Tag Archives: policy

The Pay-Twice Paradox

Posted on by

I’ve recently heard some conversation trying to sully or tarnish the idea of openness by associating it with socialism. (Of course, if there’s anything you don’t like in the US today the standard response is to label it “socialist,” despite the fact that many labelers can neither define nor spell the term properly.) However, from my perspective some of the most important forms of openness are simply about obeying one of the standard laws of capitalism: if I pay for a good or service, I am entitled to the good or service. Could the market (or society) survive if we didn’t obey this rule?

I wonder at what point the following progression of scenarios crosses from an area where my expectation is reasonable into an area where my expectation is unreasonable:

1. I walk into a restaurant and pay $5.99 for the day’s special. I expect to be served the food and to be able to eat the food.

2. Two friends and I pay $65 each for tickets to a professional basketball game. I expect to be allowed to sit in the seat listed on my ticket and to get to watch the entire game.

3. My family pays $250,000 for a home. I expect that my family and I will be able to live in the home.

4. My community implements a one-time tax to pay for a new playground, and I pay the tax. I expect that my family will be able to use the new playground.

5. My state government implements an ongoing tax part of which is used to build and maintain roads, and I pay the tax. I expect to be able to use the roads.

6. My national government implements an ongoing tax part of which is used to fund the conduct of research, and I pay the tax. I expect to be able to see and use the results of the research.

7. My national government implements an ongoing tax part of which is used to create educational materials, and I pay the tax. I expect to be able to use the educational materials.

In the current system there is a point around (6) where a change occurs and I am expected to pay twice for the same good or service. For example, say my taxes are used by NSF to fund research, and the results of this research are published in an expensive academic journal. After having paid once for the research to be conducted, now I’m supposed to pay again to subscribe to the journal to find out what the results were? It’s like paying for a pizza only to be told that the original fee was to have the pizza made and baked, put that I’ll have to pay again (and substantially more this time!) if I want to be able to eat the pizza.

Why is the pay-twice model ok for 6 and 7, but not acceptable for 1 or 2? It isn’t. If I pay for a good or service, I’m entitled to it. If taxpayers pay to support research or the creation of educational materials, we are entitled to use those results and resources.

Bad News for Federally-funded OER

Posted on by

As pointed out in a post on the Brookings Institution blog, large-scale federally-funded OER won’t be coming this year:

Buried beneath the much-deserved hullaballoo over the passage of health care reform were big changes that the reconciliation bill makes to the federal student loan program… Less noticed, however, is a provision that was in the House-passed Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (SAFRA) this fall, but dropped from the final version that passed last night…. [W]ith Pell Grant spending up due to the poor state of the economy, and the pressure to keep the total cost of the bill down while achieving expanded health insurance coverage and deficit reduction, the AGI got left on the cutting-room floor.

The American Graduation Initiative (AGI) was the Obama-backed initiative that included $50M/yr for open online courses for the next ten years (i.e., $500M for OER). These courses would have provided critical content infrastructure for innovative education experiments, and we needed them desperately.

Shucks. Maybe next year.

On Religion in the Public Sphere

Posted on by

On Friday Stephen wrote a brief, interesting piece on “playing the religion card” in the realm of public policy. I think I agree with what he wrote, and want to state my view explicitly for the record as a way of . Excerpting from Stephen’s post:

[N]o particular religion can or should have the means to impose its particular view on society. This is not to say that people can not or should not live and represent their moral and spiritual values. Nobody has a problem with that, not even the atheists. Rather, it means that if you advocate “policy x” because your religious views compel you to do so, your advocacy of “policy x” will have to be on the basis of its own merits, not because “Canada was founded based on the principles of religion y”…. Play the religion card with great caution. You may be religious; I don’t care. But when you try to cram religion into government, I get very very upset.

Indeed, people absolutely should live and represent their moral and spiritual values. To live out of harmony with your own values is hypocrisy. And yes, people should absolutely advocate for the principles and values they believe in, regardless of whether their personal conviction comes through faith, reason, or a combination of both. Likewise, when engaging in the act of advocacy, it is important to speak in terms that will be best understood by those to whom you are advocating. Sometimes this will be the language of faith, sometimes the language of reason, and sometimes a combination of both.

This means that sometimes people of faith will sometimes be best served by using the language of reason. It also means that people who do not consider themselves people of faith will sometimes be best served using the language of faith. Neither person should find these necessities offensive. It does mean, however, that each needs to study and cultivate a sense of respect for, and working knowledge of the language of, the Other. And it seems to me that this willingness to care about the Other is, sadly, too often absent from public discourse.