Could not agree with you more Billybob. Let me give you my thoughts.... on education.
What I am about to write is for discussion. I don't even agree with all I will write in this post. And for the lurkers, John Armor (cyberCongressman BillyBob) hasn't a clue that I am going to post this. But it is a perspective on education that has occurred to me, and I am conflicted by it. A few years ago I worked on a major computer software project with several people educated in the old Soviet Union. They turned out to be very well educated people indeed. That did shake my certainty that socialist educational system could not work on a large scale. But it does seem clear our system is not working. Perhaps Socialism plus uncontrolled Unionism destroyed the effectiveness of our system. I just don't have a real pinpoint for the cause. This post is made hoping there may be a hint of value in my proposed solution. Think of what I write here as a lawyer arguing a case. It is being argued to the best of my ability. In any event here comes the argument.
Primary education in the USA has followed a socialist model. Everyone pays according to his means, and every child gets as much education as he needs. That is the way the system is designed. If you own the mansion and the factory you pay the big bucks for education but your children get the same education as any poor kid. It is indeed a socialist system.
Some may no doubt think that I am always opposed to socialism. But I am not. Families are socialist. Everyone contributes according to ability and every member gets what that member needs. Come to think of it my dang kids contributed next to nothing. I never did learn how to tell my daughters NO. But I would not have had it any other way. A family is a socialist institution.
With that said,let me take you back at least 150 years ago. It was the model then in effect all over the nation that led me to my consider this view. I will relate the instance I know best.
Joseph Malone purchased a few thousand acres of pretty worthless high hill land between Lunbeck road and England Hollow roads about 5 miles South of Chillicothe Ohio.. It was bought about 1808. It was not worth much... But it was for sale and Joe bought it. He cleared some land and raised crops and built a road across it. With typical Malone modesty Joe named his thoroughfare Malone Road. He sold some lots for folks to build homes. By 1840 he had made a few bucks by hook or crook. Some would say mostly by crook and the population had grown. He enlisted local families with the means to do so.. the Englands the Malones, and the Lunbecks... in constructing and operating a regular school. Joe put up the money for the building. It was one room brick structure that still stands. Joe once again modestly saw to it that it was named Malone School. The teachers were the single ladies of the England family. The Engands were a Virginia land grand family that tended to produce more girls than boys. The England girls were a rarity for the period. They were reputed to be beauties, very independentm, very bright and well educated. They made good teachers. One of the England daughters of a generation or so later married my Grandpa. The Lunbecks gave the land. It was still in operation in 1914 when my Dad graduated from the 6th grade. His Aunt Osie England was his teacher. That school had 8 grades and turned out educated children. My Mother attended Malone School and graduated from the 8th grade. The school was locally run by the people whose children attended. And no one would have even considered asking the poorer families to pay for the upkeep, the books, or the teacher's salary. The poor kids got the same education that every student got.
My point is at the local level with a local community in total control, socialist schools do work. But when we make them larger they fall apart. The families lose control. The "professionals" take control. When the get big enough they tend to operate for the benefit of the professionals not the students or the students parents.
When I was growing up the school system South of Chillicothe was pretty bad. They had new buildings and teachers but the quality was poor. Dad pulled every political string that could be pulled to get our township into the Chillicothe City School district. It broke our family apart. Dad's older brother was much opposed. he wanted to do what it took to make our rural district better. Dad did not want to wait. He wanted my sister and I to have a good education.
So our one little chunk of the rural district ended up in the Chillicothe District. My sister and I went to Jr High and High School in the big and better city school system.
When I returned to Chillicothe in 1995, after 30 years absence I was amazed to learn that over the last 30 years my Uncle, my cousins and now two of his sons have been very involved in that rural school district. I was amazed to learn that the rural school kids now get a very good education. Arguably better than the city. They citicens of that district had gone to great lengths to keep the district from merging. It is backwoods hill country and the kids come from mostly working class and some quite poor families. I can tell you the young people coming out of that school system are not going to be poor. There is a community of people determined that their children will have a better chance at success. There is peer pressure for kids to do well. The first time I went to the local church and saw the pretty teenage girls sitting with nerdy boys had me checking my glasses. I was born way too many years too soon.
Every member of that school board is committed to good education. Almost every parent knows every member of the School Board. Yes they have to live with the stupid rules and regulations of the state school board and the federal junk as well,but they cope and make good education happen. The kids are doing better than the 200 thousand dollar a year Superintendent of the City Schools has produced with more funds per student and a better teacher student ratio.
