Posts Tagged ‘Education’
Teachers Union Supporters Lose a Debate on Failing Schools
About 500 people showed up for a March 18 debate in New York that addressed the notion, “Do Not Blame the Teachers Unions for Our Failing Schools.” The debate, sponsored by IQ Squared, asked the audience to vote electronically for or against the concept—once before the debate, and again after.
In other words, if you think the unions are to blame, you would vote against the motion. Two teams of three addressed the issue, for and against.
Before the debate, 24 percent of the audience agreed with the idea that teachers unions are not to blame for our failing schools, and after the debate, 25 percent thought unions are blameless.
Strikingly, however, while 33 percent of audience members were undecided at the beginning of the debate, and 43 percent did blame unions, the number of undecided fell to only 7 percent by the end of the debate, and 68 percent of the audience blamed unions for failing schools.
Not a great result for the teachers union side—it appears that most of the undecideds decided that teachers unions look out for union members first—kids a distant second. If you’d like to see the debate, it can be found in its entirety here.
There are solutions to the problems we face in our schools, many articulated by panelists at the debate, including greater school choice and weighted student funding.
South Carolina’s Failing Schools
From South Carolinians for Responsible Government:
“The annual list of South Carolina’s most persistently failing public schools has been released and is now online:
http://www.voiceforschoolchoice.com/2010/02/03/south-carolinas-worst-public-schools-2009-10-edition/
In late January, it was announced that hundreds of local public schools failed to meet minimal improvement goals set by state and federal officials, known as Adequate Yearly Progress (or “AYP”).
This list of the most persistently failing schools details those schools which have consistently failed to meet their annual goals, some for up to six years in a row.”
When a B is really a D
Education Week has released its annual Quality Counts report, which grades the educational system of each state.
South Carolina scores a B-minus overall, while the national average is a C. But, as Ed. Week acknowledges, scores are based on what weights are assigned to each category.
The most telling score is the state’s D-minus for college readiness.
So, let’s get this straight: South Carolina scores an A in standards, assessment and accountability, but the state can’t prepare students for the end goal toward which virtually the entire public K-12 educational system is geared: graduating and going to college with the idea of getting a good job. This is like going 4-0 in the preseason, but going 0-16 once the season begins. Piecemeal change aimed at improving accountability or testing mechanisms are clearly not working. What is needed is wholescale reform.
To read more about how South Carolina’s school system is failing to prepare kids for college, see this report.
The Real Story on South Carolina’s Stealth Budget
Policy Council President Ashley Landess was quoted in Sunday’s Greenville News where she stated that many in the General Assembly do not have an accurate view of how money is being spent.
“Ashley Landess, president of the S.C. Policy Council, a non-profit research group that has studied the total funds issue, said legislators don’t know how much of the money in the total budget is being spent because they only review details of the general fund. She said many legislators didn’t even know that agencies were using that much money until her organization published a report on the issue in February.
“’The ridiculousness of this just cannot be overstated,’ she argued. ‘There is a fair debate here about what we as citizens want to pay for. But we can’t possibly hold that debate until we know every dime that is being spent and we know where it’s going.’”
The Greenville News report examined the fact that most legislators only know about the General Fund budget, which represents less than one third of the total funds being spent by South Carolina’s government.
“’Government has been growing, and it’s grown at a rate far faster than inflation and income levels,’ she said. ‘You cannot prove that government isn’t growing by how many people are getting a paycheck.
“State government spends money on things other than employees, she said.
“’There is so much money being funneled into places/programs we can’t see, especially through the universities,’ she argued. ‘And millions to lawyers, lobbyists, PR consultants, advertising agencies.’”
The Greenville News article revealed that, some lawmakers argued that recent budget cuts would lead to widespread furloughs and layoffs and might trigger agencies to ask to run deficits. In reality, “legislative budget figures show that while the general fund portion of the budget has indeed shrunk in recent years, the total budget has increased. In fact, the current year’s budget of $20.7 billion before the cuts is the second highest in the state’s history,” the article reported.
First Pay Raises, Now Cuts for Kershaw County Schools
During tough economic times, most families and businesses cut spending on unnecessary items and hold off on things like vacations and pay raises. These rules, though, rarely apply to government –at least not in the Kershaw County School District.
According to WIS News, the district approved $850,000 in pay raises in April of 2008, with more than half of those raises going to school administrators. Since those raises were approved, “the district cut 19 teachers, imposed furloughs, froze salaries, and eliminated non-teaching positions. “
“Our principals, assistant principals and a lot of key instructional positions are paid below the Midlands market even after this was implemented,” District Superintendent Frank Morgan told WIS. “That’s a key point I think the public should understand.”
Even if Morgan’s claims are true, it seems unfathomable that the district would have made such ill advised decisions. Consider what would happen if a CEO gave company executives pay raises then proceeded to fire and furlough workers.
