An Education Bailout? It Won’t Improve Schools
The proposed “stimulus” will radically expand federal school spending, without helping students.
See? Your simple little click not only gives you access to information on the many fine products and services advertised here on Pajamas Media, it also helps facilitate egregious political corruption. Such is the power of the multiplier effect.
Trouble is, money doesn’t just appear in the government treasury ex nihilo. (Please keep reading, Senator Biden, I swear that it’s true.) To spend money stimulating the economy, government has to get the money first, removing it from the economy through taxes and/or borrowing. And when you remove money from the economy, you lose the multiplier effects from whatever people would have done with that money if the government hadn’t taken it.
So government attempts to harness the multiplier effect don’t produce a real stimulus. They just move the multiplier effect from one part of the economy to another.
Of course, if some economic activities create a greater multiplier than others, you might still believe government spending can create a stimulus by directing economic resources to the more “stimulating” activities. But only if you think that when government takes control of economic resources, it will direct those resources intelligently and benevolently to the “right” economic activities.
If so, you might also believe in the tooth fairy.
And this brings us back to the subject of schools. I suspect that pretty much nobody in Congress really believes the Keynesian theory. There are two real motivations behind all stimulus bills. First, it creates an opportunity for politicians to claim credit for any good economic news that subsequently comes along. Second, it’s an excuse to shovel money at powerful constituencies, from whom you can later demand reciprocal support.
It’s the latter reason that will determine how the new school spending in the stimulus bill will be spent. The money won’t go where it’s needed. It will go to the gravy train.
One reason to expect this is because that’s how government always spends money. An illustration will help here. The stimulus bill will no doubt build tons of bridges, and with bridges you don’t have nearly as much controversy as you do in education over what policies would serve the public interest best. So let’s look at the government’s track record on bridge-building.
Never mind the “bridge to nowhere.” While it’s a great symbol of pork run amok, in objective terms it’s a pretty small case.
But do you remember that huge bridge collapse in Minneapolis a year and a half ago? In the immediate aftermath, some people rushed to blame the deaths on hard-hearted budget cutters. But it quickly came out that plenty of money was being spent on road and bridge repair. Trouble is, that money wasn’t used to repair the city’s major bridge, despite the bridge having been rated “structurally deficient” for two years.
This was a really easy case. Here’s this huge bridge in a big city that tons of people used every day, and that the government’s own engineers said was in desperate need of repair — and the politicians had plenty of money available to repair it. But they preferred to spend the money on projects that enriched their friends, or generated votes in swing districts, or whatever.
That’s how government spending works.
But there’s an even stronger reason to expect stimulus spending on schools to produce no improvement. With schools, we’ve measured the effects of spending increases over and over again — and we’ve consistently found that they make no difference.
There have been literally hundreds of empirical studies examining whether educational outcomes are related to spending increases. This body of evidence has consistently found that spending more money bears no relationship with the results we get from schools. In fact, the total amount we spend per student has more than doubled in the past 40 years, after accounting for inflation, while educational outcomes are flat over the same period.
So what will this radical expansion of federal education spending actually do? It will direct more money into the gravy train that already siphons off countless billions of dollars from schools every year. It will help the government education monopoly continue to postpone desperately needed reforms that a tighter budget might force it to consider. And a lot of that money will find its way to the staff unions and other interest groups that stand in the schoolhouse door against any change in education policy.
In other words, it’s business as usual.
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Greg Forster is a senior fellow at the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice.
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44 Comments
1. Gozer the Carpathian:$100 BILLION?! I know I know, no one in Washington ever actually believes in the “Throwing good money after bad” idea. In fact here they’re throwing bad money after bad. Taking from everywhere to toss into the education money pit. :\
Now don’t get me wrong, I live in the middle of nowhere and I’ve seen LOTS of major school repairs that need done. (Asbestos removal, holes, extra portable classrooms, parking lots, fields, MUSIC ROOMS) What inveitably happens is that these things are never actually purchased. The money is “absorbed” all along the way LONG before it ever reaches the students or the indivdual schools.
Hell if you want to give money away like this why not give it to the parents of the kids? Divide it up amongst the kids and give it to them directly, then they can figure out how to improve their schools. Oh wait, that’d just go to private schools which would really annoy public school stalwarts.
Honestly has throwing money at a problem EVER solved it? Or just changed the symptoms?
