Posted on 01/18/2006 1:41:16 PM PST by RWR8189
"Stossel is an idiot who should be fired from ABC and sent back to elementary school to learn journalism." "Stossel is a right-wing extremist ideologue." The hate mail is coming in to ABC over a TV special I did Friday (1/13). I suggested that public schools had plenty of money but were squandering it, because that's what government monopolies do. Many such comments came in after the National Education Association (NEA) informed its members about the special and claimed that I have a "documented history of blatant antagonism toward public schools." The NEA says public schools need more money. That's the refrain heard in politicians' speeches, ballot initiatives and maybe even in your child's own classroom. At a union demonstration, teachers carried signs that said schools will only improve "when the schools have all the money they need and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber." Not enough money for education? It's a myth. The truth is, public schools are rolling in money. If you divide the U.S. Department of Education's figure for total spending on K-12 education by the department's count of K-12 students, it works out to about $10,000 per student. Think about that! For a class of 25 kids, that's $250,000 per classroom. This doesn't include capital costs. Couldn't you do much better than government schools with $250,000? You could hire several good teachers; I doubt you'd hire many bureaucrats. Government schools, like most monopolies, squander money. America spends more on schooling than the vast majority of countries that outscore us on the international tests. But the bureaucrats still blame school failure on lack of funds, and demand more money. In 1985, some of them got their wish. Kansas City, Mo., judge Russell Clark said the city's predominately black schools were not "halfway decent," and he ordered the government to spend billions more. Did the billions improve test scores? Did they hire better teachers, provide better books? Did the students learn anything? Well, they learned how to waste lots of money. The bureaucrats renovated school buildings, adding enormous gyms, an Olympic swimming pool, a robotics lab, TV studios, a zoo, a planetarium, and a wildlife sanctuary. They added intense instruction in foreign languages. They spent so much money that when they decided to bring more white kids to the city's schools, they didn't have to resort to busing. Instead, they paid for 120 taxis. Taxis! What did spending billions more accomplish? The schools got worse. In 2000, five years and $2 billion later, the Kansas City school district failed 11 performance standards and lost its academic accreditation for the first time in the district's history. A study by two professors at the Hoover Institution a few years ago compared public and Catholic schools in three of New York City's five boroughs. Parochial education outperformed the nation's largest school system "in every instance," they found -- and it did it at less than half the cost per student.
"Everyone has been conned -- you can give public schools all the money in America, and it will not be enough," says Ben Chavis, a former public school principal who now runs the American Indian Charter School in Oakland, Calif. His school spends thousands less per student than Oakland's government-run schools spend.
Chavis saves money by having students help clean the grounds and set up for lunch. "We don't have a full-time janitor," he told me. "We don't have security guards. We don't have computers. We don't have a cafeteria staff." Since Chavis took over four years ago, his school has gone from being among the worst middle schools in Oakland to the one where the kids get the best test scores. "I see my school as a business," he said. "And my students are the shareholders. And the families are the shareholders. I have to provide them with something."
©2006 JFS Productions, Inc. Distributed by Creators Syndicate
I don't know if it's really a myth. The voters don't seem to agree in any event. It's more like a wish.
If the NEAhates you it is because you have hit right on target.
Let me ed-u-ma-cate dem young'uns. I learn'em plenny for that kind of dough...
or tuition tax credits
I don`t suppose you have a web site with stats, I`d like to bookmark it for future reference.
I'm a teacher, but I started the first 25 years of my adult life in the private sector. Stossel is absolutely on target. The money wasted in schools is astonishing. I could tell story after story about literal millions washed away without any impact at all on student achievement. Stossel understands that the main factors influencing student achievement, in any school, is a focused curriculum, polished lessons, hard work, dedicated teachers, and discipline in the classroom. None of those things require money. Let me add be a complete iconclast and say that my salary and benefits compared to the private sector are quite good. I work about 60 hours a week throughout the school year, and about 30 hours a week during the summer (again, a great schedule) - but if I was a slacker I could get away with much less. I do what I do because I give a damn about my students and my country. Sadly, as Stossel points out, the union that is supposed to represent me actually protects teachers who should have a bootprint on their behind after being kicked out the door.
The NEA destroying children - one classroom at a time.
The education can suffer, but they don't dare pull back spending on the football team!
The NEA indoctrinating young skulls full of mush into neoMarxism. Look into the history of The Frankfurt School for the plan from the mid-1900's.
That would be a major violation of union contracts in most big city public schools. And we're not even talking about teacher's unions here.
Get the government out of the control of education - keep their grubby mitts off the money and let parents do what's best. Will some be foolish - of course after all allot of people voted for Gore. In the long run parents who love their children will make wise decisions, children will be better educated and liberty will prevail.
I agree, but the most important part about getting an education is studying at home. The classroom is where the material is presented, but the material is learned by studying at home. Too many kids don't want to study when they get home, and all the money in the world will not fix that problem. Part of the problem is parents who do not do their part in making sure their kids are doing enough studying.
True, true, true, true.
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