The Division’s decision sets a bad precedent.  The subjects covered in the State Museum were selected by historians who gave them serious consideration. While the decision of those historians not to focus on Mylan apparently “dismayed” Mylan’s President and Governor Joe Manchin’s daughter Heather Bresch, it is perfectly understandable. Mylan’s history extends only several decades, and it is not representative of a larger West Virginia industry.

If the State Museum is to be accepted as a credible West Virginia history storyteller, it cannot sell its story-telling space.

With all the organizations out there aimed at improving life as we know it in West Virginia  – from Vision Shared to CreateWV to ImagineWV to the Democratic and Republican Parties, it is with great trepidation that I suggest the addition of another group to fill a desperately needed void – Thinking.

I grow frustrated by the two extreme forms discussions in West Virginia take.  At one extreme, you have the Fox News/ MSNBC crowd that sees everything at one or the other end of the political continuum.  If President Obama says it, it must be bad/good depending on which end of the political continuum you place yourself.  At the other extreme, you have people who spout platitudes as if they’re somehow meaningful and love every new idea (term defined very broadly here), no matter how hare-brained, that someone proposes and the sychophants who follow these platitude-spouters around.

Having given up on all current organizations, I have decided to create a new group called “Think, West Virginia.”  “Think, West Virginia” will focus on one thing – thinking through the serious issues of the day and coming up with nuanced solutions to our problems.  Some proposed ideas for “Think, West Virginia’s” platform:

• The plural of anecdote is not evidence.
• If everybody agrees with you, you’re not saying anything.
• If the solution to a difficult problem is simple, you haven’t yet found the solution.
• If the idea can be crystallized completely into a sound bite, it’s really not an idea.
• If your strategic plan can fit on one page, you don’t have a plan to address any problem larger than what to cook for dinner.
• If your strategic plan includes every idea thrown out in a brainstorming session, you don’t have a strategic plan.  You have toilet paper.
• The number of pretty pictures in a publication is inversely proportional to the knowledge being imparted in that publication.

The first major initiative of Think, West Virginia: to require a debate class as a condition for graduation from every public and private high school in West Virginia.  Given the level of public discourse I have observed recently, it’s clear that our schools are failing miserably at teaching critical thinking skills.  And I know of no better activity than policy debate, which sadly is offered nowhere in the State of West Virginia anymore, to teach critical thinking.  In policy debate, students wrestle with a single topic for an entire year.  They learn to prepare cases defining the problem, demonstrating its significance, exploring barriers in the status quo that prevent obvious solutions from being implemented, proposing plans, and setting forth advantages to their plans.  But, more importantly, they learn how to tear down every piece of the case they just built and then to rebuild it again using sound logic and reasoning.

Think, West Virginia.  It’s truly the only way to improve things.

Senator Rockefeller described the grant as “a real game-changer in West Virginia,” and I could not agree more.  Broadband access is a critical component of rural economic growth.  In a world where some people can work from almost anywhere, they can’t work from an area that lacks basic broadband access.

What major sector of the United States economy has seen costs rise more quickly than the health care sector – and by a wide margin?

Higher education, of course.

Why have higher education costs risen so quickly? Certain higher education officials would like to convince you that it’s because state appropriations have not kept pace with inflation. But that’s really only a small part of the explanation – and not even that if you factor in all the new federal and state funding coming through the back door in the form of merit- and need-based financial aid. The dirty little secret: The back door funding of rich and poor kids with financial aid has removed market forces from the fee-setting calculus. With almost no pressure to control prices, tuition costs – and thus the revenue institutions have to operate in real dollar terms – has increased exponentially. I’m oversimplifying a bit here, but this certainly is the case for West Virginia’s four-year higher education institutions over the last decade – and what the public higher education sector tries to hide using an inflation measure called the higher education price index. (It has a legitimate purpose, just not the purpose for which it is most frequently used.)