Jan 17, 2009 - 11:44 pm 2. Kevin:i just dont see any problem if Obama looks into that option.In America everybody is stressed look below
Jan 18, 2009 - 1:55 am 3. Marc Malone:http://african-journal.blogspot.com/2009/01/refinancing-your-mortgage-with-bad_14.html
The reason government is so inefficient is that there are NO standards of performance. It matters not that the money accomplishes nothing. It only matters that they look like they’re doing something. Lack of success is actually beneficial to them, as it gives them an excuse to call for ever more money to give to their constituencies. Failure actually gets them re-elected.
This actually works for the Dems, but not the Pubs, because Republicans actually demand results. Stupid us.
Jan 18, 2009 - 2:29 am 4. Vaughn:Forget wasting that money on the teachers union. Spend it on expanding the NBA, and put those dropouts to work. Every town over 5000 population gets a franchise.
Jan 18, 2009 - 5:07 am 5. Lisa:I’m not an economist but I am a teacher.
There are two separate issues here.. the quality of the school’s facility and the quality of the school, that is the education provided by the school.
I’ve taught in buildings with exceptionally high cancer rates and respiratory illnesses amongst teachers. Buildings where temperatures in the upper 80’s are common in the spring and fall while in the winter we’re freezing. Buildings where ventilation is so bad that no amount of cleaning will keep up with the dust. And these were in good districts. Most adults would not be effective in these environments; I don’t know why we expect kids to be.
As for the quality of education, policy makers are putting a lot of effort into trying to solve the achievement gap… the difference in performance between whites and AAs. The problem is that gap may not be real. There are only three predictors for student performance: school quality, parental education and age of mother when she gave birth to her first child. Educational policy can only effect one of those three predictors… school quality.
How can we improve school quality? Good schools have strong libraries (books rather than ‘media’), well equipped science labs, strong foreign language and arts programs, and appropriate classrooms (rather than holding class in rooms too small for the numbers or rooms means to be offices). Goods schools have teachers who have enough prep time; this means one planning period for every different type of class they teach (for example, I teach three sections of Algebra and two sections of science, I should have 2 planning periods). Good schools have good teachers; this means raising standards in university education programs and raising teacher pay. Good schools have good discipline and strong consequences.
And yes, this will mean more money but frankly, I think the alternative is far more expensive.
Jan 18, 2009 - 7:00 am 6. William:I think the government should be involved in improving physical education facilities, BUT, that should be the extent of their involvement in education. Teachers should be paid exclusively by the students voluntarily attending their class. That way good teachers will be rewarded by those getting a real education and bad teachers will have to find another job. Unions would be banned. Worked well for the ancient Greeks.
Jan 18, 2009 - 7:27 am 7. Cybergeezer:I don’t see why Congress doesn’t fund a football team called the Jihadi’s. Education is morphed into the national welfare that people have been told is practically gone. Our national education is turning into an embarrassment. Equal opportunity stupidity.
Jan 18, 2009 - 7:27 am 8. Libertyship46:Anyone who wants to see how useless Government spending is on education should take a long, hard, look at the Washington, DC, public school system. Even though Washington, DC, spends more per student on a per capita basis than almost any other school system in the country, Washington has one of the worst high school graduation rates and dropout rates in the nation. I guess asking the parents of these kids to be more responsible and make sure they go to school and graduate is too much to ask for, especially since we live in a “victim” society where everyone is to blame except the parents. After all, it’s a lot easier to abdicate parental responsibilities and dump them on to a public school system. But just throwing money at a problem doesn’t solve it, either. Well, maybe it does, because now the head of the Washington DC public school system has instituted a program of actually paying students to attend school. That’s right, if kids do what they’re supposed to do (which is go to school), they actually get paid by the Washington school system. If you want to read more about this program, click here: http://www.barbarafeldman.com/paying_kids_to_show_up_at_school.html
If the new Obama administration is going to spend $100 billion on education, why not just give every student a check for about $10,000? It will be cheaper than investing in an educational system that hasn’t really changed much in over 30 years (even though administration after administration, Republican and Democrat, keeps throwing billions of dollars at it, including the “No Child Left Behind” program which had massive bi-partisan support) and, by just giving money away at least the students and their families will be able to spend on things they really need, like a flat-screen TV. Talk about stimulating the economy! All these kids with $10,000 cash would have a field day at their local mall and that would do a lot more to stimulate the economy than trying to graduate kids that don’t want to be in school. Of course I’m joking, but evidently the head of the Washington DC school system isn’t.
