We 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.

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One of the things I’ve always liked about charter schools is they aren’t bound by onerous labor agreements that hamper innovation.  Traditional public schools get boxed in with union contracts that literally stipulate when a teacher arrives in the morning and when he or she must depart.  And that’s just the beginning of union-imposed regulations.

In charter schools, the interest of the students comes first, so adults oftentimes find themselves going above and beyond to ensure that students succeed.  In the documentary “Kids Aren’t Cars,” the story was told of Tindley Accelerated School in Indianapolis.  The principal said his teachers stay late and work Saturdays if necessary because they do not accept failure.

That’s why it is disturbing to watch labor unions organize charter school after charter school, with little being done about it.  Their intent is clear.  Consider what United Federation of Teachers Vice President Leo Casey said at the recent socialist Left Forum, courtesy of EAGtv:

“If we do not figure out how to organize charter schools and if we are not successful in doing that, we will end up in the same place as the auto workers. So there is no more key question before us as a union and a broader labor movement with regard to education than how we approach charter schools and our ability to organize them.”

What he’s saying is that the United Auto Workers unionized Ford, General Motors and Chrysler and ignored foreign competitors.  As foreign market shares grew, the UAW’s membership rolls suffered.  Casey’s envisioning a similar scenario with school employee unions.

He doesn’t care if charter schools benefit students. He just knows that they hurt his union, so they must be changed as soon as possible.

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Since 2009, the day-to-day management of Detroit Public Schools has been under the auspices of Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb. He was appointed by former Gov. Jennifer Granholm to right the ship that is DPS.  It had already struck the iceberg, and Bobb was tasked with not only ensuring it didn’t sink, but that it wouldn’t drag the whole state down with it.

During Bobb’s brief tenure, DPS is already showing signs of improvement. He has slashed the budget, gotten rid of some of the worst teachers and increased the graduation rate by nearly three percent. DPS has a very long way to go, but there’s finally a sense that things are improving.

A lot of that has to do with Bobb’s approach to his job.  He is a straight-forward man who has little patience for waste, fraud, abuse or putting adult interests ahead of student needs.  He should be an inspiration for every taxpayer watchdog group in America.

Last year, when it was rumored that a group of radical, renegade Detroit teachers was threatening a walk out on students because their “rights” were in jeopardy, Bobb had little use for that, too.

We asked Bobb about the walk-out threat when we interviewed him for our documentary “Kids Aren’t Cars.” In typical fashion, the plainspoken Bobb cut through the B.S. and called out the renegade teacher group.

Whenever we hold public screenings of “Kids Aren’t Cars,” this scene causes the audience to burst out in applause. They find Bobb’s candor to be refreshing and inspiring.

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Many parents and taxpayers feel the problem is overwhelming for one person and there is nothing they can do. There are several things individuals can do to make a difference.  In the first several segments of “Kids Aren’t Cars,” we laid out many of the problems and some of the solutions.

Watch ‘What Can I Do?’ – Episode 9 – “Kids Aren’t Cars”

Parents

• Look at all of your schooling options.
• Get to know your teacher.
• Find out: Does your child attend a student-focused school?
  • Is the staff more worried about pay and benefits than putting your kids first?
• If your neighborhood school is ineffective, demand options from community and elected leaders.

Taxpayers

• Know your school board.
  • Who did the union endorse in the last election?
  • Are they calling for tax increases or spending reform?
  • If you’re a taxpayer, parent or Tea Party group, interview candidates and hold them accountable.
  • If you don’t like what’s happening, run for the school board. Contact American Majority for training. (link to americanmajority.org)
• Look into how your public school is spending YOUR money. It’s not their money – it’s your money.
• Demand to know what is going on in contract negotiations.

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Charter schools are facing increasing fierce attacks by organized labor – because they work.  Most of them are publicly funded and are not bound by inch-thick union contracts that stipulate what teachers don’t have to do and which hoops administrators have to jump through in order to hold their employees accountable.

Some charter schools don’t produce the desired results.  But because of the agreement between the school and their state, if they aren’t up to snuff, they can be shut down.  If only the same could be said of traditional public systems in Detroit, Chicago or Los Angeles.

