David Brooks Is Confused Again
|
 |
|
Tuesday, 07 February 2012 05:22 |
|
David Brooks devoted today's column to a plea to use a broad range of approaches to combating poverty in the hope that some will work. For this reason his focus on President Obama's decision to end a school voucher program in the District of Columbia is misplaced.
President Obama is not ending school voucher programs, in fact he is protecting the idea of local control that could lead to exactly the sort of diversity of approaches that Brooks is touting. The issue is that Congress has sought to deny local control to the District of Columbia, which has opted not to use school vouchers. Obama's action simply gives the same authority to the people of the District of Columbia to run their schools as people in other cities in other cities enjoy.
(Only one link allowed per comment)
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Show/hide comments
Show/hide comment form
He clearly doesn not understand the nature of a "negative feedback loop." Breaking a “feedback loop” is much like making a chain fail, all it takes is cutting one link. Just as a chain is dependent on each of its links, feedback is dependent on each part of its process, and a feedback loop ceases to exist the minute that any one element within that loop is removed.
He also says that Obama is a technocrat because he is "in the business of promulgating rules" and because he "seeks abstract principles that he can apply in all cases." Silly me. I thought that technocracy had to do with the application of science to the maintenance of social order.