HELL OR HIGH TAXES
There�s no getting around the detail that half of America�s children are below average

With the Nevada economy in free-fall, state spending has had to be curtailed. If the real-estate market tanks, fewer real-estate transfer taxes are paid. If the employers have to cut back on the number of employees, fewer payroll taxes are paid. Fewer gamblers losing in the Silver State means less gaming tax collected by Carson City.

It�s simple mathematics, but not for Chancellor Jim Rogers. Come hell or high taxes, he believes that more pain should be ladled on the taxpayers to fund education in Nevada. He even sent the Nevada Board of Regents a memorandum complaining that Governor Jim Gibbons is gagging him though the covert efforts of Gibbons� secret agent, businessman Monte Miller.

Next, Rogers will claim that the Gibbons administration has implanted computer chips into legislators, and that Barbara Buckley et al are now under the spell of the evil Gibbons, who is commanding them to: cut, cut, cut.

Of course, legislators and the governor are only doing their jobs. The state budget must be axed. If the majority of the state budget goes to education, then that�s where the majority of the cuts must come from. Again, it�s just a math problem.

But Rogers, along with Michael Wixom, who serves on the Nevada Board of Regents, thinks more taxpayer money should be shoveled into the education maw, because us taxpayers must invest in the state�s human capital.

Wixom didn�t provide any evidence to back this claim, and Rogers never attempts to defend his calls for more education spending. The fact of the matter is education is only a good investment when spent on those with enough academic ability to leverage that investment. And given that those with that ability will reap the return from that investment, they (or their parents) should provide the funding for it, not taxpayers.

But government is indiscriminate when dishing out education dollars. The dimmest bulbs on the tree are being funded just as much (or more) as the brightest. Speaking at this summer�s FreedomFest, Charles Murray, who famously co-authored The Bell Curve, explained that too many kids are going to college.

The education establishment (headed by Rogers and Wixom in Nevada) runs from the fact that ability varies. Education systems in America are living the lie, Murray contends, that kids can be anything they want to be. But not all kids can be what they want to be or what Rogers and Wixom want them to be. There is just no getting around the naughty detail that half of America�s children are below average.

And they should not be expected to go to college and comprehend the material. As Murray explained, only 10 percent of students have the intellectual horsepower to complete a rigorous college education. Yet, half of all high school graduates are going on to college to pursue education that will lead to intellectual professions.

The result is an abundance of mediocre lawyers and a dearth of good mechanics, carpenters and other tradesmen. Murray contends that humanities studies don�t always reveal the lack of student I.Q. power, but college science and math courses easily weed out the intellectually challenged. If a student graduated with a B.A. in English Literature, �I don�t know anything about their ability, because they took not just courses that are nonsense, but pernicious nonsense,� Murray cracked.

This big investment that the Chancellor and the Regent are demanding is good money after bad. Four-year schools only work for the few kids that have the time and money, Murray says, and he believes that these residential schools are about to become obsolete. Just as much can be learned via teleconference courses and books, and for a whole lot less money.

Besides, the value of the college degree itself is declining, the Wall Street Journal�s Greg Ip writes. �What employers want from workers nowadays is more narrow, more abstract and less easily learned in college.�

The biggest victims with the state�s attempt to educate the dumb and dumber. The intellectually gifted are shortchanged. These students are never challenged or humiliated, according to Murray, and never learn �what makes a good human life.�

So nobody learns: Those are your tax dollars at work.