Can you tell me why the teacher administrator ratio is 6 to 1 and the student teacher ratio is 20 to 1? Doesn't compute does it.
My belief is that schools will improve if turned back to neighborhood control. A grade school of 7 class rooms, six grades, kindergarten, and 7 teachers is a lot easier for parents to influence than a 49 classroom school which is part of a 500 teacher 500 room school district.
I believe we should gradually make the schools smaller and more neighborhood oriented. Reverse the consolidation of small schools. I think the courts that consolidated districts in the name of racial equality doomed white and black youngsters to inferior education for all the decades since. Make them small neighborhood schools that answer to parents... especially for the first 8 grades.
Let me tell you something else that blew my mind when I studied it. Vouchers will not sell. They might work but proposing them will elect more Democrats than you can shake a stick at. You will not get them passed if the current Republican voters have any say. The party that tries to implement them will be destroyed.
I invite you to look at the returns when vouchers were on the ballot in Michigan. A state trending Republican trended right back to the Democrats when the Republicans tried to pass school vouchers with a state ballot initiative. Look at how the suburbs voted on vouchers and then the 2000 election returns.
A huge amount of the Republican base lives in the suburbs and pays the taxes to have the nice home and schools. The students in those schools are peers....social equals. The parents in those districts are for vouchers the way liberals are for alternate forms of electricity generation. They are all for it until you try to install it in their neighborhood. Then they don't want it. The last thing they want and the last thing they will tolerate is what they feel are problem kids coming in to "TAKE OVER" their school. Convene a dozen focus groups among registered Republicans and you will find out how to make them Registered Democrats in a heart beat.
Any attempt at fix the system while maintaining centralized control is very likely to fail. What ever the current think tank 5 year plan is.. I doubt it will work on a large scale socialist system.
Only in great danger can large scale socialism work. Stalin could build a world class army when Russia was at risk from German destruction.. But he could not build an effective industrial nation in the peace time that followed.
I often hear as an objection to the smaller is better argument that small poor inner-cities and small poor rural districts would produce terrible education if left to their own devices. While the rich districts would produce great education with small schools. The conventional wisdom is education can't be left to local control. But I do not believe that is true. The human desire to advance children is not destroyed even in the worst inner city or poorist of rural districts.
People will tell you that large districts are needed to buy computers and other high tech items. I counter by saying that for years Seymore Cray out designed all of IBM with his Cray Super Computers. Seymore designed them with pencil and paper. A court house is not needed to teach justice and you don't need fancy computers to teach technology. You need good teachers motivated to teach and students motivated to learn.
Some call for strong local control and state and federal financing. I can only say the old saying of "He who pays the piper calls the tune" has rarely proved to be wrong.
An educational fix was not included in my other post because there is not one I am sure will work. But John makes a good case, that the system we have now is very bad and getting worse and if congress does not try to fix it .. who will?
It does seem clear the bigger is better polices of the last 40 years have proved to be wrong. My bottom line at present is try something. If it does not work try something else. It is not clear that any serious proposed solution could make it worse.
I will close with this. Abraham Lincoln has a one room school elementary education and wrote "Four score and seven years ago our forefathers..... " And Bill Clinton with a Rhodes Scholarship on top of a college degree wrote "I did not have _____ with that woman, Miss Lewinski"
I rest my case.
Your central point, that very local control of schools is essential, is very Jeffersonian. He felt that all government decisions should be made at the lowest possible level, to keep politics within control of the people. You are applying that concept to education.
With respect,
John / Billybob
Just as most federal monies that enter people's lives get there through the states, states tax the people almost as much as the feds. It's time Congress represent the states again, and not just the national electorate. And it's time the states reconnect with their own citizens. Initiatives, referendums, and recalls, as well as the direct election of Senators, ironically, have cut the relationship of the people to their legislatures, federal and state. The result is congressitters beholden to national trends and local legislators hijacked by national interests. Federalism is supposed to work differently.
Every idea you have stated here, CT, would not only work better if executed together with local and federal reps, it would give the people more control over their government (and the interests that drive it in the absence of the people) and their government more responsibility to them.
Outside of general trends, state legislatures rarely represent the hometown people. And if or when they do, the people don't know it. I can't think of a single election in which my congressional rep. had anything to do with the state reps other than a shared party sign, rally, or line on a ticket. The association no longer has meaning beyong party affiliation. I never heard a common, or coherent message between them. Maybe there's a good reason for it, but I rather think that it's just no longer part of the vocabulary.
I'll be fascinated, I'm sure, John, by your proposals on this subject. I know it's not for now, but I'll look forward to it nonetheless.