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By Sirianne Dahlum and Carl Henrik Knutsen By Sirianne Dahlum and Carl Henrik Knutsen June 13 at 8:00 AM

Democracies outperform autocracies on education. At least thats what many political scientists believe: Because voters care about the future of their children, democratic politicians should have strong incentives to build schools, reduce fees, enroll children and so on. Autocrats, who are not responsible to voters, should lack such incentives. At best, autocrats may offer university education that benefits the children of elites supporting them. And indeed, according to the evidence, in democratic countries, more kids go to school.

But in a recent article in World Development, we challenge that conventional wisdom. While its correct that democracies provide more education to their kids, democracies do not deliver better education. In other words, the schooling that children receive in democracies is, in general, of no higher quality than what their counterparts receive in autocracies. In fact, recent reports show that an alarmingly large proportion of schools across the world fail to teach even the most basic literacy skills. Our study suggests that improving democracy will not remedy this situation.

[Worried about the decline in democracy? Worry about the politicians, not the voters.]

Consider two rich democracies, the United States and Norway (the authors home country). In both countries, the quality of lower-level education has been questioned; students have often scored quite poorly on international performance tests such as PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment). For instance, in the 2015PISA test, in mathematics, the United States and Norway scored far below the more authoritarian countries Singapore and China. And the average American student was outperformed by the average Russian or Vietnamese student.

How we did our research

While such quick comparisons are startling, we wanted to look more systematically at broader patterns across countries and time. We use an innovative data set that estimates the cognitive skills of primary and secondary school students, using different types of regional and international tests in mathematics, science and reading.

We do not find any clear relationship between democracy and student performance. Even when considering data from about 100 countries between 1965 and 2009, and no matter how we twist and tweak our statistical models, this null result holds up: On average, kids living in democracies are not visibly better in math, science and reading than kids in dictatorships. Neither is there any evidence that countries that have recently gone through democratization improve their education quality.

How can this be? Shouldnt democratic politicians be concerned about giving children high-quality education, and not only about putting kids behind a desk? We suggest that, unfortunately, the answer is often no.

Voters have trouble holding politicians accountable for education policies

To hold politicians accountable, voters must be able to trace the outcomes they care about to specific policies. Few ordinary voters are familiar with the details of supposedly quality-enhancing education reforms; nor are they able to evaluate those effects. Even education experts are unsure whether such measures as reduced class sizes or homework actually affect learning outcomes. Even if parents suspect that their child is getting a subpar education, who will they blame the teacher, the principal, the local government or the national government?

[Venezuelas government wants to write a new constitution. That way lies autocracy.]

If members of a democratically elected government sense that they wont get the credit (or blame) for policies that may improve the quality of schools, they may prioritize other education policies that they can take credit for, such as lowering school fees or expanding school enrollment. Simply sending your child to school especially if thats a new possibility in your country will probably leave a strong impression on voters. Thats not as true for new methods of classroom teaching that can boost reading skills, or for changes in the syllabus that improve science literacy.

Because voters are less likely to see or be able to evaluate those changes, politicians have a harder time explaining and taking credit for those reforms at campaign rallies or in broadcast ads. As a result, democratic politicians may prioritize education quantity over education quality.

Sirianne Dahlum is a researcher at the University of Oslo Department of Political Science.

Carl Henrik Knutsen is a professor of political science at the University of Oslo.

Read more here:
Democracies are no better at educating students than autocracies. This is why. - Washington Post

The political strife that defines today's America derives its energy from the feeling among many that their voices are not being heard. By and large, Americans do not trust Congress and often vote to send a message, hoping to get their opinions represented. The reality is that the political parties do all they can to stay in power, with achieving fairness and democracy not their primary goals.

Gerrymandering is the practice of drawing the borders of voting districts to favor specific candidates or political parties. It can make a difference in the number of representatives of each party that a state sends to Washington. In essence, using these strategies can allow one party to keep winning the majority of districts (and representatives) without having the most votes.

Jonathan Mattingly, a mathematician from Duke University in North Carolina, has been working for the past several years to figure out mathematical solutions to the problem. He would like to take the job of drawing voting district lines away from self-serving politicians.

As part of that goal, Mattinglycreated an algorithm that produces random iterations of the states election maps to show the impact of gerrymandering. This is not just a hypothetical exercise. The mathematician says that partisan gerrymandering is having a serious effect on our democracy.

Even if gerrymandering affected just 5 seats out of 435, thats often enough to sway crucial votes, he said in an interview with the journalNature, referring to the number of representatives in Congress.

Two of the most used methods in gerrymandering are packing and cracking. When they employ packing, legislators try to draw the map in such a way that the opposing voters would be packed into the fewest districts possible. Cracking means dividing the other partys voters into several districts, making it harder for them to elect a representative. This tactic helps the party in power to stay in power.

Heres a useful graphic from Washington Post on how gerrymandering works:

Mattinglys state of North Carolina has been ground zero in this fight. While both parties used to receive a generally equal number of representatives (either six or seven), Republican redistricting several years ago packed most of the Democrats into three districts. The 2015-2016 North Carolina cohort to Washington included just3 Democrats and 10 Republicans,while the statewide vote is split close to 50-50 between the two parties.

Recently, the Supreme Courtweighed inthat two districts in North Carolina were drawn along racial lines and were, as such, unconstitutional.

