Stupid in America

[dude1394]

realclearpolitics

The last sentence of this post sums it up, also the statement about the abhorrent amount of dollars/student being spent for nada:

Stossel eventually puts forward some of his own ideas, which may or may not lead to the correct solutions. But whether or not you agree with Stossel's conclusions, his case against the status quo is devastating.

--------------------
Stupid in America?

About three weeks ago, ABC's 20/20 aired "Stupid in America," John Stossel's report on public education in the United States. Stossel touched on a wide range of issues in the one-hour special, and he hoped that his hard-hitting piece would at least spark some debate on the controversial topic.

If you missed the original airing, ABC News has a few video excerpts you can watch online (here, here, and here). Stossel has also devoted his last four columns to the subject. His introductory offering focuses on America's decline in competitiveness with foreign schools:

We gave identical tests to high school students in New Jersey and Belgium. The Belgians trounced the Americans. We didn't pick smart kids in Europe and dumb kids in the United States. The American students attend an above-average school in New Jersey, and New Jersey kids' test scores are above average for America. "It has to be something with the school," said a New Jersey student, "'cause I don't think we're stupider."

She was right: It's the schools. At age 10, students from 25 countries take the same test, and American kids place eighth, well above the international average. But by age 15, when students from 40 countries are tested, the Americans place 25th, well below the international average. In other words, the longer American kids stay in American schools, the worse they do. They do worse than kids from much poorer countries, like Korea and Poland.

Stossel's next column is a response to his critics who say that schools need more money in order to raise standards:

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.

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.

So in his first two pieces, Stossel has argued that American students are, indeed, falling behind and that, contrary to popular myth, throwing money at schools is not the solution. In his third column, Stossel begins to provide some of his own solutions. Namely, more freedom:

If you're a public-school student, your chances in life may be largely dependent on where you live -- not just which country, not just which state, but which little bureaucratic zone. [snip]

Changing schools can change a child's life. In Florida, Patty Bower's kids were stuck in a school that wasn't teaching them. But then they got vouchers, which let them attend a private school that works with kids who have special needs.

"Joey has been brought up four grade levels in reading," Bowers said. "He's gone from C's, and D's to being an honor roll student." But the Florida Supreme Court this month killed a similar choice program, and Patty fears her kids will soon be forced back into public school. "If they take the McKay scholarship away, I don't think -- I'm sorry. I don't think Joey will finish school."

Why can't she choose her child's school? Most countries that beat America on international tests give their students that choice. In Belgium, the government spends less than American schools do on each student, but the money is attached to the kids. So they can go wherever they want -- to a state-run school, a Montessori school, or even a religious school.

In the TV special, Stossel goes into more detail about the opposition such programs face. He attacks the teachers unions, school boards, and politicians who stand in the way of reform. I was shocked when he sat down with a teacher from Florida who had brought suit against a Florida voucher program. Her words of wisdom?

"To say that competition is going to improve education? It's just not gonna work. You know competition is not for children. It's not for human beings. It's not for public education. It never has been, it never will be."

Vouchers may not be the correct solution, but competition not for human beings? Wow.

Unfortunately, while this appears to be the prevailing attitude of those in charge, Stossel says students like Dorian Cain enter the 12th grade without being able to read:

His mom, Gena Cain, has been trying to get him help for years. If Dorian were in private school, or if South Carolina allowed parents to choose schools the way we choose other products and services in life, Dorian and Gena would be "customers" and able to go elsewhere -- if any school were dumb enough to serve a customer as poorly as Dorian has been served. But since Gena is merely a taxpayer, forced to pay for the public schools whether they do her any good or not, she can't even demand a better education for her son. "You have to beg," she said. "Whatever you ask for, you're begging. Because they have the power." They do. What are you going to do -- go elsewhere? Gena can't afford that.

Apparently, Gena finally did get results:

What the school bureaucrats did was hold meetings to talk about Dorian. (Bureaucrats are good at holding meetings.) At the meeting we watched, lots of important people attended: a director of programs for exceptional children, a resource teacher, a district special education coordinator, a counselor and even a gym teacher. The meeting went on for 45 minutes.

"I'm seeing great progress in him," said the principal. "So I don't have any concerns."

Stossel's reporting alone raises many important questions about our current education system. While his examples may portray extreme cases of dysfunction, it is telling that these episodes occur at all in our exceptional country.

