Nothing like a little nuance on Sunday morn.
Myths are the worst possible of lies, The Big Lie, unless they point to the truth.
No amount of money can "fix" public schools at this point. More money means more of the same, only moreso.
Yes, they certainly do. However, they don't get a free-time "planning period" built into their day.
It's the Democrat solution to all problems. After much deep thought (sarc.) they arise and shout "Throw more money at it!" (and raise taxes to pay for it).
Would you say gee, I should have given him more money.....or would you say gee, I've been bent over?
That usually gets people thinking.
And its corollary: more money for schools equals better schools.
The correct conclusion, one unassailable on the facts, is that more money for schools equals more expensive schools. If the education improves with the additional expenditures, then it is arguable that the additional costs are worth it. But if the quality of education declines or remains constant while the cost increases, then the per-unit value of that education (the "efficiency" if you will) has decreased.
I'll leave it to you to decide whether the cost of education has increased, and whether the quality of education has risen correspondingly, remained static, or declined.
Salaries may be low, but total compensation is not. My mother was a grade-school teacher and complained that I made more right out of engineering school than she made after 25+ years of teaching. True, if you just looked at salaries, but she also (a) never paid into Social Security; (b) had a pension (which she is now drawing) worth 95% of her ending salary for the rest of her life, plus full medical. When I did the math and amortized her salary and all the bennies for a life expectancy of 80 years, she was pulling in ~$65K/year (I didn't even factor in the 3 month vacations).
There's nothing new here. The school establishment knows the real facts, and the public chooses to remain ignorant. Nothing to see, everybody move along ...
Sad thing is mama pig was an English and Typing teacher and I still have to use spell check, and can't type worth a dang:-)
In 1978 or so my wife and I came to know a young woman named Patty. She
was a devoutly religious young mother who'd become more devout when her
husband and father of her two small sons aged 2 and 6 informed her that he
was leaving. In dire economic straits, I offered to let her stay in our
former home in Chamblee -- which was not rented at the time rent-free until she got back on her feet. She had been clandestinely home schooling the 6 year
old for about 2 years using very well done Christian course materials from
an organization in Texas the name of which escapes me. The lad had recently been tested and had placed at least a year ABOVE his chronological age. As required by the government school authorities at the time, she dutifully apprised the authorities of his scores.
For reasons which would become clear in a moment, Patty had been harassed by the DeKalb County school authorities for about 6 months and, by the time she moved into the Chamblee house, had been -- unbeknownst to us -- ORDERED to put the 6 year old into the nearest government elementary school or suffer the consequences. Because she wanted the boys to be educated Christians, there was no way she was going to do that and she told them so.
At approximately 2 am one morning, a loud knock on the door announced the
arrival of the aforementioned "consequences."
Dressed only in a nightgown, she was confronted by several burly police officers who thrust an arrest warrant in her face. With the now awakened 6 year old watching and the 2 year old wailing in the other room, she was handcuffed and led out the door to jail. She was tossed into a large cell with a couple of hookers and a junkie who spent much of the rest of that morning vomiting in the corner. The two young boys for whom the educational authorities professed such great concern were just left AT THE HOUSE -- ALONE! Patty was later told that the bureaucrats from Children Services who were SUPPOSED to accompany the cops were late and, in their haste to get this dangerous miscreant behind bars, the cops just missed the fact that the Children Services people were, well, missing. The CS folks showed up an hour later to find two terrified kids, one of whom had just seen his mother hauled off in cuffs.
Patty was ultimately brought to trial under the Georgia Truancy Statutes. Her pro-bono attorney tore the school authorities to shreds and hers has been called THE case that opened the floodgates to home schooling in Georgia. Once they had all the facts, the jury didnt take long to acquit her. Im proud to have played a small part in that.
At Pattys trial, a previously overlooked aspect of the government schools was put into sharp focus for those paying attention: The Director of Instruction for DeKalb County testified that the then current 7 hour school day consisted of an average of approximately 3 hours or less of instruction. At that time, Patty was devoting 4 to 5 hours a day to direct instruction.
He also as much as admitted that the REAL reason they wanted ALL these kids in school was the $3,000.00 per kid per year (Im sure that number is higher in 2001!) they then got from the state and federal government. Empty seats = lost funds. As in most things, follow the money.
Patty home schooled these two boys through high school.
And how did the boys turn out?
One is now a physician and the other a budding journalist.
But that now seems to be the norm for the growing legions of home schooled kids which most likely explains why the NEA and the government school folks feel so threatened. For what its worth, a home schooled kid won the last National Spelling Bee.
Thomas Jefferson believed an EDUCATED PUBLIC to be the cornerstone of the system he and the other Founders TRIED to leave behind. He would NOT, I feel certain, be a big fan of the current government education system. If he returned today, hed home school his children just as he did before.
Dick Bachert
6-2001
I have no quarrel with the comments stated herein;however, there seems to be one major ingredient missing. LEARNING! To the best of my knowledge ( which I admit has not been updated in some time), NO ONE truly knows how a person learns. Yes there are many theories but NOT A SINGLE LAW. Seems to me that this is where the emphasis should be, finding out how people actually learn then one can direct the other aspects to ensuring such learning does occur.I think we blame teachers for students not learning when the teachers and those that govern education, themselves have no idea exactly what should be happening in the classroom.
What a old fashioned idea having pupils taught by people trained in the subject.
James McWhorter, "Winning the Race: Beyond the Crisis in Black America"
Said the same thing last night on CSPAN at an AEI event. Cited the Abbott schools in NJ as proof that more $ won't solve the problem. And he rebutted the common claim of the left that it's structural racism to blame. He emphaises, get this, culture! Go figure.
I'm very proud of strong black leaders who are transcending the decades of hyberbole and getting into real solutions. Too bad the MSM won't give them a voice and democrats feel the need to put asterisks next to their names.
bump for later reading
Bump!
Which still means that the voucher is about $6000. It the state is subsidizing private schools through vouchers to that extent then what is to stop them from demanding a say in curriculum, admissions policies, teacher credentials, and all the rest?
Vouchers and school choice are a start.