While the Supreme Court intervened in that case, the highest court in the land doesn't generally address gerrymandering as long as districts abide by four criteria - the districts need to be compact, continuous, have more or less the same number of people and give minority groups a chance to elect their own rep. The difficulty of objectively proving whether and how the district is gerrymandered has been one of the difficulties in stopping this practice.

Mattingly set out to create mathematical tools that would prove to the courts time and time again if a district borders have been drawn by politics and not fairness. What Mattingly and his student Christy Graves realized is that gerrymandering produces certain statistical signs. The opposition party usually gets a landslide in the packed districts and loses narrowly in the cracked ones. Using data analysis, Mattingly and his team were able to create an index that shows the extent of gerrymandering in a district.

It is important to note that Mattingly is not alone in this quest. Other mathematicians have also been working to create better methods for evaluating gerrymandering. The political statistician Wendy Tam Cho from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has also designed district map-drawing algorithms that satisfy state law requirements without relying on partisan voting information.

Nicholas Stephanopoulos, a political scientist from the University of Chicago, created an "efficiency gap" to show how each state's wasted votes can reveal signs of gerrymandering. If a party has landslide victories or losses, with numbers much more extreme than the proportion it actually needed to win, that could be a sign of political shenanigans.

Despite the various science and math-based ideas to combat gerrymandering, they have not been embraced by the politicians. Perhaps, unsurprisingly, as they do not want to lose this weapon from their arsenal. But there are signs that the courts are admitting more mathematical analysis when gerrymandering is being alleged. Whitford v. Gill, aWisconsin case, which may end up before the Supreme Court, used Stephanopoulos's efficiency gap analysis to inform their decision.

The upcoming 2020 census is the next big event in this fight. The new numbers are likely to create much redistricting around the country. While Republicans have been shown to use gerrymandering to their advantage, the Democrats also engage in the practice. Mattingly's analysis showed they used the tactic in Maryland, where they control the legislature. For the sake of American democracy, devising objective mathematical approaches that ensure all voices are being heard equally seems like a no-brainer.

You can read the paper by Mattingly and his team here.

Read more here:
How Mathematicians Are Fighting to Save the American Democracy - Big Think

Forbes

Are The French Giving Us A New Lesson In Democracy? Forbes Winston Churchill said those words in Parliament two years after Britain, under his leadership as prime minister, had defeated the fascists of Europe but were still locked in a deadly struggle with Soviet communism. His words ring true to us 70 years ... France And Russia, Why Democracy Needs Healthy OppositionWorldcrunch all 838 news articles »

Link:
Are The French Giving Us A New Lesson In Democracy? - Forbes

Common Dreams

'Sacrificing Democracy': Senate GOP Plans to Hide TrumpCare From US Public Common Dreams In an act of secrecy denounced by one commentator as "an insult to Americans and our democratic process," two GOP aides told Axios on Monday that although the Senate will soon complete its version of the widely panned American Health Care Actalso ... and more »

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'Sacrificing Democracy': Senate GOP Plans to Hide TrumpCare From US Public - Common Dreams

Vice President Leni Robredo delivers a speech during the Defending Democracy Summit: Isang Pagtitipon at Paninindigan Para sa Demokrasya held at the UP Diliman in Quezon City last June 12, 2017. (Photo by OVP)

Defending our democracy is our biggest fight today, Vice President Leni Robredo said on Monday.

Hours after leading Independence Day ceremonies at Manilas Rizal Park in lieu of President Duterte, she spoke at the Defend Democracy Summit, attended mostly by opposition politicians.

Extraordinary times

We are already seeing our institutions being eroded. They are already weakening, Robredo said in her keynote speech at the University of the Philippines School of Economics in Quezon City.

We must move swiftly, effectively to ensure they are strong enough for our children, our childrens children. These are extraordinary times. If were not able to lay aside our differences and talk to one another, we will be fighting enemies within as well as without, she said.

Disillusion

Among those who attended the event were Senators Risa Hontiveros, Kiko Pangilinan, Bam Aquino and Antonio Trillanes IV, former Commission on Human Rights Chair Etta Rosales, Representatives Gary Alejano and Kit Belmonte, former Solicitor General Florin Hilbay, and singers Agot Isidro and Leah Navarro.

Robredo acknowledged the challenge of general disillusion with democracy amid the failure to deal with the suffering of the poor and the availability of freedom only to the ultrarich.

Exactly 119 years after, is it not saddening that our people are still fighting for the same things? To be included, to speak freely and be heard, to be remembered, to live without fear? she said. All I know is what I can see and what I hear. Our people can no longer wait to almost reach the real promises of democracy.

She insisted that only democracy will bring about true progress in our country.

Roots of discontent

Robredo stressed that the roots of discontent have been caused by weak institutions that allow an entrenched minority to monopolize economic and political power.

A documentation of why nations fail shows that countries that have allowed democracy to thrive and built strong, inclusive institutions are countries where people thrive better. We need that desperately now; or people deserve to thrive better, she said.

Hope and unity

Robredo said that in these extraordinary times, everyone should set aside the narrative of divisiveness, hate, anger, and attacks that we experience in our nation today [and] change the narrative with hope, unity, and positive conversations.

Let us not us think of democracy as a concept, but as a means to lessen the suffering of our people. Let us not defend democracy for democracys sake, but for the emancipation of the last, the least, and the lost.

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Robredo: Defense of democracy is biggest fight - Inquirer.net