If We Want to Grow as a Nation, We Must Invest More in Education than Incarceration

Last year, more than 7 million American people -- that’s about one in every 32 adults -- were behind bars, on probation or parole. The United States has, for years, imprisoned more people than any other country in the world. Yet, we don’t have the highest literacy rate....

Inner-city schools fail half of their students, and jobs are removed from communities, replaced with guns and drugs, resulting in incarceration, if you’re lucky; death if you’re not. Nonetheless, many U.S. states have cut their education budgets to compensate for rapid growth in prison populations and prison construction. The misguided priorities that inform such decisions have only served to further marginalize already oppressed populations. It’s time that this country shifts its focus away from imprisonment and commits its resources to education and empowerment.

In the past 20 years, more than a thousand new prisons and jails have been built in the U.S. Yet, our prisons are more overcrowded now than ever.....(snip)... The nation’s "war on drugs" and the stiff sentencing laws that grew out of that war are largely to blame.

......The numbers of individuals sentenced for drug crimes increased nearly 65 percent between 1996 and 2003, accounting for the largest increase in inmates in the federal system.

If federal and local governments were to adequately fund the nation’s public schools, ensuring all students had access to high-quality teachers, tutoring and after-school programs, we could stem the growth of the nation’s prison population. With support, many could be steered away from drugs and the street life and pushed towards college or vocational school. Instead, the country has poured its money into a criminal injustice system that, instead of creating special programs designed to rehabilitate the low-level offender, corals these lost souls into the nation’s prisons. Upon release, having no education and no skills, many return to the lifestyles that landed them in prison. It’s a dangerous cycle, and only prison architects and big business benefit.

In 1977, I was incarcerated for seven months. I was told that it cost taxpayers $30,000 to incarcerate me. A year later, I enrolled at Eastern Michigan University under an affirmative action program. Because I was poor, I had to use loans and tax-payer supported government grants to pay for my education. The cost of my four-year education was $24,000, less than the cost of my short jail sentence. No longer a burden to taxpayers, I am a significant taxpayer, helping, through my tax contributions, to pave the way for others who’ve yet to get an opportunity to make a way for themselves.

The tax dollars used to support my education were a worthy investment, one that benefits all of society. America should take note and act accordingly.

Government should have no role in education. All schools should be private, from K-12 to colleges to grad schools. No federal Department of Education, no gov't subsidies, no state, county or city government bureaucracies. Parents can begin by sending their K-12 kids to private schools. If there aren't enough private schools, parents should join together and incorporate new ones, with the aim of putting the public school system out of business. This would lead to higher quality, freedom of choice, and real competition. Meanwhile, State and local taxes would drop about 50% as the public school system shuts down.

If "We" Want to Grow as a Nation, We Must Invest More in Education than Incarceration

Note to author: If "You" want us to take note of the success of "our" tax dollars, then concede the following:

*90% of your success is directly due to 10% of "us" rich folks. Did you learn any manners? Say thank you.
*90% of the inner cities have been managed by Dems for 90% of the last 60 years. Yet you keep re-electing the same villians.
*Maybe if more people took responsibilities themselves to focus on education, and staying out of jail, then things might change.

Everyone is born with that same choice. It's what you do with those choices that counts.

My son wrote the valedictorian speech for his girlfriend. She finished with a 4.86 average. He only managed a 4.33. The two of them worked on the speech in a corner of the apartment I rented for the last 4 months that I lived in San Diego. The key theme in the speech was that academic success wasn't a big deal. It just meant reading your assignments, doing your homework and paying enough attention to do well on the tests. The people who didn't do well were those who never opened the books and arrived each day with a surly attitude.

I have to take a small exception to the quality of the teachers. My son ended up teaching most of his AP classes and ran tutoring/review sessions in the evenings. The teachers assigned were present to keep the seat warm. Their subject matter expertise was poor. If that was the kind of teacher assigned to the top performing pupils, heaven help the rooms full of average or below average students.