Were I less busy, I would connect the dots that support my contentions for you sooner, rather than later. But alas market forces require me to do real, paying work. When I return to posting on this blog (this coming weekend), I will share my thoughts about our newest higher education market force – the Governor, who’s saying “no” to tuition increases, as well as address the legislative auditor’s assessment of the appropriate number of four-year institutions, which I think may be wrong-headed. Plus I’ll flag three interesting news articles about subjects that I think may have a larger impact than people realize.

But alas it’s back to paying work.

Now, I am sad to report, Dr. Florida has concluded that we should just give up on community development.  Instead of supporting communities, explains The American Prospect in an article aptly titled “The Ruse of the Creative Class,” we should start supporting people.  His words from a May 2009 blog post: “People – not industries or even places – should be our biggest concern.  We can best help those who are hardest-hit by the [economic] crisis, by providing a generous social safety [net], investing in their skills, and when necessary helping them become mobile and move where the opportunities are.”

Had we known back then how easy it was to (re)create West Virginia, we could have saved a lot of time and money by buying everyone suitcases and renting them Ryder trucks so they could move to more stylish bergs like Austin, Texas; Raleigh, North Carolina; and Boulder, Colorado.

Was Dr. Florida correct then or is he correct now?  Stay tuned.

“I know House Speaker Earl Ray Tomblin is open-minded to looking at what is cost effective,” he said. ["]We need to look at where the money is needed most, everyday things for people to go to work. I don’t want to look at one thing.”

Just then they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that rise from that plain.  And no sooner did Don Quixote see them than he said to his squire: “Fortune is guiding our affairs better than we ourselves could have wished.  Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants?  I intend to do battle with them and slay them.  With their spoils we shall begin to be rich for this is a righteous war and the removal of so foul a brood from off the face of the earth is a service God will bless.

- Miquel de Cervantes, Don Quixote

In our search to create a carbon neutral world, we have begun to harness small, but not insignificant, amounts of wind energy.  Until recently my knowledge of wind energy was limited to a vague notion that there were a lot of windmills (not true) and wooden shoes in Holland.

Today I know a lot more about wind energy.  That knowledge makes me appreciate that making environmentally-correct decisions can be very complicated.  Some of the issues:

• Not all places are equal in terms of their ability to produce wind energy.  Only one region of West Virginia – the Potomac Highlands – is well suited for large-scale wind energy production.
• The best places for wind in West Virginia – the tops of large mountains – can be very hard to reach with 50+ ton wind turbines.
• Wind turbines can kill endangered species like Indiana bats.
• The noise created by wind turbines has been linked to negative health effects for nearby residents.
• Many people have concerns about the impact of wind turbines on viewscapes.  Would you want to stay at a bed and breakfast in Greenbrier County with a large wind turbine in plain view?  How about wind turbines in our “quasi-sacred” national forests and other public lands where, by the way, most of West Virginia’s harnessable wind energy can be found?

Unlike Don Quixote’s imaginary enemies, our environmental enemies – global warming, destroyed ecosystems, polluted streams – are quite real.  But slaying these real enemies might prove just as difficult for us as slaying imaginary enemies was for Don Quixote.

• The first problem, I daresay, is with Vision Shared’s mission: “To bridge social, political and economic gaps by BRINGING PEOPLE TOGETHER to confront the issues and needs facing West Virginia.” I realize that bringing people together, which is better known as event planning or party planning to the uninitiated, can be quite an accomplishment, but it is hardly a “meaningful” accomplishment for an organization in existence for almost a decade. During my eight years working in government, I quickly learned that the problem with getting things done rarely is that key stakeholders don’t meet – the public policy world is filled with party planners.  Rather it was that no one ever does much of anything after being brought together.  An organization that makes bringing people together its primary mission is destined to fail at accomplishing much of anything else, regardless of whom it brings together.
• The second problem, I daresay, is with Vision Shared’s goal: “To strengthen the economy, reshape communities, promote progressive government and improve the quality of life for all West Virginians.”  No organization can be all things to all people – and certainly not with a $600,000 annual budget.

