Do away with public schools

[Lyion]

Do Away With Public Schools
By Jonah Goldberg
Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Here's a good question for you: Why have public schools at all?

OK, cue the marching music. We need public schools because blah blah blah and yada yada yada. We could say blah is common culture and yada is the government's interest in promoting the general welfare. Or that children are the future. And a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Because we can't leave any child behind.

The problem with all these bromides is that they leave out the simple fact that one of the surest ways to leave a kid "behind" is to hand him over to the government. Americans want universal education, just as they want universally safe food. But nobody believes that the government should run nearly all of the restaurants, farms and supermarkets. Why should it run the vast majority of the schools - particularly when it gets terrible results?

Consider Washington, home of the nation's most devoted government-lovers and, ironically, the city with arguably the worst public schools in the country. Out of the 100 largest school districts, according to the Washington Post, D.C. ranks third in spending for each pupil ($12,979) but last in spending on instruction. Fifty-six cents out of every dollar go to administrators who, it's no secret, do a miserable job administrating, even though D.C. schools have been in a state of "reform" for nearly 40 years.

In a blistering series, the Post has documented how badly the bureaucrats have run public education. More than half of the District of Columbia's teenage kids spend their days in "persistently dangerous" schools, with an average of nine violent incidents a day in a system with 135 schools. "Principals reporting dangerous conditions or urgently needed repairs in their buildings wait, on average, 379 days ... for the problems to be fixed," according to the Post. But hey, at least the kids are getting a lousy education. A mere 19 schools managed to get "proficient" scores or better for a majority of students on the district's Comprehensive Assessment Test.

A standard response to such criticisms is to say we don't spend enough on public education. But if money were the solution, wouldn't the district, which spends nearly $13,000 on every kid, rank near the top? If you think more money will fix the schools, make your checks out to "cash" and send them to me.

Private, parochial and charter schools get better results. Parents know this. Applications for vouchers in the district dwarf the available supply, and home schooling has exploded.

As for schools teaching kids about the common culture and all that, as a conservative I couldn't agree more. But is there evidence that public schools are better at it? The results of the 2006 National Assessment of Educational Progress history and civics exams showed that two-thirds of U.S. high school seniors couldn't identify the significance of a photo of a theater with a sign reading "Colored Entrance." And keep in mind, political correctness pretty much guarantees that Jim Crow and the civil rights movement are included in syllabi. Imagine how few kids can intelligently discuss Manifest Destiny or free silver.

Right now, there's a renewed debate about providing "universal" health insurance. For some liberals, this simply means replicating the public school model for health care. (Stop laughing.) But for others, this means mandating that everyone have health insurance - just as we mandate that all drivers have car insurance - and then throwing tax dollars at poorer folks to make sure no one falls through the cracks.

There's a consensus in America that every child should get an education, but as David Gelernter noted recently in the Weekly Standard, there's no such consensus that public schools need to do the educating.

Really, what would be so terrible about government mandating that every kid has to go to school, and providing subsidies and oversight when necessary, but then getting out of the way?

Milton Friedman noted long ago that the government is bad at providing services - that's why he wanted public schools to be called "government schools" - but that it's good at writing checks. So why not cut checks to people so they can send their kids to school?

What about the good public schools? Well, the reason good public schools are good has nothing to do with government's special expertise and everything to do with the fact that parents care enough to ensure their kids get a good education. That wouldn't change if the government got out of the school business. What would change is that fewer kids would get left behind.

[Naethyn]

I've done both and in my experience public schools are by far superior.

[10sun]

I went to a private elementary school for a while, the coursework we covered there wasn't covered for another 3 years in the public schools...

I hate to pull a Garg, but I am taking coursework in this very subject (Sociology & Education 320) pretty soon here & I am very interested in seeing how things turn out.

[Ginzburgh]

It is true that private schools offer alot more academically than public schools. Things private school kids were learning in sophomore year of high school we were learning in Senior year. It's all what you make of it though. We had plenty of kids go to Ivy league schools from my public high school.

Teaching doesn't stop with teachers either, parents are allowed to contribute as well...

[10sun]

I went to the private school because my mother was teaching there & thus I got free tuition.

I will say that sports were not big there though... most of the people there had no idea how to play kickball at recess =(

[Martrae]

Teaching doesn't stop with teachers either, parents are allowed to contribute as well...

