Americans Discern Correctly that Public Schools are a Poor ‘Investment’
by Kyle OlsonWe continue to hear the rhetoric from teachers unions and others in the education establishment that we need to “invest” more in America’s public schools.
Want smarter, better-prepared kids, the teacher unions ask? Give us more money! (And get the “rich” to pay for it.)
That’s been the nation’s approach to public education for, oh, the last 50 years.
But after decades of increased education spending, it’s time to ask the obvious question: What kind of return are American taxpayers getting for all this “investment”?
The answer: not much.
According to a new survey by Rasmussen Reports, a whopping 72% of taxpayers say they “are not getting a good return on what they spend on public education, and just one-in-three voters think spending more will make a difference.”
Americans are correctly discerning that simply spending more money will not improve educational outcomes.
Sure, throwing more dollars at education helps shore up the teacher unions’ Cadillac health insurance and pension plans. The money also helps cover automatic step raises for teachers. The problem is, none of those things help children read better or compute a calculus equation. Not one iota.
Think of it this way: If you owned stock in a company that was producing a lousy, inferior product that the public was unhappy with, would you buy more stock in that company?
If you’re a savvy investor, you’d demand new leadership that has a clear plan for producing a better product before you gave them a single dollar more.
Why shouldn’t the same principle apply to public schools?
For years, the teachers union and their surrogates in elective office could get away with guilting Americans into spending more on public education. It was for the children, after all!
It was a cozy setup. More education dollars meant more union dues and more union political contributions for Democrats (and the occasional incompetent Republican who bought into the teacher union propaganda). Everyone benefitted. Except the students.
This Rasmussen poll indicates that Americans are catching onto this racket.
If the nation’s public schools were producing college-ready, workforce-ready graduates, there is little doubt that Americans would be willing to spend even more money on public education.
But our education system is graduating many students who are lacking in basic skills. The number of college freshmen who have to take remedial English and math classes just to get up to academic speed is an indictment of the entire system. “Kids Aren’t Cars” told the story of a graduate who couldn’t read his own diploma.
If leaders of the education establishment want more of our money, they must show a commitment to quality. That means holding teachers accountable (merit pay, ending tenure) and providing students with greater choices in education (charter schools, online learning). Do those things, National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers, and then we’ll talk about more spending.
Until that happens, 72% of Americans understand that more school spending is simply throwing good money after bad.
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32 Comments
Reforms and changes needs to come at the state level.
Abolish the Department of Education.
It was elevated to a cabinet level position under Carter, and things have gone downhill since then.
Move control to the state level where there will be greater accountability and the teachers' unions will lose their stranglehold on DC policy.
The state of Idaho has instituted merit pay and ended tenure. And the teacher's unions and others who leech off the system are now trying to recall the Superintendent of Schools because he dared to touch the 'annointed ones' in public education. Hard decisions always result in backlash from the entitlement class, but reform is necessary.
More money is never going to fix our broken education system.
Incentive based pay! If a teachers students excel they get a bonus, if they fail they get a pay cut, if they continue to fail they get fired. Simple, sweet and effective. Put all new hires on a three year probationary period. The new hire must prove they are effective or they are fired, union or not, put it in the collective bargaining agreement. A teacher who is failing gets put on probation. Just need to apply private sector standards to the public sector.
F— it, I am running for school committee. I never recognized the importance of that volunteer board, I may not know about education but I do know how to negotiate, I know how to motivate!
Looks like Kyle here is an environmentalist. He is recycling tired old right wing arguments for the baggers.
Paper or plastic?
We should invest more in education. SImply, not the public education we have today. Tenure, teacher's unions, and asinine testing. These things need to go and schools need to get back to actual instruction. If that happens, then we can invest more. Otherwise it's pouring money into a sinking ship.
I'll likely get hammered for this also but…. merit pay is a spectacularly terrible idea. Good teachers already have a lot to deal with as it is. Adding that on top of it is a good way to destroy what little we have now. (And that's not much is it?) Another terrible idea was the publishing of public employee salaries. (Not sure if they did that in every state. They've done it here in California.) Total invasion of privacy and dead wrong! Killing tenure is a wonderful idea however.
So where, pray tell, should we spend money?
Awww, though I agree, the facts don't weigh out against the feelings teachers have toward that achievement of tenure. I think we need to give new teachers a chance to bring something to the table, instead of keeping the old ones in who want to throw As around, but some of those older teachers really love to teach–whether they do a great job of it or now.
I think the problem may lie in parenting. Kids should be taught to question and learn and assess for their own the myriad good and bad teachers they are faced with seven hours a day.
Merit pay is ill-conceived.
This may not be the appropriate place for this, but I'm going to try it here.
I'm trying to get the hashtag #onlywhitepeople deleted from Twitter's Trending
Topics for today. It's incredibly racist, derisive, and divisive. I've been reaching
out to Twitter and others to have it removed. Could use any and all assistance.
Thank you all in advance. If you can help, please do so. Thank you.
Why does it have to be spent? Give it back to the taxpayer. Or, since just about everybody is running a deficit, don't spend it at all.
How do we do that? I don't play with Twitter.