Watch ‘Reforms That Work’ – Episode 8 – “Kids Aren’t Cars”

Indianapolis Public Schools is a dismal mess.  Leaders there do whatever they can to keep the ship afloat, regardless of the harm it brings to the children of the city. Parents are desperate for choices – and they found one in the Charles A. Tindley Accelerated School.

Tindley Accelerated School was started by education visionaries who bought an old grocery store, put up some walls, hired quality teachers and began educating kids. Today, those kids are out-performing their peers in the very same neighborhood, dispelling many myths.

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There’s a dirty little secret in public school governance: for a few thousand dollars, unions can run the table. How? Elect the school board. Then, at negotiation time, they’re sitting across the bargaining table from their friends.

Who is looking out for taxpayers? In far too many school districts, no one. The inmates are running the asylum.

When unions have the ability to elect their boss – the Michigan Education Association actually has a how-to manual on the subject – a conflict of interest presents itself.

Watch ‘Choose Your Boss: Electing Politicians’ – Episode 7 – “Kids Aren’t Cars”

What can be done about it?  Some have proposed banning unions from giving campaign contributions to those that would oversee collective bargaining agreements. That’s a good move.

The union in Michigan has brazenly gone so far as to actually initiate recall campaigns to take out board members who don’t see things the “union way.”  It’s right out of the Jimmy Hoffa handbook.

And if there’s a reform-minded, troublesome superintendent?  Take over the board and fire him!

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Have you ever seen a school administrator add up the last four digits of a teacher’s social security number to determine whether or not that teacher will remain on the staff?  How about teachers flipping a coin to see who will have a job next school year, and who will be standing in the unemployment line?

When faced with downsizing a teaching staff, normal Americans would try to keep the best possible teachers in the classrooms, for the children’s sake.

But that is not how teacher unions, and therefore public schools, think, and unions’ distorted priorities are the only ones that matter.

Watch ‘Years Trump Effectiveness: Tenure and Seniority’ – Episode 6 – “Kids Aren’t Cars”

Many school districts across the country are facing shrinking school budgets, forcing them to lay off teachers.  But districts that are infested by the teacher unions cannot get rid of the least effective teachers on staff.  No way.  That would violate the time-honored union principle of seeing teachers as interchangeable cogs in a machine.

Unions do not allow teachers to be viewed as individuals, but rather as part of a group. When layoffs occur, the teachers with the most seniority keep their jobs.

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Few school districts in America rival the dire condition of Detroit Public Schools: staggering dropout rates, functionally-illiterate high school graduates, a dysfunctional school board and a sea of red ink.

Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb has been trying to fix the city’s public schools which are historically awful. At times, it seems that he is the only one trying to fix a school system that is failing its students.

The Detroit Federation of Teachers has consistently called for Bobb’s removal. The radical socialist group, By Any Means Necessary, makes every effort to stir up racial division and strife. One of BAMN’s leaders was nearly elected president of the teachers union, which shows how radical the union has become.

Watch ‘An Epic Failure: Detroit Part 1’ and ‘Part 2’ – Episodes 4 and 5 – “Kids Aren’t Cars”

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Somewhere back in our school days, we all had a special teacher who made learning fun or who pushed us into achieving more than we thought possible.  If you were lucky, you had several teachers like that.

But we’ve all had that certain teacher who liked to show videos on Friday while he sat in the back of the room grading papers, or reading Sports section of the newspaper.  He was more concerned with getting on early start on his weekend than he was about what (or if) the students were learning.

The majority of public school teachers are dedicated and hard working. But a certain percentage of teachers are just going through the motions, putting in their time until their pension kicks in.

Watch ‘Unions vs. Good Teachers’ – Episode 3 – “Kids Aren’t Cars”

Even though experience tells us otherwise, teacher unions want schools to treat teachers as interchangeable and indistinguishable. The unions want the marginal teachers to be paid the same as the good teachers.  How does that make any sense?

Consider a survey by the Association of American Educators, an organization for teachers that actually has the interest of children at heart.  It found only 32% of teachers felt they should be judged based on the number of years they’ve been in the system.  Likewise, contrary to what unions would have us believe, AAE found 81% of teachers disagreed with the notion that “tenure is necessary for an educator to properly perform his or her job effectively.”

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Former American Federation of Teachers President Albert Shanker made teachers’ unions what they are today.  He was hard-nosed defender of teachers’ rights, but he also came clean about public school performance.

