Parliament resumes on Monday, bringing with it an end to the silly season. We have had no Morgan this week, but there should be a Newspoll on Tuesday. Monday’s Essential Research poll had Labor’s two-party lead steady on 56-44; rated the relative importance of various issues; found a high level of support for Tony Abbott’s green jobs policy; and showed most respondents agreeing with the opposition after the emissions trading scheme issue was explained to them in a particular way. Other than that:
• Antony Green and Possum offer common sense reflections on the state of the opinion polls at the moment. Possum in particular identifies the peculiarity of the 2007 federal result, which alone out of seven observations failed to deliver on a landslide which the polls had shown at long range. The question now facing us is whether the extraordinary factors of 2007 equally apply in 2010 – whatever they might have been.
• A day after Bob McMullan announced he would retire from his seat of Fraser at the next election, Annette Ellis announced she too would be vacating the other safe Labor ACT seat, Canberra. Ousted ACT party secretary Bill Redpath claims national secretary Karl Bitar’s refusal to allow an earlier preselection indicates they were pushed as much as jumped. Christian Kerr of The Australian reports Ellis in particular agreed to go after Left and Right failed to finesse a deal in which the former would take Fraser at the election, and the latter would take Canberra when it became available. Michael Cooney, former adviser to Mark Latham and Kim Beazley and current chief-of staff to ACT Education Minister Andrew Barr, was reportedly all but certain to take Canberra, while Fraser was likely to go to the party’s assistant national secretary Nick Martin. However, a new candidate for Canberra has emerged in Gai Brodtmann, runner of communications firm Brodtmann & Uhlmann Communications and wife of ABC report Chris Uhlmann.
• Peter Lindsay has announced he will vacate his knife-edge marginal Townsville-based seat of Herbert, and readily admits the timing of the announcement was chosen for “strategic reasons”. The Townsville Bulletin reports candidates for Liberal preselection are “thin on the ground”, no doubt reflecting a lack of confidence in Coalition ranks. Townsville deputy mayor David Crisafulli and V8 Supercars event manager Kim Faithful were rated as obvious successors, but both have declined to enter the ring. The one candidate known to have confirmed interest is Colin Dwyer, an economist and unsuccessful candidate for Mundingburra at last year’s state election. The Bulletin also reviews the achievements of Lindsay’s final term: a fact-finding mission encompassing 13 different countries, resulting in a report that plagiarised Wikipedia and featured a Photoshopped image purporting to show Lindsay at a Beirut war cemetery. Labor’s preselection process has turned up 2007 candidate George Colbran, former mayor and long-established local identity Tony Mooney, and Townsville councillor Jenny Hill.
• Soraiya Gharahkhani of the Campbelltown Macarthur Advertiser reports Paul Nunnari, wheelchair athlete and adviser to state Campbelltown MP Graham West will contest preselection for Macarthur, going up against presumed favourite Nick Bleasdale, the narrowly unsuccessful candidate from 2007.
• Michelle Carnovale of the Oakleigh Monash Leader reports Monash councillor Joy Banerji is Labor’s unlikely prospect in Kevin Andrews’ seat of Menzies.
• Those of you who have about 30 seconds to spare are encouraged to fill out Crikey’s website reader survey.
Educational opportunity, like nearly everything else, is a social justice issue. So the problem of unequal educational outcomes has to be seen – and is – seen as both a consequence and a transmitter of social inequality.
If the MySchool site does nothing more that focus people’s attention on cycles of social inequality, then it will be worth doing, imho.
It certainly will give people reasons to question the status quo, and to look for alternatives. Considering how the current system fails to provide many students with the essentials they need to cope and succeed in our economy, this has to be a good thing, even if it is also contentious and difficult.
The Obama Recession continues for yet another week:
http://finance.yahoo.com/#market_summary_asia
[The Obama Recession continues for yet another week:]
The Idiot’s surplus of idiocy continues indefinitely.
Societies do not have to be so clear cut.
A society can be almost completely communal, but also be almost completely stratified by (usually hereditary) class. For simpler, less developed societies, that is a very common situation.
Although their simplicity can make it possible for a talented, forceful person to move up in class (even in caste-type systems, in which it is theoretically impossible), to do so requires a complete acceptance of the elite’s values & attitudes. To become more aristo than the aristos, so to speak ➡ if they “let you” force your way into their boat, they expect you not to rock it (they also expect you to try to stop anyone else getting in the way you did- and most newly promoted humans perform this task with vigour).
robot
Mine was a bit of a joke involving some slight hyperbole 😆
I don’t really expect such a migration between the feral and refined suburbs.
