We're 65% Of The Way
Today's USA Today carried a front page piece on a movement sweeping through the states in which states are attempting to force education departments to spend at least 65% of the budget for those school systems in the classroom. Several states have implemented it or are putting the issue on the ballot for the next election. Here's a bit of background from the text of the article:
The campaign, officially called First Class Education, is a quiet effort from Republican political consultant Tim Mooney and his pal Patrick Byrne, founder of the discount shopping website Overstock.com. For the past year, they've barnstormed the country, seeking to persuade governors and state legislators to back the idea.
They came up with 65% by looking at the top-performing states on federal skills tests and saw that they spend, on average, a little over 64% of school operating budgets in the classroom; those at the bottom spend as little as 49%.
Doesn't sound like a bad idea, right?
Well, you'd think so, until the teacher's unions and various school groups got involved. The general arguments from that side of the schoolroom are equally varied and poor. They have first accused lawmakers of wanting to micromanage how they spend their school dollars. Well, that argument might hold some water if schools hadn't done such an amazingly wretched job in many parts of the country thus far. Obviously, their failure to manage the money effectively, even in the face of massive increases in education spending, shows that someone else needs to get involved.
Should it be the Feds? Oh most decidedly not, but the local and state governments absolutely should get involved. This is the nature of "public" schools. You can't seriously expect all of us to pay property tax and float bonds for all these schools and all these curricula and continue to let the likes of teacher's unions, education lobbyists, and school bureaucracies continue to decide how that money is spent. The past 40 years have shown this to be a failure of Herculean proportions. Your time is up guys. Sorry.
Another argument is that no account is given to the myriad other items a modern school needs to function. There's "counselors, librarians, nurses, bus drivers, and others". I always loved the "and others" part. Here's the sad reality of that. These groups are saying that in such instances, auxillary personnel can't be paid with over a third of the budget. Setting aside that in and of itself that shows a huge sickness in the system, they basically prove their own point.
Private schools have existed for centuries using only a small portion of the budget for such auxillary personnel and one could argue many of those people are completely unneeded. Counselors for example could easily go the way of the dodo. Schools miraculously got on for generations without them and funny enough have suffered since their regular introduction and inclusion. Add into the mix that they are often the front line in testing the latest new pet social theory on our kids, and I really think they and their line item in the budgets need to go.
Librarians are not a significant drain on the budget. I know, I've seen their salaries. Same with bus drivers. Nurses are usually one of the biggest expenses and even that could easily be absorbed by the remaining 35%.
Let's not kid ourselves. The majority of the money that should be going to teachers and classrooms in public schools is going to a bloated education bureaucracy and to "social programs" that have absolutely zero to do with teaching children the basic skills they need to get by in society. Actually educating children has taken a back seat to using them as little social laboratories and permanent civil jobs for administrators. Those sections of the budget have become massively overblown precisely because we have allowed school boards, teacher's unions and the like to control where the money is spent. I think it's time for a fresh hand at this.
If anything, 65% doesn't go near far enough, but...baby steps.
Today's USA Today carried a front page piece on a movement sweeping through the states in which states are attempting to force education departments to spend at least 65% of the budget for those school systems in the classroom. Several states have implemented it or are putting the issue on the ballot for the next election. Here's a bit of background from the text of the article:
The campaign, officially called First Class Education, is a quiet effort from Republican political consultant Tim Mooney and his pal Patrick Byrne, founder of the discount shopping website Overstock.com. For the past year, they've barnstormed the country, seeking to persuade governors and state legislators to back the idea.
They came up with 65% by looking at the top-performing states on federal skills tests and saw that they spend, on average, a little over 64% of school operating budgets in the classroom; those at the bottom spend as little as 49%.
Doesn't sound like a bad idea, right?
Well, you'd think so, until the teacher's unions and various school groups got involved. The general arguments from that side of the schoolroom are equally varied and poor. They have first accused lawmakers of wanting to micromanage how they spend their school dollars. Well, that argument might hold some water if schools hadn't done such an amazingly wretched job in many parts of the country thus far. Obviously, their failure to manage the money effectively, even in the face of massive increases in education spending, shows that someone else needs to get involved.
Should it be the Feds? Oh most decidedly not, but the local and state governments absolutely should get involved. This is the nature of "public" schools. You can't seriously expect all of us to pay property tax and float bonds for all these schools and all these curricula and continue to let the likes of teacher's unions, education lobbyists, and school bureaucracies continue to decide how that money is spent. The past 40 years have shown this to be a failure of Herculean proportions. Your time is up guys. Sorry.
Another argument is that no account is given to the myriad other items a modern school needs to function. There's "counselors, librarians, nurses, bus drivers, and others". I always loved the "and others" part. Here's the sad reality of that. These groups are saying that in such instances, auxillary personnel can't be paid with over a third of the budget. Setting aside that in and of itself that shows a huge sickness in the system, they basically prove their own point.
Private schools have existed for centuries using only a small portion of the budget for such auxillary personnel and one could argue many of those people are completely unneeded. Counselors for example could easily go the way of the dodo. Schools miraculously got on for generations without them and funny enough have suffered since their regular introduction and inclusion. Add into the mix that they are often the front line in testing the latest new pet social theory on our kids, and I really think they and their line item in the budgets need to go.
Librarians are not a significant drain on the budget. I know, I've seen their salaries. Same with bus drivers. Nurses are usually one of the biggest expenses and even that could easily be absorbed by the remaining 35%.
Let's not kid ourselves. The majority of the money that should be going to teachers and classrooms in public schools is going to a bloated education bureaucracy and to "social programs" that have absolutely zero to do with teaching children the basic skills they need to get by in society. Actually educating children has taken a back seat to using them as little social laboratories and permanent civil jobs for administrators. Those sections of the budget have become massively overblown precisely because we have allowed school boards, teacher's unions and the like to control where the money is spent. I think it's time for a fresh hand at this.
If anything, 65% doesn't go near far enough, but...baby steps.
posted by Rob Beck | 6:34 PM
1 Comments:
Thanks, man. You are right. Baby steps.
Patrick
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