Because I have talked of a 'budget simulator' on numerous occasions, this item - picked up on elearningpost and elsewhere - caught my eye. And showed me how a learning simulation ought not to work. The idea is that players can simulate the choices needed to balance a state budget. But the 'budget' displayed is appaling, containing only five line items, most of which are vague. Once your choices are made, you then attempt to get your budget 'passed' the the legislature - a legislature where all the pro-business pro-tax-cut people are pragmatic, and where all the pro-social spending people "oppose you on principle". That's as far as I got - my proposed budget (which cut business funding in half, eliminated 'tax breaks' and raised estate taxes to erase a $21 million deficit) would 'fail' in the house 27-3 -- and the simulation would not allow me to take my budget into defeat, despite the political cost that my 'opponents' would have to endure for opposing such reasonable measures. Distributed by AP, I must say that this is more of an exercise in propaganda than learning - but illustrative of some of the dangers inherent in setting up simulations such as this where the assumptions, far from being clear, may be embedded out of view in the simulation logic.
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