Hmm… How about education for the educators? Like a week in the Caracas or something to really talk to people and learn a thing or two about how people actually learn.
and what power do you think that a 6yr old will have if they complain about or ' question' a bad teacher? The unions will gobble up the kid and the parent. Oh, and the bad teacher will go on forever with the kid being balck-balled for the rest of their time there. No.
It's the State's responsibility. Not the Govt and not the Unions.
My guess, is you are a double bagger! Paper or plastic?
yes, because there are reams & reams of data supporting the position that More $$$ = Better Educated Students, right, d___head?
I can agree there. A good way to get rid of the federal idea of "ALL STUDENTS MUST BE THE SAME AND SCORE THE SAME" idiocy is to get the feds out of education in the first place. Let the states handle it. They're going to know about their own populations better than some moron in Washington. (Unless the state is California. Sacramento is about as bad as Washington and just as clueless.)
LOL. Their days are going to change too soon. Our 113th Congress is going to kick some power around legally. No more ignoring our EXISTING Federal Immigration Law for starters. Student Visas checked like a clock or fire the Govt official who doesn't deport them! There will be a lot of big changes in Cal & Sacramento. Good days ahead Aearlath.
Stop jerking everyone here around you outsider fake . We don't appreciate your provocation.
Woo hoo! Rasmussen called me for this survey! Nice to know that most Americans agree with me.
How about this? Lets educate our own children so they know what we know. Private schools or home schooling. We don't need the government to educate our children and they don't need the expense, and we don't need the taxes and it goes on and on.
You're like the poster boy for this story.
Nice entrance.
Awesome. A ONE-WAY ticket too. You also.
This Friday at 8 PM EDT Americans for Prosperity Foundation will host a Presidential Summit on Spending and Job Creation live from Manchester, NH.
Participating in the Summit will be Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, businessman Herman Cain, former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, and former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum.
We’ll be streaming the summit live online at AmericansforProsperityFoundation.org and C-SPAN will also be showing the event live. This is the first opportunity the presidential candidates will have to detail their plans on reining in government spending, ending budget deficits, and eliminating the national debt.
Outsider fake?
If you really want to get down to it, the worse area our students are lacking is in the STEM fields. Which of course, means science. Which of course, means we can't have those bible belt, deep south schools continue to pass laws that paint evolution as "only a theory" and try to teach creationism as a reasonable alternative.
This is true. What kind of jobs are getting outsourced to India and China? Hint: it ain't coal mining or construction work. It's IT jobs.
Spending more on the UNION teachers with most of contracts currently in place is clearly a waste and it getting worse. Why are Unions fighting everything so hard.
But the First Lady does not feel this is the problem – she is more worried about the free food and the people serving it. Unions got BO elected –
Bottom line – Vouchers would be a help – but not nearly as much a all out effort to advance learning from all sides. Clearly the students and parents need to step and push the program.
You need to come up with something new…you Soros boi whores are getting boring….
Play number 8 out of the Soros/Alinsky playbook….
8. Pick the target. Target an individual, personalize the attack, polarize and demoralize his/her supporters. Go after people, not institutions. Hurting, harassing, and humiliating individuals, especially leaders, causes more rapid organizational change.
Isn't it funny people with weak arguments, hidden agendas, and small minds always seem to have to resort to name calling, lies, and smears in a pathetic attempt to try and make their unAmerican socialistic and progressive point?
BTW
Typical comment from a nitwit product of the union run state funded ,madrassas that now pass for public education these days….
LOL!
God what are you ten?
Typical comment from a nitwit product of the union run state funded ,madrassas that now pass for public education these days….
Right wing arguments are for homo's like you? Really?
"merit pay is a..terrible idea" "Teachers already have a lot to deal with"
Wrong. What should first be on teachers plate is serving students. Perhaps the metrics of performance need to change, but if there is a single thing that needs to happen its accountability.
And publishing public employee salaries is entirely appropriate. They serve the public and, whether janitor, cop, teacher, or President, we have a right to know. Further, the annual cost of their health care coverage, pension & OPEB should be part of the public record. These are real costs and it is unfair to keep the public in the dark. They may as well be fleeced.
I can't believe I'm reading this, as someone who is almost always Progrssive, on this site.
Is that it, is that all you got.
Sadly for you, that isnt the actual truth. It doesnt matter how much money the government throws in schools, when our schools education levels across the board never move. So, instead of wasting everyone time with wasted money, why not get the source of the education problem and that would be the system itself. Drop, all unnessary classes, drop teacher unions, and shut down the Dept of Ed. Then have the schools focus on classes that real value such as reading, writing, math, basic sciences and history.
As for the outsourced jobs. Those are jobs that the government has pushed out of this country by over taxing and over regulating and to add, most of them the unions push them out to.
If I were you, I would look to the real problems and come up with practical solutions, instead of some political BS rant.
I was just trying to strike up a conversation. Thanks for beating me down–all of you. I'll just crawl into a hole now and die.
lost your job??? havin' trubble makin' ends meet???…your ends met and are now tryin' to kill ya???
well now that you're home wit' nuttin' to do…
teach your kids how to add, subtract, read an' write and spel more gooder than me…
and you all can have lunch together and play dodgeball!!!…
you all may learn sumpin'…oh almost forgot history and geography…short term memory problems (pot?)
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