Stossel eventually puts forward some of his own ideas, which may or may not lead to the correct solutions. But whether or not you agree with Stossel's conclusions, his case against the status quo is devastating.

[Murphy3]

Part of the problem has to be that so many educators choose their career path because they can't really find anything else that they want to do... So, they fall back on becoming a teacher as a default. I don't mean to belittle many of the brilliant educators that contribute to educating our youth, but I know entirely too many people that decide to go into teaching because they believe that it's the easy way to make a decent living and not because it's what they want to actually do.

Plus, school was a better place when teachers were allowed to beat their students without parents getting in the way.

[Mavdog]

we don't compensate our teachers enough imo. make it a better paying job and we'll get better performing teachers.

I'm not so sure about the beating but yes the teachers need to have the ability to control their classrooms.

the key isn't a choice in schools, it's having a home where the school work and the student's performance are constantly stressed by the parent(s).

[dude1394]

Geez...like a broken record. More money even though it's currently at 250K per classroom.

And sure the key "isn't choice in school" right, because why? Because spending more bucks is working so well? Man...

[Mavdog]

you toss around "$250K" like the money is going to the teacher.

do you honestly believe that a salary of $30K is attracting the best people to the teaching profession?

[dude1394]

Good grief mavie so WHERE does the 250K go? You think an extra 50K per classroom is going to go directly to that teacher? Why are you so hard-headed about this, is it only because of politics?

Plus the average is more like 47K not including benefits.

[Murphy3]

...I don't think it's 47k in Texas..at least, not with any of the 30-40 teachers that I know.

[Drbio]

broken record crap is all you get from mavdog these days. I'm not sure why you are surprised.

[dude1394]

Average in texas for 03-04 is 40,476...

http://www.aft.org/presscenter/relea...salary_map.htm

[Mavdog]

dude, there are states that pay in the mid $40's, but here in Texas the starting teacher gets in the low $30's. they get raises if they obtain a masters, or if they have bilingual skills, etc. over time they will get to the $40's.

so you never addressed the question- do you feel that teachers are paid well enough?

edit: added bold to reinforce the numbers for those who missed them

[Drbio]

Did you even bother reading dudes link? Seems not.


12:01 a.m., October 6, 2005
Contact:
AFT Public Affairs
202/879-4458
Texas Ranks 30th in the Nation for Teacher Pay
Teacher Salary in Texas Falls Behind Inflation
Teachers Nationally Earned 18 Cents for Every New Dollar in Other Professions from 1994-2004
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Texas ranked 30th in the nation for its average teacher salary in 2003-04, according to the American Federation of Teachers’ (AFT) annual teacher salary survey, released today. Texas was one of 28 states where the increase in average teacher salary was lower than the national rate of inflation.
The average teacher salary in Texas for the 2003-04 school year was $40,476, up 1.3 percent from the previous year. Texas ranked 16th in the nation for average beginning teacher salary, at $32,741, an increase of 2.6 percent from 2002-03.
Nationally, average teacher salary growth failed to keep up with inflation for the first time since the 1999-2000 school year. The average teacher salary in 2003-04 was $46,597, an increase of 2.2 percent from 2002-03. The national rate of inflation in 2004 was 2.7 percent. When adjusted for inflation, the 2003-04 salary is actually a drop of 0.4 percent from 2002-03.
“Current salaries fail to reflect the professional qualifications, preparation and challenges that teachers must meet every day in the classroom,” said AFT President Edward J. McElroy. “At the very least, teachers’ pay should be a measure of their educational backgrounds and the demands of their jobs. Teachers, like all workers, deserve a salary that enables them to comfortably support themselves and their families.”
The survey also reports that, from 1994-2004, compensation for teachers, after adjusting for inflation, increased at a far slower rate than salaries earned by other professionals, with teachers gaining just 18 cents for every new dollar earned by private sector workers with similar educational backgrounds.
Other states in the Southwest region ranked in the AFT survey as follows: Arizona was 26th in the nation, at $42,324; New Mexico was 41st, at $38,469; and Oklahoma was 49th, at $35,061.
Connecticut had the highest average teacher salary at $56,516, while South Dakota reported the lowest at $33,236. Alaska led the nation with the highest average beginning teacher salary for 2003-04, at $40,027. Wisconsin had the nation’s lowest average beginning teacher salary, at $23,952.
###
The AFT represents 1.3 million pre-K through 12th-grade teachers; paraprofessionals and other school-related personnel; higher education faculty and professional staff; nurses and healthcare workers;
and federal, state and local government employees.

