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>But, he adds, "I think it's safe to say, and we anticipated this early on, that policymakers erred. They turned an aspirational goal that inspires support, int

by phaus 12y ago

>But, he adds, "I think it's safe to say, and we anticipated this early on, that policymakers erred. They turned an aspirational goal that inspires support, into a target for accountability, meant for consequences." Unfortunately, this is how nearly every department of the government views pretty much anything. That is why the regularly fail, and its also the reason why intelligent, talented people rarely want to work for the government.

pjmorris 12y ago
"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." - Goodhart's Law [1] - or, originally- "Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes." [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart's_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart's_law
- ahomescu1 12y ago
  Similar to that one is Campbell's Law: "The more any quantitative social indicator (or even some qualitative indicator) is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor." 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell%27s_law
superuser2 12y ago
This is pretty much literally what "accountability" means. When you say you want an "accountable" government or support politicians who talk about "accountability," measuring things and then firing people or cutting funding based on those measurements is exactly what you're asking for. Accountability is maybe the solution if the problem is laziness. If your problem is anything else, greater accountability won't solve anything.
- phaus 12y ago
  When I talk about accountability in politics, I want accountability for the near-universal corruption. I want the 500+ member royal family we have established in the United States to follow the same rules as everyone else, and to go to prison when they don't. As far as accountability in public programs, now that you have made me think about it a bit more, I suppose the greater issue is the fact that the federal government is absolutely terrible at coming up with metrics. Whenever they measure in order to take accountability, they seem to focus on the wrong things. I think metrics can be helpful in some cases, but in our education system, it would have to be an extremely complicated system, else we would just end up preparing children to take unhelpful standardized tests like we do now.

by phaus 12y ago

pjmorris 12y ago

"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." - Goodhart's Law [1] - or, originally- "Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes." [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart's_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart's_law

ahomescu1 12y ago
Similar to that one is Campbell's Law: "The more any quantitative social indicator (or even some qualitative indicator) is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor." 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell%27s_law

superuser2 12y ago

This is pretty much literally what "accountability" means. When you say you want an "accountable" government or support politicians who talk about "accountability," measuring things and then firing people or cutting funding based on those measurements is exactly what you're asking for. Accountability is maybe the solution if the problem is laziness. If your problem is anything else, greater accountability won't solve anything.

phaus 12y ago
When I talk about accountability in politics, I want accountability for the near-universal corruption. I want the 500+ member royal family we have established in the United States to follow the same rules as everyone else, and to go to prison when they don't. As far as accountability in public programs, now that you have made me think about it a bit more, I suppose the greater issue is the fact that the federal government is absolutely terrible at coming up with metrics. Whenever they measure in order to take accountability, they seem to focus on the wrong things. I think metrics can be helpful in some cases, but in our education system, it would have to be an extremely complicated system, else we would just end up preparing children to take unhelpful standardized tests like we do now.