Pajamas Media

57 Comments

1. George Clarke:

“Schools in urban areas will continue to – to put it bluntly – suck, because the voucher amounts will not be sufficient to bring about good alternatives to a public school system.”
The idea there is no money in the public school system, and that if this fund of billions of dollars were in the control of the parents that contribute it (along with real estate owners who are not parents) they could not spend it better than the self-interested unions that spend it now, is ludicrous. Choice is better. Being slaves to unions with tenure is worse. Making it a condition that every school take its fair share of special needs children — problem solved. Competition beats monopoly. Economics 101.

Nov 7, 2007 - 2:40 am 2. TomHolsinger:

This issue is not new – it usually comes up in terms of special needs children. The solution is to assign additional voucher money to them, as much as several multiples of normal vouchers depending on need.

This could also be done for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, or schools in blighted areas could receive additional money just for being in high-crime areas.

The real feasibility problems are administrative.

Nov 7, 2007 - 6:29 am 3. stencil:

“The trouble is that the pre-school model doesn’t work in urban areas.”

So what? Subways and buses don’t work well in suburban and rural areas, but that doesn’t stop States and FedGov from subsidizing them – with non-urban tax dollars. The fact that a solution doesn’t solve every problem doesn’t invalidate it. Ineffective public education is a universal problem. Every action that at least ameliorates the problem, contributes to the solution. Finally, consider how much of the “doesn’t work” aspect of voucher programs’ performance in cities is due to the efforts of the unions to make them fail.

Nov 7, 2007 - 8:32 am 4. Ben A/baa:

I’m happy to support a program that helps out some students, but I can’t get too worked up about it.

It’s cheering to hear this response about current voucher proposals. It’s not a usual one from many of the groups opposed to vouchers. The NEA, for example, has to my knowledge universally opposed voucher plans to date, and has filed lawsuits to bar voucher use on 1st Amendment grounds.

Schools in urban areas will continue to – to put it bluntly – suck because the voucher amounts will not be sufficient to bring about good alternatives to a public school system

If we are indeed talking about “fantasy vouchers,” it is hard to see how this point can follow. Either there is or there is not some price at which education can be provided to children in urban areas. That’s the cost of education: be it via public provision or private provision. Vouchers will only fail if there is reason to believe that it will cost *more* to educate children privately than publicly. And we have no evidence of that. If the point is just that it costs more to educate certain children, then (as people have pointed out above) one just needs to provide these children with additional resources. This will of course be true regardless of whether they are educated publicly or privately. It’s not like the public system educates special needs kids at the same cost as non SN-kids. And the same incentives to classify kids as special needs to get more $ will exist in either a public or private system.

Nov 7, 2007 - 10:05 am 5. Selfreferencing:

I think the pre-school analogy fails. Pre-school is not widely demanded because it isn’t seen as socially necessary. Pre-schools, for the most part, are demanded as a luxury. That’s why they’re primarily aimed at the upper-classes.

But like all private goods, there tends to be a trickle down effect. Just think of PCs in the 80s. They were luxuries, but as we figured out better and cheaper ways of making PCs, their prices fell, they spread to the public, and now are widely enjoyed. As Hayek says:

“The experience of the US at least seems to indicate that, once the rise in the position of the lower classes gathers speed, catering to the rich ceases to be the main source of great gain and gives place to efforts directed toward the needs of the masses. Those forces which at first make inequality self-accentuating thus later tend to diminish it.”

Many people COMPLAIN that capitalism has this effect because it cheapens the quality of products for the masses. But it is a widely acknowledged phenomenon. So Laura is probably right to think that *at some one point in time* a potential ‘fantasy voucher’ market will look like the pre-school market, but over time, I think we can expect things to trickle down. Why? Because that’s what tends to be most profitable – selling a cheap good to many rather than an expensive good to a few.

There are other complaints to make about vouchers, to be sure. But the worry that most people won’t have educational options on the market is not one of them.

P.S. It’d be nice to not hear anything obnoxious about the phrase ‘trickle down’ in the comments below. I’m not using it in the Reagan sense.

Nov 7, 2007 - 10:51 am 6. ShannonLove:

I’ve got a radical idea.

Instead of relying on theorizing to decide if a voucher system will work why don’t we just experiment. After all, one good experiment is worth a thousand expert opinions.

Our current government managed school system was created in the 1920’s and was designed to provide basic literacy, basic numeracy and basic political education to the masses. It worked well in a social environment of local control and broad social consensus on how schools should be run. Now nearly, a century later people still apparently believe that system will continue to function largely unmodified even though we face radically different educational needs and a complete breakdown in social consensus.

Our collegiate system is basically a voucher system and it works great. Indeed, the American collegiate system is considered the best overall in the world by most. Why shouldn’t we seek to duplicate that success in the K-12 environment?

The complaint that vouchers won’t provide enough money is simply ludricris. It is based on the idea that people won’t vote enough money to educate their own children and grandchildren. Why are Leftist intellectuals so utterly terrified of putting real economic power directly into the hands of the people?

Nov 7, 2007 - 11:10 am 7. James:

It turns out Holland uses the “fantasy voucher” system. There are a few mandated rules (such as minimum school size). All money for school education(including university) is assigned on a per child basis. The parents select the school and the funds are transferred directly to the school in question. In some cases there is a cost difference which is made up by the parents. About 78% of the schools are private.

Alternatively, New Zealand recently (2000) went through a major school reform that ended up being successful. The method employed was to move the running of schools to the locally elected trustees, eliminating the central education bureaucracy. Parents also have the right to choose which school their children will attend.

Nov 7, 2007 - 1:56 pm 8. C-Low:

Hate to break the ugly reality to ya but the reason there are less preschools in urban areas is simple, there are not many preschool customers.

You forget or conveniently ignore that most people still trapped in urban areas come in two classes rich and impoverished. Rich send their kids to preschool/daycare impoverished take them to Gram’s house. Now impoverished people don’t care less for their preschool age kids, THEY CAN’T AFFORD EXTRA COST!!!

Universal vouchers will give those urban impoverished the ability TO send their kids to preschool. They send them to kindergarten instead of grams when Johnny turns age, why becuase ITS FREE for them.

Nov 7, 2007 - 6:08 pm 9. The Modesto Kid:

I love it that Dr. McKenna says “Let’s talk about fantasy vouchers,” lays out the reasons why these are fantasy, and then the first couple of comments are from people explaining how their fantasies are slightly different, and would solve all the problems with the fantasy vouchers Dr. McKenna is writing about.

Nov 7, 2007 - 6:52 pm 10. Alison:

I think your conclusion that vouchers won’t work very well in cities also applies to low density areas. My town shares a highschool with the town next door, and there are still only 50 kids in each class. How could a voucher system create options in low density areas? It seems unlikely to me.

But far more important than how to pay for it is the question of how to educate to create productive and happy adults who have a clue what they are good at and how to contribute to the world.

Nov 7, 2007 - 7:01 pm 11. RE:

Unfortunately, It’s not about what works or not.

It’s about power, control, and those with vested interests protecting their turf. This debate reminds me how the established bureaucracy deployed bogeyman after bogeyman in the 1994 welfare reform in an effort to halt reforms.

Nov 8, 2007 - 3:08 am 12. Wolf Pangloss:

Alison, vouchers would create educational options in low density areas because the cost of land and salaries is much lower than the cost in urban areas, as is (usually) the cost of complying with onerous governmental mandates.

With a minimal funding level of $5K per student and no mandate to provide free busing, a small school of 50 students would have an annual budget of $250K, which would pay decent money for schools to 3 teachers, one with administrative duties, and building and curriculum costs. Raise the funding level to a more reasonable level of $7,500 and you could even add another teacher and some technology.

Nov 8, 2007 - 7:21 am 13. Justin:

The main problem with vouchers is at the end of the day, they’re just going to reinforce inequality issues. There’s a reason people moved to the suburbs, right: in order to increase the aggregate advantage of THEIR capital and turn it into HUMAN capital for their children.

Vouchers, at the end of the day, will just make it easier to enforce class structure without having to move. For people like Megan, who want to live in cities, its great. And maybe there’s some nostalga for the pre-Brown days (in a purely non-racist ways). Maybe it would be better for poor people if richer people would be willing to live vaguely amongst them, since they won’t have to share schools with them. Who knows. But while our education system is still unequal

For more:

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=878

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/vogel190805.html

(anti-voucher)

http://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/macdyn/v9y2005i01p98-121_04.html

(pro-voucher, but admitting the income inequality effect)

Nov 8, 2007 - 8:31 am 14. Dan S,:

“The happy album’s coming out from Sony on October 15th …
and you can download it for whatever you want to pay! . . .

“ That system fails at every level, but most importantly, it fails as a system. The problem isn’t the teacher’s unions, or the school boards, or the district offices, or the principals, or the ideology about curriculum … or rather, the problem is that all of these things are problems, locked in a poisonous relationship with each other. ”

I won’t say that these – alone or together – are without problems. But I believe much of the cause for the systemic failure you discuss has to do with a set of factors you leave off this list: NYC public schools serve a largely poor & minority population with little mainstream cultural and social capital, from often at least somewhat – and sometimes very – chaotic and dangerous neighborhoods; additionally, and mostly as a consequence, they’ve been badly underfunded for a very long time. And that, of course, is underfunded just compared to schools serving a far more advantaged population. to say nothing of underfunded in terms of the resources necessary to provide disadvantaged populations with a good education.

The over-a-decade-long fight to get a decent level of funding for NYC public schools (CFE v. State of New York was filed in 1993, and the final decision from the Court of Appeals was in November ‘06) reveals a lot, I think, about the immense hostility to providing such kids with a “sound and basic education” – see for example the 2002 ruling by the appellate division that constitutionally all was required was to provide a middle-school reading level and preparation for unskilled, low-wage jobs, and since the schools were generally managing that, that there wasn’t a problem.

