The silence of the lambs: McMillan blasts bureaucrats for destroying public education

WorldNetDaily.com ^ | Thursday, August 15, 2002 | Craige McMillan

[JohnHuang2]

Thursday, August 15, 2002

Quote of the Day by Jhoffa

[Congressman Billybob]

Of necessity, one of the sections in my new book, "to Restore Trust in America," is on education. It's entitled, "Reforming Public Education." Many subjects are critical in the here and now. But only one is important, long range -- education.

Congressman Billybob

Click for latest column: "Good People, Naked People, People Who Are Wet and Wild."

Click for latest book: "to Restore Trust in America"

[Mr. Mulliner]

BTTT for a piece that hits the nail on the head. I just got a dose of this gross mismanagement two days ago when I was asked to come to the local school to translate for two Chinese students they had just registered who spoke no English. Yikes! I was dealing with no-nothing educrats whose goal was simply to get the kids to the right place at the right time with, apparently, no one looking at the bigger picture of what do you do with these two kids. I would have loved to talk to some of their teachers, but all I got was guidance counselors, such-and-such coordinators, etc. And this is one of the good school systems.

Don't get me started about the closed hiring the NEA has got into place. The best potential teachers, people with real-world experience and a genuine love for teaching and for young people, cannot get hired if they haven't done a cart-load of education courses and gotten their licenses. Here where I am they're crying out for ESL teachers and yet their policies don't allow them to consider people who have taught it for years if they haven't been licensed.

[madfly]

ping

[TxBec]

Great article bump!

[madfly]

bttt

[MileHi]

Most of these kids will never recover from their education "experience": They have instead been condemned to a lifetime of poverty, ignorance and vice

Frightening

[Vic3O3]

Thank God that Kansas homeschool requirements are VERY lienient. Seems all I will have to do is register as a homeschool, to make sure they don't declare my kid(s) truant. I've still got several years to go before this becomes a necessity!

[2Jedismom]

Interesting article. Reminds me that school will be starting soon and the kids will start knocking on the door, selling chocolates and magazine subscriptions to help their particular school. Every time I want to show them my tax statement! I spend more on their education than I do on my own child's!

Ping!

[grumpster-dumpster]

I believe this to be one of the finest articles ever posted on FR. (Well, since I've been lurking anyway..).

Thanks for posting it!

[Tribune7]

ping

[Temple Owl]

A great post. Simple arithmetic: The teachers' union plus public schools equals the democratic party. Vouchers will go a long way to solving the problem.

[Temple Owl]

thanks for the ping.

[Tribune7]

You're welcome. Bump

[goodieD]

BUMP for the truth!

[sparkydragon]

I'm not sure vouchers will help all that much. Vouchers will be competing for tax dollars just like public schools. The money they receive wasn't "hard earned" by the parents of the children they are educating, it was a free ticket. Most of these failing schools are in neighborhoods where the parents didn't qualify for the $300 tax check. Here in Texas parents who have gotten vouchers report higher approval of their voucher schools, but the students aren't testing any better than public schools.

I still support choice, but just because one is given a choice doesn't mean the new alternative is any better than the old one. If parents can afford to send their kids to the school of their choice via vouchers why should homeschooling be permitted?

sparky

[Temple Owl]

I'm a supporter of vouchers, which means giving parents – rather than usually disinterested bureaucrats -- control of the tax dollars used to educate this country's children.

What I have tried but generally failed to do, is point out the true benefits of this policy – taken to its maximum --for those who actually teach.

A class of 25-- assuming it spends $8,500 per pupil -- costs a school district about $212,000. The teacher gets about $65,000 with another $20,000 in benefits.

Add $10,000 per year for rent and utilities (that's high,) and $10,000 a year for textbooks and classroom supplies (that's way high.) Now give each kid a computer -- an expense I'll put at $25,000 (also high.)

So now we're spending $130,000 on our class of 25.

So, what do we do with what's left over? Let's split the difference between the teacher and the taxpayer. Our teacher is now making $106,000 plus benefits for the same hours and the taxpayers – most of whom are not rich -- are saving $41,000 per classroom. Very roughly this would be would be about $6 million per year for a typical school district,

So the teachers gain. The senior citizens gain. The losers are the NEA and the unnecessary assistant principals, and all the other non-teachers

The loudest and strongest opponent to school vouchers are liberal democrats and the NEA. That should tell us something right off--that the vouchers are the way to go.

[On the Road to Serfdom]

If parents can afford to send their kids to the school of their choice via vouchers why should homeschooling be permitted?

Are you serious?

[sparkydragon]

Quite serious, but possibly not the way you think.

Just because I support choice does not mean I think choice programs will be implemented perfectly. I fear the the guise of governmentally acceptable choice, i.e. vouchers, will be used to ban governmentally unacceptable choice, i.e. homeschooling. Because you have the choice to have you child educated in you fundamental Christian school, that must accept regulation in order to recieve tax dollars, why should they allow you to be completely unregulated? How could they then ensure that there is "no child left behind?"

When jr. is old enough I will homeschool. I live in Texas, one of the better states to homeschool in. But I see the cloud of heavy regulation in other states. If it acceptable there, what is to stop it from being acceptable here? "Its for the children," after all. Just like all of the limits on choice the NEA would propose is "for the children."

[sparkydragon]

In general I agree with you. However I am not willing to suppose that just because, or even primarily because the people who want total control are against it makes it the best way to go. As I replied to On the Road to Serfdom I fear it will be a starting point to government regulation of the chartered schools and the ban of other forms of educational choice, such as homeschool. And you only give parents limited control. I have heard of no program that gives parents a check to use for education. You aren't given money, you're given a voucher. Kind of like WIC, you are given a piece of paper that says you may spend no more that $X on approved items. You can't use it to buy books to homeschool with, and you can't use it to go to any school with, just accepted ones. In most cases it is a false choice. If they would give parents real control of the money I would be the first to sign up, but, while it can be a good solution, there is too much fine print to call it the best solution.