Education

I stated in my first post that my wife is a teacher and that her experiences with her students (and some of their parents) is what prompted me to start writing this blog.

Well let’s be a little more specific so that you can get an idea of where I’m coming from. My wife is a high school math teacher who has taught in four different school systems in three different states (thanks for following me around the country honey). In general, at the beginning of every year she gives a test to her students on the first week of class and I get the privilege to help her grade them (it’s the least I can do for dragging her around the country with me). This test is comprised of simple addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. I’m talking like 60+35, 5X7, 73-24 and 11/22. The kicker is, the kids are not allowed to use a calculator. I have more the twice the fingers I need on one hand to count the number of perfect papers she and I have graded.

Another example would be that when she gives a test, quite often, she gives a bonus question that has nothing to do with the subject at hand. More often than not, these questions are on things that you would think to be common sense. Questions like; “How many stars on on the American Flag?”; “How many states are in the United States of America?” or “How many stripes are on the American flag and what do they symbolize?”. To be fair that last one is really two questions, but I’m sure she would give partial credit if you could only get one of them right. But, I digress. You would be absolutely astonished at how many of our children don’t know the answers to these questions. I could understand if these questions were being asked of 3rd and 4th graders (kind of), but these are high school students who can’t correctly answer these questions.

I don’t know about you, but when I went through elementary school, I had to know all 50 states, be able to point them out on a map and know all their capitals before I could pass the 5th grade (and I’m not all THAT far removed from high school). And I still know the mass majority of them right off the top of my head.  Why aren’t we teaching our kids these things anymore and if we are, why aren’t we enforcing that education later on down the line?

Did you know that according to a 2006 National Geographic poll, that 63 percent of young adults couldn’t locate Iraq on a map even though we’ve been fighting a war there since 2003. 70 percent had no clue where Iran and Israel are. 90 Percent had no clue where Afghanistan was. For that matter, 50 percent couldn’t locate New York State.

What’s the problem? Well, in my humble opinion, it has a lot to do with the Federal Governments continual meddling in the the education system. Please explain to me how a bureaucrat is qualified to decide what our children learn. How many people in the Department of Education have a degree even remotely related to the education field? I don’t know the answer, but I know what my next research project is going to be on.

Again, I digress. Let’s take a look at the Federal Governments defilement of our education system.

Let’s start with the most recent “boost” to the education system, No Child Left Behind (NCLB). This program was purported by all involved to be a measure to “level the playing field” so that all students had the same opportunity to succeed. Through this mandate, the government would decide how many federal dollars a school would get. How do they decide how much one school gets and how much another doesn’t you ask? Standardized test scores. The government decides how much funding a state (and by proxy individual school systems) will get based on test scores and how much the average test score for the school improved over the previous years. The government also gets to stipulate how those dollars are spent.  More on that later.

I contest that NCLB lowers the bar rather than levels the playing field and here’s why.

Initially this sounds like a good plan, right? In theory, the schools that get the best results get more money. Well, let’s look at this objectively. Let’s say that you have High School A that is a “Blue Ribbon” school. This is a school that routinely performs head and shoulders above the national average. This is the type of school that you would expect to keep getting federal dollars, right? WRONG! Since High School A has been performing at such a high level for so long, the improvement in overall standardized test scores has been minimal because there isn’t much room for them to improve. In fact, they may have even gone down a percentage point or two due to the variance of students that are in the school system. Well, since there was little to no improvement in the standardized test scores, High School A gets fewer federal dollars and now has to make do with less money.

I will get into funding, the strings attached and how in the end more money doesn’t always translate into better education a little later. However, at this junction, I do feel the need to point out what less funding means to the school. One, schools have to cut back on spending, which often means fewer teachers. Fewer teachers, means more students per teacher, which means each student gets less attention during class if they need help. Two, those teachers that now have larger classes are doing almost twice the work of their counterparts in neighboring school districts and getting paid, roughly, the same to do it. Hence, the experienced teachers start looking for jobs in those neighboring school systems, leaving High School A with less experience to pull from. Three, there’s less money to upgrade the technology that is used to help our children learn.

What do you think is going to end up happening to High School A if this trend keeps up? You guessed it, the standard of learning will be lowered since there are fewer dollars to spend per student and test scores will eventually start to drop. Fast forward 5-10 years and now High School A is no longer a “Blue Ribbon” school. High School A is now in the 60th percentile of the national average. The school sees the trend and realizes the only way to get more money is to increase test scores. But, how do you do that when you now have less experienced teachers, and 40-50 students per class? Well, the typical answer for schools in this situation is, drum roll please, teach to the test. That’s right, if it’s not on the test, it’s not worth teaching. And since questions like; “Who was the 3rd president of the United States?” or “Who was the principle author of the Declaration of Independence?” (Same answer for both questions for those who didn’t already know) aren’t on the test, guess what’s not taught.