As to the teachers, the information on the site will not identify one additional teacher who is not performing. It will certainly “identify” some teachers to some parents who may have an axe to grind, but who will have no idea as to the challenges faced by teachers of disadvantaged kids, and will berate them (as Julia urged them to) on a false premise.
The only way do deal with the very few poor teachers out there is via the current direct system of teacher supervision and assessment within each school. It is a comprehensive and effective system these days that works well when implemented properly.
Ratsars
The Greens-Garnaut plan of a tax of $20 per CO2 ton and it doesn’t have a target.
You contend that is doing nothing to reduce CO2 emissions and that they have a target of 0% with a 0% -0% range.
I contend that you are a moron.
I will leave it to the gentle readers of this blog to decide for themselves.
dovif mumbled:
[I have an ETS to sell you]
That’ll be the same ETS you keenly bought from Howard, I presume.
[As Mr Howard has observed, the Rudd Government’s ETS is very similar to the one we, as Liberals , took to the last election”.]
http://www.smh.com.au/national/rudd-puts-heat-back-on-libs-on-ets-20091203-k6oc.html
[You can get away with renting for 6 months. It is even cheaper if you don’t actually move in…]
Correct, but my comment was in response to this:
[Everyone at Minto is about to sell their houses and buy at Killara]
[The Greens-Garnaut plan of a tax of $20 per CO2 ton and it doesn’t have a target.
You contend that is doing nothing to reduce CO2 emissions and that they have a target of 0% with a 0% -0% range.]
To be fair cutting Australians greenhouse gases by 5% by 2020 will have exactly 2 tenths of f all difference to global CO2 emissions.
[dovif
Posted Monday, February 1, 2010 at 1:40 pm | Permalink
Scorpio
Janelle Saffin was part of the NSW Labor Party
She must be useless,]
You must be right of course!
All that effort in personal development and education as well as her commitment to the betterment of her communities as outlined in Wikipedia and other sources means SFA!
I wonder how “that” compares with your efforts, dovif? You must be one hell of an over-achiever to be able to classify Janelle as “useless”! 😉
Shows on
Since we like Guardian…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/dec/28/copenhagen-denmark-china
Let’s imagine you owe someone a boatload of money, and now you have to get this person to do something you know he will not want to do.
Do you
A: talk to this person nicely and try to set a target both of you may be OK with.
or
B: walk up to this person and say: “Hey, here is a list of things we have decided you have to do, Sign here! By the way, we will send people to your home to monitor and verify that you have done whatever you agreed to do!”
Diogenes
[The Greens-Garnaut plan of a tax of $20 per CO2 ton and it doesn’t have a target.]
Sounds lke the government might just be open to the plan too -at least it hasn’t been dismissed out of hand yet:
The Government and the Greens, meanwhile, are meeting to discuss a proposal to break the political deadlock over climate change action.
The Greens have put forward a plan for a two-year interim scheme to start cutting emissions while a long-term emissions trading scheme (ETS) is negotiated.
Senator Wong says the Government is prepared to talk to all parties to get the ETS through the Senate.
“Ultimately the Government will be guided, as it always has been, by what’s the right thing to do, what’s environmentally effective as well as economically responsible.”
Senator Wong says limiting carbon pollution and putting a price on carbon is “fundamental” to tackling climate change.
“You don’t tackle climate change unless you make polluters pay, and the Government’s scheme does that,” she said.
[This is a very basis explanation of how you would plan such an exercise as you preposed and how you would arrive at a target. ]
And that’s what Garnaut did in his economic modelling of the impact of a $20 tax on CO2 and worked out that it would reduce CO2 emissions by about 2% in two years.
Seriously, you are absolutely hopeless.
Link for ABC story
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/01/2806278.htm
Cuppa
If you believed that Howard believed in an ETS
I have an ETS to sell you
[If you believed that Howard believed in an ETS
I have an ETS to sell you]
At least you admit Howard is a liar
[To be fair cutting Australians greenhouse gases by 5% by 2020 will have exactly 2 tenths of f all difference to global CO2 emissions.]
It would have to be a slight improvement on having emissions “increase” at the average 1% per year rate over the past 20 years!
Doing the sums, that makes that 5% figure even better, doesn’t it?
