My former GMU student Zenon Zygmont — now teaching in Oregon — sends along this example of the make-work bias: two juvenile-corrections facilities have fewer juveniles than were expected in for correction – or as the reporter rather drolly puts it, “Student enrollment at the facilities is less than anticipated.”
Good news, right?
Not so fast. Lower “enrollment” means lower need for teachers in these facilities. And that, according to Rick Hanson, the “administrator in charge of the education programs at the facilities” is “horrific.”
Horrific??
As Zenon points out in his e-mail to me, this Hanson fellow likely believes that young men and women are simply too well-behaved and law-abiding these days. Kids’ improved behavior is destroying jobs!