The voucher promise of choice, if workable for more than a lucky few, is one thing, although I am quite pessimistic on this point. The fantasy of competition, however, is another matter entirely – it’s part of the myth that failing urban schools are in trouble ultimately because they’re not trying hard enough – lazy teachers, badbad unions, etc. – and need market discipline to whip them into shape (or drive them out. This of course serves to obscure the unpleasant reality – that we don’t care, as a society, about actually providing poor urban kids with a decent education, and frankly don’t like them that much.

Nov 8, 2007 - 10:09 am 15. RiverCocytus:

I’ve seen inner city schools – underfunded or not – leak like sieves. They get 25 new computers for a computer lab. They’re stolen. Toilet paper? Stolen. And so on. Some schools, like some municipalities, have reached a point of no return. When the ship is sinking, the only way is out.

When we say the problem is crime, low income, low social capital, we’re still not making an argument against vouchers. Those issues are not something that can be magically improved to raise the effectiveness of schools. All of these things – crime, poverty, dysfunction, are in many cases symptoms of a dysfunctional culture.

I’m no expert, But as far as I can tell, getting people out will be the only path out. Many of these communities exist in ‘failing’ areas – areas which do not have great economic value in the current era and thus will not attract at any rate a good deal of middle class (or upper class.) As a result, all money poured into these areas will be wasted, and to make matters worse those living there may develop an entitlement complex.

Baltimore bled white people for a long time, and now its bleeding black people. Why? Because they finally get it. The city existed in its old form because – mainly – of industry. When those industries became further mechanized or disappeared, the social structure changed. People moved out to find work elsewhere, mostly those who could afford to or were willing to risk doing so.

Those with more education and better skills had more options.

This left those who did not, in a gradually depopulating area, which would naturally slump into poverty unless there was some kind of growth industry or commerce that came to the area.

In inner-city Baltimore, it never happened. The structure that the city – a large amount of it – is in, is a ruin of a sort. People still live there, but it is a shell. In my view the faster people move to a better economic situation by getting out of there the better it will be. Hopefully the surrounding area has enough capital to absorb the messed up culture that festers in the ghettos.

And it’s not a black/white thing – poor white folks from the inner city have the same issues. It’s like a ‘left behind’ syndrome.

But this is America, land of second chances.

Some of these schools will only improve after they have been shut down and the area redeveloped.

But this can’t be forced; you can’t make people do these things. So, it may or may not ever happen. Vouchers help those stuck in these areas as much as we can. If they can get the education, they will have better options and may be able to get themselves, their families, and their friends out. Or they could use their skills to create a growth industry or business in their own area.

But pouring funds into the hands, ultimately, of the criminals (both youth and otherwise) who vandalize the schools is in my mind, foolishness.

It’s amazing that those who so defensively claim to be egalitarian seem to miss the poor, whom they trample under their feet in their rush for a ‘better future’. It is a claim made of us, the ‘right wing’, but then, we just have a different idea of how to care for the poor. Our idea is to do it privately, through charities and churches, (which we are more effective at) and to try to help people HELP THEMSELVES. Because the training wheels HAVE to come off – te sooner the better.

Nov 8, 2007 - 10:49 am 16. Justin:

River,

you make a good point that the problem is not with the schools themselves, but with the student bodies and the culture and the social effeects. And you are right that this isn’t an argument against vouchers per se. But its also a problem that vouchers are not going to solve – there’s no reason to believe that the private version of these schools aren’t going to have computer theft and whatnot. You seem to think that if you offer vouchers to the student body at Thomas Jefferson High School in brookyln, they arent going to Dalton, or even LaSalle. They’re going to go to a school with roughly the same makeup as they had before, only with a different funding model, with the exception that a few of the richer people from other parts of East New York will be able to put their kids in a (slightly) better school, and a few of the poorer kids from other neighborhoods will join them. So rather than organize schools by geography – which is increasingly becoming segregated by income – they’ll just skip that step entirely and be segregated by income. Which, if you believe that America is a place that gives everyone a chance to stand on their own two feet, is quite depressing – particularly since African Americans are just starting to achieve gains relative to others in income, we reinforce the pernacious effects of past segregation.

Nov 8, 2007 - 11:46 am 17. AST:

We had a voucher resolution on the ballot two days ago. I voted for it, but it tanked.

I like the idea of public education, but I despise the education establishment. I can’t see how “education” should be a college major, let alone an area for graduate degrees. Our schools are overloaded with administration, because getting graduate degrees and moving into administration is the only way to really get ahead financially. Why should a principal be paid more than a good teacher? I think proven teachers should be the highest paid, and not just because they have a strong union, like the janitors.

I dislike the way too many parents don’t know and don’t care what their kids are taught, as long as the high school wins in sports. I dislike the practice of hiring sport coaches then expecting them to teach classes they aren’t qualified in. I especially fear the growing power of groups like the NEA and the way curriculum has become politically correct and intruded into matters that should be left to parents. If parents don’t do their job, nobody, least of all government, can do it for them.

So much of education is a no-brainer. To learn your times tables, you repeat them until they come to you without having to think.
But modern educators dislike the idea of recitation and boring repetition and so they imagine that they can make everything interesting and fun. It’s true that we learn what we’re interested in easier, but not everything worth learning is all that interesting to the beginner. Learning is work, but we seem to want our kids to get by without too much exertion.

I think we spend way too much on textbooks that add nothing but politicized material to what the books 50 years ago contained. When I think about what I was taught in grade school about the United Nations, I cringe. Today, kids are being inculcated with environmentalism, multi-cultural equivalence, and a whole lot of stuff they’ll probably have to unlearn later on. I can’t see where I’m better off from learning to read from the adventures of Dick and Jane than by studying Latin and Greek or Shakespeare. A lot of mental ability is lost in the first 5 years of school.

I agree with the idea of standardized testing, because that’s the only way to get an objective measure of whether schools are doing their jobs, but I dislike the way policy is handed down by bureaucrats
at the state and federal levels.

I could go on, but that’s enough for starters.

Nov 8, 2007 - 11:11 pm 18. patagonianplato:

Dear Professor McKenna,

I have been to Ed Grad School and have looked into this issue with great interest. Your chief argument against vouchers seems to be that they won’t work, because they won’t work. Just because you think its “hard” doesn’t mean it won’t work. Vouchers do work, time after time.

I have debated with many persons about this issue. Usually they turn out to be shills for either one of the two large teacher’s unions and they almost always oppose any kind of reform regardless of what it is.

Al Shanker, former president of the American Federation of Teachers, once said,

“I will begin to care about the quality of children’s education in this country when they start paying union dues.”

Nov 9, 2007 - 2:00 am 19. Rhambus:

I am pretty amazed by Laura McKenna’s comments. I am on the school board of a small Christian school right on the outskirts of Philadelphia. About half of our students come from the Philadelphia School District. Our tuition is significantly under $5000 a year, and we manage to balance the budget most years, with difficulty (we rely on donations to make up for tuition shortfalls). $5000-7000 a year per student from vouchers would make a phenomenal difference in our ability to educate students. It would literally represent an almost 50% rise in our budget. And if we somehow got the more than $13,000 per student Philly spends on its schools, we would literally have to BUILD A NEW BIGGER SCHOOL to find something to do with all that money! (We would love to do this now but can’t, since parents are paying school tax plus tuition.) Laura McKenna is fooling herself if she doesn’t think vouchers would enable the growth of private schools. It would be HUGE for us.

Heck, with a 7,000 dollar voucher, plus maybe a couple thousand from parents on top of that, we could effectively halve the price for all students and double our budget. We would undoubtedly grow. The demand is certainly there. I think McKenna does not realize just how cheap it is to do things in the private vs. public sector.

Nov 9, 2007 - 5:02 am 20. Roger:

$7,000 ??? If only it were true, the average cost of k-12 education here in Michigan is well over $14,000 per student per year.

The district next to the one I recently moved from had parents doing bake sales to make up a budget “deficit” while spending an average $20,000 per student per year!

According to recent data from the State of Michigan’s web site, k-12 spending accounts for approximately 40% of the state’s budget and 40% of local budgets-this on 20% of the state’s population.

If students were required to pay back the average cost, it would amount to a tax of over $2 per hour for every hour of a normal 40 year career-their not,yet *someone* IS paying for it.

How many people would still think highly of the high school diploma if they had to pay the $180,000 bill they accumulate for their “education”.

How many would find other things to do with their money?

Nov 9, 2007 - 5:14 am 21. ajacksonian:

The one thing that is obviously missing from the ‘education debate’ is an analysis of the lack of effect all of the spending has had on the system, as a whole. From 1958, when poor Johnny couldn’t read to today, that statistic as well as many others remains flatlined. As a Nation the US has poured money into this ‘problem’ not only from the States but from the Federal side, which has zero role to play in deciding on education. All of the lovely programs and teaching aids and the rest of it has caused no appreciable change in reading comprehension or ability to read since 1958. Yet the money has soared going into the system….

One strange artifact is that while American children receive one of the most middling of pre-k to secondary school educations, their performance in college and universities has historically been that of world-beaters. Even stranger is that such a lackadaisical group also becomes the most highly productive workforce, per person, on the planet. There is, obviously, something wrong with the basis for the argument of there being a school ‘problem’.

If you want to change the system to give us higher performing children to secondary eduction, then there is little that can be done on the Federal side, save this, and I really do wonder where the ardent supporters of merit based rewards are: Pay for Performance.

Every single gripe that comes from the US not ’scoring well’ vice the world should advocate that the tests used for global competence examination be used for a direct, proportional pay for performance federal grant system. An amount is named as 100% performance based on the top Nation on the charts, and that is then meted out in proportion to how well a student does in comparison to that 100% mark. This would be open to all schools and teaching systems that want federal funds, but must be non-discriminatory on basis of race or religion for accepting students save for home-schoolers. The grant, without strings attached, is pre-determined by performance and goes to the education facility or individual (in the case of home schoolers) directly. You take the test for the age-appropriate level and the grant moves to you via the State. School systems that teach *better* get more funds, those that do not teach as well get *less*.

