The following article is from the May issue of Townhall Magazine. To subscribe to twelve issues of Townhall Magazine and receive a free copy of Andrew McCarthy’s Willful Blindness: A Memoir of a Jihad, click here.
It’s the battle cry of the modern American Left when arguing for everything from assault weapons bans to Head Start funding to a State Children’s Health Insurance Program that would serve an awful lot of adults. Liberals, in their wisdom, believe the children are our future, and we should teach them well and let them lead the way.
Fair enough, but when liberal politicians and labor unions begin quoting from the pop prophet Whitney to justify their policy positions, the proper response from millions of American schoolchildren should be something from the catalogue of another popular ’80s songstress: “What have you done for me lately?”
Liberal philosophy on education quite literally puts a price tag on doing something “for the children.” The more funding “for the children,” the better. End of story.
Unfortunately for students, that’s not the end of the story. Just ask the kids attending Washington, D.C., public schools where some of the nation’s highest per-pupil expenditures (between $8,000 and $9,000 per student) and lowest student-to-teacher ratios have created one of the most reliable educational failures in the nation, with higher drop-out rates and lower test performances than most places with far fewer funds.
Part of the problem in D.C. is that local leaders equate progressively higher budget allocations with actual progress:
“This fits in line with what we’ve been saying since Day One. ... We want to make sure the money gets to the kids,” said D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty in January, when asking for another hike in school funding.
But there’s a movement out there that’s less concerned with the money getting to the kids than the math and reading and science getting to the kids.
Frank Wells, principal of one of the lowest-performing high schools in California—Locke High School in South L.A.—was interested in the latter, and it almost cost him his job thanks to pressure from the local teachers’ union and the school district.