Democrats & Liberals: Archives

Walker:

What truths are those? I know we will hear from those who oppose Bush as saying the funding is inadequate. Is it more than has been done in previous administrations or less?

The sentiment behind “No Child Left Behind” is unassailable. We also know that money has been thrown at education for years and years, and people still claim that our education system is not what it should be. So money alone is not the issue. Parental involvement and interest is a huge part of it, but that cannot be legislated.

So what are the truths that you allude to?

When teachers have to spend their own money to buy paper and pens for their classrooms, then there is something definitely wrong with the budget for the public education system.

Joe- I think the sentiment behind it is very assilable. I think its ironic that the presidential candidate running on the Ronald Reagan legacy would have a plan that increases the federal government’s role in education, where as Reagan wanted to abolish the department of education. There is nothing in the constitution that allows the federal government to regular public schools (other than preventing segregation and discrimination under the 14th ammendment), and No-Child Left Behind is a complete sell out to the liberal federal-goverment-has-a-central-role-in-education view of the world. As people claim this president is a radical right winger…

Joe,
Did you even read the article? The suggestion is that funding, rather than supporting the nuts and bolts of our existing public education system, is being directed by government officials who do the bidding of think tanks bent on discrediting government schools. They would promote voucher systems and other mechanisms for funnelling tax dollars into corporatized education such as the Edison Schools furthering the privatization agenda of this cadre of think tanks. I’m sure that the right will call it the paranoid delusions of leftist nutcases, but I want to know more about Jay P Greene, Paul E Peterson, Chester Finn, and Diane Ravitch and find out who the real nutcases are. I’m not saying that they aren’t decent human beings who earnestly believe in their cause, but if they are promoting an agenda by stealth to privatize education because they realize the idea would never sell on its naked merits, then a spotlight needs to be levelled at their activities. To the extent that federal funds might be making it into their hands even more so.

I am the product of public schools and universities. All my kids attended public schools and now my oldest is at public university. We live in a county (Fairfax) with excellent public schools in a state (Virginia) with one of the country’s best universities. This is not random chance. I live where I do BECAUSE of the schools. My kids benefit because I could and would move to a place with great schools. Not everyone is so lucky.

That is why I support school choice. It is the only way to get both public and private schools to work better. Money is only part of the answer. My local schools spend a lot per pupil, but less than many jurisdiction that do not have schools nearly as good.

The keys are parent involvement and parent choice. If Fairfax schools decline, I might send my kids to private schools or move out of the county. Most of my neighbors and I have that option. The people at the Fairfax schools know we have it and we know that they know. It sets up a virtuous circle. I volunteer to help the schools because I feel I “own” them. Teachers think of me as an important constituent. Fairfax County sees us all as customers. What is the difference in a poor district, like DC where there is some doubt each year if particular schools will even be open? DC spends thousands of dollars more per pupil than Fairfax, yet its average SATs are only about half as good.

The problem is that parents are not empowered. The public schools got their kids, period. They can’t move and they can’t afford private schools. They didn’t choose to be there. SO parent don’t feel ownership for the schools. The public schools stop thinking of them as constituents and the politicians, teachers and administrators see them as dependents, not customers. Give parents the option of moving to private school and not many will take it. It is a lot easier to send your kid to the local PS. BUT it will put the fear of god into politicans, teachers and administrators and the public schools will improve. We all win.

Cameron wrote:
“When teachers have to spend their own money to buy paper and pens for their classrooms, then there is something definitely wrong with the budget for the public education system.”

I agree. My sister is a teacher and she routinely has to spend out of her own pocket for the kids in her classes just to make sure they have what they need.
I can’t stand when people claim that throwing money at the education system isn’t going to make any difference, because after listening to her, I understand how much funding is currently, in fact, _desperately_ needed.
The Republicans in power are trying to squeeze Public Education until it can no longer function - in order to put their hands in the pockets of American parents who only want their children to get a decent education.
In my opinion, we can fix the problems of Public Education without doing away with the idea completely through vouchers and privatization.