What Americans have to understand is that not every kid is cut out for college or should even go to college. We are now a nation obsessed with sending every high school student to college, whether they want to go there or not. If you really want to make a difference, invest more in trade schools and at least offer kids the opportunity to work as apprentices in fields that desperately need new workers and pay good salaries, like plumbers, electricians, or carpenters. I don’t have to tell anyone living in a large urban area, like New York or San Francisco, how much a licensed plumber or electrician makes. If you give many kids a trade it may be more valuable than a college degree, which he or she may not want or need.
But sinking billions of dollars into failed school systems will only help the Teacher’s Unions and the various pork projects in the states that get this money. It will do nothing to help the economy. But one thing I do find curious. If Mr. Obama believes so much in the public school system and is so dedicated to reforming it, how come his kids go to PRIVATE school?
Jan 18, 2009 - 7:28 am 9. Tom:The problem is NOT money. My father taught high school in a public system for years. He knows what he is talking about.
The problem is that it is a monopoly, wasteful, unionized, with no accountability in any objective sense.
We need choice, say $6,000 per year for each child, leaving the leftover $5k to $10k for all the children that stay in the public system thereby increasing per pupil funding in the public system AND still giving choice to parents if they have to opt out due to terrible public systems.
This would do the most to improve education AND save money. It won’t happen though because the unions control the Dems and the Dems will fight it tooth and nail because it is in their interest to keep students dumb and on the Dem plantation where they can then be dependent on government.
Jan 18, 2009 - 7:48 am 10. Saltherring:The best place to initiate public school reform would be to decertify the NEA, the greatest single impediment to educating America’s children. We could then return to a base curriculum consisting of math, science and English, which will help prepare students to earn a living. Emphasising multiculturalism and radical environmentalism will only serve to render our youth as useful idiots (voting bloc) for the liberals’ transition to socialism.
Jan 18, 2009 - 9:39 am 11. John Moore:Almost the entire educational system in the US is an enormous catastrophe. When kids get to college, too many need remedial courses. When they get out of college, their heads have been filled with politically correct mush instead of useful knowledge or thinking habits or discipline (science, math and engineering excepted).
My mother was first a mathematician, then an engineer, then years later, a career public school algebra teacher. Her dictat to her kids: “none of my grandchildren will be educated in a public school!”
Unfortunately, since the private schools get books, teachers and ideas from the same sources as the public schools, they are often nearly as bad.
Schools should go back to basics. They should teach facts (which, yes, requires rote memorization). They should teach critical thinking skills. They should teach how the world works and how to think about it, at a basic level.
A college diploma should stop being a job requirement for many professions, since it generally attests only that the holder has minimal education and the willingness to spend a few years to get it.
Jan 18, 2009 - 9:41 am 12. melissa k:spot on and funny 2. bonus pts.
Jan 18, 2009 - 12:16 pm 13. The Historian:TEACHERS UNION PAYOFF DOES NOTHING FOR KIDS
The stimulus plan is all about taking care of special interests.
http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2009/01/house-stimulus-plan-is-special-interest.html
Jan 18, 2009 - 12:25 pm 14. Lily:In our county, we just defeated a new school bond issue. Now, I know people who work in the school district, and the school district is a wasteful group. So, of course they are promising all sorts of painful cuts in instruction and teachers (instead of looking for and cutting the real waste).
Now our Federal Government is going to ‘over rule’ our decision to withhold new funding and give our tax money to the school district through another source? Nice.
Jan 18, 2009 - 12:34 pm 15. Lily:I think a lot of people assume that schools try to be efficient with their money – trust me – they don’t. I have talked to many people in the school district here – and its like their brains don’t even work that way. You try to suggest ideas for cutting expenses that won’t really effect the quality of teaching – and they just say something like, “we don’t need to do that, we just need to get this new bond passed”. Good Grief.
Jan 18, 2009 - 12:36 pm 16. Lisa:For those of you advocating school choice, you do realize that $6000 a year isn’t enough to pay for private school and that providing that money will only raise the cost of private school by $6000.
Jan 18, 2009 - 12:41 pm 17. Lisa:Lily,
I don’t know where you live but where I am, we’ve lost funding on a yearly basis since the mid 90’s. We’ve cut teaching positions, cut electives, cut planning periods, cut the heat and more in an attempt to make do. We can’t just do a new bond due to state laws on the uses of bond money.