This is amenable to on-line, home schooling, traditional education and a variety of self-education modes: take the age appropriate test and get the money based on performance. By putting in a feedback into the pay part of the system, parents, students and educational facilities can see what *works* and what *does not* work. There will always be some ‘teaching to the test’, but as this covers things like basic mathematics and reading capability, that means actually having to teach how to *do* those things.

Currently we have a system in-place that supports not fixing it. A Dept of Education ensures that things will remain unfixed so that the Department will not go away and will always ask for more funds based on the ‘problem’. We have thousands of analysts and educators concentrating on how to get money from the system, not on fixing it, so is it any wonder that all the lovely solutions don’t solve the problem?

You want Johnny to read a bit better?

Pay for performance.

And let the States decide on ‘vouchers’… my guess is once parents see how the funding *goes* based on performance of their children, things will change. That little bit that shows exactly how well your child does compared to the rest of the world should be an eye-opener… and if it isn’t, then your problem is the parents, not the school system.

Nov 9, 2007 - 6:35 am 22. montessorimaven:

I sent the following to Oprah regarding Montessori preschool education. Who knows perhaps you might decide to send a note to Oprah too.

Dear Oprah:

Thanks for discussing “What is happening to our kids” with Bill Cosby. Today it seems we have more pre-prison environments than nurturing environments. The path that Maya Angelou, Senator Christopher Dodd, and many others are following can solve this problem. Would you be willing to do a show about Montessori education with Maya Angelou?

Here is a little bit of information about Montessori education:

• Maria Montessori was the first woman medical doctor in Italy. She was not a teacher. She was put in charge of caring for children living in extreme poverty who had been destroying things in their environment; children no one wanted or cared for. When designing an environment for them she made sure that the children’s long and short muscles were used. She also made sure they learned hygiene, grace and courtesy, and how to care for their personal and natural environments. Academics, well, it was, secondary. Yet her students, once considered idiots, began to excel in academics and passed the same tests as normal students.

• Cincinnati, Ohio has a “you live here you go here” Montessori elementary school

• Thirty-seven states have at least one public Montessori classroom.

• This year Senator Christopher Dodd was the honorary chairman and Maya Angelou was a keynote speaker at the American Montessori Society’s centennial celebration in New York City.

• Those with ties to Montessori education include: Hillary Clinton; Senator Sherrod Brown; Ohio Senator Ray Miller; Inez Tenenbaum, a Democrat and the previous state superintendent of education of South Carolina; Jackie Kennedy; Anne Frank; the Catholic Church, Prince William and Harry and many individuals and countries from every continent – Africa included.

• I believe we can strengthen “social” security around the world and inspire peace from the ground up like JFK and the Peace Corps once did by using Montessori education. I, and many others, believe Montessori early childhood education does this by educating in an everyday, practical life, working environment America’s Founding Father’s vision of the “Blessings of Liberty” along with their declared vision of the right to independence from the liberty of those who abuse, create chaos, and terrorize.

• Below is a clip from a Cincinnati Enquirer Editorial that illustrates why we need to celebrate Montessori education in America.

Friday, April 23, 2004
Clark is a school to celebrate
________________________________________
Editorial
Imagine a school where every student graduates, almost all go on to college and all leave high school with 50 hours of service invested in their community. Stretch that picture to include a school of nearly perfect racial balance where students exceed state testing standards by 20 percentage points and where 100 students fill up waiting lists hoping desperately to get in.
That, in a nutshell, is Clark Montessori, the nation’s first public Montessori high school. That it is a Cincinnati Public School is reason enough to look again at a school district that, through years of struggle, has managed to also produce its share of gems.
Clark Montessori is one of them. This year it turns a decade old, with a community celebration planned for Saturday. Clark brings recognition to the school district and to Cincinnati , drawing envious educators from as far away as Korea to study its ways, and carrying on a local tradition of innovation in Montessori education. . . .

• My personal vision is to create a Montessori Children’s House Trust Fund that would purchase Montessori classroom materials for any public school district wanting to convert to Montessori education.

• Below is an article I wrote about the issue of liberty in America, Montessori education, and my vision of the Montessori Children’s House Trust Fund. I think it would put a smile on America’s Founding Fathers’ faces and they would still be proud of the country they created.

The 2008 Presidential Candidates’ Declarations: Will they be Enough?

When America’s Founding Fathers declared their independence they had been suffering under “a long train of abuses and usurpations”. They declared that in addition to their right, it was their duty to throw off those who governed with a clear “design to reduce them under absolute Despotism.”

They wrote it was necessary to “assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them.” Then they declared that they held “these truths self-evident” not only for themselves, but “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Today, once again, Americans face abuse, but this time, it is not from a king. Today America suffers abuse from an assortment of self-righteous groups with fringes that have “a design to reduce” individuals under absolute tyranny and terrorism – socialist idealists, Christian idealists, Islamic idealists, and others.

A declaration, now, as it was then, is just a statement of facts and beliefs. It’s inspiring, but it isn’t enough to obtain one’s independence or achieve civil order outside despotism. To achieve civil order America’s Founding Fathers needed a constitution, an enforceable set of rules and principles to govern and they wrote a strong Constitution.

Today as we face religious abuse, social abuse, economic abuse, sexual identity abuse of all sorts, and abuse from unknown terrorists, will the 2008 presidential candidates’ declarations be enough? Today as we face personal abuse through identity theft that involves both economic and character abuse, will the 2008 presidential candidates’ declarations be enough? Can they help America achieve civil order and overcome today’s abuses? Can they strengthen an aging Constitution? The Preamble of which reads:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Abuse wasn’t a “Blessing of Liberty” for America’s Founding Fathers. It isn’t a blessing of liberty for us either. Yet our Founding Fathers wanted to secure the “Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,” the future generation.

Bartleby.com defines liberty as: “The condition of being free from restriction or control.” And, “The right and power to act, believe, or express oneself in a manner of one’s own choosing.” How can we the people better secure the Founding Fathers concept of the “Blessings of Liberty” to ourselves and future generations without inviting chaos, abuse, and terrorism?

Can the 2008 presidential candidates address the issue of liberty and pull America together “to form a more perfect Union” or will the liberty of creating chaos, abuse, and terrorism continue to be the new ego-high, addictive, underground, drug in America?

We know that education through fear and terrorism, and that education through guilt and psychological reduction do not create the “Blessings of Liberty” or the freedom of assembly. These methods have been tried and tried again. They create division and distrust and alienation.

While an education method that creates an environment that secures the “Blessings of Liberty” to ourselves and our future generation, one that fosters freedom of assembly; one that pulls together the ideals of the different political divisions; one that touches Hillary Clinton’s heart, Edwards’ ideals, and Obama’s diversity; one that touches the heart of the Christian Right, the people of the Jewish faith; and one that touches the heart of those concerned about the environment would strengthen our Constitution.

Fortunately there is a method that addresses and pulls these all together. It’s called Montessori education.

Today, education has become a political issue not only for academic concerns but for how the teaching of liberty is conveyed. Today politicians themselves use or endorse Montessori education. Senator Clinton’s daughter was educated in a Montessori school according to the BAMA Montessori School’s website. Senator Christopher Dodd was the honorary chairman at the 2007 American Montessori Society’s Centennial Celebration. Equal access to education taught under this understanding of liberty has become today’s civil rights issue.

Montessori education was first created for children living in extreme poverty in Rome. Today the wealthy have adopted the method. Today Montessori’s acceptance is diverse. Maya Angelou was a keynote speaker at this year’s American Montessori Society’s Centennial Celebration. Anne Frank was educated in Montessori and her school still stands. In state after state there are Catholic Montessori Schools and in Brooklyn the Catholic Charities have recently adopted the method. In public education thirty-seven states have at least one public Montessori classroom.

Today, Montessori education environments are connecting us globally like the Internet did through a set of common communication protocols and like our Constitution connected and united America. In 2009 the Association Montessori Internationale will hold their global Congress in Chennai, India . Twenty-six global Congresses have been held since the first Congress in 1929 in Helsingôr. The last was in 2005 in Sydney, Australia. People from thirty-six countries and six continents were in attendance. In 2008, in Washington, D. C., the American Montessori Society will hold its annual conference.

In addition to the “Blessings of Liberty” another active integrated part of Montessori education is the care of the environment. And the Montessori classroom materials are environmentally friendly. Many can be made from recycled materials, reused year after year, and most are made from natural materials.

Today, it is still our right and our duty to throw off those who terrorize and abuse. And today, we still have the opportunity to adopt methods that create a more perfect union. We are also fortunate today that if the political process doesn’t address the issue of liberty adequately we have the right to create a better environment. A good first step would be the creation of a Montessori Children’s House Trust Fund that would use interest to purchase Montessori classroom materials for any public school wanting to convert to Montessori education.

Many Americans who desire to break the stagnate political climate might embrace this independent initiative. Others might embrace the opportunity to honor the memory or desire to bring back the gentle energy of those who attended Montessori schools – Jackie Kennedy; Julia Child; Anne Frank; and Katherine Graham, former Washington Post owner and editor.

Individuals who attended Montessori schools – Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon; Larry Page and Sergey Brin, co-founders of Google; Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia; Prince William and Prince Harry and many others might also become inspired to support this independent initiative.

And if individuals who are now learning about Montessori education are people who have a vision and the means to change the world through humanitarian efforts, not only people like Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Oprah, Al Gore, Richard Branson, Peter Gabriel, and Bono, but the average American citizen, people who dream like America’s Founding Fathers of securing the “Blessings of Liberty” while declaring independence from the liberty of those who abuse, create chaos, and terrorize, these individuals might become inspired to support this independent initiative.