We could even get to the point of an 18% to 25% “reduction” if the Coalition was prepared to think about the country and future generations, some of them even being their “own” decendents and offsprigs!
Dario
If you believe that any politician do not lie
I have an ETS to sell you
Most of them will sell their own mother to get more power
Witness the “Left” Wing Guillard with High School league table
robot – #1019
I am not opposed to the website because it may cause “one bad decision” (your example of banning drinking because one person might get drunk and 99 remain sober).
However one has to look at the overall social utility. For example should we ban drinking if 51 get drunk and 49 remain sober. More importantly, if 80 people don’t drink at all, and of the 20 that do, 10 get drunk and 10 remain sober – should we ban drinking?
I will assume for the moment that the test results (which I dispute strenuously) indicate good schools (green) and bad (red), and that a student who goes to a green school will receive a better education than if the same student went to red school. Now if all students were able to choose between red and green, on that basis presumably it would be a good thing (there would be no students at red schools and all students at green schools – which would then create a perverse situation, but nonetheless).
However in reality how many people can make a choice?
Those that can’t make a choice include:
a. Those who for practical or financial reasons are unable to attend a school other than the local school.
b. Those who are required by mind-control techniques (e.g. religious or papal direction) to attend a school of their religion/sect. They may have limited choice (subject to practical and financial constraints) between differing papal schools.
I don’t know, but I reckon from my own limited experience, people with no choice would be 70% of the population. On that basis only 30% of the population potentially get any benefit from the website – that is assistance to make a choice. So the website is only of potential benefit to a minority. Of that minority, how many will make stupid (and potentially harmful) decisions based on it. Lots of kids have changed schools according to media reports since the website went online. Presumably they are red to green changers. It is difficult to accept those decisions made to date are correct ones, indeed the knee-jerk reaction of the parents would indicate they are probably bad ones. So if 70% are unable to make decisions, and 30% make wrong decisions – what’s the point?
One thing I would like people to explain is how this website helps the people of Boggabilla. Boggabilla Public School is the “worst” in NSW.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/federal-support-favours-the-privileged-20100131-n6m8.html
99% of the students are indigenous. Some of the residents of Boggabilla may have choice. This choice would be available in 2 ways-
(a) Travelling a few kilometres from Boggabilla over the Queensland border to Goondiwindi, where there are Qld state schools and a catholic school.
(b) Children being sent away to other towns to be schooled.
However, financial reasons might prevent this from happening. In additional a high percentage of kids would already be travelling 15 kilometres each way each day from Toomelah to attend the school.
The figure for 99% indigenous is not representative of the districts population, so clearly lots of “white” kids are being schooled elsewhere. This may be because of “racism” as Truthy has suggested, or it maybe because of an existing “impression” of the quality of the school. But one thing I would be prepared to guarantee is that the teachers at Boggabilla would be as good as the average teacher elsewhere. What benefit is “choice” for the remaining kids? What effect will officially knowing they are at the worst school in the state have on the kids that attend?
Some upper middle class kids in Sydney get the benefit of choice from the website- but others don’t. It really is a case of pandering to as Truthy would put it the “latte sippers”. In terms of pure economics – it amounts to the spending of taxpayers money to benefit only the already well to dos. If Rudd thinks it is a great political vote winner – to attract the middle ground to Labor, because it serves their selfish greedy needs, so be it. But some of us will remember the people Rudd forgets, and we won’t forget.
Scorpio
I think you should walk down George St Sydney, if you did a poll, you will find all of the following would be more popular than anyone who was ever part of the NSW Labor Government
Al Capone, Dolly Dunn etc
Why do you think that Rudd forbid anyone from the NSW parliamentary team from jumping ship to Federal Labor. Rudd also agrees that they are all useless
She just got lucky that she jumped ship earlier
Indeed. How rude. It’s not as if the Chinese Govt has had a track record of bare-faced lying for its own gain.
China, India & Brazil etc. cannot be classed as “normal” developing countries. They’re just too big. If you want to be that big, then you can’t act like a bull in a china shop; if you want to act like a bull in a china shop, then you can’t be that big.
They are that big ➡ they can’t do just as they want, any more than the (collective) “developed world” can.
Must go shopping for trip to island tomorrow.
PY
you have a very limited understanding of how this information can be used. It’s not just to assist with parental choices.
It can also be used for such things as parents assessing whether or not their child’s results are the school’s ‘fault’ or a problem with their child – so, for example, if young Freddy isn’t performing to expectations, but the school appears to be doing OK, then maybe young Freddy needs extra assistance and thus his parents will arrange for tutoring or whatever.