And yes, the quality of education has been hurt. When we went from teaching five classes with two planning periods to teaching five classes with one planning period, we had to DRASTICALLY change the way we taught and assessed students.
The kids are being hurt, our future as a nation is being hurt because there are people in this state who think spending money on education is wasteful.
Jan 18, 2009 - 1:38 pm 18. Lapb:To Lisa,
My oldest attended a private school last year in the Denver area–the cost of the annual tuition was $6500. If private institutions knew that parents had a $6000 check in their hands to spend on schooling, and that’s all they could afford, you bet your bottom, you would have schools popping up all over where the tuition was $6000. Also, a private school will squeeze more out of those dollars than the government schools. Those schools would be results oriented because they know you could take your money and go elsewhere. You get a better product with competition.
Jan 18, 2009 - 2:47 pm 19. 888:Repairs, renovation and new, modern schools will do little to raise test scores, skill sets, knowledge base or the ability to think critically. Go to the Philippines or India, and see what I mean. Kids there are educated, learn to speak and write proper English and love to learn, but their school surroundings are anything but posh, amenities-filled or new.
You need good teachers who care and know how to teach kids foundational concepts, and you also need for the parent(s) to care and take time to help their kids at home with schoolwork and homework. If the parent(s) is unable to help the child, the child should be allowed to spend additional time with the teacher, like after school, and/or spend time in the area library or particular websites, until the child understands what is being taught.
The bottom line with education in the U.S. is responsibility and accountability of teachers and parents — without the two, we’ll continue to slide in the educational rankings against other countries, resulting in our kids not being competitive in the job market in the long run.
A 2005 article stated, “The United States is falling when it comes to international education rankings, as recent studies show that other nations in the developed world have more effective education systems.
In a 2003 study conducted by UNICEF that took the averages from five different international education studies, the researchers ranked the United States No. 18 out of 24 nations in terms of the relative effectiveness of its educational system.
Another prominent 2003 study, the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, shows a steady decline in the performance of American students from grades 4 to 12 in comparison to their peers in other countries.
In both studies, Finland, Australia, Belgium, Austria, Hungary, Netherlands and the United Kingdom beat the United States, while the Asian nations of South Korea, Japan and Singapore ranked first through third, respectively.”
http://kapio.kcc.hawaii.edu/upload/fullnews.php?id=52
Jan 18, 2009 - 3:42 pm 20. 888:The exception to the rule on American students’ test scores is the Department of Defense Education Activity (DODEA) schools, which is responsible for educating children of military, civilian and DoD contractors overseas, US territories and in some states. DODEA test scores have consistently, over the years, either matched or have been higher than those of the national averages, and the reason for that, I believe, is the focus, dedication and due diligence of DODEA teachers and the parents of those children. http://www.dodea.edu/pressroom/releasesDisplay.cfm?prId=20080728
Jan 18, 2009 - 3:59 pm 21. fred:Lisa,
I went to a Catholic grammar school from 1961 to 1969. Most of my friends in the neighborhood I grew up in were pretty much almost a grade behind the material we were covering. And in those days the public schools were not nearly as bad as they are today. The Catholic school I went to was every bit as physically old as the ones my friends went to. After that period, I went to a Catholic boarding school for high school and had to spend my last year of high school in the local public high school because the boarding school I had been attending closed. I discovered that, again, I was ahead of the public school kids. And at that time THEY had far better physical facilities in every respect.
Kindly explain to me what the dumbing down of curricula and standards has to do with the infrastructure of the schools. Not one of the teachers I had in grades K through 11 had education degrees. Not one of the religious sisters. Not one of the priests or brothers. They taught substantive material. We were expected to do our assignments, and the school and classroom were governed by definite standards for civilized behavior.
Later in life, when I was a Jesuit seminarian, I briefly taught in a Catholic high school and later, as a grad student of philosophy at Loyola of Chicago, taught college freshmen. That was during the mid Eighties, and I could see how the standards were slipping.
Unfortunately, now many of the parents are themselves the products of this dumbing down regime in education, so they truly have no idea of how far things have fallen.
Jan 18, 2009 - 4:56 pm 22. bkjazfan:I live in Los Angeles County. The area I live in is lower to middle income. About 5 miles west of here is a string of fairly affluent beach cities. In the southwest part of LA here most of the cities are incorporated. The inland schools near me are OK at the elementary level. When it comes to the middle and senior high schools forget it – academically they are poor. Now, the affluent coastal schools are all above average and some border on excellent. So, I deduce from this that the better schools correlate with higher income locales. I seriously question that more money poured into the local school district will produce a better outcome. If the majority of the students aren’t motivated there is not much you can do. it starts in the home not at the school.
