I don’t know if redstate.org and obsidianwings have the same readership. So if you have seen this article already, feel free to skip it this time.
I can’t claim to be particularly good at short term political calculations. But there is a long-term political problem that Republicans need to deal with.
Conservatives have a problem with race. I am not talking about those who want to mouth words about equality while furthering their own stupid racist agenda. I’m talking about conservatives who really want to see race become a much less important factor in everyones’ lives.
Why do conservatives have a problem with race? There are a number of things to consider.
Racism still exists as an important factor in our society. Overt racism has been drastically reduced in our society. That is a good thing. But black people still experience many negative situations principally because of their race. Conservatives were quick to realize that the War on Terrorism wasn’t won in Afghanistan. It is equally true that racism was not stamped out by the Civil Rights Act. With that in mind:
Don’t confuse the goal with the path. The legitimate conservative goal with regard to race is found in the hope that someday people of all colors will be judged by their actions as people, not as a member of a particular race. The way to get there is uncertain. But pretending we are already there isn’t an ideal solution.
If you want to de-emphasize race on a governmental level, it is important to set up a situation where race won’t be important. Mere color-blindness at the governmental level doesn’t seem like an adequate solution because it may allow for long-term festering injustices. So, even if we are convinced that color-blindness in rulemaking is important we still need to find a way to deal with other systematic problems which are linked to race. Pretending that governmental colorblindness is sufficient to lead to the withering away of actual racial problems is as misguided as believing that Communism was ever linked to the withering away of the state.
Have we repudiated the racists in our midst? The answer is obvious to nearly everyone, the only problem is about half of the people think the obvious answer is yes, while about half of the people think the obvious answer is no.
I think the matter is seriously complicated by the fact that we get lots of silly charges of racism from the left such that we become too toughened to the charge of racism when it is appropriate. Whatever you want to say about Ward Connerly, he isn’t a racist. Calling Clarence Thomas an Oreo is just stupid. But Trent Lott traveled much closer to racist territory than I’m comfortable with. And hanging out with avowed racists is completely unacceptable. Just because the left unfairly throws the charge of racism around far too often, doesn’t mean we can reflexively assume that such charges are untrue. We need to be as vigilant about repudiating actual racists as we are about defending ourselves from the charge of racism when it is merely be used as a political tool.
Education. One of the most contentious areas in racial politics is affirmative action, especially for colleges. I am not an affirmative action supporter at the college level. I think such a policy comes in to play far too late to be a good solution. I think such a policy causes resentment which lends itself to increased racism and which subjects prominent black people to the unfair assumption that they only succeeded by getting ‘a break’. In keeping with my own advice regarding confusing the goal and path, It is important to avoid MERELY ending affirmative action. We need to address the problem of academic performance long before it gets to the college stage. A good policy on phasing out affirmative action ABSOLUTELY MUST also deal with academic performance at a much earlier stage.
That is why it is so important to deal with our failing public school system. No matter how well it works for rich-suburban children, it is failing to properly prepare poorer, and often black students for their later lives. For Republicans it might seem like a vicious cycle. In order to fairly move forward from affirmative action we must fix a school system where the Teacher’s Union will resist any accountability and most change. Therefore many black people end up not getting a good education, which leaves them poorer. I don’t have the solution at my fingertips, but this is one of the places where we absolutely must make progress if we are to improve racial relations over the long term. Major improvements on the education problem will make affirmative action a non-issue. That would be a great step to a color-blind society.
What other steps need to be taken? I’m not sure. But I am certain that this is an issue that can’t be ignored forever.
Best post ever, Sebastian. I don’t have any policy suggestions except that when I comes to education I’d like to see some parents taking classses simultaneously with their kids – so they can learn how to help. Course, we could just throw money at the problem.
“I don’t have any policy suggestions except that when I comes to education I’d like to see some parents taking classses simultaneously with their kids – so they can learn how to help.”
Interesting idea, that. Although I keep wanting to read that as being not unlike the notion of training urban single mothers to be teachers’ aides (which is also not a bad idea).
That might be just because of the civil war that decongestants and antihistamines are waging in my system right now, though. 🙂
Moe
Could be the the decongestants and antihistamines, Moe, couse I’m using them myself. I suggest that we set up a panel, each member on a different drug regimen, to study the problem.