Our political process has the ability to address this emerging equal access civil rights issue. In the meantime, please join me in this humanitarian vision to start a Montessori Children’s House Trust Fund because I don’t believe the 2008 Presidential Candidates’ declarations will be enough. Do you?

Nov 9, 2007 - 7:14 am 23. mekan:

I do not understand why 7k per child is too little to bring in private enterprise. 7k * 30 = $210,000. This allows you to run a 1 room school house, remember those, at a fair profit and excellent student teacher ratio.

The fact is that our educational system is poorly conceived. Are vouchers enough to fix our system? I say yes. Those vouchers will allow for core competition which bring with it new ideas and better products. The product in this case is student education.

No, you may not field a football team or put on the latest musical. You may not even have class lasting 8 hours a day. You would have students that learn to read, right, and cipher.

Fighting against vouchers is fighting against choice. Fighting against vouchers is fighting for the system. What happens to the ‘truth to power’ cat calls here?

Nov 9, 2007 - 9:18 am 24. Tom Holsinger:

Ms. McKenna,

The infrastructure problem is fairly simple. Voucher schools will lease vacant public schools. And the number of vacant public schools will soar.

And, heading off your reply that the public schools won’t be leased, I remind you that money talks. Specifically, the lease money will be new money which the public school bureaucracies will happily accept and spend it on themselves. I.e., the bureaucratic overhead will increase as enrollment in public schools declines.

This is called a “virtuous cycle”.

It is not possible to be too cynical about public school bureaucracies.

Nov 9, 2007 - 11:30 am 25. gcblues:

there is a huge disconnect here. this is not about what system is better at all. public schools operate under the bureaucratic mandate of planned failure. only if they fail do they succeed in needing and getting more. as a result they have expanded their mission till it is impossible to fill. in fact, the domination of education by unionized public employees is exactly the reason it needs to be eliminated 100%. all public education should end today. all of it. vouchers? fine. government inspectors to avoid fraud fine? government education experts defining what privates teach, noooooooo way, not a chance. it is none of their business.

it is impossible to expect unionized public employees to teach children to thrive in a post agricultural, post industrial self employment world. how can anyone expect public school teachers to prepare students for anything except public employment? we have enough of them, we need wealth creators, something public employees have no clue about.

this is not about anything except deleting the entire failed enterprise and allowing the void to fill itself as the users care to fulfill their needs.

no matter where you go, i live in Central America, it is the same. teachers strike, demand, organize, have work shops and it is all about them, not the kids. it is time to recognize teachers are not the important ingredient and provide no solutions. they need to work at parental direction and education needs to be rated on one thing only. success in pleasing the consumer. the professional education establishment has been given power, and they have consistently abused it and failed miserably in all of their mandates. we need to be rid of them, 100%, now, today, forever!

Nov 9, 2007 - 11:45 am 26. JHoward:

Surely this is the most frustrating issue on the political landscape. Countless thousands of words are expended (and the time it took to write them wasted) in this endless pursuit of presumed or asserted subjectivities.

Why cannot we simply raise two questions and demand that all debate first conform to them, at least to be reasonable, useful, and productive?

1. By what right is government in schooling?

2. Given no good answer to #1, how on God’s earth will we finally fix something so universally seen as being in such a state of universal chaos.

Look, government schools are an unmitigated disaster. They have no constitutional right to exist (if we have the simple integrity to not throw around “welfare” casually while completely ignoring “unenumerated powers”, that is.)

So. Vouchers? The mother of all red herrings. Vouchers as fodder for the legislatures to fight because it means losing a degree of political power? Even worse. Vouchers as examples of begging government — ourselves, ostensibly — for our own resources back? The height of folly.

Drop it, gals, it’s a false pretense and a false dichotomy. This non-debate is tantamount to asserting one crystal ball over another. If this is really a debate, like the poster said, than test them. If you can retain your self-respect.

Government schools should be declared unconstitutional by the SCOTUS — they’re instilling a powerful overall philosophy, what many call the secular religion postmodernism, one deeply harmful to the nation. Further, there is that matter of there being no prior right for them to exist. At the very least, all choices of education should be voluntary as should be, naturally, their funding.

Nov 9, 2007 - 3:10 pm 27. Jeffrey S. Neher:

No, it’s the OPPONENTS of school choice that need to get real. Bottom line, we live in a free country, supposedly, and people should send their kids to the school of their choice. What other business, or service, can take your money and then tell you to like the product they give you no matter the quality…you have no choice but to accept it. Furthermore, it’s the only entity I’m aware of that makes everyone pay whether they use the service or not. Public education is a monopoly, by any definition. It’s failing and it has to be repaired. Opponents always castigate voucher programs without offering any reform at all. We get the obligatory liberal response we get for every other problem…”we need more funding”. No, you need to change the way you do business. Competition works every time it’s tried. If you opponents of choice are going to continue to demand public financing, meaning taxes, then we demand choice in the matter, period. The status quo will simply not do. We used to be the nation of the bold and new…it’s well past time we got back to that spirit….

Nov 9, 2007 - 4:09 pm 28. MSS:

We need good public schools to provide the workers that our future businesses will require.

That means good public schools in Detroit and Chicago, where they have no money, no books, bad teachers, no resources, and crumbling buildings. If vouchers take more funding from these crumbling schools, there will be nothing left for most of the children who will grow up to be your employees (or will be uneducated and will grow up to be desparate robbers or worse). These schools need resources overall, not vouchers to remove the best and brightest students from local schools into religious institutions and charter schools.

Vouchers in the suburbs will only take funding from the public schools. There are already good public schools in Bernardsville, Bronxville and Berkeley – and they don’t need vouchers to work well. With vouchers in those communities, there will be less money for good public schools — not a good thing.

Thanks to Laura McKenna for focusing on the schools and the children they are meant to serve.

Nov 9, 2007 - 4:29 pm 29. Tom Holsinger:

Much of this discussion, particularly the blog posts by Laura McKenna, are re-invention of the wheel. They raise issues which were discussed, and addressed, when the subject of vouchers was first raised big-time thirty years ago.

I suggest that those who write on the subject first do some research into the literature on the subject during the period 1975-85.

Nov 9, 2007 - 4:56 pm 30. Wacky Hermit:

Ms. McKenna on Friday: you say the numbers don’t add up. Despite what you may have been taught in school, “butt-load” isn’t a number. Show me the actual numbers. I realize you’re used to persuading the mathematically illiterate, but there are still some of us out there who aren’t cowed by the words “do the math” because, ahem, we can actually do math.

Nov 9, 2007 - 5:20 pm 31. Mark Stewart:

Public schools are massive wastes of my money. Government education bureaucracy wastes my money on bloated, unneeded layers of administration. Government school teachers are, on average, incompetent to attend high school, much less teach there.

Futhermore, opponents to school choice voucher programs are largely made up of two groups: First, are the incompetent twits that make up the teachers union. Second are the elitist snobs that are so afraid that voucher programs might somehow upset the magical little private school bubble in which their own little snot-nosed twerps are being educated. They are concerned that public money will allow government to more strictly regulate private school curriculum.

To the opponents of universal voucher programs I say, “SHOVE IT.” This country is turning into a weenie-twit nation modeled on the European socialist failure states and it is because the American public is by and large populated by dingbats with all the mental acuity and worldly knowledge of Miss Teen South Carolina. I don’t care about your children. I don’t have any children of my own. I don’t want any. I can’t stand children. But children grow up to be adults and that means they grow to vote. I am sick tired of putting up with consequences of idiots voting. This is a scourge brought upon us by government administration of education.

No more. Bring on the vouchers. Make them universal. Shut down the assembly line of airheaded nitwits. It’s time for a War on Stupidity.

Nov 9, 2007 - 6:55 pm 32. Jeffrey S. Neher:

I get so sick and tired of this “you’re taking the money away from public shcools”. Is there anyone out there who really believes the education problem is a shortage of money? Can you really say that with a straight face? You can if you are the NEA and the various other unions who never met a ballooned buget they wouldn’t complain was too small. As for the inner-city schools, these are the kids that would benefit the most. It amazes me how some complain that these schools don’t have adequate supplies now, how the schools are in shambles while claiming vouchers will destroy those already decrepit schools.

You say they don’t have text-books. You say they don’t have writing materials, paper, supplies, no computers. If they are poor now, how can they get poorer? It’s like this silly notion of the poor in this country getting poorer. Poor is poor, and the point is to improve the situation, not accept the status quo. Only real change will bring real improvement..competition is the key. What incentive is there now to get the job done? There is no incentive, only tenure and ever expanding education budgets. And our net pay-off? Kids with diplomas who can’t even read them. You had better wake up and put the Govt. school kool-aid down. We’ve already lost at least two generations to this broken system, we can’t afford to lose any more……

Nov 9, 2007 - 7:13 pm 33. Dan S.:

“1. By what right is government in schooling?”

In regards to New York State government, Article XI, section 1of the State Constitution: “The legislature shall provide for the maintenance and support of a system of free common schools, wherein all the children of this state may be educated.”

More broadly, (very local) government involvement in schooling is older than the nation, dating back to the 17th Century in the Massachusetts Bay Colony (those Massachusetts liberals!); additionally, the Land Ordinance of 1785 called for setting aside one section of a township for support of public education. It’s fair to say (iirc) however, that public schooling only really blossomed in the “common school” movement in the decades before the Civil War, and throughout the rest of the century; one result is that all 50 state constitutions have some provision vaguely like New York’s. (Now, if that rant is intended to be aimed at the (relatively minor) involvement by the federal government, that’s a more recent practice, and no doubt arguable, but you’ll find that supporters of traditional schooling generally don’t have any predetermined ideological commitment to federal control. Instead, it’s a matter of how best to provide an equitable and high quality education to all our citizens.)