Jack, Like you I was very fortunate in growing up where the public schools were excellent, and have settled in a location that also has good schools. You rightly recognize that those in poor school districts are at a distinct disadvantage and “throwing money at the problem” doesn’t translate proportionately into improving education there when the problems in the community and in the homes are not addressed. You nobly wish to empower their childrens’ parents to make an alternate choice, but there simply doesn’t exist enough money to give that choice to everybody, and the systemic problem remains unsolved. The notion that the competition from vouchers will somehow magically improve the offerings in those still poor school districts is a myth we are being sold, frankly by those who stand to make a handsome profit from the voucher system. Show me any evidence of a poor public school system dramatically improved after a voucher system has robbed them of their students from families most committed to their childrens’ education. While I would never deprive families using vouchers from being able to continue a program once started, this simply isn’t a systemic solution.

I knew I had seen a television expose on this issue, and have finally found the transcript from that episode of NOW with Bill Moyers. 77 million dollars were identified as going to group affiliated with the privatization movement. There is a link at the top to corrections to a few specifics, but the gist of the story hasn’t changed. Compare to the information contained at the teacher professionalism website

Adrienne:

Money is of course necessary, but we need to look at how the money is used. I believe there is enough money to be used, if it is used properly. Notice that whenever a district has a financial problem, the first things the administration cuts are athletics and teacher positions. How about cutting the administration FIRST!! From the several districts I have been involved with, the admin is bloated with waste.

I think competition is good for schools, though I’m not sure of the best approach for it. Without competition, there is no impetus to improve.

There are many examples of this all around us. Look at how the auto industry plodded along for years, giving people mediocre quality cars. Then along came the Japanese cars with better quality ratings, and after some rearranging, the US companies began producing better cars.

In Detroit, the pizza places used to give one pizza—-then along came Little Caesar’s who coined the “pizza-pizza” concept. Soon all the pizza joints were giving 2 for 1 deals as well.

Competition is good, but we also have to make sure that we dont allow schools to go “bankrupt”. In business, if you dont compete, you go out of business. We cannot allow schools to do that, but we DO need to hold them accountable, something they have not been for a long time.

And Adrienne, its not the individual teachers fault. Its the unions and admin.

In NY State, a group of teachers saw a need for math tutoring, so they offered to provide after hours tutoring for free to needy students. But NO….the union stepped in and stopped that right quick. God forbid a teacher offer their own time to help the kids. Might set a bad precedent.

I don’t understand why teachers have to buy pens and pencils for their classes. Do students come to classes with no supplies at all?

When I was a child in a small midwestern school, my folks bought all of my supplies AND paid for textbook rental…and judging from the list of textbook rental fees in the hometown newspaper, they still do. My daughter attends a very exceptional charter school here in California, and again, we parents get lists of supplies in advance.

So why do teachers have to buy pens and pencils?

Joebags wrote:
“Competition is good, but we also have to make sure that we dont allow schools to go “bankrupt”.”

Many schools here in California have already closed, others are close to being bankrupt.

“In business, if you dont compete, you go out of business. We cannot allow schools to do that, but we DO need to hold them accountable, something they have not been for a long time.”

Children and learning has nothing to do with business, Joe. I hate the idea of treating human beings like a spreadsheet. “No Child Left Behind” is an attempt to hold schools and children accountable for how well they do in exchange for higher levels of funding. This is a mistake in my opinion, because it stigmatises schools where the children come from homes where the parents do not place enough emphasis on the importance of learning. This is offen true of lower income parents.

“In NY State, a group of teachers saw a need for math tutoring, so they offered to provide after hours tutoring for free to needy students. But NO….the union stepped in and stopped that right quick. God forbid a teacher offer their own time to help the kids. Might set a bad precedent.”

I understand this because of what my sister has told me about “No Child Left Behind” - the teachers and administrators now have to worry about having the kids pass the standarized tests - because their school funding partially hinges upon how well they do. In fact, now the entire school year rests on the importance of passing the tests rather than on the importance of making a child enjoy the process of learning. I’ve heard the administrative pressure is incredible upon the teachers which is then passed along to the students regarding those tests. I think that is terrible.
I also understand the union not wanting the teachers to have to work for _free_ in order for the kids to pass those tests. Why the hell should anyone as underpaid and overworked as school teachers have to do so?!

I agree that some measure of accountability should be required - but I don’t think that pressure to learn should be dictated only by a test which monetarily penalizes schools, teachers and children - especially in poorer districts.