That's the kicker though. Most families can't get by on one income and so are left with very little time to teach their kids anything.

The argument could be made that if you aren't willing to make some sacrifices for your children then you shouldn't have them, but that's not always practical.

[Darcler]

Gid went to private boy's schools from middle school on (I believe.) His was probably just about equal to my public school education.
However, his was kinda sports oriented. He did every sport under the sun, so I think they let him slide in his studies. Just a guess, but yeah.

[Arlos]

The idiocy of his analogy at the beginning of the article makes me disregard the entire thing, because obviously he's incapable of reason, or is attempting to snow people. Wanting universal safe food in no way relates to having government run restaurants. It DOES relate to having food safety standards that GOVERNMENT inspectors watch, both at the production end and at via health inspectors at restaurants. The effectiveness of their efforts can be seen in the ridiculously low incidence of deaths by food poisoning in this country, and the speed at which they react to actual problems, like with the recent spinach incidents.

So yes, the government does an excellent job making sure we all have safe food. His attempted snow job of the fact that government does not necessarily equal crappy or inefficient taints his entire article, making it pointless to pursue.

-Arlos

[Eziekial]

That or you just are looking for a red herring to jump on in an attempt to disregard the entire debate rather than take it on principle. Tough call

You know it's hard for a lot of people to come to grips with the current state of our schools. Most like to cry about lack of scientific evidence in alternative programs or that we need the State to keep some form of "equality" in education. Heaven forbid if we allowed smart kids to get far ahead of the stupid ones and create some social imbalance. God help us if we develop deltas in education in this country. I mean, what would that lead to? An "elite" group of super smarties and a bunch of stupid people right? That would just PAVE the way for some sort of utilitarian culture where a few would be provided wisdom and move into positions of power. Can you imagine such a God forsaken world when only a tiny fraction of the population has access to notable institutions of education and the majority are left to squable over the remnants? Seriously, how horrid would that look if our leaders were all cut from the same educational clothe? Imagine how narrow minded our future would be if we allowed a single institution to rule over all levels education.... oh wait

[Arlos]

*sigh* I have discussed my experiences in 2 excellent gifted programs many times here. In no way in those two cases were people forced to work at the same speed or at the same level. As I have said repeatedly, by the time my family left Phoenix when I was halfway through 2nd grade, I had already completed the entire reading/english curriculum up through the end of 6th grade. Does that sound to you like I was being held back and forced to work at the pace of the slow kids?

On the other hand, the public school system in Kansas was absolutely atrocious. There they DID try and mold kids into identical little drones, and forced everyone to work at the speed of the slowest kids. That's where we went to when we left Arizona, and I went from being ready to do 7th grade english classes to being stuck doing See Spot Run.

The thing is, the idea of throwing out the entire system because some components of it have flaws is ridiculous. It does *NOT* necessarily follow that just because the government runs something that it is doomed to failure. I could go on, but what's the point, you people aren't interested in listening to reason anyway. Your mind is made up, facts just confuse you.

-Arlos

[Eziekial]

Your "experience" proves my point. 50% crap education "absolutely atrocious" and we've been tweeking it since the start. You simply can't admit that it's a broken system the needs overhaul.

[Arlos]

Ahhhh, but there's a HUGE difference between overhauling a system by looking at what does work and trying to fix things than abandoning the entire system altogether. I'm all for working on fixing the system, and examinign what does and doesn't work. Obviously, in the case of DC, far too high a percentage of the money is being spent on overhead and bureaucrats, much more of it needs to go to the students. That's just one example, though. As for Kansas, given their recent Board of Education idiocy where they so ably demonstrated that they have drooling mongoloids running the system, with "leadership" like that at the top, is it any wonder the rest of their system is shit?

Oh, and my entire time wasn't crap. Arizona had a EXCELLENT system, and when we left Kansas and came to California, the schools I was in here weren't bad either. Not as good as Phoenix, but infinitely better than Kansas. As an example I gave before, in 5th grade they bussed the gifted kids 3 times a week to the local junior high to teach us BASIC programming. This is in 1980, mind you, when personal computers were still pretty cutting edge, and here they are training 10 year olds in how not only to use them, but program them. That sound like "crap" to you?