John
Jan 18, 2009 - 5:00 pm 23. DaveinPhoenix:This reminds me of the (so called) Republican cuts in the school lunch program back in the ’90’s….which were actually cuts in the rate of growth. Mention the word “children” in America; associate the word with a funding program, and it’s a shoe-in for automatic taxpayer funding. Look at the results of our investments in our children over the past 20 years or so: falling further and further behind in academic achievement compared to many countries in the world, a drug infested crime ridden public school system in shambles,kids who can’t even solve simple mathematics problems, a generation of spoiled rotten brats who refuse to accept criticism or responsibility. Yes, there are many shining examples of excellence in this desert of waste. But overall, I wouldn’t pay one red cent down this rat hole of taxpayer waste in the name of “our children, how can we deny them ?” The problem isn’t lack of funding, it’s lack of parenting.
Jan 18, 2009 - 6:02 pm 24. myth buster:$6000 isn’t enough to get a private school education? Yeah right. The Catholic Church can educate students for $3000-$4000 a year. That $6000 would cover tuition and a hot meal every day, and there would still be money left over, all for less than the average per pupil spending in the public school system.
Jan 18, 2009 - 6:16 pm 25. David P:bkjazfan, applying that logic is like saying it may as well not rain in the drought stricken SF bay area b/c most of the downpour culminates in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Jan 18, 2009 - 6:51 pm 26. fred:myth buster @24
Exactly right. Right now, what is the average across the nation, per pupil, cost of education in the public school systems? Is it in the vicinity of between $9,000 and $10,000? When the private Catholic, Christian, or “other” schools do a much better job for a lot less money. And many do not have swanky facilities that have all the latest gizmos. Many – maybe most – homeschoolers do a better job too. My brother and his late wife home-schooled their three children and only deferred to the public schools in Seattle for very highly specialized and advanced math and science. Those three kids are amazing, talented, and miles ahead of their peers – now that all of them are either in college or just graduated.
The public school proponents say the parents are the real focus of education. Well, my parents were not daily involved, but they did provide some structure at home and there were definite expectations.
I remember my first day of first grade, when Dad dropped me off at the Catholic parochial school I went to. On the way to school I think I asked him why I was going to be doing this. His reply was, “Son, everyone in our family has a job. I go to work to earn the money for you, Mom, and your brothers and sisters. Mom cares for all of you when I’m at work. Your job is school. That is what is expected of you. It won’t be easy, but none of us always have it easy.”
Jan 18, 2009 - 8:31 pm 27. Northstar:As a non teacher who is from a family of teachers I hear more about how schools operate than most people do. Here is a rather disconcerted list of things.
1. A childs performance in school is in direct relationship to the effort the parents make to help their children.
2. New money given to school districts will be spent mostly for sports and public use (swimming pools, softball diamonds, etc.).
3. While unions may be responible for keeping some “bad” teachers, the entire system is set up to keep “bad” and unqualified administrators.
4. Most administrators are not managers and would not last in a competative private or corperate world.
5. School boards “rubber stamp” what poor administrators “feed” them.
6. Most school board members are elected by special interest groups (i.e. sports fans, new building advocates, etc.), and are not people who know much, if anything, about running an effective company or how to educate children.
7. Parents who spend the most time with their children (making them the better students) are the most likely to enroll the children in private schools
8. Private schools do not have to accept children with psychological problems. Leaving the public schools, teachers and students, to deal with them.
9. “Squeaky wheels get the grease” State legeslators tell me that hearing they hold on scholls issues are overwhelmingly attended by special interest groups and sometimes not a single “average” parent is there.
If the federal government really wants to help the quality of education they will require all parents to attend a parenting class before and for the first 3 years their child is in school. If this means paying them to attend, so be it.
Make it a reqirement for schools to be audited by a outside firm for both fiscal and management responciblities, and require publishment of the results. Audits need to be more defined than “general fund, building fund, bond fund”. These reports should be such that the average person can see where the money and management is going.
Jan 18, 2009 - 9:32 pm 28. Lisa:Private schools here start at about $8000/year and go up to $15000 or more. They have limited spots and remove students who cause a problem.
