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I can trivially google for all the stats that show our education system is a miserable performer compared to other modern nations (and even some that aren't so modern). I assume we can stipulate that this is true.
I attended at least a dozen school board meetings while my daughter was attending public school in Mountain View California. I reviewed all the financial statements, and particularly took part in their debate about why they weren't using money they had allocated to them to build a library and a computer lab for the kids. I toyed with running for the school board myself, and had quite a bit of support from the other parents who attended these meetings with me. In the end, I didn't because it was futile.
You see, public education is about THE SYSTEM, and not about THE KIDS. If you propose any changes that benefit the kids, the argument thrown in your face is how it'll hurt the system. Well, I don't care about the system as a first priority, the kids come first in my book.
Particularly of interest in Mountain View is the population is about 2/3 hispanic, and there are 3 schools. The state in all its wisdom forces the schools to teach all these non-english speaking kids english and then teach them in english. They call the program "english as a second language" of all things. Boy does that fly in the face of Reason.
Anyone with half a brain realizes that 2 of the 3 schools could teach courses in spanish. You don't have to know english to be a rocket scientist, a lawyer, a judge, a teacher, an accountant, etc. They obviously have smart people in those roles in nations that don't speak english, right? So you'd have 3 schools, all teaching at 100% their ability to teach, providing the libraries and computer labs the kids need to advance themselves.
When I was in school, we had to take a foreign language AS A SECOND LANGUAGE. My choice was between spanish, french, and latin, and I ended up taking 4 years of french in HS and another 2 in college. What was good for me is good for these hispanic kids - they can learn math and science and history and every other subject (even sex education - bleh) in spanish, and learn english AS A SECOND LANGUAGE, as advertised.
The thing about immigrants, and realize I have no issue with immigrants legal or otherwise, is that the first generation speaks their native tongue (spanish). The second generation speaks two languages (spanish at home, english everywhere else). The third generation speaks english. Where's the beef? That aside, I've been to Chinatown in SF, and there is a robust and thriving class of people there that speak chinese. The point being that english isn't some sort of requirement to succeed. On the other hand, the parents that really care about their kids will see to it these kids learn english as early as possible. Nothing wrong with that, either.
Instead of building the library and computer lab, the school district spent all that money teaching english, and whatever money they had left over, the state came along and emptied the bank accounts at the end of the year anyway. On top of that, the schools had many millions of dollars in their "capital" budget, so they could paint the buildings, pave the playgrounds, and keep the roofs from leaking. They didn't spend but a fraction of that money.
The legislature in all its collectivist wisdom, and on behalf of the lobbyists of their biggest supporters (teachers' union!) enacted these rules. All I can say is they're morons for doing so. We at the local level had the first clue about how the money could be spent. The legislature clearly had no clue at all.
I have nothing against public education, but I do have a lot against a massive bureaucracy that we've put in place that assures that only a tiny fraction of education spending makes it to the kids.
Those on the left claim we're not spending enough on education. This is far from the truth. We're not spending enough on the system, but who cares on that score? They also claim the classrooms are too crowded and the student/teacher ratio is too high. Some classes have 40:1!
Allow me to present some simple back of the envelope calculations. According to the 2006 census report, the average amount of education spending PER PUPIL is over $10,000, so I'll use that $10K figure along with that 40:1 ratio.
Per homeroom of 40 students, we're talking 40 x $10K = $400K. How about we take half that and give $100K each to TWO teachers? That still leaves $200K to buy books, paint the classroom, heat/cool the classroom, buy desks when needed, pay for field trips, and chip in some contribution toward paying the administrators.
Granted, this math is dirt simple, but you should get the idea that we're spending plenty.
The problem is THE SYSTEM. We have a politically powerful teachers' union that obstructs anything anyone does to modernize the system. Their interests are in things like tenure and turf instead of what actually benefits the kids. I would submit that there are far too many teachers that simply don't care if the kids learn anything at all - it shows in the test results and in how horribly many kids graduate high school (or don't) without even learning to read.
There's such an "I give up" mentality, that sex education isn't something that augments a proper curriculum, it's there because the kids give up too and are ready to move on before the law permits them to quit school. Speaking of the law, I cannot fathom how anyone can appreciate truancy laws that force parents to send kids to bad schools if they can't afford to send them to a good private school. Since the lobbyists have the power they have to run the schools as a system, they may as well hold a gun to peoples' heads to force them to participate. And fail.
Barak Obama may or may not be elected president, but I am quite confident that if he is elected, his kids will be enrolled at Sidwell Friends elite private school and not attending a public school. Do as I say, not as I do!
The SYSTEM is corrupt. You can't fire a teacher who sucks because they have tenure. You can't pay a great teacher good money to keep them around, because it's against the union contract and surely legislated because the legislature knows the union can get out the vote (and supports a certain Party). There is graft all the way from the local level to Washington and then back again, as the money for education passes through many hands with a tidy chunk taken by each. And then there's the downright frightening and repugnant practice of directing funds away from inner city schools to where the bigger campaign donors' children go to school.
A perfect case in point about the people at the grass roots trying to change the system for the better is vouchers. The argument for them is it allows parents from those inner city schools to elect to send their kids to the same schools the campaign donors do. The parents want vouchers by a wide margin, when polled. Why the hell aren't we giving parents and students the choice of gonig to schools they actually want to go to, especially when you have that truancy law gun to their heads?
The arguments against them typically involve the system and ignore the welfare of the kids. "If all the kids leave the bad school that's educating nobody, then that school will close." I say GREAT!
Then there's the argument that you can't give parents a voucher to attend a private or parochial school. Why not? Students can get Pell Grants and other public funding to go to Notre Dame. Do explain why we allow it for Notre Dame and won't allow it when it means more kids can actually get a chance to go to Notre Dame in the first place?
