Posted on 09/15/2010 5:29:30 AM PDT by Kaslin
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan recently claimed: "Districts around the country have literally been cutting for five, six, seven years in a row. And, many of them, you know, are through, you know, fat, through flesh and into bone ... ."
Really? They cut spending five to seven consecutive years?
Give me a break!
Andrew Coulson, director of the Cato Institute's Center for Educational Freedom, writes that out of 14,000 school districts in the United States, just seven have cut their budgets seven years in a row. How about five years in a row? Just 87. That's a fraction of 1 percent in each case.
Duncan may be pandering to his constituency, or he may actually be fooled by how school districts (and other government agencies) talk about budget cuts. When normal people hear about a budget cut, we assume the amount of money to be spent is less than the previous year's allocation. But that's not what bureaucrats mean.
"They are notcomparing current year spending to the previous year's spending," Coulson writes. "What they're doing is comparing the approved current year budget to the budget that they initially dreamed about having."
So if a district got more money than last year but less than it asked for, the administrators consider it a cut. "Back in the real world, a K-12 public education costs four times as much as it did in 1970, adjusting for inflation: $150,000 versus the $38,000 it cost four decades ago (in constant 2009 dollars)," Coulson says.
Taxpayers need to understand this sort thing just to protect themselves from greedy government officials and teachers unions.
It was on the basis of this fear and ignorance that President Obama got Congress to pass a "stimulus" bill this summer that included $10 billion for school districts. The money is needed desperately to save teachers from layoffs, the bill's advocates said. We must do it for the children! When you look at the facts, the scam is clear.
"Over the past 40 years," Coulson writes, "public school employment has risen 10 times faster than enrollment. There are 9 percent more students today, but nearly twice as many public school employees."
But isn't it just common sense that schools would be better if they had more money? As a wise man said, it's not what we don't know that gets us into trouble; it's what we know that isn't so.
Consider the American Indian Public Charter School in Oakland, Calif. It was once a failing school, but now it's one of the best in California. Ben Chavis turned it around without any additional money. His book, "Crazy Like a Fox," tells how.
He and Coulson will be guests on my FBN show tomorrow.
Chavis' experience exposes the school establishment's lies for what they are. Nearly all of Chavis' students are considered economically disadvantaged (98 percent qualify for free lunches), yet they have the fourth-highest test scores of any school in the state.
"In Oakland this year, on the AP (advanced placement) exam, we had 100 percent of all the blacks and Mexicans in the city of Oakland who passed AP calculus," Chavis said. "There are four high schools, and we're the only ones who had anyone pass AP calc."
Yet Chavis accomplishes this without the "certified" teachers so revered by the educational establishment. His classes are as big as, and sometimes bigger than, public school classes, but only a quarter of his teachers are certified by the state.
Money, he insists, is not the answer. "My buildings are shacks compared to their schools, but my schools are clean, and we'll kick all their asses."
He scoffs at the establishment's solutions to the education problem, such as teacher evaluations.
"I don't do no teacher evaluations. All I do is go into a class, and if the kids ain't working, your ass is fired. (Most principals) sit for hours and say, 'Is he meeting this goal, is he meeting' -- I just go to class, and if the kids are not working ..."
It's time we threw out the "experts" and exposed the schools to real competition by people with common sense.
Arne Duncan = One dumbarse SOB.
More Idiots and Idiocy.
Money is not going to fix a problem when the problem is teachers who are seeking more pay rather than the betterment of their students and the seriously flawed and fraked up teaching to test BS.
Here is a clue :
No matter how much money you give the tax-funded, union run government schools it will never, ever be enough.
The government school is better understood as the Bus Ministry of the State Church of Humanism, because that is the point of view they teach in all things requiring a moral compass.
The “School District” is better understood by the name Marx, the prinicpal contributor to the concept, gave it: The School Collective.
Q: What do you get when you spend more money on schools?
A: More expensive schools.
Abolish the Dept of Ed.
Things are soooo watered down in the public schools that it is ridiculous. Worse yet, the STANDARDS are LOWER each each. Kids are given CALCULATORS in kindergarten. No kidding! This is t reach the child’s “learning style”. What they need to do is THROW OUT THE NEW DUMBED DOWN BOOKS. Get OLD books that actually expose the kids to KNOWLEDGE. Strip out the politically correct propaganda and touch feeley CRAP and respect the INDIVIDUAL. END the cog on a wheel - GROUP THINK, “collaborative learning” bull.
There is no substitute. Not money, not nanny-state big government; nothing. Point of fact, that's what the whole country needs, not just schools.
I like this man.
"Schools," as an institution or concept, have no needs. The students have needs - mainly the need to be taught how to read, write, and do math. It's much harder to do this when the students are from a debased and anti-intellectual culture, but it's not impossible. Correctly identifying the goal is a start.
It was just announced that performance results of districts all over the state were released, and a "passing score" is a 9 out of 14. Four neighboring districts scored 14 out of 14. KCMO scored 4 out of 14, failing yet again.
Mark
Parents that care, the key. Parents that care.
My business partner's wife is a school teacher and she says this is the biggest impediment to her job. Some people will engage their hairdresser and nail stylist more than their children's teachers.
School systems need their budgets cut by 80% so they can learn to teach instead of being all about more and more money and less and less about education.
I’ve been reading laments about the supposed “lack” of funding for schools by the education “experts” for decades. There is never enough money spent on schools and students according to these geniuses. But not once have they ever proven a correlation between school spending and student performance. A new swimming pool will not encourage students to study. Someone standing over them with the threat to punish them if they don’t study hard is the only that works for a great percentage of students. It’s called discipline.
BTTT!
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