Of course, racism is a human problem and not exclusive to the Republican party. Dick Gregory once said that a liberal is somebody that believes everything a racist says but that was in the day of the solid Democratic south. It would be nice if both parties could resist pandering to some of the worst of our angels and if we could consider social and economic issues without the concerns of race as a backdrop.
Getting the community involved with the education of their children is a wonderful idea. Family reading circles have proven to be an invaluable tool.
But as self empowerment (parental and community engagement) goes, I cannot think of a better tool than school vouchers
Very good post.
Fabius is right, actually. In the case of failing school systems, the solution, at least right now, is across-the-board permanent salary increases for educators & staff. Sometimes throwing money at a problem is exactly what is called for. Basic problem in this case is not just inequity – expenditure-per-student is quite a bit lower in urban/poor areas – but outright underfunding. This NEA study, where the average salaries seem a little high across the board to my ex-teacher’s gut-check, shows how real salaries have actually been on the decline in several parts of the U.S.
This is a big bullet to bite, especially for Republicans who have perhaps unwisely bound their political fate to tax resentment. But the fact is, no amount of clever classroom gimmicks are going to address the major problem, which is that teaching is not remunerative enough to draw talented individuals away from better jobs, especially in the difficult teaching environments of a large city.
For those like me who believe affirmative action is a race-based remedy for what is actually a class-based problem (inherited poverty),* fixing ailing school systems is priority #2. Community reinvestment is #1.
*slavery was a class-based system, demarcated by race. Just as race was never the *cause* of slavery, but merely its alibi, so addressing racial issues head-on is not the best remedy for the legacies of slavery.
For those like me who believe affirmative action is a race-based remedy for what is actually a class-based problem
It’s both I think. Good friend who’s a black doctor got me to see that his social class in no way protected him from racism. Again and again we’d enter the same situation and I’d be treated differently from him (despite his being dressed better speaking more eloquently, and other telltale signs that he makes much more money). They interviewed a black CEO on television the other day (some bio firm), and despite laughing about it, there was something disturbing about her explaining that even she could not get a taxi in New York as easily as a white college student. It’s a small matter, I’m sure, but it’s a clear indication it’s not just class.
The fastest growing minority group in the country is Latinos. And, if you follow census bureau reports, you know that they’ll be the majority in a few decades.
I think the relationship the Republicans are trying to build with with the Catholic church vis-a-vis issues like abortion and gay marriage may be part of their attempt to reach out to this community.
Great post Sebastian, and don’t take this as snark. I have seen many conservatives and Republicans spout about the problems faced in this area, and then ponder what to do. The problem is that any actual solution pretty much always involves something that conservatives and Republicans are completely anaethma towards doing. There is only one way to improve education at the levels they need to be improved, and that is raising teachers salaries to bring on a more highly qualified bunch of educators. Raise taxes to improve education, I believe those are crickets chirping…..
that is raising teachers salaries to bring on a more highly qualified bunch of educators
What do you propose to do with all the current teachers?
Latinos are not going to be a “majority” in the US any time in the next 50 years. Where do people come up with this stuff?
zzzz, good point. I was a HS teacher for a little while. I liked it, but, well, no money. (And no respect.)
It’s a good post, and a good meditation on an important problem. The fact that ~90% of black votes go to the Democrats isn’t a particularly good thing for black Americans. However, the standard Republican response seems to be — I’m paraphrasing here — “blacks must be stupid; what’s /wrong/ with them, that they don’t recognize the wonderfulness of the party of Thurmond and Lott?”
I don’t know what the answer is either.
Doug M.
I’m not resistant to raising teachers; salaries, but I am skeptical of it as a ‘solution’. Here is why:
1. It used to be true that we spent much less per pupil than most of Europe. However, that is a 1960/1970s talking point. We now spend every bit as much and more in most states.
2. This increase in expenditure takes place at the same time as declining quality of public education (if the rhetoric of practically everyone is to be believed). I mention rhetoric because there is no generally accepted metric, and teachers’ unions have been resisting one for decades.
3. Merely increasing salaries would involve increasing pay to the teachers who are already the teachers of the currently bad public school system. That doesn’t sound like a solution to me.