When I returned to San Diego in 1969, my 7th grade classes included a mandatory Spanish class. I had just finished a semester of Spanish at Washington Irving Intermediate School in Springfield, VA. The instructor at Hilltop Jr High in Chula Vista, CA literally put his head down on the desk and slept through class. What a waste of flesh. The class barely slogged through TWO chapters at the beginning of the Spanish book from January to June. The correct pace should have been one to two chapters each week.

If he thinks his four years at EMU cost only 24K total, he is still an ignoramus. He should loook up what pervcentage of total costs his tuition actually covers, and then do the math to find the real cost of his "education."

Oh and BTW, I wonder if his seven months in the cooler did anything to concentrate his thoughts about what he would do when he got out?

Our high school allows kids to graduate early, once they have enough credits. (I suppose that others do too.) Kids that take no electives and only core classes can graduate in 3 years -- if they go to summer school they can do it in 2. And then off to college or to the workplace.

That was permitted, with some restriction, back (way back) when I was in school as well. The concept is good, but the downside is that the institution granting the "credits" is the same one that is handing out diplomas. Given all the remedial classes attended at colleges today, I'd be concerned that the student had actually mastered the material, regardless of whether they had earned credit or not.

I think that's my biggest concern - schools can and do give diplomas to students who have not achieved the level of education that the diploma represents. That's why I advocate testing.

I should have mentioned that Virginia has grade level tests called "Standards of Learning" or SOL's. To graduate, one must have a certain number of pass scores in these SOL's including passes in Alg I, Alg II, Geometry, 3 sciences, English and writing.

Every year the local paper prints an account of a senior that cannot graduate because he/she hasn't passed a required SOL, normally the 11th grade writing. It's interesting to read the comments of the student who will normally admit he/she wasted time in school and only took it serious when 11th grade rolled around.

To get a standard diploma, these tests are required of all students, even those with second language issues or in special education.

"hanging out" with school friends - they only do that if the parents allow it.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

This was once called "play". Imagine that. Play.

Play is very, very important to a child's social well-being. I credit the many hours in the day available to my homeschooler for their amazing achievements and creativity later in their childhoods.

Apparently, Sandy Weill is involved with a company that has 450 inner city schools that are sending 80% of graduates to college. How subversive! If teachers treat their classrooms as closed systems and take their responsibility to teach the curriculum then they master the challenges without blaming outside influences. If they can't/dont, they should be fired.

This was once called "play". Imagine that. Play. Play is very, very important to a child's social well-being.

Oh really? That's not how you characterized it back in post 113.

I don't consider "hanging out" on the phone or internet as "play", although "hanging out" outside could be.

But is this time with peers part of the "sour influences of school and school friends" or "very, very important to a child's social well-being"?

Make up your mind before trying to convince the rest of us, unless you're just trying to be contrary (which is my guess).

Frankly, I'm inclined to allow bypassing the government-issued diploma and government school processes in favor of simply allowing comprehensive testing instead. Why sit through Algebra II when you've already obtained the skills in the subject? Why sit through 11th and 12th grade when you've already adequately mastered the basic subject material required for passing the graduation exam?

Ah, according to press reports the Gates report issued last week makes a similar suggestion! I'm looking forward to reading the whole thing!

But is this time with peers part of the "sour influences of school and school friends" or "very, very important to a child's social well-being"?

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Amelia, time with school friends is time not available to the parent for parental influences. That time with friends can be wholesome or not, but it is STILL time out of the child's life that is NOT available to the parent.

Parents should take a very realistic look at the their child's day. They should thoroughly evaluate whether in the minimal amount of time available, if the parent can indeed undo school influences and that of their child's school friends.

Time spent with friends is not time available to the parent for influences? What kind of double talk is that? Parents have a great deal of control over where their kids go after school--especially when the kids are young and the parents have to drive them to another's house. Not only that, the parents can choose whether or not the kid even leaves the house. After school activities are not required by the school, but are choices that the parent allows.