This is all a ruse. Let’s cut to the chase:

D.C. students can’t do as well as other districts for a host of reasons having little to do with the school system: 1) average education of parents in poorly performing schools is lower than that of other schools, 2) average wages of families in poorer performing schools is lower than in other schools. These two factors account for 1) lower parental involvement in both the school system and their child’s homework, 2) availabilty of parents to attend school & PTA meetings and board meetings and 3) ability of parents to assess how their children are doing regardless of grades.

The next major point is that any plan which redirects funding from public schools will erode the quality of education in those public schools. This is irrefuteable on a purely logical basis when applied across the board. Thus, any such plans will harm far more students than it helps.

The final point, is that whether by plan or accident, our government is headed toward bankruptcy, and that bankruptcy is going to be used as justification for ending all manner of social programs designed provide a minimum standard of living and opportunity for all Americans. Quality of life for middle class Americans has been improving via gadgetry but declining in terms of disposeable free time, disposeably income, quality of education as we see far more schools teaching to the test instead of teaching learning strategy and knowledge, and in terms of involvement and influence upon government.

I don’t think it is an accident but a plan, but, proving it is difficult. By almost every measure except for growth in the military-technological complex and medical research, we are a nation in decline. The stage has been set for a fundamental and historical shift now being played out and which will continue over the next few decades that is going be ideologically revolutionary and disastrous for common working Americans and our concepts of social equity and justice as conservatism has its day and way with our history.

David-

I think you’re right, though I don’t think you’ll ever get a hardline conservative to agree with your opinions. I honestly believe that people who are doing well on the Right think its an excellent idea to run Public Education like you would any other business. And while they’re touting phrases like “the soft bigotry of low expectations” we on the Left (whether we are doing well or not) see it as just another example of low income discrimination.

Walker begins this conversation with an article which seems pretty far out. But wait. It’s not just in education; this is part of a huge movement and trend within the federal government to use public money to support private interests. ((Program won’t let me post the link to the article). [Editor’s note: Would this be the one?]

Getting back to education, here’s more information about why we have this trend to go towards vouchers and school choice in this piece.

This then, is the Right’s answer to Brown: that urban public education is not worth funding. African Americans should join with the privatizers, put their hopes in the “market,” and abandon demands for equality in the public sphere.

As for that free market in education, we’ve got evidence that some charters make a lot of money for their investors but not enough goes into the school. State of CA shut down this chain of charters for that reason. I’m glad there was oversight. And this Edison charter does worse over time in comparison to public shools.

Look what happens when we get media writing about it. NYT recently wrote an article reporting on negative data about charters. Notable was the amazingly huge reaction (turns out many were by the think tank people detailed in the first two articles) to this piece, even a full-page ad in the NYT. Very expensive. Take a look at some of the money behind it. It’s a spectacular network of connections. Scary because very little is written about it in media.

Oh, about teachers having to buy pencils: strange how there’s less and less money for education even though funding has been supposedly increased. You see, a lot of the new money has been sucked up to pay for the testing. In fact, there isn’t enough money to pay for NCLB, an added burden to the school system.

NCLB is rigged. We have a school in our district that failed only because they didn’t have enough kids in one tiny subgroup taking the exam. They needed to have one more kid take the test. Guess what? The whole school failed. This is not anywhere close to accountability: we have great schools here so far.

I have not seen any evidence that testing kids improves education; increased test scores doesn’t mean much to me especially if the focus is only on improving test scores. A single exam cannot be a good measure of excellent education because too many other factors are involved in addition to being able to take tests well. Good education involves teaching kids to think, criticize, learn art and music. Instead, what we have is this:

Consider the results from a statewide survey of hundreds of school districts conducted by the K-16 Coalition, a group of K-12 and higher education organizations in Michigan. Struggling to cope with funding cuts, the coalition found:

52 percent of districts surveyed expect larger class sizes.

50 percent expect to delay buying new textbooks.

30 percent plan to increase student fees for extracurricular activities.

83 percent have cut supply budgets.

21 percent will cut the number of school days.
Media reports describe schools that charge elementary students to play sports and others that ask parents to provide standard school supplies. Doesn’t sound good to me.

Even Utah is worried.

So to end, I don’t think the article Walker brings up is so far off. I think it’s because media has dropped the ball on this topic. (Note: one delicious piece of info…The people who own Washington Post also owns Kaplan, an education company making gobs of money due to NCLB. I would be surprised to see anything critical about NCLB in the Washington Post.)

