Posted on 12/10/2014 7:23:13 AM PST by Academiadotorg
For years, teachers’ unions, and the politicians they support, have been equating caring for children with public school funding. Apparently, parents do not agree.
The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) released a new report which recounted the results of a poll taken by the group Stand for Children which found that the main issues that parents are concerned about are strong teachers and principals, curriculum and standards, charter schools, pre-Kindergarten and early learning, and equity in education. The issues that are of lower concern to parents? School funding, it turns out, is number 10. Moreover, in the survey, “parents were given 15 different issues to choose from and could choose more than one option.
Stand for Children’s mission is, in part, to “Advocate for effective local, state and national education policies and investments.”
The AEI report also reveals that “under 50 percent of parents attended a PTA meeting, and about 16 percent served on a school committee,” and “Less than 10 percent of lower income parents served on a school committee.” Low-income parents who make less than $50,000 a year, also rarely attended more than five school events a year. Parents with incomes above this amount were more likely to do both.
(Excerpt) Read more at academia.org ...
They do in PA apparently. The argument that public schools were “underfunded” appear to have gotten Tom Corbett fired as Governor.
That and his obscene gasoline tax.
Sounds like, if we would just create a way to pay all of the parents over $50,000 per year, they would become more involved and solve all of the problems.
Bookmark
From my personal experience it is:
1) For the school district so they have funds for whatever they want, not whatever they need
2) For the teachers unions so they can get an annual payraise regardless of what the rest of the economic sectors see.
3) For the facilities particularly trendy things like learning centers, media rooms and computer labs.
I have never seen in my 16 years, funding specifically for textbooks or teaching media. I have never seen funding for new desks. But we do have some of the best looking non-productive school buildings in the state if not the country.
hmmm...
did Corbett actually make that argument?
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