Is there any correlation between the level of education in a state and corruption?

[Baitball Blogger]

I've wondered if what we see is just a different form of corruption between states that have poor education rates, and those who are highly rated.

For example, assuming Florida is still 48th in education in the nation, I can see how ignorance of the constitutional expectations from those employed in both the criminal justice system, the law and government plays a large role in the convoluted backwater reasoning that is common around here.

On the other hand, you have very educated states which have their own corruption issues.

So, my point, if the education level of the people in a state has no effect on our corruption problems, what then, would be the deciding factor that will turn it all around?

[merrily]

1. Two words. New Jersey.

I was born in New Jersey, have many relatives there and have fondness for it. For me, as a kid, the Jersey shore was paradise.

Still, lots of degrees; lots of corruption. Jersey City and Union City stand out in my mind, though I could not tell you exactly why. Probably stories I heard as a kid. Also crook Musto is infamous.

Original birth certificates from New Jersey for those born during certain years are not even acceptable for purposes of getting a passport. Not sure why. I guess corrupt people were issuing them falsely during a certain period of time?

[unblock]

3. then again joisey's education system is a real mess....

[merrily]

5. In old movies, people from Brooklyn say "Joisey" Never heard anyone

who grew up in Jersey pronounce it anything like that.

BTW, I am a product of New Jersey public schools and I did not exactly grow up in an affluent town or neighborhood. I did all right in college.

[unblock]

9. yeah it's a patchwork there.

great schools next to terrible schools next to great schools.

really hit or miss in nj.

as for "joisey", you're right, although the bayonne accent comes close....

[merrily]

11. Know of any state where public schools are NOT a patchwork?

It was not so much that I went to a great school. In my youth, you tended not to find great schools in poorer neighborhoods.

I had some tough teachers and some tough parents, though. And, for whatever reason, I was motivated to please all those tough guys and gals, and am grateful to them. Plenty of kids from my school ended up dead young or in jail. Plenty ended up hard working. Plenty ended up in college.

as for "joisey", you're right, although the bayonne accent comes close....

Nope. As for "joisey," I am right, full stop.

Bayonne (where Sandra Dee grew up, btw) is in Hudson County, along with Jersey City. There was a decided Hudson county accent, back in the day, but "joisey" was never part of it.

Rhoda Morganstern in the Mary Tyler Moore show was supposed to be a New Yorker, but Valerie Harper said she used the Jersey City accent as her model for Rhoda's speech. And, she did a pretty good job

But, no, even in Hudson County, no one says Joisey. In fact, I am not sure people raised in Brooklyn still say it, if they ever did. Maybe that was only ever a Hollywood notion of how Brooklynites would say "Jersey." In any event, no one raised in New Jersey pronounces Jersey that way.

Hell, even Teresa Guidice on Real Housewives of New Jersey says "Jersey" and you can hardly get more stereotypically Jersey than Teresa Guidice.

Again, I never heard anyone raised anywhere in New Jersey pronounce "Jersey" even a little close to "joisey." They say "Jersey." If anything, the "r" in Jersey is pronounced to excess, not omitted entirely, as in "joisey.".

But, what do I know? After high school, I moved across the Hudson River to Noo Yawwk and, now, I'm eating "lohbstah chowda" in Boston.

People tend to be oblivious to their own accents, unless and until someone who has a different accent makes fun. And (unfortunately, I think), accents are becoming less and less pronounced (no pun intended). I think the accent taught to broadcasters is making us all blend together more.

[unblock]

13. well i've spent about 15 years of my adult life in new jersey

and while most there certainly do say "jersey", there is definitely a dialect there that swallows the 'r'. maybe "joisey" is not the best way to spell it, i guess it's more like 'jawzee' or 'jwahzee'.

dialects are quite interesting. most fascinating is how comparatively uniform our spoken language is compared to england, which has much greater differences packed quite closely together geographically.

[merrily]

17. In certain parts of Jersey, the r at the end of words disappears, or

turns into something else. So, in some parts of Jersey, you wade into the "watta," not the "water." Something similar Massachusetts "wattah," but not exactly the same.

Never heard "joisey," which was the pronunciation you raised originally, or "jawzee" (a little like Baba Wawa? She had a Massachusetts accent.). Never heard "jwahzee," either.

The U.S. does have dialects to some degree, where people use different words for the same thing. For example, whether you drink "soda" or "pop" or whatever you may call a soft drink would constitute something resembling a dialect. Ditto a hero or a sub, or simply sandwich on Italian bread. However, pronunciation is not a dialect, but an accent.

There is not only one accent in Jersey. Someone from Bergen County does not sound like someone from Hudson County, though, as I said, those differences are not as sharp as they once were for several reasons, including the influx of Spanish speaker.

But Jersey is not the only place in the US that has distinctive accents, either, as my imitations of the Manhattan and Boston accents in my prior post suggested.

Without ever having heard you speak, I would bet you have an accent.