4. Closely related to point 2, I think that until there is a nationwide metric for at least kind of measuring educational performance there isn’t likely to be dramatic improvement because it is difficult to prove which teachers are bad and which schools are doing poorly.
5. Closely related to point 4, it needs to be easier to fire bad teachers.
Without the above being addressed, I think more money really would just be ‘throwing money at the problem’.
‘More money’ is a shorthand way of trying for higher quality. If we don’t have a good way of identifying high quality and getting rid of bad quality, more money doesn’t help.
Notice I said all that without mentioning vouchers.
“But as self empowerment (parental and community engagement) goes, I cannot think of a better tool than school vouchers”
Come on, Timmy. Directing your child to a school of your choice is ‘community engagement’? We just did it for our son’s preschool and it was engaging for about a week, after which the deed was done and interaction with our child’s education requires all kinds of different skills and activities.
School vouchers have some potential, but they’re not some kind of magical elixir that will make education perfect.
Jordan:
the solution, at least right now, is across-the-board permanent salary increases for educators & staff
Let me say this in the kindest, gentlest way possible. Nonsense.
Here is the salary schedule for Chicago Public School teachers. It starts at over $38,000 for 40 week employees with Bachelors degrees only. There are no FICA deductions. Add health care, retirement, and other benefits. It goes up rapidly for years of service and additional degrees. And tenure after a few years of service.
Chicago is the poster child for a failing public school system (although it’s better than it was a few years ago). What do you believe the salaries should be increased to? And what do you think will be used for money?
Now don’t get me wrong: there are places in the country where teachers’ salaries are too low. But that’s not the only problem. And increasing the rate of pay for underperforming faculties is no solution.
Following on, the most highly correlated factors for academic performance are socioeconomic background and parent involvement, not teacher pay or school choice or any other rallying cry of the day.
So if you want to tackle it in the liberal idiom, create programs to provide parents (especially single parents) to involve themselves in their childrens’ education and incentivize them to do it. I don’t know what you’d do in the conservative idiom. . community support or something. Maybe mandate Catholicism.
Also, I think we have odd notions about education and standards. Why we think it’s some great achievement that x percentage of high school students have memorized enough pre-calculus to get half the questions right on a multiple choice test is some great metric for our civilization confuses me. For that reason I wouldn’t get too excited about where we ‘rank’ in various arbitrary scales of academic performance. The people who are really dedicated to learning will do so in nearly any environment, more often despite the public education system than because of it.
i don’t have children as of yet so i’m not as well read as i would be otherwise on current education. But as for vouchers, i have a problem with the idea of people using my tax dollars to send their kids to religious schools who teach children that who and what i am is both wrong and unnatural, especially when they say this takes place in God’s eyes. It just sounds like a Madrassa, only instead of hating the infidels, they hate gays. I am very sensitized to this from growing up in the south where religious schools, mostly southern Baptists are springing up like weeds teaching Creationism and a literal Bible, two things that if taught in the home are one thing but not in school with tax money.
And as for laying blame on Teacher’s Unions, maybe we could hear from some teachers on this site about this topic.
Educational metrics can have their downside, too. Here in sunny Florida, we now have standards, and have had them for a few years. The standard is the FCAT, testing for which kicks in at grade 3. The ever-resourceful public school system has responded to application of a metric by:
1) Replacing much of the curriculum with one designed with a sole purpose in mind: to teach the children to pass the FCAT.
2) Figuring out how to get around downchecks, by transferring or otherwise excluding (temporary suspension seems to be a popular gimmick) problem students from their count. Really, how stupid do they think the public is? Oh, that’s right….
3) Rewarding the schools that are doing well by placing the best teachers there.
and, last but not least:
4) Steadfastly refusing to implement remedial action in the case of teachers who won’t or can’t perform. This last is the teachers’ union at work.
Not saying metrics won’t work, just that it might take a while before a workable system is devised.
I agree with Sebastian’s point about the inadequacy of affirmative action at the college (or post-grad) level: it’s like doing QA exclusively at the shipping dock—it’s way too late. I believe that we need major educational reform but that it should be focussed at the pre-school and primary level. Concentrate on where the greatest need is—African American and Hispanic kids in the inner city and rural areas. 12 month schooling—too much is lost during that long summer vacation without enrichment. Forget computers. Pay for paper and pencils first. Stick to the basics: readin’, writin’, ‘rithmetic.