What’s Happening in SC on Tuesday, 12/1
School Choice Can Create Jobs for South Carolina
The first lesson of Campaigning 101 is that during an economic downturn you talk about jobs. Everything a politician does during a bad economy is apparently to create jobs. Thus, in the name of job creation, we’ve seen an $800 billion dollar federal stimulus package that has debased the dollar, saddled our children with debt, and funneled billions in pork to special-interest groups – all in the name of job creation.
Except the government can’t create jobs and isn’t even very good at pretending to do so. As the French economist Frederic Bastiat argues in a famous essay, everything the government does comes with a price. Bastiat would thus compare government job creation efforts to breaking perfectly good windows for the sake of giving work to the window industry. In other words, Cash for Clunkers.
The government can’t create jobs because, government, by definition, is not a productive enterprise. At best, government exists to facilitate and protect its citizens who themselves should engage in productive enterprises. Thus government should be about the business of sustaining those institutions necessary for people to become prosperous. These include providing for the national defense, discouraging crime and enforcing contracts.
It is important to recognize, however, that even these limited functions of government have a cost. And economists have identified this cost as somewhere between $1.60 and $1.82 in lost economic productivity for each tax dollar collected. All this is to say that every job the government claims to create actually leads to more private sector job loss.
There is one policy, though, that state leaders could implement that would create jobs in South Carolina – especially in struggling rural counties. That reform is school choice.
Before your eyes glaze over, check out this new report from the Policy Council on how school choice can create jobs in the counties of Clarendon, Hampton, Lee, Marlboro and Williamsburg. Jobs created, not by the government, but by young, homegrown entrepreneurs.
The real news here is not how school choice can improve student performance or save the state money, but that school choice changes lives by creating a culture where innovation and self-reliance thrives. As the report concludes, drawing upon the work of economists Russell Sobel and Kerry King:
School choice programs create an atmosphere of competition, innovation, and risk-taking within the administrative infrastructure of schools. These are also precisely the qualities that must be embraced and learned by individuals wanting to become entrepreneurs. Our hypothesis is that the entrepreneurial environment created within schools by school choice programs fosters a sense of competition and innovation among the administrators and teachers in the school that is infectious, being witnessed and copied by their students in their own personal lives.
School choice, in other words, is a key component of the free market revolution underway as reflected in the Tea Party movement as well as the Policy Council’s new Unleashing Capitalism campaign. The message: we need to change the culture – and education reform is the key to doing that.
POLL: School Choice in South Carolina
What’s Happening in SC on Friday, 11/20
Federal Stimulus Watch
Along with phony statistics and phantom districts, stimulus funds have apparently brought death threats, abuse and corporate retaliation
http://www.aikenstandard.com/Local/1119SRS
Local Government
Move over greenbacks, Sumter Dollars are now the preferred form of currency in the community
http://www.theitem.com/article/20091120/ITNEWS01/711209953
Santee Town Council holds retreat to discuss economic development, other issues
http://www.thetandd.com/articles/2009/11/20/news/doc4b05cd91c4a18325619740.txt
Florence County Council selects architects for new museum, approves a slew of economic development measures
Education
Orangeburg Consolidated District 4 plans a two-day furlough for teachers and other employees to account for budget cuts
http://www.thetandd.com/articles/2009/11/20/news/doc4b05c7687f3ca753554932.txt
South Carolina ACT Test Scores Drop Slightly
South Carolina’s performance on the ACT college entrance test dropped this year to an average score of 19.8, which ranks 46th in the nation. In 2008, the state’s average score was one-tenth of a point higher at 19.9. Possible scores on the test range from 11 to 36 points.
This chart shows South Carolina's performance on the ACT test since 2005 as well as how the achievement gap between black and white students continues to grow.
According to the state’s ACT profile released this week by ACT Inc., South Carolina’s average score is 1.3 points behind the national average and 4.1 points behind the highest-performing state (Massachusetts).
South Carolina ranked behind most other Southeastern states, including North Carolina ( 21.6), Georgia (20.6), and Tennessee (20.6). Only Mississippi, Kentucky and Florida scored lower on the ACT among Southeastern states.
The achievement gap between black and white students also continued to expand. Composite scores for white students have increased from 21.3 to 21.9 since 2005. During that same period the performance of African American students has declined by one-tenth of a point from 16.5 to 16.4. This year alone, African-American scores remained flat while the average score of white test-takers improved from 21.7 to 21.9.
The results show public education in the state continues to leave many of the state’s poorest and most vulnerable students behind in failing schools. Choice and free-market competition would encourage innovative ideas in the classroom as well as reward ideas that improve performance and results.
South Carolina will spend more than $11,000 per child during the 2009-2010 year. Many failing schools already spend more than $15,000 per child — if money were the answer to the problem it would have been solved. Throwing money at the problem without fundamental reform will only ensure more tax dollars are wasted on a system in need of fundamental free-market reforms that empower parents with choice and give them options to the current failed system.