The reason private schools are more successful is simply that they can select their student population. They don’t take students who would be labeled special ed or learning disabled. They don’t take kids with behavior problems. They don’t take kids who are two-three grade levels behind their peers. They don’t take kids whose parents don’t care (well, what parent would pay $8000+ if they didn’t care).
In my experience, the number one reason parents send their kids to private schools is to avoid the problem students. When we were kids, the tracking system and gifted programs did this.
If you offered vouchers to all public school kids, the private schools would not suddenly triple their spaces. You can only fit so many kids in a classroom and building is expensive. No, they would simply raise prices to retain their exclusivity (free market anyone). Many students would not be welcome in private schools or would be asked to leave after a short trial.
Many of the posters mention Catholic school. Have you considered the Constitutional implications of using public funds to send students to religious schools?
Voucher’s are simply not a solution.
A return to tracking and gifted education is a better choice.
Jan 19, 2009 - 5:24 am 29. Israel:Vouchers are the solution. Denial of parental choice in education is in fact the greatest government-sanctioned violation of civil rights in today’s America, and society suffers in multiple ways. As with any system gone awry, just follow the money. Our top-down system, where the provider holds the purse rather than the customer, is like shopping with no money, with the understanding that the store will provide for your needs. The only way to fix this misguided system is to return control to parents, where it rightfully belongs.
As described by Wisconsin State Representative Annette Polly Williams, who led the ten-year voucher battle in Milwaukee, “We were putting power in the hands of low-income parents to make sure they really did benefit. This entire parental choice struggle is about who can control the educational dollars.”
Sweden, among the most “progressive” of nations, instituted parental choice in education in 1992. They now have improvement and increased satisfaction in both private and public schools, without the predictions of doom coming to pass!
Free enterprise is the engine of a free society. Just as it is essential in driving a successful economy, so too with education. Our nation came to recognize the importance of equal opportunity in housing, employment and public accommodations, and passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. We need to sponsor and pass the Civil Rights Act for Equal Educational Opportunity. This would mandate equitable funding for children in non-public schools, while respecting the liberty of schools in hiring and provision of services. In accordance with the 10th Amendment, educational standards and means of funding would be left to the states.
Support for this measure is building at the grass roots level. As recently reported by Evelyn B. Stacey of the Pacific Research Institute, “Forty-four years after the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a new rights movement is gathering steam as ethnic groups are increasingly joining forces to press for school choice.”
Implementation of this legislation would surely bring innovative advancements in education by force of competition and substantially reduce bureaucratic waste.
Please call your representatives in Washington, at 202-224-3121, and ask them to sponsor and pass the Civil Rights Act for Equal Educational Opportunity.
Jan 19, 2009 - 9:22 am 30. Teacher in L.A.:So many people who comment about whether schools need the money, and the effectiveness of money should actually spend some time in school before spewing their ill-informed opinions. I teach in South L.A. and WISH I could 1. Buy classroom sets of texts for my students so they don’t have to schlep around 4 heavy textbooks daily since we have no lockers 2. Offer vacation classes and Saturday classes to Honors students, not just remedial students 3. Buy more authentic field trips for students so they can conduct their learning in the real world 4. Give L.A. teachers a salary that would allow them to buy a home within the city limits and not have to commute from 1-2 hours away 5. Buy each class a document camera, LCD projector, wireless internet, and a laptop so students and teachers can use the latest instructional technology and not have to share one doc-cam per department 6. Send 10 teachers from each department to the national conference so they can stay up to date with their learning; sorry, most teachers can’t afford to pay for this out of pocket because of our salaries 7. Subsidize science camps or advanced learning camps for families who can’t afford them 8. Buy loaner laptops for poor families who aren’t connected to the internet 9. Buy additional teaching positions to lower class size to 25:1 accross all grades and subjects 10. Give each teacher a $1000/yr spending allowance on materials so it doesn’t come out of pocket.
Please know that schools do need money. Yes, some misspend it. But most know what to do with it and need it badly.
Jan 19, 2009 - 10:40 am 31. Marc Malone:#17 Lisa – They’ve cut teaching positions, hours, et al. Tell me, how many admin positions have they cut? This is how they get more money, by cutting the essentials and retaining the inessentials.
#30 Teacher un L.A. The above goes for you, too. Do the math. How much money is allocated per student in your area? How much does that mean for your classroom? How much of that actually goes to your classroom?