Illinois (where I am) has one of the lowest state contributions to public school education of any state in the Union right down there with Mississippi. And, IMO, there’s only one credible explanation: racism.
Cross-threading: I don’t think of you as gay, wilfred.
I agree with all that the current crop of teachers and the teachers union needs to be curtailed somewhat. But, it needs to go hand in hand with increased salaries. Sebastian, it is misleading to suggest that we have thrown money at these problems, because that money is not raising salaries.
Sidereal brings up the other key fact, parental involvement. i have bandied about this thought with my friends, thought i’d throw it out there for you all. What if there was a guaranteed college education paid for if your grades were exemplary thoughout high school? The impossible part being, who qualifies, is it done by race, where to draw the line for incomes over a certain point, etc.?
I just picture the single african-american mother with actual motivation to keep her kid/kids in line through high school, knowing there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Currently, there is no motivation for such persons, as they can do their best during this period, but it doesn’t guarantee any type of college education which is what truly matters in todays society (though overrated). Seems better than reparations anyway, and much more effective long term.
Also, I don’t mean to make this a race thing, just the example i gave, could apply to many/all. Probably impossible, but that never stopped my brain from thinking things.
I think per-pupil expenditures can be a bit of a snipe hunt.
Here’s why: schools have to spend all kinds of money on things they didn’t have to deal with when I was in school. In no particular order: security, school psychologists, student health care, day care for student moms, and, last but not least, special education expenditures.
As for teacher quality and teacher unions, while I agree that bad teachers need to be gently but firmly shown the door, I find that people who think the NEA should be declared a terrorist organization and its members shipped to Gitmo* are not presenting any serious ideas to the debate.
Brilliant post, Sebastian.
* That does not apply to any of the comments I’ve read here.
Slarti:
“1)… 2)… 3)… ”
Should surprise no one. That’s basic game theory. If you create some goal, people will find the most efficient way to achieve that goal. Since the goal was not ‘sufficiently educate our children’ but was instead ‘achieve score x on test y’, then efficient means are being found to achieve that goal. This fact is Achilles Heel of overly simplified accountability systems (and most of our legal system).
The only way to avoid it is to make the value you’re measuring exactly equal to your ostensible goal, not some arbitrary value that attempts to estimate it. So what is the goal of the United States education system? Honestly, nobody ever talks about this, which I think is perverse.
“But as for vouchers, i have a problem with the idea of people using my tax dollars to send their kids to religious schools who teach children that who and what i am is both wrong and unnatural, especially when they say this takes place in God’s eyes.”
wilfred, many people have problems with their tax dollars going to various programs. Conservative like nearly none of it, pacifists don’t like their taxes going to the latest edition of the Boondoggle Assault Vehicle, and so on. So it’s probably not a compelling argument for a government that’s already having none of it.
i understand that Sidereal but those other things aren’t included specifically like separation of church and state in the Constitution.
Hoooboy.
So what is the goal of the United States education system? Honestly, nobody ever talks about this, which I think is perverse.
sidereal, you are simply the most incisive commenter! I am truly impressed. I think I could tell you what the goal of the public school system was. It’s pretty obvious if you read any Dewey: the acculturation of the children of recent immigrants. But I’ll have to admit that I have absolutely no idea of what the goal of the educational system is now. I have a pretty good idea of what the objectives of certain schools might be. For example, I suspect that the goal of New Trier is to prepare future captains of industry for their hereditary positions.
wilfred:
Here’s the first amendment to the Constitution:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Hmmm. No separation of church and state there. Must be somewhere in the penumbra.
Of course, whether we want there to be a separation of church and state is a legitimate and reasonable question.
“separation of church and state” came from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson in 1802. It appears nowhere in the Constitution, which was written rather earlier.
Well, there’s also these quotations from Madison, who was the main author of the bill of rights:
“We maintain therefore that in matters of Religion, no man’s right is abridged by the institution of Civil Society and that Religion is wholly exempt from its cognizance….
Because it is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of Citizens, and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The free men of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise, and entagled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much soon to forget it. Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects? that the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property for the support of any one establishment, may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?”