I attended at least a dozen school board meetings while my daughter was attending public school in Mountain View California. I reviewed all the financial statements, and particularly took part in their debate about why they weren't using money they had allocated to them to build a library and a computer lab for the kids. I toyed with running for the school board myself, and had quite a bit of support from the other parents who attended these meetings with me. In the end, I didn't because it was futile.
You see, public education is about THE SYSTEM, and not about THE KIDS. If you propose any changes that benefit the kids, the argument thrown in your face is how it'll hurt the system. Well, I don't care about the system as a first priority, the kids come first in my book.
Particularly of interest in Mountain View is the population is about 2/3 hispanic, and there are 3 schools. The state in all its wisdom forces the schools to teach all these non-english speaking kids english and then teach them in english. They call the program "english as a second language" of all things. Boy does that fly in the face of Reason.
Anyone with half a brain realizes that 2 of the 3 schools could teach courses in spanish. You don't have to know english to be a rocket scientist, a lawyer, a judge, a teacher, an accountant, etc. They obviously have smart people in those roles in nations that don't speak english, right? So you'd have 3 schools, all teaching at 100% their ability to teach, providing the libraries and computer labs the kids need to advance themselves.
When I was in school, we had to take a foreign language AS A SECOND LANGUAGE. My choice was between spanish, french, and latin, and I ended up taking 4 years of french in HS and another 2 in college. What was good for me is good for these hispanic kids - they can learn math and science and history and every other subject (even sex education - bleh) in spanish, and learn english AS A SECOND LANGUAGE, as advertised.
The thing about immigrants, and realize I have no issue with immigrants legal or otherwise, is that the first generation speaks their native tongue (spanish). The second generation speaks two languages (spanish at home, english everywhere else). The third generation speaks english. Where's the beef? That aside, I've been to Chinatown in SF, and there is a robust and thriving class of people there that speak chinese. The point being that english isn't some sort of requirement to succeed. On the other hand, the parents that really care about their kids will see to it these kids learn english as early as possible. Nothing wrong with that, either.
Instead of building the library and computer lab, the school district spent all that money teaching english, and whatever money they had left over, the state came along and emptied the bank accounts at the end of the year anyway. On top of that, the schools had many millions of dollars in their "capital" budget, so they could paint the buildings, pave the playgrounds, and keep the roofs from leaking. They didn't spend but a fraction of that money.
The legislature in all its collectivist wisdom, and on behalf of the lobbyists of their biggest supporters (teachers' union!) enacted these rules. All I can say is they're morons for doing so. We at the local level had the first clue about how the money could be spent. The legislature clearly had no clue at all.
I have nothing against public education, but I do have a lot against a massive bureaucracy that we've put in place that assures that only a tiny fraction of education spending makes it to the kids.
Those on the left claim we're not spending enough on education. This is far from the truth. We're not spending enough on the system, but who cares on that score? They also claim the classrooms are too crowded and the student/teacher ratio is too high. Some classes have 40:1!
Allow me to present some simple back of the envelope calculations. According to the 2006 census report, the average amount of education spending PER PUPIL is over $10,000, so I'll use that $10K figure along with that 40:1 ratio.
Per homeroom of 40 students, we're talking 40 x $10K = $400K. How about we take half that and give $100K each to TWO teachers? That still leaves $200K to buy books, paint the classroom, heat/cool the classroom, buy desks when needed, pay for field trips, and chip in some contribution toward paying the administrators.
Granted, this math is dirt simple, but you should get the idea that we're spending plenty.
The problem is THE SYSTEM. We have a politically powerful teachers' union that obstructs anything anyone does to modernize the system. Their interests are in things like tenure and turf instead of what actually benefits the kids. I would submit that there are far too many teachers that simply don't care if the kids learn anything at all - it shows in the test results and in how horribly many kids graduate high school (or don't) without even learning to read.
There's such an "I give up" mentality, that sex education isn't something that augments a proper curriculum, it's there because the kids give up too and are ready to move on before the law permits them to quit school. Speaking of the law, I cannot fathom how anyone can appreciate truancy laws that force parents to send kids to bad schools if they can't afford to send them to a good private school. Since the lobbyists have the power they have to run the schools as a system, they may as well hold a gun to peoples' heads to force them to participate. And fail.
Barak Obama may or may not be elected president, but I am quite confident that if he is elected, his kids will be enrolled at Sidwell Friends elite private school and not attending a public school. Do as I say, not as I do!
The SYSTEM is corrupt. You can't fire a teacher who sucks because they have tenure. You can't pay a great teacher good money to keep them around, because it's against the union contract and surely legislated because the legislature knows the union can get out the vote (and supports a certain Party). There is graft all the way from the local level to Washington and then back again, as the money for education passes through many hands with a tidy chunk taken by each. And then there's the downright frightening and repugnant practice of directing funds away from inner city schools to where the bigger campaign donors' children go to school.
A perfect case in point about the people at the grass roots trying to change the system for the better is vouchers. The argument for them is it allows parents from those inner city schools to elect to send their kids to the same schools the campaign donors do. The parents want vouchers by a wide margin, when polled. Why the hell aren't we giving parents and students the choice of gonig to schools they actually want to go to, especially when you have that truancy law gun to their heads?
The arguments against them typically involve the system and ignore the welfare of the kids. "If all the kids leave the bad school that's educating nobody, then that school will close." I say GREAT!
Then there's the argument that you can't give parents a voucher to attend a private or parochial school. Why not? Students can get Pell Grants and other public funding to go to Notre Dame. Do explain why we allow it for Notre Dame and won't allow it when it means more kids can actually get a chance to go to Notre Dame in the first place?
