dirty
EOG Master
January 18, 2006
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Myth: Schools Need More Money[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]By John Stossel[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]"Stossel is an idiot who should be fired from ABC and sent back to elementary school to learn journalism." "Stossel is a right-wing extremist ideologue." [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif][FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The hate mail is coming in to ABC over a TV special I did Friday (1/13). I suggested that public schools had plenty of money but were squandering it, because that's what government monopolies do. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Many such comments came in after the National Education Association (NEA) informed its members about the special and claimed that I have a "documented history of blatant antagonism toward public schools." [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The NEA says public schools need more money. That's the refrain heard in politicians' speeches, ballot initiatives and maybe even in your child's own classroom. At a union demonstration, teachers carried signs that said schools will only improve "when the schools have all the money they need and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber." [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Not enough money for education? It's a myth. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The truth is, public schools are rolling in money. If you divide the U.S. Department of Education's figure for total spending on K-12 education by the department's count of K-12 students, it works out to about $10,000 per student. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Think about that! For a class of 25 kids, that's $250,000 per classroom. This doesn't include capital costs. Couldn't you do much better than government schools with $250,000? You could hire several good teachers; I doubt you'd hire many bureaucrats. Government schools, like most monopolies, squander money.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]America spends more on schooling than the vast majority of countries that outscore us on the international tests. But the bureaucrats still blame school failure on lack of funds, and demand more money. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]In 1985, some of them got their wish. Kansas City, Mo., judge Russell Clark said the city's predominately black schools were not "halfway decent," and he ordered the government to spend billions more. Did the billions improve test scores? Did they hire better teachers, provide better books? Did the students learn anything? [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Well, they learned how to waste lots of money.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The bureaucrats renovated school buildings, adding enormous gyms, an Olympic swimming pool, a robotics lab, TV studios, a zoo, a planetarium, and a wildlife sanctuary. They added intense instruction in foreign languages. They spent so much money that when they decided to bring more white kids to the city's schools, they didn't have to resort to busing. Instead, they paid for 120 taxis. Taxis! [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]What did spending billions more accomplish? The schools got worse. In 2000, five years and $2 billion later, the Kansas City school district failed 11 performance standards and lost its academic accreditation for the first time in the district's history.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]A study by two professors at the Hoover Institution a few years ago compared public and Catholic schools in three of New York City's five boroughs. Parochial education outperformed the nation's largest school system "in every instance," they found -- and it did it at less than half the cost per student. [/FONT]
[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]"Everyone has been conned -- you can give public schools all the money in America, and it will not be enough," says Ben Chavis, a former public school principal who now runs the American Indian Charter School in Oakland, Calif. His school spends thousands less per student than Oakland's government-run schools spend. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Chavis saves money by having students help clean the grounds and set up for lunch. "We don't have a full-time janitor," he told me. "We don't have security guards. We don't have computers. We don't have a cafeteria staff." Since Chavis took over four years ago, his school has gone from being among the worst middle schools in Oakland to the one where the kids get the best test scores. "I see my school as a business," he said. "And my students are the shareholders. And the families are the shareholders. I have to provide them with something." [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Myth: Schools Need More Money[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]By John Stossel[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]"Stossel is an idiot who should be fired from ABC and sent back to elementary school to learn journalism." "Stossel is a right-wing extremist ideologue." [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif][FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The hate mail is coming in to ABC over a TV special I did Friday (1/13). I suggested that public schools had plenty of money but were squandering it, because that's what government monopolies do. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Many such comments came in after the National Education Association (NEA) informed its members about the special and claimed that I have a "documented history of blatant antagonism toward public schools." [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The NEA says public schools need more money. That's the refrain heard in politicians' speeches, ballot initiatives and maybe even in your child's own classroom. At a union demonstration, teachers carried signs that said schools will only improve "when the schools have all the money they need and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber." [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Not enough money for education? It's a myth. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The truth is, public schools are rolling in money. If you divide the U.S. Department of Education's figure for total spending on K-12 education by the department's count of K-12 students, it works out to about $10,000 per student. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Think about that! For a class of 25 kids, that's $250,000 per classroom. This doesn't include capital costs. Couldn't you do much better than government schools with $250,000? You could hire several good teachers; I doubt you'd hire many bureaucrats. Government schools, like most monopolies, squander money.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]America spends more on schooling than the vast majority of countries that outscore us on the international tests. But the bureaucrats still blame school failure on lack of funds, and demand more money. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]In 1985, some of them got their wish. Kansas City, Mo., judge Russell Clark said the city's predominately black schools were not "halfway decent," and he ordered the government to spend billions more. Did the billions improve test scores? Did they hire better teachers, provide better books? Did the students learn anything? [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Well, they learned how to waste lots of money.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The bureaucrats renovated school buildings, adding enormous gyms, an Olympic swimming pool, a robotics lab, TV studios, a zoo, a planetarium, and a wildlife sanctuary. They added intense instruction in foreign languages. They spent so much money that when they decided to bring more white kids to the city's schools, they didn't have to resort to busing. Instead, they paid for 120 taxis. Taxis! [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]What did spending billions more accomplish? The schools got worse. In 2000, five years and $2 billion later, the Kansas City school district failed 11 performance standards and lost its academic accreditation for the first time in the district's history.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]A study by two professors at the Hoover Institution a few years ago compared public and Catholic schools in three of New York City's five boroughs. Parochial education outperformed the nation's largest school system "in every instance," they found -- and it did it at less than half the cost per student. [/FONT]
[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]"Everyone has been conned -- you can give public schools all the money in America, and it will not be enough," says Ben Chavis, a former public school principal who now runs the American Indian Charter School in Oakland, Calif. His school spends thousands less per student than Oakland's government-run schools spend. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Chavis saves money by having students help clean the grounds and set up for lunch. "We don't have a full-time janitor," he told me. "We don't have security guards. We don't have computers. We don't have a cafeteria staff." Since Chavis took over four years ago, his school has gone from being among the worst middle schools in Oakland to the one where the kids get the best test scores. "I see my school as a business," he said. "And my students are the shareholders. And the families are the shareholders. I have to provide them with something." [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif][FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]?2006 JFS Productions, Inc. Distributed by Creators Syndicate[/FONT][/FONT]