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by Mavdog

dude, there are states that pay in the mid $40's, but here in Texas the starting teacher gets in the low $30's. they get raises if they obtain a masters, or if they have bilingual skills, etc. over time they will get to the $40's.

so you never addressed the question- do you feel that teachers are paid well enough?

They are paid what the "market" believes they are worth, they are paid what YOUR politicians local and state believe they are worth. Per the stossell argument they are VASTLY OVERPAID as their performance sucks. They just aren't that specialized and to be honest not that great of an education imo to be paid much more than 40K + great bennies.

I'm not avoiding the "question" but you sure as heck are. Why would you continue to want to INCREASE funding for a system that continues to fail miserably without entertaining another way? I can only think it is vested interest. Maybe stupidity but I don't really think that's it, naivity maybe. Politics certainly.

[Mavdog]

look dude, if the average cost per classroom is $250k, and the teacher salary is less than 20% of that cost (and for many young teachers only about 17%), why are you trying to make a case that increasing the salaries is just "increasing funding"?
this has NOTHING to do with "politics".
you get the best people for the job if you make it worth their time. many people who would make a difference as teachers don't even consider it because the pay isn't enough.

[dude1394]

Mavie..you get the best people for the job when there is an open market for their skills and labor. You hardly ever get the best people for the job when that market is being controlled by a labor union and a system which has no accountability. When you have a captive (children) market as it were, quality will ALWAYS suffer.

For the people who are against vouchers and market reforms in schools it is ALL about politics (and money of course which may be the same thing in the end.).

[Mavdog]

please explain how the labor union is controlling the market for teachers when they do NOT have to be union members to teach.

[dude1394]

Control is too strong a word in the strict sense. I will start over...

Most teachers belong to the NEA(even teachers who support vouchers). The NEA is a very, very large contributor to the Democrat party. They contribute to the democrat party so that they will get them more school funding and will block the measurements and accountability of those union members. They will also fund legal challenges to voucher systems which would take away their power and money and bring accountabilty and metrics to thier workplace.

In this way the labor union is controlling the market for education by their control of the democrats. They are using their political clout to squash meaningful reforms of the educational system so that they will not lose clout and dollars.

You being a democrat seem to only see the side whereby some of those union members and democrat voters might lose dollars. For some reason not understanding that they should infact not only lose dollars but be closed down because of incompetence. No matter that it perpetuates an abhorrent result in the very consituents you profess to care the most about.

[Mavdog]

first, I am independent. voted for repubs and dems. much fewer repubs yes, but i've voted for them nevertheless.

as an aside: vote kinky!

last time I checked dude texas was a majority republican state. it's darn difficult to make any claim about the teachers union, democrats and "controlling the market for education" in this state.

I have no problem with accountability in the classroom. get rid of the poorly performing teachers.

but at the same time let's compensate the teachers better and I believe we will get better teachers.

[Drbio]

OT: Did you catch Kinky F. on Leno last night? Really funny.

[Mavdog]

a breath of fresh air. honest and direct.

vote kinky!

[Drbio]

He said that Willie Nelson was going to be his minister of energy because Willie uses corn oil for his bus. Apparently corn oil makes a lot of smoke and Leno made a joke about smoke coming from Willie's bus and Kinky laughed. He is an admitted pot smoker.

[dude1394]

How do you get rid of poorly perfroming union teachers?

How do you get that accountability?

Why not get it by letting children select with their feet?

[Drbio]

Sorry to highjack the thread dude. I'll make a kinky thread.

[Mavdog]

open up the info on what teachers are not educating their kids, no matter if they are union or not.

i just do not agree that vouchers are a panacea. my view is that success in school has as much to do with the home as the school.

[Drbio]

I too would like a way to cull the underachieving teachers from the herd, but how do you do this? What are the metrics or criteria?

[chumdawg]

Let me just say that it has been a long, long, LONG time since I have read an article so embarrassingly devoid of intellectual objectivity. The logical leaps are so severe and so frequent as to make any semblance of the writer's argument easily dismissed as promoting a political agenda. In short, any scientist would laugh this writer out of the room.

