Education & economics

Here's some numbers I'm reposting, because I don't think it gets said enough.
Voice of Reason, another great post. Check this link out:
http://www.ppinys.org/reports/jtf/pubilspending+revenue.htm

Then, do the math to see what privatization could really do. It adds great power to arguments to have facts on your side. For example, in Michigan where I reside, the per pupil spending is $9,072. That means if a teacher could have a private class of just 15 students and collect revenue directly instead of through the bureaucracy, they'd be able to make over $136,000 per year. And that is assuming that they only have 15 kids per class. Isn't that better than the average salary of $20,000 per year and 40 kid classrooms?

Then, leave it to the teachers to determine how they will diversify the education they offer. Say, they band together with music, science, math teachers etc and each pays 10% of their salary to have a building in common. Another 10% could go to learning materials. Congrats! A school with excellent teacher, 15 kids per class and teachers making over $100,000 per year.

Leftists: What's so bad about that?

That's quite an eye-opener!

I can see EnterpriseEd's profit-and-loss statement coming together.

GotBucks, Inc. would have no problem in providing capital to GoodTeacher and her partners. If only we could remove the stunting effect of Public Education on the marketplace.

If vouchers existed, the schools would rise from entrepreneurs to meet the demand. There would be no effect of public education stunting the marketplace, because they would quickly go the way of bankruptcy unless they reformed to demand as well.

Ahh... The beauty of the system...

FYI
Book review of
_School Choice and the Future of American Democracy_

http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=13448

Will only be accessible for about a week.

.. the link.

Since you have posted it under two of my blogposts, I will respond identically to both. You may respond to either, or both (your choice).

The linked review by Aaron Cooley is definitely worth reading. Now that I've {just} finished "The Bell Curve", I may pick up Abernathy's book next at my local library!

My brief summary: it starts provocatively with a 'how to defeat school choice by name-calling'. Then, it speculates ONLY negatively (and seemingly w/out data) about school choice but end inconclusively with an equivocation:

"School choice has the potential to make education in the United States better or the potential to provide another strain on an already strained system."

The only reason that I would read the book is to see if there are facts behind the negative speculation.

My personal belief is that school vouchers are an imperfect band-aid. In the current political climate, it would be impossible for anyone (who aspires to be elected to national ofc) to 'get away' with a suggestion that free-enterprise education is the answer. But that IS the right suggestion. And, vouchers are a way to test the validity of that direction.

I have often wondered why good teachers would be against school choice? The reality is that school choice would increase the demand (read: pay) for good teachers in public AND private schools. And yes, it may get incompetent teachers fired.

Since you ARE am educator (presumably a good one), could you answer that question with a personal, logical argument, without links to potentially biased articles, or statements that are linked to the status-quo (with a raise in teacher pay). Note: I am not opposed to a raise, but it has to be earned by performance - just like every other field.

Can you make a simple cause-and-effect argument that you might make to your 'median' student. Such a discussion would begin with: School choice begets A, which causes B, which causes C, which lowers teachers pay, which takes away the motivation to be good ..

As an educator, have you wondered WHY so many parents are FOR school choice? If your world-view leads you to dismiss such parents as un-informed right-wingers, consider that there are many 'regular' folks, who desperately realize that their kids are being short-changed by an expensive, low-quality system - which simultaneously kills the market for a lower cost, high-quality system.

Because, somehow free-enterprise has done that (lower cost, high quality) in just about every area!

Paraphrasing loosely from "The Bell Curve":

"the most significant damage is being done by our public education system to the gifted (top 2%) kids in every generation. And, those are the kids upon whom our future rests".

And lest you think that I am making some kind of elitist statement, the top 2% of a nation of 300 million represents 6 million of us, over many generations.

Any parent who thinks that their kid may be 'gifted' should vote (with their ballots AND their feet) AWAY from public education.

The alternatives are expensive, and most of us can't afford it. But the demand will set the market free again, producing higher quality at a lower cost.

The status-quo will cause quality to drop and costs to rise.

I'll post twice too. I thought the article
was appropriate for both of your posts.

I am for public school choice.

And I am for the most $ following the student.
For instance if student x from district A
wants to go to district B. I am for it and
I think district A should pay district B
the greater per pupil amount.

The Bell Curve is dated in many ways
and especially when it comes to gifted
education at the high school level.
What the past ten years has seen is
an explosion of AP courses at the
high school level. See Edward Humes's
_School of Dreams: Making the Grade at a
Top American High School_ for an extreme
example. But check your local high school,
public or private, course listings to see
what I mean. There has been a reaction
against AP courses at many top-flight
private schools, but that is against the
zeitgeist.

AP courses are a step in the right direction, because they aim at the top-tier of students. I have colleagues and friends whose kids are in AP courses. Some praise them, others think that they 'paint with too wide a brush'. Of course, it could very well be that the programs are find but those specific kids lack the ability to extract value from such programs.

If you think about how many decades it took for educators to realize that they were not serving the top-tier of students -- it illustrates the nature of the problem. In a market driven system, competition forces providers to serve their customers. Without 'heroic' means, and run by ordinary humans, the market moves quickly to meet demand, fix problems and improve. Such self-correcting forces are built-in to markets that provide us food, automobiles, clothes and entertainment. Why have we abandoned this model for this sector?

With the providers of education separated from the consumers - and actually rewarded for failure (more money for failing schools) the beneficial effects of feedback are removed!

Clearly, you are a progressive teacher - in that you do support school choice. Note: I use the word 'progressive' in its classical sense.

Why would you not extend that thinking to a market driven, private education system?

Except for the fact that we have a legacy of many decades of public education, isn't it obvious that the system has failed. Note: I derive no pleasure in talking about the failure of K-12 education in America - by putting my kids in pvt schools, I am paying twice for that failure, once by choice and the other by coercion.

However, by any yardstick, if a service provider demonstrates over decades that their system produces higher costs & lower quality one has to question its viability.

Clearly that does not mean that teachers, administrators, students and parents have failed. It is a systemic failure - from the very inception the deck has been stacked against teachers, students and parents due to mistakes made several generations ago. The fact that the reformers had great intentions is not relevant given the crisis we are facing.

A fix at this time would probably take 10-15 years to achieve.

PS: the reason for quoting from "The Bell Curve" is that I just finished reading it! Dated it may be (published in 1994) but it shows factually, without bias, the failings of many of our grand experiments. Thirteen years later, if we are still putting bandaids on those grand experiments, then we haven't accepted the fact that we were wrong. And if that is done for political reasons, I think that you would agree with me that we bear an unconscionable guilt towards all those generations of students, and the many more to come.