The "Linguistic-Skills-of-Legislators" Theory Proven
By Martin Harris

Even though I have never encountered any denial or resistance from legislators of my thesis that they are, indeed (with a very few easily identifiable exceptions) far more intelligent and linguistically-skilled than the rest of us, it may be useful to furnish a case-in-point as partial proof, on the linguistic side. It showed up deep in the normally-dry pages of legislative statutes and regulations, the language of the rulers now easily available to the ruled in ways not imaginable prior to the may-I-say class-traitorous invention of the Internet by one of their own a couple of decades ago. Like the Vulgate Bible, translated from Latin to Old German by Martin Luther and made available to the Late Middle Ages peasantry via Johannes Gutenberg's printing press (don't presume to test your high school history student on all this dead-European-white-guys stuff) the recent placement of actual governmental language where the locals can read it has brought to light all manner of interesting revelations. Here's one.

The moment of epiphany arrived in the course of comparing K-12 student test scores in Tennessee with those in Vermont, a State-to-State comparison exercise which is possible, by intent, with the published but not-widely-distributed National Assessment of Educational Progress federal tests and is not possible, by intent, with the locally-purchased and -publicized NECAP tests in Vermont and TCAP tests in Tennessee. In the NAEP, the pupil-teacher ratio stats (close to, but not precisely identical with, average class size) show TN at 15.7-to-1 and VT at 10.8-to-1, about a 50% difference which represents most of the difference in annual per-pupil spending: TN at $7.7K, VT at $13.6K. A commensurate 50% difference in test scores doesn't show up in the stats: in 4th grade reading, (for the white student cohort, to keep comparisons balanced) the NAEP shows VT students at229 and TN at 224. For the entire US, with a p/t ratio of 15.5, 4th graders score 230, and for VT, they score 229. In Utah, with a class size of 22, they score 226. These closely bunched results (on a 0-500 scale, none "excellent") don't distribute as official edu-crat doctrine -"smaller classes produce higher test scores"-has been predicting for 30 years, promising markedly better results for the smaller classes and worse results for the larger ones. Why, then, have almost all States, including TN and VT, been growing budgets in pursuit of shrinking classes?

Vermont has long had maximum class size regulations; historically, until recently, they called for 21 or fewer in grades K and 1, 23 or fewer in 2 and 3. No minimum, no recommendation, no Average Class Size policy. Recently the VT rules were changed: 20 or fewer in K-3, 25 or fewer in 4-8. Tennessee also has a maximum class size regulation: K-3, 25; 4-6, 30; 7-12, 35. Unlike VT, TN has a recommended Average Class Size: K-3, 20; 4-6, 25; 7-12, 30. In both States, the actual averages are well under the maxima (there's that 'small classes are better" doctrine at work, statistical evidence to the contrary notwithstanding) and in TN they're also well under the official recommendation. So my earlier question changes from "why do both states pursue an expensive but ineffective reduced-class-size policy? The stats show that both States have maximum which they typically undercut (substantially). And we know the answer: their edu-crats still claim, disregarding 40 years of contrary hard-numbers evidence,  that smaller class sizes are "worth it", achievement-wise. The new question is "Why is TN's actual class size well under its own recommended minimum?"

At first inspection, the Tennessee Average Class Size page in the Education Regulations (page 3 in the Minimum Requirements for the Approval of Public Schools) seems to have the force of law; it's printed complete with legal reference to Tennessee Code Annotated #49-1-302 and 49-6-3004. When you read the text, the critical sentence says "Local Boards of Education shall have policies providing for class sizes in grades K-12 in accordance with the following.." and then the numbers reported above. How could local Boards flout specific State statute and regulation?

But then, the epiphany-moment came. It had been illustrated earlier in the linguistic skill previously demonstrated by another high-IQ political figure, a subsequently-temporarily-disbarred member of the legal profession, who used conjugational (pun intended) analysis to explain that "it all depends on the meaning of the verb 'is'". In this parallel but, fortunately, substantively different case of K-12 class size, "it all depends on the meaning of the verb "have'".  After all, the verb "to have" requires no action. It's not like the verbs "to implement" or "to execute" or even "to follow" or "to respect". All Boards in TN must "have" the statutory/regulatory-requirement for Average Class Size policy in duly-adopted form, but don't "have to" actually carry it out. You have to admire the linguistic skill of legislators, caught between rising education costs and rising popular angst on the one side, shrinking class size and stagnant test scores on the other, and buffeted by the education lobby pressing for more education spending, staffing, and pro-ed staffer votes and against any such limitations as those called for in the Average Class Size policy. The solution came to some typically language-skilful legislator when he/she proposed in committee that all sides could be kept happy and reassured with the equivocally interpretable verb "to have" used in the legislative requirement with respect to the potentially controversial policy.

The domestic equivalent: I have a pressure-cooker, but I never use it. Because I don't enjoy the genetic or learned linguistic skill of a Golden Dome legislator, it wouldn't have occurred to me to use "have" in a way that would satisfy both those who think I should actually use one, and those who don't. But now I know.

Martin Harris is a former Chairman of Citizens for Property Rights