RE: Building the Last Mile — May 10, 2012

I follow regularly electronically the activities at the FCPP -- the wide-range of your activities is quite amazing and unique, especially here in the east.  - Douglas Bland, Adjunct Professor, School of Policy Studies, Queen's University 

RE: Standardized Testing is a Good Thing — October 31, 2011

A couple of years ago the Conservative party and Mr. McFadyen professed to be very enthusiastic about re instating school testing. Soon they changed their tune after holding meetings with teachers and thinking they might have a chance to be elected if they could garner teachers votes. I am just reading Tom Friedman's book That Used To Be Us and if Canada is going to reduce testing it will be while other countries around the globe are stressing it even more. In the UK they are even making the advanced school exams more difficult since it had become a real problem trying to discriminate between student applicants . Too many with "All A's". E-mail from Robert, Winnipeg

RE: Don’t Scrap Standardized Testing — October 19, 2011

How true! This reflects my experience as a school psychologist with the Calgary Board of Education in the late 70s and 80s. It was the era of the "Whole Language Approach" to teaching reading and writing skills. It was embraced by the CBE and transmitted with religious passion by the Language Specialists as the only acceptable teaching method. No structured learning experience or phonics were to be used. An unacceptable number of children in the system ended up with very limited reading and writing skills-a deficit not noticed until the cohort was in junior high school. Unfortunately, this was also a period when standardized assessment of skills was 'optional' for each Calgary school.

Continue reading HERE.

RE: 10 “Smart Green” Ideas for Reducing Greenhouse Gases — December 8, 2006
Except for the part about nuclear energy, I cannot understand why Mr. Holle is not a member of and a candidate for the Green Party.

As for nuclear power the big problem is not just the risk of an accident or disposal of spent fuel but what do we do with power plants that have reached the end of their life. Already there are millions of barrels full of the radio-active remains of such plants spread all over the world. Since these barrels include highly radio-active elements with half lives in the thousands of years, we have to ask who is going to keep them safe and secure over those many thousands of years? Currently most of these barrels are out in the open rusting away. How much is it going to cost to repackage and keep them secure for thousands of years, if it even gets done? This is the real cost of nuclear power. I believe that if this very real cost were to be paid now and not laid upon future generations the cost of electricity from nuclear power could well be hundreds of times, maybe even thousands of times, that which consumers are now paying.-- E-mail from Nick Burman, Calgary

RE: The End of Taxi Regulation — August 2, 2011

I like your publications on deregulation of the taxicab industry posted on the Frontier Centre's web site. Taxicab regulation is a pet peeve of mine that get's me fairly exercised when I talk about it. -- Email from Winnipeg

RE: Computers in the Classroom — September 15, 2009
The byline, that Ontario is planning to address the problem, is encouraging but I wonder how many poverty-stricken or working poor families will be able to send their kids to a school significantly farther away (in this age of nonresponsibility, though, probably a lot of parents will welcome the notion of their kids being gone for longer periods every day). I guess the province is somewhat cash poor these days and had to come up with something more creative than buying teachers new high tech teaching toys or other than throwing more money at the system. This tactic has proven time and again to be ineffective and even counterproductive. The notion that more exposure to a learning environment would not produce better informed students and sharper minds, generally, is folly. The problem, as I see it, is entirely related to the quality of the "education". When I was in high school, about thirty years ago, every once in a while I'd crack a math text book just to see how they explain things I thought were utterly obvious. In most cases my reaction was that the methods they use are incredibly convoluted when there is a clear and simple way to approach the problem. I just finished a grade eleven math course (took me like a month) and nothing has changed. For example, there was a question where it took a split second of thought for the correct answer to occur to me, but their solution is a long series of calculations (for which you are encouraged to use a mechanica device to carry out, of course)which "estimates" the answer, and only comes close the the right answer?!@#$!? It seems to me that the way they teach is absolutely in sync with the way the government runs society as a whole, inasmuch everything around you promotes how to make your life easy and comfortable and convenient, but virtually nothing systematic promoting (actual) healthiness or good character or mental soundness. I just have a very hard time accepting that this is not wholly intentional. -- E-mail from Ontario

RE: High Performance Winnipeg? — October 27, 2006

Peter Holle urged Winnipeggers to envision our city in 2011 as one operating on a "competitive model", relying on "advanced measurement techniques" and "eliminating bureaucracy". Coupled with performance bonuses, customer service surveys and public-private partnerships, Holle's vision is a dream for free-market policy wonks who live for technocratic efficiency. Sadly, his vision would be a dystopia for regular Winnipeggers.