I’m going over this to stress that these hysterical, furious diatribes about how “it needs to be eliminated 100%. all public education should end today. all of it.” and “Government schools should be declared unconstitutional by the SCOTUS” are not at all conservative – at least by any definition of conservatism that involves conserving the best of the past, time-tested practices representing the wisdom of generations, in preference to vast ideological programs of rapid and revolutionary change – rather, they’re deeply and disturbingly radical. Public schooling in America may have developed organically over decades and even centuries and may be deeply rooted in our history and culture, but these folks want to tear up those roots and smash them.

McArdle may be somewhat more measured, but she too ultimately insists that at least when it comes to urban public schools “the system” cannot be reformed from within, and really just has to be overthrown in service of a higher vision, so that a glorious new educational order may arise from the ashes.

Of course, all this does help to explain why supporters of traditional education are concerned that vouchers are intended to “destroy the system”- so many of their advocates insist on it! And – whether liberal or conservative – we’re just not that big on smashing systems, at least ones with children inside.

And while Brother Milton provided much of the intellectual framework (such as it is) for vouchers and all, a lot of support has bubbled up from some of the less pleasant places of the far right. JHoward’s bizarrely misplaced paranoia about schools “instilling a powerful overall philosophy . . .the secular religion postmodernism” points us back simultaneously to Bircher conspiracy-mongering and to social conservatives bewildered and angered by Supreme Court rulings that taxpayer dollars and government employees cannot be used to promote a sectarian agenda of religious instruction. (Shouldn’t that be the parents’ job?). The continuing (and worsening) de facto segregation points all too eloquently at one of the other motives.

But I digress. JHoward screeches that “government schools are an unmitigated disaster“, far away in Central America gcblues rants about deleting “the whole failed enterprise” – but as McKenna points out, this is entirely off base. Most public schools are actually in relatively affluent, often suburban areas, and are considered entirely satisfactory – even vigorously defended. What we’re seeing is part of the Educational Myth – the imaginary and singular “public school”. This obscures the fact that we have at least two very different systems of public schooling – one well-funded and serving a largely quite-advantaged population, and one rather underfunded and struggling, with these insufficient resources, to serve multiply disadvantaged populations whose lives are, as McArdle puts it, full of “other tragedies”. One system is basically thriving (though there’s always room for improvement) – it’s the other one that’s failing. Why? Well, did you read this paragraph?

RiverCocytus argues that “When we say the problem is crime, low income, low social capital, we’re still not making an argument against vouchers“. Maybe yes, maybe no, but if we want to prescribe proper treatment, then it certainly helps to have the correct diagnosis! McArdle’s argument that the system is “sick” sounds relatively measured compared to the spittle-flecked raving about horrible “unionized public employees” or secular-postmodern “government schools” (and to be fair, there are genuine issues), but it fundamentally misses the actual problem. In a sense, gcblues is right when they talk about “planned failure”, but of course the culprit isn’t the fiendish professional education establishment or even some cartoon Heartless Conservative. It’s rather the failures of our past, compounded by the current cowardice that takes refugee in soothing myths – it’s the lazy teachers/ the evil unions/ the “system”- rather than truly face up to less pleasant realities.

Nov 9, 2007 - 7:57 pm 34. Dan S.:

“ Megan refers to the schools in New York City. But she would do better far better referring to schools in Camden, Philadelphia, or Detroit . . .”

As luck would have it, today the Philadelphia Daily News ran a glowing article about an extremely successful Philly k-8 neighborhood school. Kids and parents love it. Researchers from across the country want to study it. In the latest state test, around 80% of the students are proficient in math and reading, basically double the School District of Philadelphia average. It has such an excellent reputation that it seems to have sparked the rapid gentrification of the surrounding neighborhood – indeed the school has even started to become whiter.

Surely this is the product of some pilot voucher program that has harnessed the magic of competition, or perhaps a bold for-profit enterprise chaired by some business-world Prometheus? Well, not quite. Penn Alexander is actually the result of a partnership between the school district and the University of Pennsylvania. And what is (part of) the secret of their success?

“For starters, Penn contributes $1,000 per student annually at the 511-student school. The additional teachers hired with those funds help keep class sizes no larger than 17 students in kindergarten and no more than 24 students in first through eighth grades. (In the school district, by contrast, classes can be as large as 30 students in kindergarten through third grades, and 33 students in fourth through 12th grades.)

The school has a certified librarian, a full-time instrumental music teacher and an education technologist who oversees the school’s 350 laptop and desktop computers, which are in three labs, the library and all classrooms, Kreidle said.

In addition, the school selects all of its own teachers and is aided by staff and student teachers from Penn’s Graduate School of Education, while regular field trips to Penn’s science lab and other facilities are invaluable, Sydnor said.”

There’s something for almost every interest to dislike a bit, in a sense – the union had opposed site selection in Philly, for example, (probably wrongly, but out of a not-unreasonable concern that it would be abused), there’s more autonomy from the district than usual – but it all works together to result in a genuinely impressive success that has everyone deeply impressed. For example, the school can hire all its own teachers, but it’s the 17/24 max classes, and all the other good things, which mean that lots of high-quality teachers will want to be hired – and actually stay – there. And so on – talk about a virtuous cycle.

Now, this is change, certainly, but it’s not frantic system-smashing change, propelled by untested ideological commitments and even darker currents. It’s reform within the system, with very common-sense principles: provide enough resources – funding, expertise, skill, etc. – to actually do the job. This exact model may be limited – certainly not every urban public school can have a top-notch university partner – but the underlying ideas aren’t. It would be great if some of the passion being poured into vouchers could be directed towards a variety of practical reforms – reforms which might well reasonably include some aspect of choice, some voucher component. Of course, this doesn’t provide a platform to screech about the need to delete unions or teachers or “systems”, so anyone in it most strongly for that probably wouldn’t be interested.

Nov 9, 2007 - 8:55 pm 35. Dan S.:

“Furthermore, it’s the only entity I’m aware of that makes everyone pay whether they use the service or not.”

Really? Are you sure?

“Public education is . . . failing and it has to be repaired.”

Again, *public education* isn’t failing; middle-class+suburban-y public schools are doing basically fine (again, there’s always room for improvement, but what we’re talking about is the fantasy of “the public schools”, where – if you take the rhetoric at face value- it would seem that public schools in Upper Merion or Scarsdale or wherever are full of illiterate kids roaming the halls and attacking teachers.) It’s isolated poor underfunded rural public schools and culturally isolated, desperately poor underfunded urban schools that are in trouble. We’re not asking for more funding out of greed or laziness – it actually takes more money to provide a quality education in those circumstances.

Nov 9, 2007 - 9:08 pm 36. B Dubya:

My experience with the public school system in upstate NY over the last 21 years has proven to me that, without the infusion of competition that a voucher system would inject into primary education, we will continue to get the same old, leftard driven intitution of underachievers and tenured hacks that we have now.
The solution, we are told by the public schools, is to give them more money, which they then pay out as higher salaries to their current and future tenured failures.
For the pubic school to succeed does not require that your kids actually graduate with something resembling a basic education and critical thinking skills. What marks success for the public school operator is hitting those state’s regents numbers, no matter that the numbers they report are cooked by forcing as many of the kids who need more help (that would actually require someone with teaching skills to provide help for them) out of school.
My school system prepares its graduates so well, that 90 percent of them drop out of college in the first year; that includes, in particular that includes, the upper 10% of the graduates.
Public schools have become a haven for degreed, professional union stiffs, putting in their time to retire and please don’t actually ask them to teach.
If you can take your money where your kid goes to school, then schools will go after it and your kid. If they can’t deliver success, then they lose in the marketplace. And that is a good thing.

Nov 9, 2007 - 9:20 pm 37. Dan S.:

One note: what I should have written was that at Penn Alexander, about 80% of the students score as proficient or advanced in math and reading. As for “a genuinely impressive success that has everyone deeply impressed” – well, my only defense is that it’s a number of hours ahead of the site’s timestamp here, and I was getting very sleepy . . .

“Futhermore, opponents to school choice voucher programs are largely made up of two groups: First, are the incompetent twits that make up the teachers union. Second are the elitist snobs . . . ”

The 2006 PDK/Gallup poll of the public’s attitudes towards public schools found 60% opposing vouchers. (And voters in Utah just defeated voucher legislation, although I don’t know the specific politics there). They’re not all “incompetent twits” or “elitist snobs”. The same poll also found that out of the two following options, 71% of respondents favored reforming the existing school system, with only 24% advocating radical change. (I suspect that the latter position would strongly correlate with a set of others that lately poll in the mid-high twenties/low thirties, but can’t say for sure). Of course, this is measuring public opinion, and not the objective merits of any program – but as such suggests that the overwhelming majority of the country supports improving traditional schools, not charging off on flights of voucher fancy.

“To the opponents of universal voucher programs I say, “SHOVE IT.” ”

I have to say, Mark, your comment is certainly the most lively. And I agree that universal vouchers would be the way to go if we were to go for vouchers – in other words, that every school would have to accept the voucher as full payment.

The problem, as you pretty much see, is that there would be a revolt – as Justin mentioned above, the whole point is that the (at least relatively) affluent act “in order to increase the aggregate advantage of THEIR capital and turn it into HUMAN capital for their children..” Taking in a few token scholarship kids, bright and well-behaved, supported by parents who have the knowledge and tenacity to get the very best for their kids – it warms the heart and looks great on brochures. Beyond that . . . my guess is that you’d see massive gate-keeping, and flight to institutions physically beyond the reach of that element.

Again, it gets back to not actually understanding the problems. Economics 101 isn’t enough – you need a fair helping of sociology and cultural values as well. That’s why McArdle ultimately misses the mark with “The fundamental problem with the school, and the difference between it and the affluent schools (even in the same district), is that the parents are not the customers . . . [advocates] miss the crucial difference [in higher performing public schools] the customers of their school are the middle class parents“. I guess she’s so used to seeing folks as interchangeable customers, in straightforward relationships of exchange, that she’s blinded to the other aspects.