Kids only go to school for 180 days a year--that is slightly less than 1/2 of the year. If a parent so choose, a youngster could arrive at school a few minutes before starting time and leave exactly on the dot 6 hours later. This would give the parent a large amount of time with their child. It is a choice.

You seem to want to make all of the choices that a parent makes some sort of extension of the school. They are not. My daughter participates in the activities that we have decided were best for her given our family income and circumstances. They are different from the ones you made and still within standard moral values and therefore valid choices.

Wintertime, you want to place all blame for all the worlds ills at the doorstep of the public schools. It is this hyperbole that weakens your arguments for home-schooling.

Time spent with friends is not time available to the parent for influences?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

When the child's mind, energy, and attention are directed at **school** friends, the parent can not undo school influences during this time.

So...for 180 days of the year, the parent will have little opportunity to undo harmful school influences. Thoughtful posters will not find the schedule that I posted unreasonable:

Young children need up to 11 hours of sleep. Even teens need up to 10.

There is the hectic breakfast and rush for the bus.
There is the hour to two waiting for and riding buses.
The 6 to 8 hours in school.
The 1 to 2 hours in an after school activity.
The 1 to 4 hours of homework.
An hour or two just hanging out with **school***friends on the phone, outside, or on the Internet.

So...add it up. Tell me. Just exactly when are parents supposed to have this quality time to undo the sour influences of school and school friends? Answer: Precious little!

When? Well, the parent can drop them off at school-that saves the 1-2 hour bus ride and pick them up after school. The parent can sit with them while the do homework and then have them help prepare dinner and then talk after dinner until it's time to clean up. The family can then play a board game or play charades or go outside and toss a ball around or take a walk. When it's time to go to bed, the parents can read a story and have a lovely time chatting even more.

Since when are after school activities required? Since your kids didn't go to a public school, they didn't have them, and they seem to have done okay. Kids don't have to "hang out" with friends if it doesn't work in the families choices.

Don't forget about the weekend--which you always do. There is time Friday night, all day Saturday and all day Sunday for family time.

Also, what about the breaks--Christmas, Easter and summer. Still MORE time for family bonding!

Look at that, I just found SEVERAL hours in a day and probably months for the family to bond and have a great time together.

You lump all choices for a 5 day week that takes place 180 times out of 365 as the public schools fault. Nope, sorry, don't buy it. Out of 24 hours a day, only 6 need be spent in schools. After sleeping time of about 10 hours, that leaves 8 hours--or 1/3 of the day for the parent for 180 days of the year--185 days of the year it is all family, all the time.

And for your information--that schedule was our families for several years when I substitute taught. On occasion, my girls rode the bus home or to the school I was subbing at that day, but for about 6 years or so, that was our daily schedule, until my daughter began travel softball. Then everything changed. But that was our choice--not the schools, OURS.

Of course, the children who are "falling through the cracks" are largely those whose parents aren't exercising any good influences, even though they could if they chose to.

You know the ones, those who are using the TV, family, friends and others as babysitters so they can "do their thing"...the ones who spend a lot of their time under the influence of some drug, either legal or illicit...the ones who are working evenings or nights and are at work or asleep when the children are home...

These are the parents who exercise little or no control over where their children are when, over what they watch on TV, what sort of music they listen to, or what sorts of grades they achieve in school. They are also in large part the parents of the children who give public schools a bad name.

As far as kids that can't be controlled--you can spot those at 2 or 3. Those are the ones screaming in the stores and hitting their moms in the face in anger with the mom laughing and thinking it is the cutest little thing. Let's see how cute it is 10 or more years down the road.

The schedule I listed above had the downside of taking me out of being a regular, paid teacher for many years. I will pay for that with a later retirement and less money now.

But I wouldn't change a thing. Those were the sweetest days of my life.

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