In the making of “Kids Aren’t Cars,” I unearthed a 25-year old PBS interview with Shanker. His indictment of the public education system was stunning.

“You could do things that are absolutely wrong, you can have huge dropout rates, you can have kids who are leaving without knowing how to read, write, count or anything else and what do you do next year?  Do the same as you did this year and the following year and the following year…”

And when Shanker – again, 25 years ago – rattled off achievement statistics, the host challenged him:

Shanker: When it comes to the highest levels of reading, writing, mathematics or science – that just means being able to read editorials in the New York Times…or write an essay of a few pages…or do a mathematical equation, not calculus…the number of kids who are about to graduate who are able to function at that level, depending on whether you’re talking about reading, writing, math science – 3 percent, 4 percent…

Host: Oh, come on!

Shanker: No! 5 percent. That’s it.

Does anyone honestly believe our education system – which has had billions of dollars more each year dumped into – is better now than it was in 1986?

Anyone??

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One of the most disturbing results of an adult-focused public education system is the constant focus on money. There is an insatiable thirst on the part of Big Labor to constantly increase spending on public education, because the teachers’ unions are mostly concerned with their pensions, paychecks and the union coffers.

Unlike workers in the private sector who have had to accept wage and benefit concessions just to stay employed, the teacher unions use the collective bargaining process to demand lavish health and pension benefits, annual automatic pay raises (regardless of classroom performance), sick day buyouts and many other costly benefits that send school budgets reeling into red ink.

Watch “Kids Aren’t Cars” Episode 2: ‘Give Up the Bucks!’

For teachers’ unions, it is all about the money.  A protester we encountered at a pro-tax increase rally last year in Springfield, Illinois underscored the point.  “Where is the money?” she asked as she rubbed her fingers together.  “Save our children!  Give up the bucks!  Where’s the cash?  We need it fast,” she said.  Of course she does, or she may need to take a pay freeze or start contributing to her pension plan. She was saavy enough to work children into her demand.

The unions and the education establishment judge Americans’ value of public education based on how much we’re willing to spend.  Americans, on the other hand, are beginning to question what they’re getting for all this money they are “investing.”

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The next time you hear of a school district that cannot afford new textbooks for its students, or is forced to lay off teachers due to budget constraints, remember the following story.

A former public school superintendent in Wayne Township, Indiana is comfortably settling into retirement, thanks in large part to a $1 million golden parachute provided by the local school board. He was given a lump sum payout of $817,000 plus another $200,000 for his 150-day reign as “superintendent emeritus.” I’m not sure what a “superintendent emeritus” does, but hey, it only cost the district $1,300 a day. I’m sure the taxpayers got their money’s worth, don’t you?

Unfortunately, this story is not an anomaly.

Consider the case of Central Falls, Rhode Island in which a city and its school system both teeter on the edge of financial ruin. Bet those schools are paying their teachers next to nothing, right? According to the Wall Street Journal, the district’s teachers are paid four times the median household income.

And get this: last month the U.S. Department of Education awarded $1.3 million to the Central Falls School District as part of the federal government’s effort to help turnaround the nation’s worst schools. (Please note: laughing or crying are both acceptable reactions.)

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The high school graduate who cannot read his diploma is a favorite cliché among education reformers.

But like all clichés, it holds a lot of truth.  Difficult as it may be to believe, there high school graduates who are barely able to read and write and do basic math.  Their schools hand them a worthless piece of paper and send them out into the world.  These kids are totally unprepared to handle life and the workaday world.

How is this possible? How can a child spend 13 years inside a classroom and have so few skills?

A big part of the reason is the automobile assembly line mentality that infiltrated of schools decades ago.

Watch ‘Assembly Line Education’ – Episode 1 – “Kids Aren’t Cars”

Consider a typical day in our public schools:  a bell rings (bringing the learning process to a screeching halt), kids get out of their seat and shuffle off to their next class to do it all over again — like an assembly line.

And like many factories, the teachers are part of a union in which work responsibilities are narrowly-defined, innovation and initiative are stymied and penalized, and excellence is treated no differently than mediocrity.

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Americans are beginning to understand that the government-run assembly-line education system is not working.  As I point out in the upcoming “Kids Aren’t Cars” film series, thousands, of not millions of kids are being failed by a system that is geared more towards satisfying adults than educating children.