• If you have a vendor like Mr. Diehl generating documents that would suggest that bids were solicited from other vendors when they were not, you logically have a state government employee, who ordinarily would do this work, as a co-conspirator.  Who might that person be?  Was he or she directed to assist in the cover-up?
• I recall that a General Services Division employee named Jim Burgess was dismissed about the same time, but received a sizable settlement after he alleged inappropriate procurement practices in connection with Governor’s Mansion renovations.
• There has been a lot of gossip about the Alcohol Beverage Control Administration and  the provision of liquor to the Governor’s Mansion.  It’s interesting that Mr. Diehl was a liquor vendor.

I don’t know enough to know precisely where this investigation may be headed, but I’d be really surprised if it’s over.

Today Senator Byrd speaks truth to power about coal.  His theme: “The time has come to have an open and honest dialogue about coal’s future in West Virginia.”

• Why aren’t we having that important dialogue?  Because politicians and industry are “scapegoating and stoking fear over the permitting process.”
• Can the world live without coal?  ”No deliberate effort to do away with the coal industry could ever succeed in Washington because there is no available alternative energy supply that could immediately supplant the use of coal….”
• What about mountaintop removal coal mining?  ”It is not a widespread method of mining, with its use confined to only three states.  Most members of Congress, like most Americans, oppose the practice, and we may not yet fully understand the effects of mountaintop removal mining on the health of our citizens.”
• What about climate change?  ”To deny the mounting science of climate change is to stick our heads in the sand….”
• What do we need to do?  ”West Virginians can choose to anticipate change and adapt to it, or resist and be overrun by it.”

West Virginia will pay a heavy price if it fails to heed Senator Byrd’s message.

• The proposer much show that the innovative idea has community (e.g., parents, students, county of board of education) support.  Is any innovation zone going to succeed without such support?  No.
• The proposer must have the support of 80 percent of school employees.  Is any innovation zone going to succeed without such support?  No.
• The proposer must demonstrate “quality of innovation design.”  Is that a bad thing?  No.  Do you want your child attending a school where the innovation has not been well thought out or is inconsistent with educational best practices research?  I hope not.
• The proposer actually must undergo an interview and a school visit before we hand over the keys to our children’s futures.  A radical requirement?  I don’t think so.

Do firms that provide business start-ups with venture capital adopt the laissez faire approach advocated by the Daily Mail for schools?  Of course not.  They expect business plans that include everything from hiring plans to marketing plans to budgets.  And they don’t give away their money without someone (generally quite a few people) meeting with the applicant.  Why should our schools be any different?  If anything, the stakes are higher.

It’s one thing to be critical of the bureaucracy within existing school systems.  It’s another thing altogether to be critical of the “due diligence” that the State Department of Education seeks to perform to ensure that our children are entrusted to people with solid plans to educate them innovatively.

As best I can determine, the only scenario that would produce an indictable federal crime is this: Someone made it easy for Emily Perdue to earn grades for her independent study because her father is the State Treasurer AND he or someone close to him somehow exerted influence inappropriately (not just as a concerned parent) to obtain a favorable outcome on behalf of Miss Perdue.  I can’t imagine the second half of the equation being satisfied in the absence of some clear quid pro quo, which no one has suggested publicly to date.  Furthermore, the quid pro quos available to a State Treasurer, unlike a Governor, Senator, or Congressman, truly are very limited.

While certainly worthy of internal examination by Marshall University’s provost and faculty senate, the Perdue matter hardly seems worthy of CRIMINAL investigation. To an outsider, these subpoenas appear to be political.

In yesterday’s newspaper, Miss Perdue and her father talked to a reporter about the story.  For those of you who were saturated and satiated with coverage of the WVU-Bresch degree scandal, stop reading the newspaper for a few more days.

Interestingly, there appear to be some significant similarities and differences between this story and the Bresch story.

Significant similarities:

• The daughter of a powerful politician;
• A fairly quick investigation/decision by the provost (vulnerable to second-guessing as a “rush to judgment”);
• A decision that favored the daughter; and
• FERPA (privacy law) violations by an individual or individuals seeking to expose the “truth.”