What NCLB actually does is give teachers and states is more incentive to cheat the system. Take a look at what the state of Michigan did in 2004. In 2003, Michigan had around 1500 “failing” schools. In 2004 that number dropped to 216. That’s a great achievement, an 85.6% decrease in the number of “failing” schools. Until you realize that all Michigan did was lower the minimum passing score on the state's assessment test from 74 to 42. There have been several instances of teachers that have been caught asking under performing students to stay home on test day with the promise of extra time or help to finish the test when they come back. Or tapping students on the shoulder when they see the student has marked a wrong answer.

I can hear it already. “But there were issues with the public school system well before NCLB.”
On that issue, you will not hear any disagreement from me. Let’s take a trip in the way back machine to before NCLB, way back to 1979 when President Jimmy Carter enacted the Organization Department of Education Act. The Department of Education took over in May of 1980. Between the 1985-86 school year and the 2005-06 school year, funding per pupil increased 53.6% (Far more than the rate of inflation by the way). Yet, student performance has improved only slightly; 69% of American eighth-graders are still performing below proficiency in math and 71% in reading.

Want further proof that throwing more money at the issue doesn’t solve the problem.
Let’s look at the state of New York, who spends the most per student ($14,884 as of the 2005-2006 school year) and Utah, who spends the least amount of money per student ($5,437 as of the 2005-2006 school year). New York should have significantly better SAT scores and graduation rates if money is the answer, right? Well let’s take a look. For the 2005-2006 school year the average SAT score for New York was 1486 while in Utah the average SAT score was 1667. That’s a 181 point difference. Since not everyone takes the SATs (I didn’t) and since it is commonly accepted that you need to at least graduate high school to be a successful and functioning member of society. Let’s take a look at graduation rates. For the 2005-2006 school year New York had a graduation rate of 65.5%, while Utah had a graduation rate of 84.4%. If you do the math, Utah has an average 10.8% better SAT score, an 18.9% better graduation rate and does it all for 63.5 % less money per student.

Now that we have established that better funding doesn’t necessarily mean better education. Let’s talk a little bit about the strings attached to the federal dollars that the government spends on the schools. We talked earlier about High School A, now let’s talk about High School B. High School B is a school that isn’t necessarily a “failing” school but they are under performing because a large portion of their student body labeled as “at-risk”.  According to the Kansas State Department of Education, an individual is considered “at-risk” if they meet one of the following criteria and have not been identified for special education services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act:

• The student is not meeting the requirements necessary for promotion to the next grade level or graduation for high school

• The student whose education attainment is below other students of their age or grade level

• The student is a potential dropout

• The student is failing two or more courses of study or the student has been retained (read as didn’t pass and has to repeat a year of school)

• The student is not reading at their grade level

Now, High School B does get special money from the government to help these students, most often in the form of government grants. These grants come with some serious strings attached. Yes, the grant does usually allow the school the funding to hire another teacher specifically to help the at-risk students. This is a good thing as they need the extra help. However, the rest of the money is spent on technology and supplies to help just those students. So let’s say that after hiring the new teacher that High School B finds some new technology (like SMART boards) that could help ALL students learn. Well, if High School B uses the money from the grant to do so, NO OTHER student in the school can use it. That’s right, the money from the grant can only be used to help the at-risk students, the students that aren’t at-risk aren’t allowed to use it whether they would benefit from it or not. How, is that fair to the student’s that aren’t at-risk? Now the at-risk student’s have a leg up on the other students.

The grant money can’t be used to help pay for any of the other expenses that a school has either.  Generally, it can’t be used to help pay the teachers that are already at the school.  So, the educator teaching the Advanced Placement classes (Classes that high achieving students can take and get college credit) gets cut because the school can’t use the grant money to save that teachers job.  Please tell me how this is leveling the playing field?  How is giving money to help the education of underachieving students and, in essence, taking money away from helping the higher achieving students fair? You want to level the playing field, offer mandatory before / after school tutoring programs payed for by the grant.

There are other strings attached to the money as well. Remember that teacher that High School B hired to help the at-risk students. Well, that teacher will be out of the class room, no less than one day a month to attend professional development courses above and beyond what the school already requires. That’s valuable time away from the students the teacher was specifically hired to help. Never mind the fact that the school has already gone through an extensive hiring process to make sure they got the right teacher for the job, now the government assumes that whomever the school hired isn’t qualified to do the job and needs additional training.

One last example of some strings attached to money from the Federal Government.  In order for High School B to get the grant in the first place, High School B had to fire their current principal due to budgetary concerns.  Even though just 6 months prior the Principle had received high accolades from a Superior Court Judge for her accomplishments in improving the education level of the school.  That would be like a company firing a CEO that make the company billions of dollars because he makes too much money and hiring an unproven CEO to take his place because it cost the company less.

The Federal Government is basically using the money earmarked in the stimulus for education to dictate school policies that don’t actually result in true improvement of the education at the school.  The types of restrictions on this money also creates long term budgetary issues for schools that they will not be able to meet.  Hence, furthering the dependence of the state on federal money and further exacerbating the situation.