Nov 10, 2007 - 8:26 am 38. Dan S.:

“Is there anyone out there who really believes the education problem is a shortage of money? Can you really say that with a straight face? ”

Well, in a very broad sense, “the education problem” is that we’re basically asking the schools to fix society. They can only do so much; beyond that, truly substantial change is needed, reaching far beyond the schools. But that aside – yes, Jeffrey, there are, many, many people, from researchers to teachers to regular citizens.

Remember, “the education problem” isn’t the widespread failure of generic, undifferentiated “public schools”. Well-funded public schools serving a relatively affluent and educated population do fine, as do similar private schools. “The education problem” is that underfunded schools serving high-poverty, often majority-minority populations, with generally low levels of education, in areas with high levels of violence, drugs, social chaos, struggling famillies, and even environmental hazards. Now ask yourself – which situation might require more resources?

Don’t forget, literal school funding captures only one part of the picture. When one looks at the affluent schools, one has to add in the massive, high-return investments – of social, cultural, fiscal capital – that these middle+ parents are providing to help their children succeed. What’s the value of nightly bedtime readings by well-educated, comfortably literate parents? Of being surrounded by adults modeling not just the expectation but the possibility and practices of middleclass+ success, and the value of education? If being constantly bathed in an high-vocabulary environment, unconsciously trained in a specifically middle-class discourse of questioning and negotiation? Of being safe, safe enough so that one’s parents fear the latest media bogeyman, not stray bullets? Of being buffered from the stresses and strains of poverty, drugs, and violence? Of having an abundant & high-quality diet? Of low levels of lead – which seems to have even worse effects on learning and behavior than previously feared? Of – etc., etc., etc.

Now, proportionately, I’d guess poor but functioning parents spend as many/even more resources on their kids as the most hyper-organized soccer mom (although much of this is invisible to the mainstream – an investment of money in new, high-price&quality clothes for school says care, but a similar or greater investment of careful labor in a multitude of brightly festooned braids says nothing; skills necessary for survival on the street rarely transfer over to school success). Countless poor children have had in their parents or guardians models of strength, perseverance, love, and faith. But where affluent parents send their kids off to school (public or private) with massive advantages – equal to what, a doubling of school spending? more? – poor kids face massive disadvantages.

That’s what those public schools – serving urban inner cities or impoverished rural regions – are faced with. One not-insubstantial chunk of the budget for high-poverty urban school systems? Trying to make sure the kids have at least two meals a day (hard to learn when you haven’t really eaten since yesterday afternoon, y’know?)

It’s pretty obvious that adequate funding not just helps, but is necessary. With adequate funding, you can – for example – reduce class size, which has been shown to provide substantial and lasting improvement especially for poor kids.

Or – one major problem in impoverished schools is that an obscene number of new teachers leave in the first few years – the school, the district, perhaps the profession – so that there’s a constant turnover of inexperienced teachers making up a high proportion of the teaching staff. It’s not a surprise – kids fresh out of college are tossed right into the classroom by themselves, to deal with 30+ (at a time) extremely challenging kids in a extraordinary difficult situation without much support. (Talk to actual inner city teachers about the feel-good fictionalized fantasies depicted in Hollywood/made-for-tv movies about inner city schools, and they’ll laugh, because those pretend schools are often so much better than the real thing. Look, there’s glass in the windows, and a working door! Ha! S/he raised her voice once/opened up/pulled off some quirky stunt, and they all sat up straight and started behaving – ha ha!) And many experienced, talented teachers aren’t going to try filling those vacancies – working extremely hard in a sometimes soul-sucking (and physically dangerous) job is one thing, but in conditions where nothing you do seems to matter . . .well that’s another thing entirely.

But enough funding to offer serious mentoring and support for new teachers, and working conditions – enough support staff, some supplies, small classes, etc. – where one can see the difference one’s making, etc. – well, you can work that out for yourself.

And you can get enough high quality specialists that you can catch kids early and provide intensive (and expensive) intervention, so that they don’t end up in third grade unable to read, or in midle school grades and grades behind, unlikely ever to catch up, and often deciding that at least they can excel in making trouble . . .

And etc., and etc., and etc. It’s ridiculously obvious – but of course, there’s an enormous amount of energy expended to not see this, so that it isn’t obvious. That’s why we have people talking about the massive failures of “the public schools” – when, again, affluent public schools are doing fine. That’s also one reason (besides ideological fixations and partisan strategy) that there’s so much shrieking about unions and bureaucracy, and such naked . . . loathing, I’d have to say . . . directed at pubic school teachers. The last is particularly bizarre for people who know (or are) actual public school teachers, especially in poor areas, and who know how little the fantasy of underachieving, lazy,8-3 with summers off incompetents actually fits. No, not all teachers are perfect, unions and bureaucracies have genuine issues, and for adequate funding to be effective there are concessions from various parties that would need to be made – but these are practical issues, ways to work out a problem, which is why it doesn’t come up here. Instead, they function as devil-figures, in a discourse that serves to obscure the reality of the situation, to render it non-obvious.

______
“ If they can’t deliver success, then they lose in the marketplace. And that is a good thing.”

And the voice of the ideologue will be heard in our lands . . . After all, one might well believe that building failure into the system is unfortunately necessary if one wants good schools, yet still realize, and seek to ameliorate, the cost to actual poor children hidden away behind blithe references to “los[ing] in the marketplace.” For ideologues, swept up in the abstract beauty of their grand plans, such trifling details are completely unimportant.

Nov 10, 2007 - 11:21 am 39. JHoward:

Dan S, all that verbose self-satisfaction and you still can’t answer the question, can you?

You cite the NY state constitution. You do not answer the question by what right, consistent with a fairly universal understanding that federal government has never had an enumerated right establishing monopolistic, behavior-influencing institutions at the detriment of both their dependents and of the competitive alternatives, we may or should have such a thing.

You further cite vague historical precedents. From which we could justify every originalist aberration imaginable.

Still the question, then: Where did government get the right to harm the public’s welfare by way of destroying choice and with it, social progress? Is that constitutional too?

Why is it that, for example, Robert Balfanz of Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Social Organizations of Schools points to chronic “dropout factories”, his term and not mine.

You’re right, I won’t debate what to do to “fix” this corruption of choice and free markets. I’d just like a single, coherent, and intellectually honest assessment of why it rationally, ethically, and constitutionally exists at level that depends entirely on federal funding and management.

Nov 10, 2007 - 11:49 am 40. How 'bout methods Professor?:

For an academic, Ms McKenna methodology is extremely flimsy — anecdotes, name calling (”fantasy vouchers”), extrapolation from her personal experience. Sorry for the difficulties with her child, but that is neither here nor there when it comes to arguing for or against the merits of the vouchers. What conclusions can you draw from a sample sized n=1? I can only hope her undergrads are more methodologically rigorous.

Why not do the ultimate thing a scientist (which she claims to be) would do : test your hypothesis? If you are so confident it would fail, there is nothing to fear. Parents would surely recognize it for such and they would clamor for a return to the current state of affairs.

So why not test the hypothesis, Madam Professor?

Nov 10, 2007 - 12:10 pm 41. patagonianplato:

TO: “How ’bout methods Professor? :”

(Whoever you are)

Well said!

Don’t hold your breath though. Professor McKenna is an advocate posing as an educator.

Nov 10, 2007 - 5:40 pm 42. Dan S.:

“Why not do the ultimate thing a scientist (which she claims to be) would do : test your hypothesis?”

Some folks have, of course:

“Choice may not improve schools, study says
Report on MPS comes from longtime supporter of plan
A study being released today suggests that school choice isn’t a powerful tool for driving educational improvement in Milwaukee Public Schools.

But more surprising than the conclusion is the organization issuing the study: the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, a conservative think tank that has supported school choice for almost two decades . . .

“The report you are reading did not yield the results we had hoped to find,” George Lightbourn, a senior fellow at the institute, wrote in the paper’s first sentence . . . .”

Look, it would be wonderful if vouchers turned out to be some great way to harness the power of the market to provide a good education for substantial numbers of disadvantaged kids. But there was never any reason to think they’d actually work this way, and studies to date, as far as I understand, offer no reason to think they do.

Again, it would be nice if some of the folks pouring so much energy and passion into voucher advocacy could spare some for actually proven practices, like (say) reducing class size.

Nov 10, 2007 - 7:12 pm 43. Dan S.:

Er – right, link . . .

“Choice may not improve schools, study says

Nov 10, 2007 - 7:14 pm 44. Dan S.:

Ack, that’s what I get for not thinking about what I’m writing. – Of course, universal vouchers – as Milton Friedman advocated – are vouchers for all. I always forget this, because the idea of blowing taxpayer dollars to subsidize wealthy parents’ private schools is so dumb it just slips right out of my head. Of course, as with many aspects of the anti-public school movement, what seems stupid and wasteful has a very specific purpose – to dismantle our country’s well-over-a-century-old system of public schooling and replace it with a privatized and even less fair mockery.

So let me rephrase: were vouchers a useful and necessary development, they would need to be limited to relatively low SES families and accepted at all schools. But since as far as can tell they’re -at best – not useful and unnecessary, well .. .

Nov 10, 2007 - 8:20 pm 45. Yaakov Watkins:

When another monopoly, the post office, was faced with competition from FedEx, UPS, and email, it started to fix itself. It’s not perfect but it’s a lot better than it was 15 years ago.

When public schools are faced with competition, they will find solutions to problems they can’t solve now. Just like the post office did.

When ATT was being broken up, we were told that having 8 or 10 phone companies was less efficient and would cost more than having one. The reality is that long distance rates have dropped by 90% and local service has gotten better.

When people have a reason to find solutions, they do. Right now the public schools don’t have a reason. Let’s give them one.

