Wake school board Democrats denounce vouchers | Doubt cast on study by Duke "honesty" researcher | Rep. Paré calls out destruction of campaign sign
Wake school board Democrats denounce vouchers | Doubt cast on study by Duke "honesty" researcher | Rep. Paré calls out destruction of campaign sign
No. 91 — Sep. 22-Sep. 28, 2024
I apologize for the delay in getting this week's newsletter out, I spent the weekend trapped in Burnsville without power or cell service.
For anyone interested in helping the relief efforts out in Western NC, there's numerous supply collection points across the Triangle; here are a few examples which have come across my feed:
Franklin County Sheriff’s Office
285 T Kemp Road, LouisburgRep. Erin Paré/Play-It-Again Sports
138 W. Holly Springs Road, Holly SpringsiHeart Radio (Wednesday)
2010 Kildaire Farm Rd, CaryJohnston County Sheriff's Office
2875 U.S. Hwy. 70 Business East, Smithfield
Wake school board Democrats denounce school choice vouchers
Wake school district leaders slam vouchers: ‘Understand what they do to public schools’ - N&O
State, new HB10 shorting public schools on funding, Wake school board members say - WRAL
Wake County Public Schools discusses impact of House Bill 10 on the district - ABC11
Wake County school Democrats voice opposition to HB10, private school vouchers - CBS17
Wake County Board of Education Chair Chris Heagarty, Vice Chair Monika Johnson-Hostler, as well as the Superintendent Robert Taylor held a press conference to oppose House Bill 10, which would provide an additional $463 million in taxpayer dollars for the state's recently expanded Opportunity Scholarship program for school choice vouchers.
The Democrats' basic contention is that if fewer parents send their students to the Wake County Public School System, they will receive fewer dollars from the state, and the county taxpayers will have to pick up the bill for extensive fixed cost which do not scale with student membership size.
However, I do not believe this logic holds up under scrutiny. Out of North Carolina's 115 school districts, 114 of those districts have both smaller student membership and a smaller total budget than Wake County, from Tyrrell County Schools with 400 students to Charlotte-Mecklenburg County Schools with 140,000.
It would seem that, according to the Democrat logic, all those smaller school districts would necessarily have a larger county allocation per student to make up for the overhead and fixed costs.
Although I haven't been able to find as good/recent data I would have liked, what I have found seems to show the opposite: there's not a strong correlation in the state between school district size and county funding per student, and Wake County is already closer to top of the pack in terms of how much is spent per student.
Budgeting is all about priorities, and I'm sure the Wake County school leadership would rather not reduce spending on administration or it's "equity" agenda even if it has fewer students to serve.
If we look at it from a different point of view, the total spending per student requested by the Wake County Board of Education in it's 2024-2025 budget was $21,329. The Operating Budget of $13,754 includes $7,434 through the state government, $3,949 through the county appropriation, and $1,247 from the federal government.
In comparison, the maximum Opportunity Scholarship voucher amount is $7,468, which would seem be an enormous net savings for the taxpayers for any student making the transition from the county school district.
I've seen research at the national level showing that the increase in school funding over the past century or so was primarily consumed by the expanding bureaucracy and administration; I would be curious to see if anyone had done such analysis on the Wake County school budget.
Scientific journal issues "Expression of Concern" regarding honesty research by prolific Duke researcher
The Journal of Marketing Research has issued a Expression of Concern regarding "The Dishonesty of Honest People: A Theory of Self-Concept Maintenance", a 2008 study published in the journal which was authored in part by Duke University Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics Dan Ariely.
The study in question, which has been cited in thousands of subsequent academic publications, purported to show that students who had just been reminded of the Ten Commandments were less likely to overreport their success on a test.
The honesty of the study itself is called into question by the journal on several grounds:
Firstly, a set of 25 attempts to directly replicate the results of "Experiment 1" in the study found a small effect in the opposite direction of the original publication;
Secondly, forensic analyses completed as part of an investigation by the publication found that "conditions were dropped from Experiments 1 and 2 without disclosure", suggesting that the data had been "p-hacked" to present a spurious pattern as statistically significant;
Finally, the journal notes that "information regarding the provenance of the data reported in Experiment 1 was inconsistent", which "in plain English" means that "none of the authors are willing to admit ever collecting the data" according to another academic following the situation
As we reported last year, another study of Ariely's was revealed to have used falsified data; Ariely told Business Insider that Duke concluded an investigation in January of this year with a finding that the data was falsified, but there was no evidence that Ariely was aware (Duke does not comment on such investigations). However, as Business Insider also reports, Ariely's honorific of "James B. Duke Professor" had been removed from his bio on the university's website.
Duke “superstar honesty researcher” roasted by supposed source of data for falsified study (No. 30 — Jul. 29, 2023)
Rep. Erin Paré calls out destruction of campaign sign
In a post shared on Facebook, Wake County's sole Republican in the General Assembly, Rep. Erin Paré, shared pictures of one of her campaign signs that was torn out of her supporter's property, broken in half, and thrown into the woods.
This is how my opponent and her team acts. Trespass on private property and not only remove a sign which doesn’t belong to them (which is a crime), they are so angry, they break it in half and trash it in the woods.
We are happy to replace it, and the property owner is now watching for any more behavior like this on his property.
This type of destructive behavior may not have been a big deal in Chicago where my opponent recently moved from, but we don’t act like this in Southern Wake.
When they can’t resonate with voters, this is what they do. I’m going to focus on my record of delivering the best results the people of District 37 have ever seen from their state representative, and winning big in November to deliver even more wins for the people these next two years!
Rep. Erin Paré (Facebook)
Wake County counts more Republican votes than any other North Carolina county, yet many of it's communities are so politically concentrated left-ward that the inhabitants feel comfortable engaging in low-level politically motivated crimes
Although the antifa ideology of "by any means necessary" is responsible for much of the left-wing vandalism and violence we've seen in the streets, the individuals who engage in the acts described below are often more "normie" Democrats.
I am reminded of a Raleigh story we've covered over the past year, which was a bit more extreme than the below conduct, when cyclist James D. White Jr. set fire to his neighbor's Trump sign twice.
White was identified and charged after the video went viral, he ended up pleading guilty and being sentenced to 12 months probation and 80 hours of community service on a suspended sentence; he also lost his bicycle to John Kane, the sign's owner, in a civil settlement.