Even what they teach broadcasters is a regional accent, a lot like the Midwestern accent (sans the Chickahgo accent). However, the is an accent that the industry supposedly found sounded less foreign to the ears of most Americans than, say, the Brooklyn or Hudson County accents, or the Maine accent, or the Massachusetts accent or the variety of Southern accents. (And I hasten to add that accents are seldom consistent throughout a state. Even in Boston, not everyone sounds like former Mayor Menino or like Ben Aflleck in Good Will Hunting or like JFK).

In films, they invented an accent they called "mid-Atlantic." a cross between some generalized east coast accent (north of Mason Dixon) and an upper class British accent. If you want to know what that sounds like, imagine someone saying "vase"in an old movie. (In old movies, characters who supposedly speak English well say "vahz," rhymes with "Oz," not "vase," rhymes with "base.&quot

And, if you really want to hear someone drop "r", skip Baba Wawa, Massachusetts, Maine and New Jersey and go back to the origin of all those accents: listen to the British royal family.

[unblock]

23. r's are most often dropped, but occassionally inserted, as in jfk's "cuber"

so many names for sandwiches. hoagies, grinders, subs, heroes, gyros, po' boys,....

i grew up in columbus, ohio, so my own accent is very similar to broadcasting standard.

or at least it used to be. as an adult i've live in massachusetts, new jersey, texas, and now connecticut, and i'm married to a brit. so i guess i speak mutt now.

[unblock]

2. there's no way florida ranks that low.

there's probably some education metric that can be correlated with corruption, but i would think other factors would make more of a difference, such as income/wealth distribution.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

4. I suspect that's not going to be a straight line correlation.

Intelligence and ethics sadly don't go hand in hand. Some very smart people use their education and intellect to simply further their ability to scam others. So those who are more educated are simply more likely to come up with more nuanced and complicated corruption than those of more limited education.

How to turn around corruption? Change human nature I think you simply have to find a way to stress altruism and honesty and equality in upcoming generations. Reach the kids, and they'll grow up to be better adults.

[Baitball Blogger]

6. I have lived long enough to see what my social scientist teacher was trying to tell me.

He said that activists start out with the best of intentions, but as they climb up the social ladder they become corrupted, until they become the very people they once fought against.

[merrily]

10. I am not sure I agree with that as a blanket statement for

all activists. For example, the Koch brothers are activists who, in my opinion, did not start their activism with the best of intentions. And not all corrupt people started as activists, either. Some started as egotists.

But yes, I do understand what your teacher meant and it does happen that people start out with the best of intentions and become corrupt. I also think that some degree of corruption/greed, short of 100%, can exist in the same person who still has very good intentions.

[Baitball Blogger]

20. It's not a difficult thing to do.

Not all activists have altruistic intentions. Some are just greedy bastards, fighting even greedier bastards. But the cause they're fighting against may resonate with the community. For example, when people jump on the bandwagon to fight against developers, without realizing the slippery slope they create if they have their way.

To trip up an altruistic activist is not difficult. Just keep the police on their tail using false accusations; or use character assassinations in private conversations to isolate them from the community. But the best trick is to drive them into financial difficulty. If he or she has any kind of following, that's when the powers that be come in and "buy" them with job opportunities that bring them into the private circles.

[merrily]

7. True. I am not sure how to end corruption, but I know how you

are sure NOT to end it: don't hold anyone accountable, or hold them accountable only selectively.

How many corrupt politicians get re-elected again and again and again? And not only because they control the ballot box, either. Plus, we have different definitions of corruption. One definition for Ensign and another for Rangel.

Doctors and clinics committing Medicare fraud to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars are not typically as accountable as someone who steals for hundreds of dollars or less. Ditto charter schools. And interfering with the voting process? Meh.

[Baitball Blogger]

21. All good observations.

[Trillo]

14. It's been my experience that folks with high school degrees are the most honest.

Just a subjective observation. Folks with college degrees will be honest when there is no money at stake, but put the money motivator in there, and truth is often, though admittedly not always, a casualty. My point in the context of your comment is that further honesty or altruism education in compulsory schools would seem the wrong course of action. It just paints marks for the highly intelligent and highly educated and unscrupulous to target, creating more victims.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

15. Well, then, just ignore me entirely

Since I've got six college degrees, I'm obviously as untrustworthy as they come. Of course, I also turned down a lucrative job offer in the past because of my promise to my employer at the time, and as a result, have been below the poverty line for the last 5 or 6 years now. So I don't think you're going to get a straight line on 'going to college = money grubbing' either.

[Trillo]

16. Thank you for making my point so clear:

"I don't think you're going to get a straight line on 'going to college = money grubbing' either."

Of course I do wonder whether you just failed to use the sarcasm icon. I also note you failed to respond in anyway to my concluding point, that honesty and altruistic and equality training (your idea) would merely result in yet more less-well-trained victims. I could be that my post just ticked you off, rubbed you the wrong way, and that point got lost in your emotional rhetoric. OTOH, you may be demonstrating the very lack of integrity I pointed out by shifting the goalposts to some other issue.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

18. Shifting the goalposts? What goalposts?

You made a rather sweeping (and insulting) anti-intellectual statement, implying that people with college education as less honest, and adding on that you believe people with college degrees are specifically dishonest when 'money is at stake'.