It can also be used – as Julia Gillard keeps stressing – as a tool for parents to use when dealing with their child’s school.
In my experience, schools are very reluctant to face up to problems with individual teachers. Concerns I’ve expressed about past teachers have been met with comments along the lines of ‘Oh, but she’s so hard working!’ ‘He’s had thirty years of teaching in this area, are you saying you know better than he does?” etc.
Because I’m big and tough and am prepared to go into bat for my children, I get good results. But other parents I know, meeting this kind of resistance, stop trying.
If they had hard evidence that, for example, the whole class’s performance had dropped dramatically, then they’d be able to argue the case better.
Schools also use the ‘demography is destiny’ argument to justify poor performances. Again, if it can be shown to them that X school, facing the same or worse demographics, has achieved better results, then it may force them to question the way they’re doing things.
To see the information as simply a tool to help parents decide which school to send Junior to is to limit its potential.
[Cuppa
If you believed that Howard believed in an ETS
I have an ETS to sell you]
You voted for Howard, enthusiastically I’d bet, so it follows you “bought” the ETS … That is unless you voted for him in the knowledge he was lying.
Your hero in 2007:
[“the link between emissions of greenhouse gases from human activity and higher temperatures is also convincing”
“I announce specifically that Australia will move towards a domestic emissions trading system, that’s a cap-and-trade system beginning no later than 2012
…
“Being among the first movers on carbon trading in this region will bring new opportunities and we intend to grasp them.”]
… and later, in 2009 …
[…”What Mr Rudd is proposing is not all that different from what I took to the last election”]
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/industry-sectors/howard-goes-silent-on-the-ets/story-e6frg976-1225804361337
Hmm. Penny Wong has worked it out.
[Senator Wong says limiting carbon pollution and putting a price on carbon is “fundamental” to tackling climate change.
“You don’t tackle climate change unless you make polluters pay, and the Government’s scheme does that,” she said.]
But we’ve been hearing that a carbon tax of $20/ton is “doing nothing”.
Who are we to believe?
[We could even get to the point of an 18% to 25% “reduction” if the Coalition was prepared to think about the country and future generations, some of them even being their “own” decendents and offsprigs!]
Why doesn’t Labor announce this then, they’d have their Green Senate votes than.
Oh whats that? It was a token policy with minimal real life emission cuts?
Yup thats what I thought.
Peter Y
[99% of the students are indigenous. Some of the residents of Boggabilla may have
choice. This choice would be available in 2 ways-
(a) Travelling a few kilometres from Boggabilla over the Queensland border to Goondiwindi, where there are Qld state schools and a catholic school.]
Yes. The reason Boggabilla PS was made into a Central School (primary and secondary) in the late 1980s was that about 85% of the kids from Toomelah mission were not attending high school at all. The nearest high school was just over the border at Goondiwindi, but the indigenous community felt it was racist.
The white farmers around Boggabilla already send their kids to boarding schools.
Nothing will change at Boggabilla due to the web site, except the poor kids there will have their negative self-image reinforced, and be even less likely to escape the cycle of failure.
Fair dinkum, if Howard had done this there would have been civil war started by ALP supporters.
dovif, I’ll make a little bet with you in regards Janelle!
She was elected at the 2007 election and I bet you that she is so unpopular in her electorate that she actually improves her 2PP vote at this years election!
Are you on?
#1025- jv
Opportunity knocks. For all the greedy capitalist speculators–the tip is – sell Killara now and get cashed up to buy in Minto !!!
Does anybody know what a file type ending in .snp is, and how to open it? If so, please go here:
http://www.kenyaelections.com/kenya-election-database/index.php
and try to open Reports 13 and 14.
[parents assessing whether or not their child’s results are the school’s ‘fault’ or a problem with their child] That cannot be done from these test results they are publishing. Nothing of the sort.
In any case that exact thing is not something a parent outside the school can determine. The way that is done is the way it has always been done – by the teacher.
Unless it’s an obvious disability, the parents get to know about it when their child has a learning problem, or needs additional help by the school, at a special interview, or standard parent/ teacher nights. They find out whether their kid is doing their work, concentrating, participating, developing, what the strengths and weakneses are etc. etc. It’s not about ‘fault’, and the new site cannot identify ‘fault’ anyway. With public schools the Education Departments and/or local union reps identify problems with school administration, curriculum, methods etc.