Nov 10, 2007 - 10:30 pm 46. Jeffrey S. Neher:

You may have all the platitudes and slogans you like, but you still haven’t touched the core of the issue. So-called public education is a govt monopoly…plain and simple, not even debatable. If you think our education system is healthy(and I mean for the majority, not a select few), then you are obviously a product of the system, or a union rep looking out for your “educators”. There are a multitude of reasons why our education system is dysfunctional…but we have to start with the basics..putting competition back into the system. There has to be an incentive, a motivation to get this done. At present that does not exist. If the govt is going to take more and more money from our pockets then we should be able to send our kids to the school of our choice…period. I’m paying for it so I demand a quality product. We are not getting what we pay for…and again, how much? It should cost anywhere from 5500 to 15 grand to give a child a quality education? Are you kidding me? We are getting screwed without the courtesy of a reach-around. You govt. school-types have had your way for decades now..and your way is not working. It is time for a change, a new direction, new ideas. The status quo of throwing more and more money at it, state after state starting Lotteries to improve education..just won’t do anymore. It’s time to let go of Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Toothe Ferry, and public schools. They all served a purpose at one time or another but eventually we have to grow up and deal with reality in reality.

If Al Gore, George Bush, and any other politically connected family can send their kids to the best schools then the single mother living in inner-city Chicago, Boston, Philly, and anywhere else should have that same opportunity. It is time for a structural change in the system, not more We can’ts, and we shouldn’t. Don’t tell us what you can’t do, show us what you can do. If vouchers isn’t the answer, if it’s not choice then what? Don’t tell me more money, that’s BS and you know it is. Don’t tell me school uniforms, don’t tell me smaller class-rooms….and stop it with the “every child needs a computer” song and dance. How about let’s make sure the child can read and write before we throw them a keyboard with letters and numbers. Stop telling us choice advocates what won’t work, show us what will. But until you are willing to deal with the competition aspect of this you won’t come close to making a positive difference. And to the unionites out there I know you won’t care until the kids start paying union dues….not my words, but the words of one of your own……..

Nov 11, 2007 - 1:37 am 47. JHoward:

…the idea of blowing taxpayer dollars to subsidize wealthy parents’ private schools is so dumb it just slips right out of my head.

Mostly, if not all of the pertinent points slip right out of your head, Dan S. About forty posts back I asked why we ripped off customers aren’t questioning the foundational logic of a monopoly government “education” system, one who’s failure is writ large.

Naturally, this was screeching on my part.

Now you, presumably straight-faced, finally question government redistribution of wealth, but, presumably, only to support that failed monopoly (a monoploy I’d further agrue violated what religion/state separation we have left.)

I say presumably because a thousand words of commentary with such confused logic slips right out of my head.

Of course vouchers are asinine and I know I at least screeched so those forty or so posts back. The problem is the Question That May Not Be Asked. That phenomenon has many of the trappings of not questioning bad religion, you know. The presumption, the collectivist powers, the unquestionable dogma, the arrogance, the ignorance, the minions, and ultimately the terrific damage.

Nov 11, 2007 - 8:30 am 48. Dan S.:

“If Al Gore, George Bush, and any other politically connected family can send their kids to the best schools then the single mother living in inner-city Chicago, Boston, Philly, and anywhere else should have that same opportunity.”

Well, sure, of course, but you understand that this isn’t going to happen, even with fantasy vouchers (let alone politically realistic ones), right? The wealthy and powerful don’t want their precious angels in the same school as the kids of inner-city single moms, and (being wealthy and powerful) they’ll ensure they they aren’t. To actually make this come about, at least anytime soon, would require levels of gov’t coercion far beyond what either of us would want. That’s why supporters of traditional education continue to fight for well-funded, high-quality public schools for all children.

The actual opportunities that vouchers will provide? Well . . .

“An investigation this June [2005] by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found problems in some voucher schools that-even to those numb to educational horror stories-break one’s heart. No matter how severe one’s criticisms of the Milwaukee Public Schools, nothing is as abysmal as the conditions at some voucher schools.

Some of them had high school graduates teaching students. Some were nothing more than refurbished, cramped storefronts. Some did not have any discernable curriculum and only a few books. Some did not teach evolution or anything else that might conflict with a literal interpretation of the Bible.

At one school, teacher and students were on their way to McDonald’s. At another, lights were turned off to save money. A third used the back alley as a playground.

One school is located in an old leather factory, another in a former tire store, a third is above a vacuum cleaner shop and hair salon.

As one of the reporters said, “I think we expected from the start to see some strong schools and some weak ones. But seeing firsthand the effect that troubled schools can have on children’s futures and lives was disturbing.”“

Nov 11, 2007 - 9:46 am 49. Wendy:

Jeffrey wrote: “If Al Gore, George Bush, and any other politically connected family can send their kids to the best schools then the single mother living in inner-city Chicago, Boston, Philly, and anywhere else should have that same opportunity.”

They do have that opportunity. No one is refusing to allow single mothers in DC to send their kids to Sidwell Friends.

Imagine a DC with complete choice of schooling, much like we have the same choice of what supermarket to shop at and what cars to buy. Now if you can tell me that the single mom from inner-city DC is *really* going to be able to send her kids to Sidwell Friends, let me know what drug you’re taking, because I want some.

The fact is that tuition at Sidwell Friends and elite private schools like it is around $27K a year, which is likely to be more than the salaries of many inner-city single moms. There is NO WAY under the ideal free-market system that an inner-city kid’s parents are going to be able to afford that.

I really do not understand what fantasy world free-market advocates live in where the market is going to magically enable these kids to escape bad public school situations. These same people *have* the same opportunity to buy nice houses–yet live in roach-infested apartments in dangerous neighborhoods. They have the same opportunity to buy Lexuses and Hummers–yet drive crappy 20 year old Hondas or take public transit.

The problem is bigger–it’s about poverty and income inequity and the death of urban areas.

Nov 11, 2007 - 11:34 am 50. JHoward:

I really do not understand what fantasy world free-market advocates live in.

Perhaps its because you don’t understand cause and effect like they do. Federal programs are typically found to perpetuate the problems they were ostensibly designed to repair. Welfare creates generational welfare dependency, for example.

Speaking of convoluted logic, how are you on making nothing a priority — All No Children Left Behind — by making everything a priority?

Government school has little to do anymore with sound education. Naturally, by this time it has everything to do with evading funding loss. It does this by bowing to what is commonly referred to as a mob. It is therefore adrift at the whim of any current majority so it tries any number of harebrained programs and values and gets the inevitable results we see all around us.

Don’t you find it interesting that by claiming to address society’s most vulnerable, most under-privileged, and most helpless, that government school perpetually leaves society’s most vulnerable, most under-privileged, and most helpless down? You pointed that out, you know.

Social leveling hasn’t exactly produced the claimed result. What it’s done is perpetuate the problem.

The excellence choice virtually guarantees? Not so much so. But that’s off limits. As would be testing vouchers. Because we’re really helping poverty-stricken kids out of poverty, I guess.

Tell me, if education cannot be accomplished in the free market (to say nothing at the moment about any number of arguable violations of constitutional principle collectivizing it represents) what other mistakes has the most free and prosperous country in history gotten wrong in the last 200+ years? Heaven forbids you stop at education.

We can’t prove the theory of government schooling by the results. We mayn’t test voucher programs. Everybody is owed the same low-end opportunity. We’re envious of those with choice. And we have no faith in free markets.

Not a convincing sales pitch, Dan S.

Nov 11, 2007 - 12:56 pm 51. Dan S.:

“When another monopoly . . .”

“ So-called public education is a govt monopoly . . . we have to start with the basics..putting competition back into the system. There has to be an incentive, a motivation to get this done.”

This is, of course, is using the language of the anti-public school movement, created and funded by a small number of tightly linked ideologues and rightwing thinktanks, with the ultimate aim (at the level of leadership; ordinary supporters are no doubt often sincere and well-meaning) of destroying our public school systems and replacing it, as much as possible, with privatized, for-profit schools. (See also: social security). Part of the motivation is free-market fundamentalism and a deep aversion to any notion of the common good, of a democratic government providing its citizens public services. Redirecting taxpayer dollars to private profit is another aim, as is the partisan goal of weakening or destroying teachers unions in order to deprive the Democratic Party of part of its fundraising and organizing base. (Why did you think they are so constantly demonized, to a degree far beyond any genuine issues?)

Interestingly, there isn’t really any liberal equivalent to this sort of radical ideological fixation. Liberals, after all, understand that many things are done far better by the market, and should be left to it, while some others are best provided by government. There simply isn’t anyone on the American political spectrum who wants to shrink the market until it can be drowned in a bathtub, or who advocates for government production of soup, say, or cars.

Do you want to hear about another government monopoly? Fire fighting. (Do we need to introduce competition there?) Another? The police. Also, the military, of course. Appreciate the taken-for-granted flow of clean, clear water out of your tap? Thank your friendly government monopoly. And etc.

“When public schools are faced with competition, they will find solutions to problems they can’t solve now.”

Magical thinking.

“Right now the public schools don’t have a reason. Let’s give them one.

My wife teaches kindergarten in an extremely poor, drug-ridden, and rather violent neighborhood in Philly. It’s true she doesn’t have a reason. As she puts it, she has 30 reasons.
______

Why public schools? There are many reasons, but one is that – like firefighters, police, the local water department, libraries, etc., etc, – they’re a public institution, a community institution.

__________

“If you think our education system is healthy

Again, most public schools – the ones serving middle class + populations – are doing fine.

______

Just for fun (and without googling), everyone feel free to take a guess: Of one dollar spent on education, what’s the federal government’s contribution?

a) 9 cents
b) 29 cents
c) 49 cents
d) 79 cents
e) 99 cents

Nov 11, 2007 - 8:46 pm 52. Dan S.:

“ If vouchers isn’t the answer . . .then what? Stop telling us choice advocates what won’t work, show us what will.”