Let’s test this idea. If you, as a teacher, teach 30 kids each class, and the State spends an average of $9500 per kid per year, that means you generate $285,000 per year of revenue for the school system. How much of that goes to you and your classroom? In the private sector, 25% goes firectly to the worker salary. Do you get paid $71,500/yr? No? Why not? Another portion in the private sector goes toward capital expense. The rest goes for admin and profit. Schools are non-profit, so there should be even more available for your classroom, school facilities, field trips, and etc….
Fact is, as a teacher, you don’t understand the economics of the work that you do. You buy the nonsense they feed you, then sit around and gripe. You’re a fool, and thus, part of the problem. If you want to change your situation, then change yourself. Learn how to do some math. Actually apply the education you’ve been given. Then, get active! Get them to give the teachers what they need, and get rid of all the dead wood in the school system.
Jan 19, 2009 - 11:47 am 32. Northstar:#31 Marc – Let’s not be so fast to jump on teachers. Most often they do not know what the “powers that be” are going to do any soonner than the general public. Case in point, our district descided to spend $140,000 to buy 100 new clocks for the classrooms that could be electronically set from the office so the janitors didn’t have to reset them after there was a power outage (the janitors walk right by the clocks every evening while sweeping). These clocks have a “special order” school mascot print on the face, painted in black, the same color as the clock’s hand’s, making them almost unreadable. Now the janitors are taking down every clock they put up, taking them apart, repainting the hands orange, then reassembleing them and then rehanging them (voiding the warrenty, by the way). How many times could they have reset the old clocks for this money and time?? The teachers had no prior knowledge of these clocks until they showed up in the rooms. When the local paper asked a school board member about it, the response was “I suppose it was in the maintainence budget” This is just one example of the management skills of our school system. This from a school district which cut the school councelor position in each building to half time for “lack of funds”.
Jan 19, 2009 - 1:25 pm 33. William:The education I received to earn a diploma from my high school in 1948 would earn me a college diploma today. I’m a licensed professional mechanical engineer with 50 years experience so I’m not speaking from ignorance. The NEA, school boards more interested in athletic programs than acedemics, and government social engineers have ruined the nation’s education system. The voucher system would help save the system.
Jan 19, 2009 - 1:41 pm 34. Good Ole Charlie:I teach three levels or flavors of chemistry. I’ve taught them in public school and now in a good charter school. What’s the difference? The management…the charter school can go under from bad management and giving out with bad courses.
At the charter school I get about the same salary as the average teacher in our county, BUT I get a bonus depending on my performance. And I’m expected to produce results…or else (the contracts for teachers are for one year – no tenure).
In the public school the attitude of my Science Department supervisor was (and here I quote): “Don’t work too hard. Our kids are too stupid to understand the hard stuff.”…this was a fairly well-off suburban district BTW.
I do fairly well on my bonus: it can be anywhere from 0% to 15% of my yearly salary. At the high end, I’m above my public school peers in total salary.
We’re not terribly PC, although we do have minorities and Special Ed students. No union, thank Gawd, of course.
So…guess where I’m happiest and productive…
Jan 19, 2009 - 2:20 pm 35. Thom Fisher:My parents were government employees. My kids went to public schools and public unversities. I get government contracts that pays me handsomely. I’m a republican capitalist. Now my kids are through public education – they’re working or going to a private graduate school. Now I vote to shut down all government funding for public schools. Because my kids have made it. Screw you and your kids. I’ll make sure my grandchildren go to private schools. And if you can’t afford it, screw you. You deserve a crappy public education, so please cut funding for public schools. It’s good to be wealthy in America. You can be, too, if you work really hard and get lucky. And if you don’t, then screw you, and don’t hinder those who work really hard and get lucky.
Jan 19, 2009 - 5:40 pm 36. fred:The person whose post is above mine, #35 “Thom Fisher,” is using sarcasm to vent at those of us who are saying that the public education system is broken and it cannot be fixed by just throwing money at the problem. We’ve been doing that for decades – and it ‘aint working! The problem is the standards for mental effort and conduct in the schools. The expectations keep on being diluted. The only people who seem unaware of the dumbing down of the curricula are those who are mediocre minds who are themselves the products of that system. They don’t know any better and are not motivated to find out. Many educators who got their degrees during the last couple of decades have no idea of the richer world of mental accomplishment that existed decades ago. Also, the education system now sprinkles in, sometimes it is obvious and sometimes more subtle, doses of Leftist indoctrination. Taxpayers subsidize the entire project of the Italian Communist, Antonio Gramsci and his American disciple, Saul Alinsky.