How else can a recent Detroit Public Schools graduate be unable to read her own diploma? How else can tenure – the job security law for unfit teachers – be explained?  How else can budget busting pension systems be explained?

When collective bargaining was brought into American schools in the 1960s, it was a revenue stream and power base for Big Labor.  Suddenly, union bosses became more interested in building political muscle than educating children.

At that point the battle between unions and school boards became more focusing on salary, benefits,  pensions and working conditions for adults, and less about students.

Kids are only pawns in the self-serving union game.

As we point out in “Kids Aren’t Cars,” this has poisoned the education environment.  We witness ugly fights in communities during union contract negotiations.  Unions lead recall campaigns against school board members who don’t vote the union way. Teachers throw up their hands because the union will take their money by hook or by crook, while showing no interest in their input.

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“Kids Aren’t Cars” is a new short film series set for release February 1st.  Using examples from the Midwest, it documents the impact organized labor has had on the American education system, creating a one-size-fits-all assembly line model that leaves students behind and treats teachers equally, stifling innovation and improvement.

Our government education system has been spending more and more each year, yet the results have been the same.  While unions demand higher spending – which of course ends up in the pockets of their members – money is not fixing the problem.

Those that have been in the trenches gave shocking interviews – stories of money grabs by adults while children are left behind.

An executive director of a literacy clinic in Detroit – where high school graduates go to learn how to read – compared the actions of the school board to the Ku Klux Klan.  “If they were sitting up there in Klan robes,” she said, no one would be tolerating what is going on, but the effect is the same. [Eight of the 9 school board members are black.]

We tell the story of two Indiana teachers recognized state-wide for their impact on students, only to be fired literally the next day because they lacked seniority of their co-workers.

Numerous leaders sound the alarm, but do elected leaders have the courage to stand up to the all-powerful teachers’ unions?  The tide seems to be turning, but the need is dire.  The United States continues to slip globally, with student achievement lagging behind Iceland and Hungary.

In short, it’s because our public school system is designed to benefits adults, at the expense of children.  The focus has been on spending – which invariably ends up in pay, health benefits and retirement for the employees.

“Kids Aren’t Cars” is an unflinching look at the state of public education in America and what can be done about it.

The film’s Facebook page is here.

As “Waiting for ‘Superman’” so eloquently points out, the industrial assembly-line model of America’s public schools, created decades ago, isn’t working.  In fact, it’s setting us further and further behind our global competitors.

Today, it is essential that our children graduate high school and college prepared for the fierce competition they will face in the global marketplace.  Their economic survival will be determined by their ability to compete with countries like China, India, and other emerging economies.

This requires that our public schools be innovative and effective.  Instead, our schools are using a failed, one-size-fits-all approach to education that may actually end up hurting our children.

It’s interesting that our slide began in the 1970s.  Just ten years earlier, collective bargaining, the crowning glory of labor unions, took root in our public schools. Coincidence?

Collective bargaining agreements, which carry the weight of law, enshrine such policies as seniority (last hired, first fired), tenure (lifetime job protection in as little as two years) and due process (an extra-legal process outside the court system).  Oh, and automatic yearly raises– not for performance, but simply for logging another year in the system.  In other words, we give teachers raises simply for not dying over the summer.

This is a beautiful system – if you’re a public school employee.  But if you’re a student in the public school system, well, it’s like being drafted by the Detroit Lions.

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As if the $10 billion “public education bailout” wasn’t enough to stomach, U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) has introduced a bill, titled Education for All Act of 2010, which would spend American tax dollars on education systems around the globe.  It’s S.3797.

U.S. Rep Nita Lowey (D-CA) has introduced similar legislation as H.B. 5117.

I think Washington has officially lost its marbles.

While no dollar amount is contained in the legislation, the bill states, “Credible estimates indicate that approximately $16,000,000,000 per year of financing assistance is necessary for developing countries to achieve universal basic education by 2015.”

Is Sen. Gillibrand really proposing to spend an additional $16 billion of our hard-earned tax dollars elsewhere?

Does spending money in other countries imply that our system is okay?  Or that it’s on a course of improvement?  Because in case these members of Congress haven’t noticed, our system kind of stinks.

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