Significant differences:

• We are talking about grades in two classes, not a full-blown degree.
• Miss Perdue actually can produce work that she completed.  She also claims to have met with the dean on multiple occasions recently, which should be easily verifiable.
• Miss Perdue has a reasonably good GPA and appears to be a fairly conscientious student.
• This professor may have an axe to grind with the dean.
• To date, there’s no evidence whatsoever that the State Treasurer or friends of the State Treasurer did anything to influence the outcome.
• To date, there’s no evidence of presidential involvement (beyond, I would hope, his being apprised of the results of the provost’s investigation) or connections to Miss Perdue or her father.
• This issue appears to have been treated as the truly academic matter it is.

Predictions:

• You’ll be learning about several things you probably should not, given federal student privacy laws, as this story unfolds.  This is a serious downside to being a politican’s daughter; you are a public figure whether or not you want to be.
• This story will not have the “legs” that the Bresch story had because of the “axe-grinding” issue and the evidence that work actually was completed.

The last thing I would want would be for the governor (not this governor, but rather governors generally) to have exclusive power to appoint justices.  With only five justices on our highest court and the court’s stranglehold on appellate decisionmaking, West Virginia’s State Supreme Court could easily become dominated by a single governor’s appointments, and the governor could then end up controlling not one, but two, branches of state government.  So much for the fundamental constitutional principle of separation of powers.

By the same token, I’m not keen on the election option either.  The biggest problem: because the U.S. Supreme Court (wrongly in my opinion) equates obscene independent expenditure on elections with core First Amendment free speech rights, judicial seats – like all political seats for that matter – are vulnerable to being bought and paid for by rich lawyers and people like Don Blankenship who have a lot of money.  A secondary problem: I want my justices performing judicial business, not running around the state giving political speeches and eating pinto beans at gatherings of party faithful.

If I had my choice, the lower level judges selected to serve by lottery (described in my previous post) would select one of their own from time to time to continue judicial service as a state supreme court justice for a six year, non-renewable term.

• It was really nice to see Golden Horseshoe winners my mother’s age who received the award during World War II when no ceremony was held in Charleston finally dubbed as knights.
• Kay Goodwin was right.  The original design work needed to be redone.  The design of Matthew Martin Design Works is light years better than the original design.
• I am sure the West Virginia State Museum compares favorably with other state museums across the country.  In hindsight, I am glad the State of West Virginia spent so much money on this project.  Every state needs a showplace.
• I am happy the designers gave short shrift to West Virginia’s rocks.  I’m sure rocks are exciting to some people, but not to me.  At the same time, I would have liked to have seen more about West Virginia’s first non-European or European settlers.
• I liked the museum’s effort to clarify where the history we learned in school might not have been as accurate as we were taught.  Morgan Morgan might not have been West Virginia’s first European settler!  Who knew?
• After seeing the displays on Monongah and the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel, I appreciate even more the importance West Virginia and America place on worker health and safety today.
• I have never understood the connection drawn between the U.S.S. West Virginia, which the Japanese sank at Pearl Harbor and the U.S. later raised, to West Virginia history.  I’m pretty sure it never sailed up the Ohio, Kanawha or Potomac Rivers even once.
• I liked what Senator Byrd had to say about being a West Virginian (never mind that he’s hasn’t lived here for decades), but it would have been nice to have heard more from common folks.
• What’s with those fleas?

In Iran people have taken to the streets and Twitter to fight for democratic principles.  In New York?  In West Virginia?

Is this what all the fighting’s for?  I hope not.

The Obstacle 

West Virginia’s county and city governments have little in the way of financial resources to address community needs.  Unlike many other states, West Virginia strictly limits the methods and amounts of funds that counties, cities and towns can raise to support community initiatives.  Making the situation worse, many cities like Huntington and Charleston face overwhelming long-term public safety employee pension liabilities that have further limited their abilities to address community needs and have placed these cities on the verge of bankruptcy.

The Obvious Solution

Give counties, cities and towns state tax revenue or greater flexibility to generate local tax revenue so they can address community needs, and have the state assume responsibility for all or a significant part of city pension liabilities.  For reasons too numerous to address here, there are serious problems with these proposals and political reasons why they are unlikely to be implemented.