What Holle doesn't spell out is that his ideas would further widen the gap between the rich and poor in our city. Privatizing municipal services and contracting out would further weaken the quality of services we receive while simultaneously eroding the living standards of unionized workers. Performance bonuses for police would increase the ruthlessness of a service already plagued by criticisms of abuse of power and racism. An ethic of care and community would be replaced by one of self-serving egoism and "devil-take-the-hindmost". Maybe instead of having one in four Winnipeg children grow up in poverty, we could aim for one in two. Finally, instead of ideas of participatory municipal citizenship, Holle offers up an emaciated view of Winnipeggers as consumers shopping for services from an administrative "board of directors" (i.e. city hall).

It may be a "confident and cool" city for those with the cash, but for many it would simply be perilous and cold. Sorry, Mr. Holle, but your high-performance Winnipeg sends shivers down my spine. E-mail from PATRICK MCGUIRE in Winnipeg

Media Release - The Folly of Saskatchewan’s “Free” Public Wireless Internet
The study’s author, David Seymour, says the program is a poor use of government funds and a source of frustration for would-be users. “Anyone who’s seen the Saskatchewan! Connected stickers advertising free internet at a venue and tried to use it will likely be familiar with the frustration of such poor service. It would almost be better if the promise was never held out; at the moment it seems as if it’s a bad practical joke

Media Release - Pricing and the Future of the Internet
This isn’t just about watching movies and TV shows. This is also about using the internet to telecommute and reduce road congestion; it is about enabling people in rural and remote areas to participate more fully in economic opportunities; it is about building capacity to provide much faster speeds enabling the creation and delivery of new services.

The World Bank Now Agrees: We Need Another Green Revolution
Crop yields are fortunately still rising, thanks in part to plant breeding and biotech—and partly to the “CO2 secret.” Experiments show that more CO2 in the air acts like fertilizer to all plants, even as it increases their water use efficiency.

The High Cost of Not Investing in Health Care
Infrastructure investment featured in the election platforms of both the Liberals and the Conservatives, which reflects crumbling roads and overwhelmed sewer systems across the country. Our healthcare infrastructure also needs attention . Recent research shows that private hospital rooms are the single best way to protect patients from hospital acquired infection, for example, but we have trouble maintaining existing facilities and can't begin to renovate outdated buildings or build new hospitals. With respect to pricey diagnostic equipment, Canada falls below the OECD mean numbers per capita of MRI and CT machines, one factor in long waits for these scans.

Saskatchewan! Connected?
The provincial government limiting its activity to providing public goods and to acknowledging the importance of price signals are two courses that would have better served the people of Saskatchewan had government considered them when implementing public wireless internet policy. Following these courses will lead to better public policy in the future.

The End of Taxi Regulation
In its short life, the internet has annihilated travel agents, classified newspaper ads, bookstores, and conventional encyclopaedias. All were seen as solid parts of the economy before being swept away by Expedia, eBay, Amazon, and Wikipedia, respectively. The taxi industry, with its firms and brands, government regulators, and telephone dispatch systems seems just as essential today as all of the above industries did ten years ago, but is just as vulnerable to technological disruption.

Technology and the Invisible Hand
Technology drives the attitude. Over 30 years, the cost of sending 1 trillion bits of information between places has dropped from $150,000 to 17 cents. More dramatically, a run-of-the-mill Ford Taurus today contains more computing power than all the mainframe computers used in the Apollo Space Program. Nor is the progress restricted to computer chips and gadgets. In 1900, more than 200 of every 100,000 people died every year from the flu, but now just over 30 do. The number who perish in workplace accidents is a small fraction of the total just a few decades ago.

There is More at Stake in Internet Pricing than Watching Movies
This isn’t just about watching movies and TV shows. This is also about using the internet to telecommute and reduce road congestion; it is about enabling people in rural and remote areas to participate more fully in economic opportunities; it is about building capacity to provide much faster speeds enabling the creation and delivery of new services. In the United States, for example, the Federal Communications Commission wants 100 million homes with access to fast service (100 Mbps). The Australian government effectively nationalized the last mile to build FTTH.

A Frontier Conversation with George Gilder
I don’t think technology has radically changed the rules. It’s just increased the penalties for defying the rules. You used to be able to have an insulated little economy with high tariffs and perhaps could survive. You wouldn’t do well but you’d survive. Today you separate yourself from the global economy and you’re left vastly behind.