SO@1050:
[Except for the fact different psychology text books will define it in different ways, and neurologists won’t agree with most of them.]
But they won’t say it is fixed at birth, the way Adam’s definition defines it.
We may differ in our definitions of a pig, but we all agree that it is not a turkey.
Pseph, it’s MS Access, for which you can get a viewer free from Microsoft
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNP_File_Format
Abbott’s had to do a quick mopping up operation after Barnyard’s latest contribution
[Federal Opposition’s finance spokesman Barnaby Joyce has indicated the Coalition may not reveal the full costings for its climate change policy this week.]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/01/2806278.htm?section=justin
The Coalition would be slaughtered on a daily basis if they don’t release these costings up front. Abbott will probably be slaughtered on a daily basis anyway because they would “have” to be rubbery and will be quickly dissected by Labor!
[Mr Abbott moved to clarify the Opposition’s stance after his finance spokesman Barnaby Joyce earlier told the ABC’s AM program that the Coalition might not reveal the full costings until later this year.
Mr Abbott says his plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions by the Rudd government’s target of 5 per cent by 2020 will not involve new taxes and will be funded by savings found within the Budget.
“We will tell the Australian people tomorrow precisely how much we think it will cost to have an effective climate change policy,” Mr Abbott said.
Senator Joyce’s comments gave an opening to the Government, which accused the Opposition of breaking its promise to divulge the full cost of its climate change policy.
“I think Australians would expect, if this is such an important issue for Mr Abbott, they would expect that he would be up front with them about what his policy will cost and what he’s going to cut to fund it,” Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said.]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/01/2806278.htm
Adam@1080:
[Does anybody know what a file type ending in .snp is, and how to open it? If so, please go here:
http://www.kenyaelections.com/kenya-election-database/index.php
and try to open Reports 13 and 14.]
It’s an MS Access file.
If you go to the Microsoft site, and download Microsoft Snapshot Viewer, which is free, you can look at it provided you are running Windows.
Jaundiced view@1055
I agree that the website cannot identify individual underperforming teachers. However, it is more likely that a group of teachers are underperforming, and the website may provide some information to help identify them.
Additionally, if a family is unstable/underpriviledged to the extent that the kids’ performance at school is being affected, I doubt the parents care about it enough to grind axe with the teachers.
Peter Young
Fully agree with some points you made, but dispute the assertion that a relatively small proportion will benefit. Most of the Australian population lives in cities and the middle class (those stable enough to care about their kids) are also in the majority. I have no intention to trivalise the work done by teachers to help students from a disadvantaged background. However, no policy benefits 100% of the population, sometimes policies are hailed as great success even though they only benefit a small group of people in need.
Kersebleptes@1071
I was responding to the claim that China “single-handedly” blocked Copenhagen progress. In fact, unresolved conflict between developing and developed countries, coupled with surprising lack of diplomacy. Fully agree that China, India etc need to be more responsible. But lets let kid ourselves, developed countries can hardly be proud of their contribution to the reduction of emission either.
Damn, didn’t see Dario’s 1083.
…lack of diplomacy, lies at the root of the impasse.
[Pseph, it’s MS Access, for which you can get a viewer free from Microsoft]
Thanks, but I can’t do that on a work computer.
[The Obama Recession continues for yet another week:]
I think you mean the Bush recession that Obama inherited.
[“We will tell the Australian people tomorrow precisely how much we think it will cost to have an effective climate change policy,” Mr Abbott said.]
Do they only think they know what it costs or do they know how much it will cost? Are they going to release the plan of how they will pay for it, or will they only vaguely say it will be paid for ‘out of the budget’? If it will be paid for out of the budget, will they just increase spending overall or will they make cuts in other areas? If so, from what areas will they cut? If they don’t plan to make cuts how will they raise extra revenue? Through the addition of new taxes? If so, what taxes?
don and SO
[Except for the fact different psychology text books will define it in different ways, and neurologists won’t agree with most of them]
Neurologists don’t really use the term “intelligence” as it’s too vague to be a specific symptom. People might complain of loss of memory, or having trouble reading or not recognising faces but they don’t come in and complain of loss of intelligence.
I can’t actually think of a medical term for “decrease in intelligence”.
Itep
[Do they only think they know what it costs or do they know how much it will cost?]
