From: elg@elgamy.sccsi.com (Eric Lee Green)
Date: 19 Aug 92 16:38:10 CDT
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.elections,alt.politics.marrou,alt.politics.bush,misc.education
Subject: Re: US Public Schools: Get Rid of All the Bureaucrats!
Distribution: world
Organization: Eric's Amiga 2000 @ Home

From article <1992Aug18.174828.18134@fid.morgan.com>, by joec@fid.morgan.com (Joe Collins):
> In article <l9050rINNm9m@spim.mips.com> mpolen@gelato.mips.com (Michael Polen) writes:
>>In article <1992Aug17.202017.17578@fid.morgan.com>, joec@fid.morgan.com (Joe Collins) writes:
>>|> >In article <1992Aug6.013932.29133@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:
>>|> >  My solution to the US public schools' problems:
>>|> >  Get rid of all the bureaucrats!
>>|> I agree 100%

And I agree 120%.

Unfortunately, it is an uncomfortable fact of life that federal law
MANDATES bureaucrats. I teach in a behavior center. Federal law mandates
tons of paperwork in order to get the meager funds that the Feds will
release for our operation (funds, I might add, which don't come anywhere
near covering our costs -- other students suffer because of these
federally-mandated expenditures). Federal law mandates an assessment
and evaluation bureaucracy. Federal law pretty much mandates a special
education bureaucracy, which must carefully scrutinize teaching materials
and teacher activities in order to assure that we won't get sued in Federal
court by a disgruntled parent (which happens several times a year, anyhow).

I agree with the sentiment behind the Education for All Handicapped Act,
but the actual implementation, as dictated by the courts and by the
U.S. Department of Education, is a nightmare.

>>|> US Public schools have FAR more administrators than private/independent
>>|> schools. But US public schools do a much worse job of educating America's
>>|> kids.

I am a product of private/independent schools. I am currently teaching in
the public schools. What I am finding is that kids in the public schools
get just as good of an education as I did in the private schools -- *IF*
their parents take the time and trouble to care about their education.
Unfortunately, most parents don't. They drop the kid off at the front door,
and say "Here, he's your responsibility now, don't bother me." Most parents
won't even show up for parent-teacher conferences -- even when the teacher
specifically called the parent and set up an exact time and place.

Most private schools that I've encountered would kick the kid out if the
parents didn't show up for the REQUIRED meetings. The public schools aren't
allowed to do that.

>>|> We outspend the Japanese by 2-to-1 on money spent per student, yet their
>>|> students are far more educated than ours.
>>|> On an international basis, we rank last among 13 nations in math/science.
>
>>|> Its time do do something - I support school choice.
>>|>
>>Interesting.  The Japanese don't agree with you.
>
> What makes you say that?

The Japanese OPPOSE school choice in the Japanese school system. They run a
very centralized school system, and want to keep it that way. It works, for
them. That's what they care about.

The Japanese also oppose educating special needs children in their
classrooms. You do not see handicapped people in Japan. They are kept in
shame in back rooms and basements all across the land. Here in the U.S.,
federal law says that these kids must be educated, and must be educated in
the least restrictive environment possible. This is expensive.

Clinton brought up something interesting -- most educational comparisons
include *ALL* educational spending, including spending on higher education.
When you just compare K-12 spending, U.S. spending isn't much more than
Japanese spending, and is much less than most European countries spend --
especially when you consider that special education is as much as 20% of
many school system budgets. The Japanese schools don't spend any money on
special education.

> I obtained the above information from various sources including:
> NY Times (Sept 91), US News and World Report (fall '91), Newsweek (various
> issues), Wall Street Journal (various issues).

I find that most statistics reported in the lay media are grossly
misinterpreted both by the reporters (who think they're saying something
that the original scientific report didn't say at all), and by ordinary
people who read these statistics. You may wish to go back a step closer to
original sources, by looking at things like, e.g., the _Digest of
Educational Statistics_. Of course, the only real way to know what a
statistic means is to go back and look at the original sources...