Jan 19, 2009 - 6:20 pm 37. Lisa:Marc,
Yes, administrative positions were cut. Mostly our curriculum coordinators. In one small school district nearby, the superintendent cut his own position because there was nothing else left to cut.
Jan 19, 2009 - 7:15 pm 38. Lisa:If private schools took public funding, wouldn’t they then be accountable to the special education regulations under IDEA and testing regulations under NCLB? Would they still have the flexibility to remove problem students? Would they be willing to take vouchers if it meant taking on those burdens?
Jan 19, 2009 - 7:19 pm 39. John Moore:It is already constitutional to do so, as long as the funding mechanism does not discriminate based on religion.
My daughter went to a good Catholic school. Many of the students there were Jewish. Unconstitutional?
As for the song and dance about problem pupils being the problem with public schools…
Go back to segregating students by performance – tracking. It has fallen out of favor, but it is very logical. Also get the schools out of the business of anything other than education.
I went to public school in post-WW-II army barracks, each room heated by an oil stove, with goats grazing in the “playground” (the desert around Albuquerque, NM). None of this hindered education in the slightest. Oh, and we had big windows, too (to watch the goats and cactus, I guess), but student concentration wasn’t a problem. It’s all in the attitudes.
Jan 19, 2009 - 7:45 pm 40. Murph:It is time to end the government and union control of public education. Money is not the problem. We already spend enough on the failing public school system. The bureaucrats always find new, innovative ways to waste taxpayer money on lucrative teacher’s contracts, excessive administration costs, unsustainable pension plans, health plans, political campaigns, ball fields with artificial turf, and of course condoms.
And there’s no shortage of excuses for poor performing schools: parents don’t care, students don’t care, not enough funding, large class sizes, low pay, poor facilities, etc. Teacher’s blame everyone but themselves.
The public education system simply lacks choice. Most people can’t afford to send their kids to private schools, so they are forced to use the public school system. Give parents more control and responsibility for the education of their children. Introduce competition and bad schools will either improve or be forced out of business.
And there are no “constitutional implications” to vouchers or school choice. The funding is given to a student for pay for their education, not to support a particular religious institution.
Jan 19, 2009 - 8:30 pm 41. Israel:With all this talk of school choice and vouchers, have any of you called your Congressman and U.S. Senators, at 202-224-3121, to ask them to sponsor the Civil Rights Act for Equal Educational Opportunity? This would mandate equitable funding for children in nonpublic schools, while respecting the liberty of schools in hiring and provision of services. In accordance with the 10th Amendment, academic standards and means of funding would be left to the states.
Jan 20, 2009 - 11:34 am 42. Marc Malone:#37 Lisa – Good for that superintendent. Sounds like a competent guy (or gal). However, that means that somehow, money is not trickling down to the individual school districts. Find out how much is being spent per student at your school, then find out how much is being spent per student in your State. Methinks you will find a great discrepancy.
Jan 21, 2009 - 2:40 pm 43. MISS ANN MARIE KELLY:MISS ANN MARIE KELLY
10 DISTILLERY WALK
BRENTFORD
LONDON
TW8 0SG
TEL: 07960931833
EMAIL:ann4kelly@yahoo.co.uk
‘THE PROFESSOR OF LANGUAGE’
WHAT IS A LANGUAGE CAREER?
The age of language depends on the accsent of it culture roots! This can be taught in a career coaching and understanding how to re-new your character of business mind set!.
This can generate with in serveral different keys ways they are;-
ATTIDUTES
INVESTMENT
VISION
all the above require funds-money to asist and support its BUSINESS AND CAREER PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT! Business and Motivation comes with enjoyment in how to feed and give!
All of this come with in attidute and cachracter
Kind Regards
May 5, 2009 - 3:14 am 44. nonsense:Miss Ann Marie Kelly
We dont need more schools. We need more funding for the schools that we already have! My sister is a school teacher and they have already been furlowed 3 days for this school year, and there are already talks of an additional 1 day per week furlow. For those who don’t know, a furlow means off days that the teachers dont get paid for. My sister has 5 children all under the age of 10 so you can imagine the financial stress that this is going to cause in an economy that is already failing the American people.
Aug 4, 2009 - 3:23 pm