Well, we do, of course – see for examplehere (just to grab the first thing that popped up). All very common-sense – it’s quite impressive, really the organization, creativity, and effort that goes into making sure such things aren’t obvious, into making sure ‘everybody knows’ such basic reforms ‘won’t work’.

And in the multiple choice question above, I should specify – out of a dollar of spending on public education (ie, at all levels – local, state, and federal).

Nov 12, 2007 - 4:06 am 53. Jeffrey S. Neher:

This is way too entertaining….really, it is. I get labeled “anti-public school” by anti-capitlists….too funny. Exactly who compiles all information on public schools….hmmmm..let’s see, public education proponenets and employees? Yes, I believe we have a winner. Why don’t we let the fox guard the hen-house? And the one response was particularly delicious…”no one is preventing a single mother from sending her kids to Sidwell”. Only the entrenched public school monopoly and it’s politburo. I’ll say again, I’m open to any reform that instills competition, that breaks the govt. monopoly and puts parents and teachers in control, not administrators with unlimited access to the tax-dollar. I’d start by walking into a school and ask do you teach children? If the answer is no, then you are fired. This is only a slight exaggeration, the point being to elminate waste and bloated employee rolls.

It’s just as I suspected, most attacking change on this post are part of the establishment, and may be part of the problem. The teacher’s unions have done a fabulous job convincing their members that any proposed change to the current monopoly is a “personal attack” on teachers. They are convinced that only they have the purest of motives and that they know what is best. Meanwhile another year passes with more kids left in the lurch. It’s no more an attack on teachers than an anti-biotic is on the patient…we’re going after the source of the ill-ness. The system is broken, has been for sometime, this I see with my own eyes, not with the help of anyone with an agenda. For those who refuse to see, well, this isn’t new, we as a nation have become those unwilling to deal with problems. It’s much easier to deny any real problem, just throw slogans and money at the problem and wait for the votes to be counted. I don’t believe for one minute that any proposal is a panacea, whether it be charter, home-school, vouchers, or any other option….but I know when reform is needed and I know when it’s time for change. The concept of govt. schools must be taken down and the concept of competition put in it’s place. That is the start we need, to eliminate the cabal that is govt. schools. It is utterly amazing how competition makes everything and everyone elevate their performance but somehow that concept is anathema to education. Put aside your special interest and devote yourself to ideas that make the system work, that elevate the minds of your students. Be open to new ideas, not knee-jerk in your reaction. And finally, quit taking every new idea as an attack on you personally.

Someone used the word magical to describe choice? I beg your pardon my friend, but it is not I who still holds onto the santa claus that is govt schools……..

Nov 12, 2007 - 5:22 am 54. Diane:

I have been out of the school system for 10 years on disability because my school chose to educate a child in our school instead of a residential placement where he would have gotten the help he needed.
Why?
Because back then it cost $80,000.00 + and it was cheaper to keep him in his home district.
I have also been a school board member and president of a planning committee to build a middle school.
Keep dreaming if you think you can get schools built for $7,000.00/student and can get schools built without a ten projection on student population plus 100’s of other factors that you can’t control with vouchers that vary from year to year.
How much of that $7,000.00 would be going towards EDUCATION instead of a building?

Nov 12, 2007 - 5:45 am 55. JHoward:

This is, of course, is using the language of the anti-public school movement, created and funded by a small number of tightly linked ideologues and rightwing thinktanks, with the ultimate aim (at the level of leadership; ordinary supporters are no doubt often sincere and well-meaning) of destroying our public school systems and replacing it, as much as possible, with privatized, for-profit schools. (See also: social security). Part of the motivation is free-market fundamentalism and a deep aversion to any notion of the common good, of a democratic government providing its citizens public services.

Rubbish: Invert your need to provide a proof of concept by smearing the rational opposition with carefully chosen terminology designed to appeal to emotion. Dan S., I’m still waiting for your evidence of both right and functionality. I see that you habitually avoid those requirements and now were down to appeals to emotion and status quo.

Not a convincing sales pitch.

Redirecting taxpayer dollars to private profit is another aim, as is the partisan goal of weakening or destroying teachers unions in order to deprive the Democratic Party of part of its fundraising and organizing base. (Why did you think they are so constantly demonized, to a degree far beyond any genuine issues?)

Ah, and now we get to the nub of your argument: Your special interest — your closed, iconoclastic, monolithic, equally-radical, anti-choice, idealistic, NEA think-tanking, to use your words — resisting the natural criticism leveled at it by simple reason. Don’t criticize us, says Dan S. because we don’t like criticism and our system can’t take criticism because it depends on sheer convention and political impetus. Our critics harm our ways and means, our motives and intents and surely their criticism must end.

Interestingly, there isn’t really any liberal equivalent to this sort of radical ideological fixation. Liberals, after all, understand that many things are done far better by the market, and should be left to it, while some others are best provided by government. There simply isn’t anyone on the American political spectrum who wants to shrink the market until it can be drowned in a bathtub, or who advocates for government production of soup, say, or cars.

This is yet another appeal to convention one necessarily without reason. There simply isn’t anyone on the American political spectrum who wants to shrink the market until it can be drowned in a bathtub? How about millions on the American political spectrum who would like to fix the eternally broken government education system or replace it with choice and academic prosperity?!

In fact, reason is shunned for it will continue to expose the fallacy of government “education”!

The problem becomes, Dan S., that at some point you have to factor in something far more rational. I suggest you begin by replacing this Democrat-vs-Republican horizontal linearity with the vertical reality of collectivism and authoritarianism versus the individual, personal accountability and choice, and freedom. There’s a profound difference between liberal and, as you handily put it for your purposes, radical conservatism. That difference has to do with your collective fantasies versus the accomplishment and satisfaction that comes with reforming historical top-down power into the obvious productivity and accomplishment of free markets and actual freedom. Comparisons to fire departments may likewise be initially interesting, but they simply do not apply, nor can you therefore show how they would or shall.

Magical thinking indeed. The logical extension of “fire-station” collectivism is…the collective. I do believe the track record of collectivism is dismal, Dan S. And yet you define free choice-education as a radical assault on…on…your job? If not that, what?

My wife teaches kindergarten in an extremely poor, drug-ridden, and rather violent neighborhood in Philly. It’s true she doesn’t have a reason. As she puts it, she has 30 reasons.

And that I find to be radical idealism, Dan S. The radical idealism of a special personal interest coupled with job security coupled with whatever it takes to keep things as they are capped with actually harming children. Harsh words, but no way around them. Radical indeed.

Again: If government schools are all about equalizing society, why are they so apt at chronically, historically damaging the lowest classes?

You have yet to address a single pertinent, fundamental issue concerning that fundamental performance-based outcome. Should you do so, which you cannot, you should then proceed to a convincing demonstration of moral and constitutional right.

Failing all of the above, are we perpetually left with these appeals to reason and bad convention?

Oh, and most public schools are not “doing fine.” Research shows that the private sector can replace their monolithic incompetence and lack of expression, free speech, and free expression at half the cost.

Were we to spend, dollar for dollar, on private education what we do on government schools, we’d have double the education. Not a bad idea as the System descends into dysfunctionality.

Nov 12, 2007 - 7:21 am 56. Dan S.:

“ I’d start by walking into a school and ask do you teach children? If the answer is no, then you are fired. ”

Ok – so you’d be firing security guards, secretarial/administrative staff, lunch ladies, non-teaching assistants, cleaning staff . . .
and what do you think happens next?

Philly got a small taste of that when Edison took over a bunch of schools and decided to cut costs by firing some non-teaching assistants (NTAs), secretaries, and other support staff. Paperwork started piling up, but more importantly, the schools erupted in chaos:
“By mid-September, the incident at Barratt was a familiar story at Edison-run schools. Some of the education management organization’s other schools seemed to be faring even worse. At Tilden Middle School, a teacher tried to break up a fight and a student jumped on her leg, breaking it. At Gillespie Middle School, food fights and fistfights broke out daily. A computer was thrown out a window. A security officer was assaulted by a student. Two teachers quit. At Stetson Middle School, a student threatened a pregnant teacher, and the school nurse complained that she had seen between 40 and 50 injuries sustained at school as a result of student violence. At Waring Elementary, a student threatened to punch a teacher and stab a classmate with scissors. After a brawl erupted at Shaw Middle School, five students were arrested and two were suspended.

. . .Pre-Edison, one of Penn Treaty’s secretaries would monitor the security cameras. If a food fight broke out, for example, an immediate shutdown of the lunchroom would be effected. Now with only one secretary, it has become difficult to keep an eye on the camera at all times. Young also points out that one NTA used to be in charge of manning the accommodation room, where disruptive and suspended students would be sent. Lately, the teachers have had to rotate accommodation room duties, and in some cases, violent kids have been sent back into classrooms.”

Morale plummeted, teachers started leaving, etc. What a surprise. Now, there are reporting and adjustment issues and all (as the article explains), but they also point out that other schools given to EMOs which *didn’t* dump lots of support staff didn’t show these problems.

Nov 12, 2007 - 10:07 am 57. Jeffrey S. Neher:

My last post on this subject, and I’ll keep it short and sweet. Dan, you are probably a good guy, not knowing you personally I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. What I have sensed in your posts is an unwillingness to even accept that there are problems with our education system. You tend to be reactionary, being that every suggestion by others is met by you with the obligatory “ok, so you do that but then this happens”. Oh, and the irony of you bringing security guards at shcools into the argument is evidently lost on you..being you believe the system is fine yet we have security watching our children(you might want to consider the breakdown of discipline in the schools as a problem). But, you are entrenched in the govt-school fox-hole so trying to convince you of anything is futile. We obviously have a hard mountain to climb considering the special interests lined up against us and the continual poisoning of parents minds that govt-school is as natural and inevitable as the sun-rise. We’ll keep plugging away and we will eventually overcome the reactionaries and liberate the kids ..

Nov 12, 2007 - 11:28 am

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