Resource: PFAW (download pdf to read entire report.)

Whoops: I have links to two must-read articles that this program won’t let me post. What is that about?
[Editor’s note: problem corrected; also note Shari’s additional comment below.]

shari, try posting those links again. We found a problem with our spam blocker that was blocking certain links, but, we hope it has been corrected now. Our apology.

Da links!

Regarding the larger picture, read about the details on the movement.

On how the system is rigged. See article called “Built to Fail”.

More on the Washington Post/Kaplan connection, which is worth reviewing.

My bias: Went to public schools for my education, all the way up to college. My kid is in public school. I started looking into this NCLB thing when the kid started kindergarten. I kept finding more and more pieces of information that really got me worried about the future of public education. The current meme: there’s not enough money to fund NCLB. But that’s just part of the problem: the legislation itself appears to be designed to dismantle public schools in favor of charters and vouchers using the code words “accountability”, “choice” and “reform”.

But so far, no one’s answered why teachers have to buy school supplies for their students. Why aren’t the students buying them? Isn’t that the normal way it works?

Dawn,
The point is that there are situations where the teachers are spending their own money for even the most inexpensive and basic things one would expect to be purchased by the school district. Sure, in most places there is a supply list for students as to what they need to provide, but I would certainly expect the school to have spares and be able to provide materials to students whose parents are either too poor or too unconcerned to make sure they have what they need. I can understand that a conscientious teacher would make sure that such a child is not left out due to their parent’s negligence. I wouldn’t expect that conscientiousness to cost the teacher extra money.

Dawn wrote:
“But so far, no one’s answered why teachers have to buy school supplies for their students. Why aren’t the students buying them?”

Because Dawn, some kids don’t necessarily get breakfast every morning, let alone have the money or the sort of parents who make sure their children have what they need in the way of school supplies.

“Isn’t that the normal way it works?”

Some kids don’t grow up in families we might consider “normal”. But in the minds and hearts of some teachers and many others who care (like myself) that doesn’t mean that childs education isn’t just as Important as any other who has the blessing of well paid and/or responsible parents.

Okay, for the kids who don’t have any money at all…that I understand. Thanks for explaining. Here in my city-of-residence, there appears to be so much waste that the system ought to be able to buy extras for those who cannot afford them—or so it appears from the outside looking in…

—-
And on to the charter schools…

I love the ones that are set up right. My daughter’s charter school has literally been a lifering in the ocean for us. She learned absolutely nothing in kindergarten in the regular public school, because she already knew her letters and could count, and the teacher had to spend the majority of her time with the children who didn’t understand English—but she was indeed a wonderful woman trying to do her best. The school decided that my incredibly bored child was ‘acting out anger’ and needed group therapy. Heck, I bet what they saved on the ‘therapy’ that we refused could have bought a few pencils.

Turns out, the charter school, with the curriculum that teaches the children beyond what’s going to be on their tests, helped us identify that she actually did have a learning disability—one that, since my girl is so bright, probably would have gone unrecognized in the other school until she became one of the perpetually “bad” kids. By then it would have been too late.

So maybe you can see why some of us do not believe that charter schools are evil?

Dawn:
Glad you’re happy with your school and glad you’ve got a learning difference assessment for your child.

Lots of charter schools: some come with great press, others are there to make money for investors.

I don’t have a beef with existing charter schools per se.

My major issue is with the federal legislation that threatens to undermine public education by 2014 if it isn’t changed in a major way.

See this Utahn for details on this ‘test and punish’ legislation.

Please check out this piece on NCLB.

Begging your pardon, but my daughter does not have a learning difference. She has a learning disability. Making it all pretty with the word “difference” rather glosses over the pain and frustrations that extended into nearly every aspect of her young life. In other words, she was “disabled” from doing things that she wanted to be able to do.

I think its funny how third world country schools are out-performing us and the teachers don’t get near the pay or resources our teachers get. Its amazing how many visas are issued to India and other countries because we don’t have the skills necessary for certain jobs here. The difference is we live in a society where everything is suppose to be handed to us with a silver spoon. The work ethic is being lost. More money is not the solution. More money just makes the NEA union leaders have a bigger paycheck.