Sometimes the politicians pull off these events, sometimes the event is so contrived that everyone sees through the thinly veiled "hidden agenda."
What category of staged news event do you think that the latest Rod Paige (defunct Secretary of Education) pulled? (Hint: Notice that I didn't write, "pulled off."
"The High Cost of Dropouts" Non-Event
Rod Paige and a host of "NCLB Lackeys" conspired in a "wool-over-our-eyes" media menagerie.
Link to the news release that set up this media circus…
Out trotted the politicians of the "Let's bash public schools, again," ilk to show that…
- Dropouts (school leavers) place a drain on our society, i.e., cost money
- Public schools can't pull their weight in this arena
- Vouchers would salvage these "left-behind students, lost-national-talent-resources"
- Vouchers would increase competition and force schools (and by default, teachers) to do their jobs
- Public schools can't do the job as well as church schools
"The NCPA is an internationally known nonprofit, nonpartisan research institute with offices in Dallas and Washington, D. C. that advocates private solutions to public policy problems.
Hispanic CREO’s mission is to improve educational outcomes for Hispanic children by empowering families through parental choice in education. We achieve this by providing parents with free information and resources, which help them become self-advocates for their children. CREO is a non-profit, non-partisan organization. “CREO is Spanish for ‘I believe.’”
Based in Indianapolis and dubbed “the nation’s leading voucher advocates” by The Wall Street Journal, the Milton & Rose D. Friedman Foundation was started by Nobel laureate Dr. Milton Friedman and Dr. Rose D. Friedman in 1996 as a non-profit organization dedicated to educating the public about the role competition plays in achieving real K-12 education reform."
Source:
The NCPA Press Release
Link to the news release that set up this media circus…
Flim-Flam Reasoning
Dr. Rod Paige, political pitch man for NCLB, is a dedicated soldier who is willing to "take a bullet" for his Commander in Chief.
No doubt that Dr. Paige believes that public school systems need more testing (wrong), need to take better care of students (yes), and need more accountability (yes, but who should be accountable, and to whom should they be accountable).
"But there is a way to stem these costs, and help more students graduate, says Brian J. Gottlob, senior fellow at the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation and author of the study. School choice improves graduation rates and produces millions in public savings:
- School districts with more students in private schools have higher public school graduation rates; all Texas children would benefit from increased competition from private schools.
- Even a modest school choice program, one that increased private school enrollment by fewer than 5 percentage points, would reduce the number of Texas public school dropouts by 8,720 to 17,440 per year.
That reduction would save Texans between $27 million and $53 million in tax revenue, Medicaid costs and incarceration costs every year.
The total savings from preventing these students from dropping out, over an expected lifetime of 50 years, would be between $1.4 billion and $2.8 billion."
Source:
Daily Policy Digest Article
Link to the article…
Errors in Logic: Perhaps these "Voucher-Hucksters" Need Test-Taking Skills
Statement: "School districts with more students in private schools have higher public school graduation rates."
Error: Even if this were true (doubtful), correlation does not prove cause and effect.
- Perhaps the areas where there are more private schools are "wealthier"
- Perhaps the private schools will graduate any student who is willing to pay, no matter what the competency level of the student
It is doubtful that private schools have any effect on…
- Early failure (in the first two grades)
- Teen Pregnancy
- Economic Hardship
- Migrating Students
Besides, these same Voucher Pundits are the folks that want to restrict or deny a public education to the children of undocumented visitors.
Another Error:
Hidden in this argument is the assumption that private (church) schools teach children in a superior manner. But research has shown that this assumption is bogus.
Sidebar
See our Newsletter Article, Research Shows what we have Known All Along: Public Schools are as Good as Private Schools!
Bad Math
Statement:
"…increased private school enrollment by fewer than 5 percentage points, would reduce the number of Texas public school dropouts by 8,720 to 17,440 per year…would increase save $27 million and $53 million in tax revenue…
Error:
Why stop with only five percent enrollment increase if this is true?
Increase private school enrollment by 100% and save 20 times more money.
This puts savings at $540 million to $1.06 billion per year, or from $27 billion to $53 billion over 50 years.
If this is such an incredible bargain, let's go for it.
But…
- Would the church schools take all those students?
- Do the church schools have the facilities to manage double enrollments?
- Do the church schools pay teachers enough to attract twice as many teachers?
- What happens to church-based instruction when the enrollment hits the point of 50% students who are members of that church and 50% that are not?
(Note: In the bussing experiment, a 40% critical mass proved to be sufficient to keep minority students from being "ganged up on", while not diluting learning standards for the majority. Perhaps the Voucher Schemes are a disguised "parent-based reverse bussing" movement.)
Thinly Disguised Motives
The real intent of the "church school on the public dime" advocates is to separate and sanitize their children from the "riff-raff and heathens" that "infest" the public schools."
This motive needs to be drawn out in the open so the exposed hypocrisy can wilt and wither in the light of day.
The Classroom Toolkit philosophy treasures all children, supports drawing out their unique abilities, and helping each child become "all that he or she can be." We offer no solution or sympathy for folks who don't prize diversity and inter-racial, inter-cultural, inter-ethnic, inter-class, inter-religious communication.
Segregation is synonymous with stagnation, and both the "segregratee and the segregator" are poorer because of the practice.
Communicating with diverse groups, exposure to viewpoints other than their own, a laboratory for working out issues with divergent others is a benefit that the money of private school enrollment cannot buy. Children that miss out on these experiences are poorer in interpersonal skills, less likely to be competitive in a interactive, "shrinking" world, and more likely to remain stagnant in an evolving, changing world.
The Real Solution
It is "un American" to deny people with money that right to buy whatever they want, including education. But, it is also undemocratic to siphon away public money, divide availability, and provide a lesser service to everyone, especially the "less than affluent" who deserve every opportunity to succeed.
The real solution is to provide more funds for public schools, not diminish the money that is available.
But the corollary to that solution is to empower teachers and place control of school district budgets in the hands of teachers.
Sure teachers will ask for more money to operate our schools.
And, reverse the "accountability blame game" and make principals, directors and superintendents accountable to teachers for providing the needed support for their classrooms.
Let's get the debate right, frame the questions correctly, and the solutions seem so, so obvious.