> The SAT board puts out annual reports showing how US students do,
> organized in various ways. MY reading shows that good predictors
> of student achievement include the following:
>  1-Parental Education level
>  2-Parental Involvement
>  3-Asian descent
>  4-Household income
>
> Bad predictors include money spent on education, student/teacher ratio,
>  # of Administrators, etc

"Money spent on education" is not a good predictor. As you mention,
much of that goes to administrators or into ornate administration
buildings. "Money that reaches the classroom" is a very good predictor
indeed. No teacher can teach without adequate supplies and materials.

What I found, during my career as a student in private schools, is that
these schools generally had plenty of money getting to the classrooms --
but it was generally in the form of donations of time, materials, and
equipment, rather than as direct funds.

This is an argument for teacher control of schools and school funding,
which would need to go hand-in-hand with school choice in order to be fully
functional. (School choice as in "public school choice").

> If I recall correctly, Private schools (i.e. Catholic) send 85% of their
> students onto College but do it with far less overhead. For example,

I went to a Catholic high school. You needed to score in the 85th
percentile of the PSAT in order to qualify for admission. My classmates
were from upper-middle-income families with high aspirations. Those kids
would have gone on to college no matter what school they went to.

I also went to a public high school for a year. I was in the "honors"
classes. 85% of the students in those honors classes went on to college.

Wonders of wonders, eh? The public schools as effective with the same
students as the private schools are?

But, I find that to be true everywhere, now that I have a "bigger picture".
There are families and kids who will succeed -- and both private and public
schools do about as well with those kids. The other kids, well, they don't
go to private schools.

> In Washington DC, there is one adminstrator for every 54 kids in their
> public schools. In the Catholic schools in the same city, there is
> one administrator for every 2500 kids.

This, in my opinion, is a disaster. No school system needs that many
administrators.

> I think about 45-48% of public schools kids go onto College, nationwide.

60% of students nationwide go on to some form of post-secondary education
(don't know specifically which percentage goes to college). Given that
private school enrollment is a tiny percentage of what public school
enrollment is, I'd suspect that nationwide well over 50% of students go on
to college -- which is a percentage which surpasses that of any other
nation on this entire planet.

> The best schools are independent schools (i.e. neither public or religious).
> They send close to 99% of their students onto College.

They also spend an average of $15,000/year on each pupil, and will only
enroll pupils who score in the 90th percentile of standardized tests. In
other words, *NOT* the typical student.

> > Interestingly, public school teachers make significantly more (on average)
> than non-public schools teachers.

True. Not because teacher salaries of public school teachers have risen a
whole lot, though. Over the past twenty years, average salaries (in real
terms) for the average American wage-earner rose by 12%. Over that same
time-period, average teacher salaries, in real terms, rose by 4%.

Personally, I'd love to teach in a private school. There is a private
school that'd love to hire me, too. I cannot, unfortunately, afford to
teach in a private school. If you say to the public schools that they must
decrease their salaries, what you will find is simple supply and demand --
most of those teachers will no longer be able to afford to be teachers, and
will thus go on to be real estate salesmen or whatever. Private schools
currently can get away with their low salaries because most of their
teachers are either a) retired from public schools and supplementing their
income with their pension benefits, or b) married to a highly-paid
corporate type who gets transferred around too often for her to get
certified in any one state, and who thus must work for a school which
doesn't require state certification. There is a limited supply of both of
these populations. We cannot rely upon them to fill out the ranks of
teachers.

> Again, I support school choice - only then will the public schools
> feel the pressure to improve (from outside competition). And its only
> fair - right now the wealthier folks have school choice since they can afford
> to send their kids to tuition-based, nonpublic schools. What about the rest
> of Americans?

I agree with you. Unfortunately, George Bush doesn't. He has put up a bogus
voucher proposal which amounts to a tax on the rest of us to subsidize the
education of upper-middle-class kids. The vouchers he proposes are
inadequate to cover the full costs of an education, and thus would be
useless for purposes of empowering poor and working-class parents, most of
whom are barely scraping by even with "free" education.

George knows his constituents -- the upper middle class -- and he does the
typical political trick of buying votes. This is *NOT* real school choice,
and I refuse to accept it as anything other than what it is -- a blatant
attempt at playing politics with the lives of our children.

--
 Eric Lee Green  elg@elgamy.sccsi.com         Dodson Elementary
 (713) 437-6908  uunet!nuchat!elgamy!elg      Houston, TX
                "Kids are kids, no matter what"