-Arlos

[Eziekial]

No and it's nice to hear someone got their money's worth from the system for a change. What's wrong with some competition? If everyone (and if you can find a creditable source that shows otherwise please post it) has concluded that our current education system is falling behind the rest of the world; why not shake things up a bit. Why is there such open hostility to a voucher system? Impliment a voucher system, fund it for 5 years and track the results. If it fails, it fails and we move on with the next best idea whatever that may be.

Florida had a pilot program for a couple years (3 I think) and gave out something like 500 vouchers. It was showing great signs and those kids enrolled in it had improved (granted, they may have had nowhere to go but up at that point, the schools here really suck) but it was scrapped under pressure from the teachers union. Honestly, they've proven where their loyalty is and it's not with the children.

[Gargamellow]

socialization and conformity are the only reason this society doesn't collapse in chaos

duh

[Ginzburgh]

Just learn those two words this week Garg?

[Eziekial]

Recent article from the Economist. I would link it but not everyone is a subscriber.

Pro-choice

Jun 7th 2007 | NEW YORK
From The Economist print edition
New Jersey has become the new front in the fight for school vouchers

IN THE gruelling battle over how to improve America's schools, no reform faces greater resistance than school vouchers—the idea that parents should have a portable chunk of money to spend on their child's education at any school they want.

Teachers' unions and their allies are adept at quashing voucher bills whenever they come before state legislatures. They argue that public schools will be undermined if parents can use taxpayers' money to send their children elsewhere. If by miracle a voucher bill does get passed into law, it is almost always challenged. For instance, Utah has just become the first state to approve a universal voucher programme, but opponents have organised a statewide referendum to scrap it.

Now some supporters of school vouchers, frustrated with state legislators, are testing a new tactic: going to court. Last July a group of parents in New Jersey filed a lawsuit against the state and 25 poorly performing districts. In Crawford v Davy they are arguing that since public schools deny students their constitutional right to a proper education, the court should refund their money so they can spend it at any school they choose. This is not the first attempt to use courts to permit the use of vouchers: similar efforts failed in Illinois and California, for example. But in New Jersey, such a suit might actually succeed. New Jersey's courts have no qualms about meddling in education—they have been doing so for decades.

In 1973 the New Jersey Supreme Court said the government was failing to provide poor children with the “thorough and efficient” education guaranteed by the state constitution, and that the school-funding formula must change. Since a 1985 case, Abbott v Burke, the court has issued rulings laying out its remedy in detail: the state must send more money to poor school-districts, so that their budgets match those of the state's highest-spending areas.

Courts across America have seen plaintiffs ask for more school aid. But no judges have responded as zealously as those in New Jersey. Since 1985 the state's Supreme Court has been deep in policymaking, demanding money for everything from school construction to summer courses. As a result, spending has rocketed in the 31 so-called “Abbott” districts. The teachers' union says the cash is helping schools to improve; some parents say they are not improving fast enough. In Newark, which spends the most, 61% of the 11th-graders failed to achieve even basic proficiency in maths in 2005.

Ironically, it is this intervention that has attracted free-market pro-voucher reformers. To Clint Bolick, of the Phoenix-based Alliance for School Choice, New Jersey looked like fertile ground for a further lawsuit. The alliance teamed up with three local organisations, Excellent Education for Everyone (E3), the Black Ministers' Council and the Latino Leadership Alliance, to support Crawford.

The suit, filed by the parents of 12 children in failing schools, argues that the state is indeed denying children a proper education, but that the Abbott solution is wrong. Rather than pump more money into a failing system and hope it improves, the suit reasons, the court should let taxpayers take their money elsewhere, be it to private schools or public schools in another town.

The defendants argue that Crawford should be thrown out because courts should not write school policy. This argument hardly rings true in New Jersey, though, given the state's history of judicial activism. The case is likely to end up in the state's Supreme Court.

In the meantime, Dan Gaby, the director of E3, hopes Crawford will encourage plans to boost competition among schools. The state's legislature is considering creating a tax credit for companies that donate to scholarship programmes. In a poll taken in New Jersey last July, 74% of respondents approved of the tax credit. Vouchers were more controversial, favoured by a slim majority. Support was higher, however, among minorities. “Everyone in America has school choice,” Mr Gaby explains, “unless you're poor.”