It's been my experience that folks with high school degrees are the most honest.

Just a subjective observation. Folks with college degrees will be honest when there is no money at stake, but put the money motivator in there, and truth is often, though admittedly not always, a casualty. My point in the context of your comment is that further honesty or altruism education in compulsory schools would seem the wrong course of action. It just paints marks for the highly intelligent and highly educated and unscrupulous to target, creating more victims.

So you think it's only 'possible' that you rubbed me the wrong way? And then had to switch from maligning people with college degrees as a whole to maligning me personally, saying I might be 'demonstrating a lack of integrity' as well?

Gosh, how could anyone ever think you rub them the wrong way?

[Trillo]

19. You had an out, "... though admittedly not always ..."

Let me see if I can focus my point a little better for 6-college degree you, and anyone else who might read it. I have come to understand that the point of honesty training is so that the unscrupulous who tend to run all things (see "who runs the world" I can supply link if needed), a minuscule percentage of folks much smaller than 1%, demand others be honest with them, yet they are unwilling to reciprocate. In such a logistic, it doesn't make sense to call for yet more mass honesty training, because that's not where the problem lies.

These were your original statements that I disagree with (i.e., "goalposts&quot :

"How to turn around corruption? Change human nature I think you simply have to find a way to stress altruism and honesty and equality in upcoming generations. Reach the kids, and they'll grow up to be better adults."

The vast majority of folks are honest, hardworking, even altruistic people. They don't need yet more honesty or altruism training, the folks that need the training are the 0.0001% (or some very small similar number). That is the absurdity of asking the 99% to endure more honesty and altruism training for which I was taking exception. The issue with college degree folks, like yourself apparently, is that in general they work to further the agenda of the smaller than 1% in order to pay their bills.

[Louisiana1976]

29. True.

[Orsino]

8. Education is typically the first nucket the corrupt steal from.

So, yes?

[KurtNYC]

12. Lack of "sunshine" ?

I have seen small town governments where a few insiders have control and they make inside deals, usually real estate. The answer to that it would seem is to have a law that says that all real estate sold by the city must be sold on the open market to the highest bidder. Same for service contracts.

Your question implies that the people of a state have a significant (potential) say in what goes on in their government. I don't see that. I think the overwhelming majority of Americans are marginalized and pacified. The turnout for 2014 is likely to be < 15%. The turnout in Iowa in 2010 was just 9.7% of eligible voters. If people can't be bothered to take 2 hours to vote every 2 years then the chance and the percentage who would take on on-going corruption is very small.

The very concept of representational government moves taxpayers to the sidelines. It says in effect, just vote every 2 years and go on with your life.

People would do well to organize around goals instead of around other people. Goals don't sellout.

[Baitball Blogger]

22. I do see in my community how the power is concentrated in private circles.

They use the small committee format, and based on the decisions that are made at that level, the "story" is sold to everyone else in the community. Anyone who even attempts to provide information that would dispute their facts will be intimidated and brow-beaten until they're pushed out of even the meetings that are necessary by law.

[KurtNYC]

24. I found this white paper on dealing with corruption

It was produced in the late 1970s but the dynamics it describes are pretty much the same as now (or perhaps, ever). They identify opportunity, incentive and risk as the pathways that need to be addressed through enforcement, changes in process and lawmaking.

How to find corruption and how to stop or prevent it; nice analysis:

https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/50199NCJRS.pdf

[Baitball Blogger]

25. Thanks.

I'm going to bookmark this for easy reference.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

26. my best guess is the strongest correlation is between population and corruption

such that populous states are more corrupt than non-populous states.

in general scarcity of resources leads to greater unethical behaviors.

[Baitball Blogger]

27. The reason why I might disagree with you is because of the real estate market.

When you're dealing with land development in Florida, first there were the developers, then came the corrupted lawyers. And only after they gamed the documents that should have been the blueprint for growth, then came the residents with the initial community activists who were easily corrupted or misled. (Florida needs to clean up the way that local lawyers practice before we'll ever move out of the mess we're in, but that's a battle for another day.)

When it comes to corruption, I see patterns in my community that match the run up into Iraq II. First, they had someone to demonize, and based on the dislike for that individual, a cause was born. The litmus test for acceptance into this inner circle was hating this target and taking him down. Anyone who stopped to ask questions was attacked and isolated. Just like Liberals were isolated when they tried to warn about the consequences that would come from going into Iraq.

When you have an entire population focused on a cause that they are convinced needs to be actualized at any cost, it gives corrupt lawyers and politicians a lot of room to play with.

[Boom Sound 416]

28. Florida is not the best model for your premise

It will be become the third most populous state this year which makes it a pretty complex place, furthermore, it's made of so many transplants that is probably too large of a populous contingent that was not educated there.

Try looking at states that retain their people