There must be 200 Treasury officials, government economics advisors and professors sitting at rows of desks at a hired Canberra hall today, freshly showered and changed, sharpening their pencils with scalpals or stiletto knives, just waiting, waiting for the Abbott plan to be announced. 😆
I’m a Greens voter living in Janelle Saffin’s electorate. While I agree broadly about the NSW ALP being a bit of a shambles I have a healthy respect and regard for Janelle. She is n intelligent and hard-working representative and a good damned good change from Ian Causley (Nat) who was part of the Dark Age that washed out with Howard. Plus, the Rudd government has begun work, among other things, the Alstonville by-pass which the local community was promised by successive Coalition & ALP (state & fed) governments for about 25 years and never delivered because it was a “safe seat” for the Nats.
jv and ltep
I’ll put good money on Treasury saying Abbott has his sums wrong and that it will cost more.
Of course they will. But you’d still expect a leader to say they ‘know’ how much something costs if they want to project an image of responsibility.
It also fails to take into account that the purpose of the activities should be to cut emissions. Does he know exactly how much emissions will be cut by his plan? Isn’t this the real question?
[Do they only think they know what it costs or do they know how much it will cost? Are they going to release the plan of how they will pay for it, or will they only vaguely say it will be paid for ‘out of the budget’? If it will be paid for out of the budget, will they just increase spending overall or will they make cuts in other areas? If so, from what areas will they cut? If they don’t plan to make cuts how will they raise extra revenue? Through the addition of new taxes? If so, what taxes?]
Good questions, Itep, for which we await the answers, in the probably-forlorn hope such answers will be truthful. (not good prospects for that, given their long and notable record.)
And another one:
Will they take the budget into HUGE COALITION DEBT to fund their scheme?
If so, how will the debt be reapid? Through new and/or increased taxes?
Something else they should be asked:
Why are they putting the country to all this expense to combat something (AGW) that the Coalition leadership, from Abbott down through Michin, Joyce etc, believe is: “absolute crap”?
[you’d still expect a leader to say they ‘know’ how much something costs if they want to project an image of responsibility.]
Meh, why ask him? Abbott thinks economics is “a bore”!
[… Abbott told a newspaper interviewer he found economics “a bore”…. He added, laughing: “I have never been as excited about economics as some of my colleagues; you know, I find economics is not for nothing known as the dismal science.”]
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/the-ugly-dirty-game-of-politics/story-e6frfhqf-1225824866875
#1073 – zoomstar
I am the first to admit that I make the assumption that MPs are lazy, excuse finders, spin flyers, often liars (or testing the very boundary of “truth”), reluctant to face up to problems(and often reality) etc. I believe there is good historical reasons for doing so. Certainly, it is a good self-protection mechanism.
I do however, find it difficult to make such assumptions about working people generally, such as teachers and journalists.
In any event I have great difficulty in seeing how the information provided on the website assists in providing tools to show that little Freddy is not performing well because of bad teaching. Maybe I just don’t understand. But I reckon 90% of parents would be in the same boat – thus once again if it does provide an extra tool, but only to an elite minority of 10%. Thus it’s social utility is small. Further, I can see how at 10% of parents seeing red, would see red and just attack the teachers.
Just from my own experiences:
a. I was a kid once (not long ago). I don’t have and never will have children. However I do have Kristina. In the doggy park the owners of dogs – or at least a very high percentage are so one eyed aout their dog – it is virtually impossible for them to see things dispassionately and correctly- especially when it is their dog in a scrap. I reckon parents would be similar.
b. The assumption that “competition” will cause increased performance. I acknowledge that some people, will increase their effort if moved into a higher level of competition (this assumption means the person if in a lower grade just cruises to remain at the top of the lower grade). Yet there are others who are internally motivated – and ignore external factors. There is a third group – those who will give up, and not perform if moved into a higher grade. I don’t know what percentage of people fall into each category. Thus moving a kid from a red school into a green school does not guarantee success. Would a parent blae the new supposedly better teachers at the green school if Little Freddy was in the 3rd category?
ltep
[It also fails to take into account that the purpose of the activities should be to cut emissions. Does he know exactly how much emissions will be cut by his plan? Isn’t this the real question?]
There are figures for reducing carbon emissions by efficiency measures. There are a few low-hanging fruits which won’t cost much which can get you 5% quite cheaply. The problem is that efficiency measures get exponentially more costly as you need to make bigger cuts. To get cuts of the order of 15-25% would cost an absolute fortune compared to making changes to the cost of carbon.