To anyone who wants to rail on the US education system, I always say the same thing: where do you think all those Ivy League schools go to get their students? Where do you think all those brilliant people you admire in all walks of life came from?

Did we import all the brilliant ones from freakin' Belgium and export all the dolts overseas?

I guess I missed the boat out of the US, if that's that case. Thank God they let me slide. I'm not sure I'd have had it so good in Brussells.

Ashamedly, this article falls prey to same sort of logical fallacy that, frankly, a lot of Democratic arguments on this same topic do--which is to say, biased samples. I hear about how Texas is at the bottom of the list when it comes to educational standards in the US. But when Duke University runs that pre-SAT program every year, what state supplies more brilliant kids than any other state? Texas.

Intuitively, we all know this. We all either received an excellent education in the state of Texas--or America, if you want to put it that way--and/or we know a whole lot of other people who did. How many people you received your college diploma with were educated in their youth overseas, versus how many were educated here? How many people at your place of employment received that horrendous American education?

Other countries may well do a better job of guiding their young people toward more focused career paths--mostly out of necessity, though that is neither here nor there--but nobody educates their kids like America does.

I'm about sick and tired of politicos grossly distorting reality to further their own agenda. If you want to be in favor of vouchers so that your kids can go to a religious school where they can recite the pledge and pray without government intervention, have the guts to say so. Don't hide behind some ridicious logically twisted argument.

Quarter million per classroom. Fifty grand, to be generous, in teacher salary per classroom. Two hundred grand extra per classroom. How many classrooms in the US? I'm sure it would amount to several billion dollars per year on top, using those estimates. Where is that money going?

If the writer were being sincere, I'm sure he'd tell you about all the other places it was going. Like infrastructure to replace aging schools, ongoing teacher education, athletic departments, fine arts departments, and so forth. As if teacher salary was the only cost of education.

But, again, this writer is miles from being sincere.

[dude1394]

So many things I disagree with your rant that I really don't want to try and refute them all. But a few.

First the dollars he cited do not include capital costs as he clearly states but you conveniently neglect to acknowledge, not sure about baseball fields, etc.:

Think about that! For a class of 25 kids, that's $250,000 per classroom. This doesn't include capital costs.

I see your argument for Ivy League schools (top folks coming in as well as overseas students) as an argument for market reforms in our public school, not as an argument that all is jelly side up so why bother as you seem to feel it is.

You can have your snobbish belief that "politicos" are only pushing vouchers to get prayer in school but that is quite ludicrous. There are many who have and do push for this without any religious reasons at all, you just choose to ignore them because of your own biases.

There is currently litte or no accountability or measuring of public school performance. If your child is in a geography that has a crappy school basically your only reasonable recourse is to put those children in a private school it would seem. Or better yet, vote with your feet away from the crappy public school, that would be my suggestion, but for many that is difficult. You would see them continue to reside there, it's actually quite shameful.

[chumdawg]

No accountability? I thought that was what NCLB was about. Educate me?

How farspread do you, in your opinion, believe the "geography" is that has American kids attending crappy schools?

That's the crux of my argument. I think it's few and far between. You--or at least, the author of this piece--seem to think it's widepsread.

And again, if the "geography" is so widespread, how are we seemingly such a literate society?

Or are we really that illiterate a society after all?

[chumdawg]

Let me go ahead and point out some of the things that grate me about this article:

--They gave kids a test. What kind of test was this? The article didn't say.

--Americans ranked 8th of 25, and 25th of 40. Under what criteria? More importantly, how far behind the top rank were the Americans in each case? Let's say they graded each student on a 100-point scale. If the Americans scored 85.387% on average and the top rank scored 86.486%, are those numbers at all meaningful to you? Why didn't the writer include the numbers in his reporting? It's a bit like free-throw percentage in the NBA. We can rank the thirty teams all we like, but the truth is that the spread really isn't that significant. Outliers aside, most teams will fall within a common range.

And for that matter, how the did the sample of countries magically grow from 25 to 40? What countries were included in each test? This article is so irresponsible, it's laughable.

--Notice that Belgium, according to the article, "trounced" the US. Is that trounced like the US Dream Team did in '92, or is that trounced like the hockey team did in '80? My eye always looks at a word like "trounced" as subjective and most probably loaded, and I regard it with suspicion.

