbert Stein once noted, something that can't go on forever, won't. Steady increases in per-pupil spending without any commensurate increase in learning can't go on forever. So they won't. And as state after state faces near-bankruptcy (or, in some cases, actual bankruptcy), we've pretty much hit that point now.

. . .

Getting rid of . . . overgenerous, underfunded public pensions is something states will have to do to remain solvent. But that's just the short term. Over the longer term - which means, really, the next three to five years at most - straitened circumstances and the need for better education will require more significant change.

. . .

Like striking steelworkers in the 1970s, today's teachers' immediate unhappiness may come from reductions in benefits. But their bigger problem is an industry that hasn't kept up with the times, and isn't producing the value it once did. Until that changes, we're likely to see deflation of the lower education bubble as well as the higher.

"Higher education's bubble is about to burst"

Glenn Reynolds has an excellent essay up at the Examiner.

The buyers think what they're buying will appreciate in value, making them rich in the future. The product grows more and more elaborate, and more and more expensive, but the expense is offset by cheap credit provided by sellers eager to encourage buyers to buy.

Buyers see that everyone else is taking on mounds of debt, and so are more comfortable when they do so themselves; besides, for a generation, the value of what they're buying has gone up steadily. What could go wrong? Everything continues smoothly until, at some point, it doesn't.

Yes, this sounds like the housing bubble, but I'm afraid it's also sounding a lot like a still-inflating higher education bubble.

...

Things haven't collapsed yet, but they're looking shakier -- kind of like the housing market looked in 2007.

For insights on a possible future in post-bubble academia, Glenn points to a book called DIY U. by Any Kamenetz (4 stars on Amazon):

My question is whether traditional academic institutions will be able to keep up with the times, or whether -- as Anya Kamenetz suggests in her new book, "DIY U" -- the real pioneering will be in online education and the work of "edupunks" who are more interested in finding new ways of teaching and learning than in protecting existing interests.

UPDATE: Another book by Curtis Bonk seems to have a similar message (and gets more stars on Amazon): The World Is Open: How Web Technology Is Revolutionizing Education. From an Amazon reviewer:

Bonk shows us that transformative change is coming, and it won't be stopped. He explains that technology, openness, and unprecedented access to knowledge are removing control of the learning process from institutions and placing it into the hands of the individual. This change is nothing short of revolutionary.

A riveting narrative, "The World is Open" will undoubtedly draw comparison to Friedman's seminal work "The World is Flat," but this book is perhaps more important.

The non-profit bubble (continued)

From Deanna Isaacs, writing at ChicagoReader:

. . . former NEA director Bill Ivey [is warning] leaders of nonprofit arts organizations about rampant overgrowth in their field [that] probably can't be sustained. Citing national figures from Americans for the Arts, he noted that their number has mushroomed in the last 40 years, from about 7,700 to more than 40,000. [. . .] He offered some hard-nosed advice on how to deal with it: Abort start-ups and put down the weak sisters, pronto.

A non-profit bubble?

When I googled the phrase "non-profit bubble" in quotes recently, I found an article by Gara LaMarche of The Atlantic Philanthropies, writing last year:

Now we are learning that there has been a "nonprofit bubble," too [. . . and it] has burst . . . Most foundations are working hard just to meet their existing commitments, and many are eliminating staff jobs and trimming other expenses to do so . . .

Gara's prescription for dealing with the situation:

First, foundations must be more rigorous in scrutinizing their own operations and the management and budgets of the groups they support. . .

Second, small groups should consider merging with other like-minded organizations. . .

Third, large nonprofit groups should streamline their operations.

The Nation picked up on her article. And then GrantsPlus picked up on The Nation's article.

Of course, Instapundit was on the case even earlier in 2008.

I think that the "nonprofit" sector has grown out of all proportion because of its tax-exempt status, and we ought to consider eliminating tax exemptions for nonprofits entirely. Failing that, we ought to limit them to organizations that provide direct services to those in need, and only to the extent of such services. The rest is a big subsidy that has created a nonprofit bubble in the economy.

One of Glenn's reader's, Doug Levene, chimed in with a comparison to pre-modern China:

Your comments on the growth of the non profit sector as a refuge from taxation are very important.

As part of my East Asian Studies M.A. at Yale many years ago, I studied a lot of pre-modern Chinese history and one fact that struck me then was the growth of tax-free "religious" institutions to the point where the tax base was severely eroded. Indeed, that was one of the major problems for the Chinese central government, such as it was. I wonder if that is happening in the US generally today? It obviously does happen locally - consider what percentage of the property in Cambridge, Massachusetts is tax exempt. What is the impact nationally? Have any economists or tax lawyers looked at this?

Any thoughts from the economists and tax lawyers out there?