NationStates Jolt Archive

Following up on a previous thread, John Stossel had this to say today:



Myth: Schools don't have enough money
By John Stossel

Jan 18, 2006


"Stossel is an idiot who should be fired from ABC and sent back to elementary school to learn journalism." "Stossel is a right-wing extremist ideologue."

The hate mail is coming in to ABC over a TV special I did Friday (1/13). I suggested that public schools had plenty of money but were squandering it, because that's what government monopolies do.

Many such comments came in after the National Education Association (NEA) informed its members about the special and claimed that I have a "documented history of blatant antagonism toward public schools."

The NEA says public schools need more money. That's the refrain heard in politicians' speeches, ballot initiatives and maybe even in your child's own classroom. At a union demonstration, teachers carried signs that said schools will only improve "when the schools have all the money they need and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber."

Not enough money for education? It's a myth.

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.

America spends more on schooling than the vast majority of countries that outscore us on the international tests. But the bureaucrats still blame school failure on lack of funds, and demand more money.

In 1985, some of them got their wish. Kansas City, Mo., judge Russell Clark said the city's predominately black schools were not "halfway decent," and he ordered the government to spend billions more. Did the billions improve test scores? Did they hire better teachers, provide better books? Did the students learn anything?

Well, they learned how to waste lots of money.

The bureaucrats renovated school buildings, adding enormous gyms, an Olympic swimming pool, a robotics lab, TV studios, a zoo, a planetarium, and a wildlife sanctuary. They added intense instruction in foreign languages. They spent so much money that when they decided to bring more white kids to the city's schools, they didn't have to resort to busing. Instead, they paid for 120 taxis. Taxis!

What did spending billions more accomplish? The schools got worse. In 2000, five years and $2 billion later, the Kansas City school district failed 11 performance standards and lost its academic accreditation for the first time in the district's history.

A study by two professors at the Hoover Institution a few years ago compared public and Catholic schools in three of New York City's five boroughs. Parochial education outperformed the nation's largest school system "in every instance," they found -- and it did it at less than half the cost per student.

"Everyone has been conned -- you can give public schools all the money in America, and it will not be enough," says Ben Chavis, a former public school principal who now runs the American Indian Charter School in Oakland, Calif. His school spends thousands less per student than Oakland's government-run schools spend.

Chavis saves money by having students help clean the grounds and set up for lunch. "We don't have a full-time janitor," he told me. "We don't have security guards. We don't have computers. We don't have a cafeteria staff." Since Chavis took over four years ago, his school has gone from being among the worst middle schools in Oakland to the one where the kids get the best test scores. "I see my school as a business," he said. "And my students are the shareholders. And the families are the shareholders. I have to provide them with something."


Award-winning news correspondent John Stossel is co-anchor of ABC News "20/20" and author of "Give Me a Break."

Copyright © 2006 John Stossel

Yay NEA. Way to go. Supporting improvements in education through hate-mail. :rolleyes:

Schools aren't there for the benefit of students. The sooner people realize that, the better we will be able to get on with our lives.

Schools aren't there for the benefit of students. The sooner people realize that, the better we will be able to get on with our lives.

Then who are they for?

Schools aren't there for the benefit of students. The sooner people realize that, the better we will be able to get on with our lives.

LOL! :D

Then who are they for?
City Governments, Construction firms, Law Makers ("Do it for the children!"), School Supply Companies and the Unions.

They certainly aren't there to benefit the individual teacher or the children.

City Governments, Construction firms, Law Makers ("Do it for the children!"), School Supply Companies and the Unions.

They certainly aren't there to benefit the individual teacher or the children.

It would benefit the teachers if we had better wages. And I am studying to become a teacher, so yea, that's a biased statement.

Then who are they for?
The school board.

If I understand correctly, in the US school boards are elected from a group of citizens that nominate themselves and this board chooses how to spend the money, what to include in the curriculum, etc.

If this is so, then I can see where the problem is coming from. This people likely won't be professional educators or administrators, but most probably well intended people with well intentioned bad ideas or poor execution or both.

That's how school districts end up spending billions in useless stuff like building gigantic gyms instead of text books and improving teacher's skills. The problem is not that basic education is a monopoly, but that elected school boards is an inefficient way to run a school system.

Following up on a previous thread, John Stossel had this to say today:



Yay NEA. :rolleyes:

What the man is saying is spot on, except he understated the extent of the crimes committed by the judge and his benefactors. The judge went much farther than ordering the government to spend billions more on the failed system, he imposed his own personal tax on the citizens to fund it. The entire affair never had a thing to do with education, it had to do with making some very well connected people rich and as always in these sorts of scams the only ones to every serve prision time were underlings and advisors.
Only now after the court order has been vacated is the city and the educational system starting to recover, and this is only because of, "No Child Left Behind"
My daughter is a teacher in the KC School district and is quite optimistic for it's future now that meaningful corrections are in place. With the combination of Charter schools forcing some competition, and "No Child" forcing administrators and teachers to be qualified in their jobs they have little room to do as they wish. Unqualified teachers are leaving the system at an astonishing rate and promptly being replaced with bright dedicated young individuals that have a genuine interest in the best interest of our children.
An unforseen side benefit is also noticable in the teachers education. University level entrenched activists are also being dropped like flies. While they cannot be fired for their lack of knowledge and incompetence the administrations are simply dropping their course titles entirely, thus sending the PHD based on life's experience back to McDonald's where they excel.
The fight is not over by a long shot. While administrators and teachers have a positive direction in their favor now, the school board members are still padding each others pockets by taking turns in the presidents chair and then firing them before the seat is warm. A scam that nets them several hundred thousand dollars each, not including their "networking", "speaking" and other ill gotten fees and expenses.
It is not a matter of money. It is a matter of clipping the wings of the thieves and the hands of the parasites who's palms they grease.

It would benefit the teachers if we had better wages. And I am studying to become a teacher, so yea, that's a biased statement.
But, if you will notice, I said that the current system is NOT beneficial to the individual Teacher. I agree that in most cases teacher's salaries are not in line with other professional occupations.

BUT just throwing more money into the over-all mix won't help... nor will simply raising teacher's salaries. The system is rotton to the core and the Unions help perpetuate that by taking your (the individual teacher) money and acting as a stumbling block to real reform.

A good teacher in a good market-based school will be able to ask for, and get, far better wages than any School Board or Union will be able to negotiate... but then the Union would lose its' power, so we can't have that.

Money is not always an answer. How you spend the money and implement education programs is the answer.

The US spends more per capita on its students than most nations, but on average, the typical US student is not as well educated.

The Washington, DC Public Schools is the number one spending per pupil school district in the nation - and its students rank near the bottom on almost every measure.

Fairfax County Public Schools are among the highest ranking in the US, and yet they spend about 60 percent per student that is spent in DC Public Schools.

Obviously, paying teachers more, buying more books, computers and equipment, isnt' the answer.