--Notice also the selective quote from the Jersey kid. They didn't pick dumb kids--oh, no--but they did quote a kid who said he didn't think the Americans were "stupider." My goodness, I know enough to stop reading right there!

How do you not? Seriously, dude, how do you not? If that's not evidence of writing with an agenda, I don't know what it would take to signal you that this is what is going on. I appreciate that you have your own political agenda--really, I do--but you have to be astute enough to recognize manipulation when you see it. This is manipulation at its purest.

--After citing the cost of $10,000 per student, the writer says "Think about that!" Now, do you think the exclamation mark was an accident? I don't. To me, the exclamation mark implies that ten grand is way too much to educate a kid for a year. It was probably a shameless attempt to appeal to the sensibilities of his readers, for what they could do with another ten grand a year. Me, I give a crap if it costs ten grand a year to educate our kids. If that's what it costs, that's what it costs. How much does it costs to maintain the roads we drive on? Or the banks we use? Or the justice system that keeps us safe?

How can we comfortably ridicule the price it costs to educate our children?

I could go on, but I won't. This article is the worst piece of shit I have come across in a long time, and it's for this reason that I will NEVER take seriously anything from realclearpolitics again.

Their intellectual standards are clearly nonexistent, if they allow this drivel to be published.

[dude1394]

Chum..you do realize that this was an ABCs 20/20 television show by John Stossel and excerpts from about 4 articles written by him describing those shows. Just which author are you pissed at ABC's stossel or the realclear gang?

I don't think Stossel is necessarily saying that we spend to little or too much just responding to people who say we do not spend enough and that will solve it all, (they've been saying this forever), just laying the facts out. Then he relays the conversation with that Belgium country that seems to be kicking our ass and they describe how dollars follow the student, there not some large planned beauracracy.

I don't know if you actually took the time to read the stossel arguments but it doesn't appear so as your rants seem off the mark from what he's trying to say in almost every case.

To be honest I don't know how manipulative Stossel is but surely he deserves the leaway to be both enjoyable to read as well as informative. Of course his conclusions pretty much line up about exactly to mine, so I might not think he's that manipulative, just truthful. But it seems he's done the work and I don't see the point discounting that work because you think a quote is reactionary, so have all writers been when they are trying to sway others.

I also gather from your postings that you feel everything is hunky dory with our public school system? You and I will have to fervently disagree with that one as I think our public school system is pretty broken as I've posted many times before.

As far as not taking anything seriously from realclearpolitics, your loss there.

[Drbio]

I hear about how Texas is at the bottom of the list when it comes to educational standards in the US. But when Duke University runs that pre-SAT program every year, what state supplies more brilliant kids than any other state? Texas.

Tis' true. One thing I wondered when you reminded me of this though....were those kids from upper income homes? What is the sociological background of these kids? I wonder how many were from low income school districts? There are brilliant minds in each class, but there is no doubt that the wealthier districts can groom those minds more efficiently. It is always special to me to havea kid though who has overcome not only social factors, but economic ones as well and bring it in the collegiate classroom. I know you shouldn't have favorites, but I always liked these kids. They seemed to work harder and they quite often more appreciated your own effort.


One story of self indulgence: I had a student from South Oak Cliff who came here on scholarship. He was a sound kid with a good mind, but was dirt ass poor. He had never left SOC in his life before moving here. He had never seen a cow in person for goodness sakes. I took this kid all over the place. We saw cows, I took him horseback riding, I took him to sample water and fish in Salado Creek...just all over. I tried to make him a scientist but his love was business.....and he is darn good at it.

He graduated with honors and I hear back from him all the time. He is a wonderful man and has done quite well and I am proud to say he wants to teach business in college (obviously not my preferred subject matter but we all have our cross to bear ). He also goes back to SOC as often as possible and works with kids in junior high and high school to focus their minds to the future. I am very proud of this young man.

[MavKikiNYC]

I saw John Stossel riding a bicycle against traffic one time.

Clearly he can't be taken seriously.

[dude1394]

As you should be doc. I bet that you made quite an impact on him. If most folks look back they can probably see 1,2 a handful of folks who really had an effect on them. Betcha that young man would say you were one of those.

[Drbio]

I think you see where I get my view on that hypothetical 17 year old kid now dude.

Nothing shy of every kid.