The Not-So-Obvious Solution

Is there a not-so-obvious solution?  The experience of Create Huntington suggests that there is.  

In law school, students learn about “the tragedy of the commons.”  If a person gets all or most of  the benefit of an improvement and the benefit outweighs the cost, she will make the improvement.  If, on the other hand, she gets only a small benefit from an improvement, she will not make that improvement even if the benefit to the larger community vastly outweighs its cost.  This is a basic justification for both private property rights and government and explains why a homeowner takes better care of property than does a renter.  The tragedy of the commons also provides a partial explanation for why many community initiatives struggle to sustain themselves over time.

Recognizing that the City of Huntington is unlikely to be able to address significant community needs effectively in light of it current budget situation, a group calling itself Create Huntington has stepped up to the plate to address those needs, bring about sustainable change and turn the theory of the tragedy of the commons on its head.  Create Huntington started in 2006 as an effort by a group of concerned citizens to discuss the best way to improve Huntington’s economic future.  Over the last three years, Create Huntington has developed a strategic plan that identifies a series of domains in which it wants to have a positive impact: health and well-being, community infrastructure, development resources, culture and quality of life, natural resources, social capital, image and attitude and system effectiveness.

But Create Huntington has done far more than plan.  It has inspired significant numbers of Huntingtonians to become involved in community projects.  Through the Adopt YOUR Block – Be a Litter-Gitter project, more than 1500 volunteers have promised to keep the block on which they live litter-free.  The Huntington Area Revitalization Coalition has planted flowers and removed graffiti and debris.  Various groups are working to promote the arts by creating a downtown art gallery, having more live music in the streets, holding a riverfront craft festival and promoting Huntington as a film destination.  The list goes on and on.

How has Create Huntington, which has no complex bureaucracy and almost no money, done this?

• By inspiring its citizens to imagine what Huntington can be and to take action to turn that vision into a reality.
• By soliciting the ideas of community members in meaningful ways through community meetings, surveys and summits.
• By bringing community members together weekly for “Chat ‘n Chews” where people can discuss ways to help improve Huntington.

Create Huntington offers a model for other West Virginia communities whose governments have little in the way of resources and whose citizens seek positive change.

I hope everyone involved reads the new report from the Stanford University Center for Research on Educational Outcomes about the (in)effectiveness of charter schools.  The report, which has received a lot of attention nationally, found that 17 percent of charter schools performed significantly better than traditional public schools, 46 percent performed about the same and 37 percent performed significantly worse.  While far from dispositive, the report suggests that a lot of charter schools are not only not better, but actually worse, than traditional public schools.

Interestingly, the study was funded by charter school proponents.

22 June 2009.  For additional reading and listening:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/22/education/22duncan.html

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105461724&ft=1&f=1013

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105461713&ft=1&f=1013

It is a ironic that the Gazette is lampooning southern West Virginia politics and the Daily Mail is singing the praises of divided government during a week that has seen one of the grandest exhibitions of back-room politics and divided government gone awry – not in West Virginia but in New York State.

After the most recent statewide election, Democrats found themselves in control of the New York State Senate by the narrowest of margins – 32 to 30.  As a result, two fine Democrats saw opportunity and decided to align themselves with Republicans.  The first fine Democrat Pedro Espada previously was fined more than $60,000 for failing to disclose campaign contributions; a non-profit group he founded is under investigation for using misappropriated money; and there are even questions about whether he resides in the district he represents.  The second Democrat Hiram Monserrate currently is under indictment for assaulting someone with a piece of broken glass and was elected to the State Senate only after retiring from the New York Police Department because a psychological disability prevented him from performing his job.  Equally amusing, the Republican coup was orchestrated by a billionaire Democrat who was mad at State Senators for raising his taxes.

Because of these power struggles, New York Senate Democrats have sued Senate Republicans and locked them out of the Senate chambers while important issues like control of the New York City public school system remain unresolved.  The next time the Gazette or Daily Mail waxes poetic about southern West Virginia political wrongs or the charms of divided government, it needs to look outside of West Virginia because southern West Virginia is not unique, and divided government is not always charming.