Now, I’m not saying the Federal Government is completely to blame. I put some of the onus on the Teachers Unions. Now, I’m not talking about their role in making sure teachers get a fair wage. Especially since I believe that our teachers are the leaders of today’s youth (after the parents). I’m talking about how the unions determine who gets paid what and how hard they make it to get rid of the under performing teachers. As it stands right now, teachers make more the longer they are in a school system, whether they are an above average teacher or a substandard teacher. If both have been there for the same amount of time, they make the same pay. There’s no incentive to excel, you will get a pay raise whether you excel or not. Further, if a school system has issue with a teacher, it’s almost impossible to get rid of them.  By almost impossible, I mean that NY State spend 6 years and $350,000 trying to get rid of a teacher that sent sexually explicit emails to a student.

The lack of education that our children and young adults are receiving doesn’t end at High School. Did you know that a majority of Ivy League schools don’t offer ANY form of geography. This initially doesn’t sound like that big of a deal until you realize that the mass majority of our Presidents are Ivy League educated. Did you know that our current president doesn’t know (or at least didn’t while he was campaigning) there are 50 states in our great country? Apparently, he had been to 57 states; still had one more to go and wasn’t going to visit Alaska or Hawaii due to scheduling constraints. By my count, that means that our current President thinks there are 60 states. I understand that sometimes people get confused, or say the wrong thing.  But, I have a hard time believing that that is all that this was since there was NO attempt to correct himself.  Now, I’m not saying that he’s the only one. This just happens to be the most recent example I could come up with off the top of my head. I think this has less to do with government interference than the issues facing our nations High Schools, since a lot of colleges are private institutions. I think the issues in colleges is the fact that a lot of the professors are progressives and believe that a less educated mass is better for the “ruling class”. But that’s a topic for another article.

What then is the answer? Give control of the schools back to the states where it belongs. The Constitution makes no mention of the Federal Government being involved in the education of our nations youth. I DARE you to find where the Constitution gives the right to the Federal Government to govern the education of our children! You can’t! In fact, the tenth amendment states:

     “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved for the Sates respectively, or the people.” 

That means that if the Constitution doesn’t explicitly give the power to the Federal Government and doesn’t explicitly deny it to the states; the powers reside with the state or the people.

A special thanks to Glen Beck for reigniting my interest in the Constitution and the founding principals. And, (Then) Sergeant Dan Haddock for encouraging me (as a very young man) to educate myself, do my own research and form my own opinions.

Citations:

Roach, John (2006). Young Americans Geographically Illiterate, Survey Suggests. Retrieved January 25, 2011 From the National Geographic Website:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/05/0502_060502_geography.html

Gryphon, Marie (2005, February 18). Education Law Encourages Fuzzy Math. Retrieved January 20, 2011, from The Cato Institute Web site: http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3694

Lester, Duane (February 15, 1010).  No Child Left Behind Leads to Even More Cheating By Teachers.  Retrieved on January 31, 2011 from All American Blogger Web site:  http://www.allamericanblogger.com/9876/no-child-left-behind-leads-to-cheating-by-teachers/

Lefervre, Andrew T. (2008) Report Card on American Education. A State-by-State Analysis 1985-1986 to 2006-2007. Retrieved January 25, 2011, from the ALEC Web site:  www.alec.org/am/pdf/2007_alec_education_report_card.pdf

Johnson, Kirk, Ph.D. and Krista Kafer (2001).  Why More Money Will Not Solve America’s Education Crisis. Retrieved January 22, 2011 from The Heritage Foundation Web site:  http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2001/06/why-more-money-will-not-solve-americas-education-crisis

Luci Duan & Jenny Xue (2008). How Per Pupil Spending Affects Academic Success. Retrieved January 25, 2011 from the University of North Carolina Charlotte Web site: http://education.uncc.edu/cmste/summer%20ventures/2008%20World%20View%20of%20Math%20&%20Data%20Analysis/Luci%20Duan%20and%20Jenny%20Xue.pdf

Balona, Denise_Marie (June 1, 2009). Chunk of funds can’t be used to save most employees’ jobs or pay salaries. Retrieved January 30, 2011 from the Education News Web site:  http://www.ednews.org/articles/education-stimulus-money-comes-with-strings-attached-.html

Hartness, Erin (November 19, 2010).  Strings attached to federal money could oust three Durham principals.  Retrieved January 31, 2011 from WRAL Web site:  http://www.wral.com/news/education/story/8655948/

School Funds have Strings Attached [Editorial] (January 5, 2011).  Retrieved January 31, 2011 from Tribune Chronicle Web site:  http://www.tribtoday.com/page/content.detail/id/551513/School-funds-have-strings-attached.html?nav=5007

Stossel, John (2006). How to Fire and Incompetent Teacher.  Retrieved January 28, 2011 from Reason Magazine Web site:  http://reason.com/archives/2006/10/01/how-to-fire-an-incompetent-tea

ObamaGaffe. Obama Claims He’s Visited 57 States. Retrieved January 25,  2011, from the You Tube Web site:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpGH02DtIws