(from the famous Memorial and Remonstrance, a statement of opposition to a Virginia legislature proposal for “A Bill establishing a provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion.” 1785.)
“The civil Government, though bereft of everything like an associated hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability, and performs its functions with complete success, whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people, have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the State” (Letter to Robert Walsh, Mar. 2, 1819).
“Strongly guarded as is the separation between religion and & Gov’t in the Constitution of the United States the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history” (Detached Memoranda, circa 1820).
“Every new and successful example, therefore, of a perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance; and I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together
(Letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822).
“I must admit moreover that it may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on unessential points. The tendency to a usurpation on one side or the other or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them will be best guarded against by entire abstinence of the government from interference in any way whatever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order and protecting each sect against trespasses on its legal rights by others.” (Letter Rev. Jasper Adams, Spring 1832).
“To the Baptist Churches on Neal’s Greek on Black Creek, North Carolina I have received, fellow-citizens, your address, approving my objection to the Bill containing a grant of public land to the Baptist Church at Salem Meeting House, Mississippi Territory. Having always regarded the practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government as essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, I could not have otherwise discharged my duty on the occasion which presented itself.” (Letter to Baptist Churches in North Carolina, June 3, 1811).
Madison is perhaps my favorite founder. Why the federalist society has made him their mascot, I have no earthly clue.
Well, there’s also these quotations from Madison, who was the main author of the bill of rights:
“We maintain therefore that in matters of Religion, no man’s right is abridged by the institution of Civil Society and that Religion is wholly exempt from its cognizance….
Because it is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of Citizens, and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The free men of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise, and entagled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much soon to forget it. Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects? that the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property for the support of any one establishment, may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?”
(from the famous Memorial and Remonstrance, a statement of opposition to a Virginia legislature proposal for “A Bill establishing a provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion.” 1785.)
“The civil Government, though bereft of everything like an associated hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability, and performs its functions with complete success, whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people, have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the State” (Letter to Robert Walsh, Mar. 2, 1819).
“Strongly guarded as is the separation between religion and & Gov’t in the Constitution of the United States the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history” (Detached Memoranda, circa 1820).
“Every new and successful example, therefore, of a perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance; and I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together
(Letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822).
“I must admit moreover that it may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on unessential points. The tendency to a usurpation on one side or the other or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them will be best guarded against by entire abstinence of the government from interference in any way whatever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order and protecting each sect against trespasses on its legal rights by others.” (Letter Rev. Jasper Adams, Spring 1832).
“To the Baptist Churches on Neal’s Greek on Black Creek, North Carolina I have received, fellow-citizens, your address, approving my objection to the Bill containing a grant of public land to the Baptist Church at Salem Meeting House, Mississippi Territory. Having always regarded the practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government as essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, I could not have otherwise discharged my duty on the occasion which presented itself.” (Letter to Baptist Churches in North Carolina, June 3, 1811).
Madison is perhaps my favorite founder. Why the federalist society has made him their mascot, I have no earthly clue.
one last Madison quote–I think this is from the ratification debates in Virginia, but I don’t know the exact context:
“There is not a shadow of right in the general government to intermeddle with religion. Its least interference with it would be a most flagrant usurpation.”
can i just end that last post at church and state 🙂
Katherine, thank you for the great lineup of citations. Very handy.
Here’s the comment I was responding to:
i understand that Sidereal but those other things aren’t included specifically like separation of church and state in the Constitution.
Now unless you can find a specific citation for the words “separation of church and state” in the Constitution, all correspondence quotations are irrelevant. If wilfred had written “implicitly” rather than “specifically”, I wouldn’t have had too much problem with it but perhaps that would have defeated the point.
And while we’re discussing original intent since several of the states had established churches at the adoption of the First Amendment and retained them after it’s adoption, it does not seem reasonable to conclude that the intent of the amendment was the separation of church and state but rather to protect the individual states’ established churches from a federally established church. But since the vouchers with which this discussion began will be issued to parents and not churches why is this establishment of religion any more than a Social Security recipient tossing a buck into the collection basket on Sunday would?
Just for the record I don’t think vouchers should be the first line of attack in correcting the public education system.
and just for the record as well, my godson is being born as we speak and i can’t even think straight, not that i ever do 🙂
“But I’ll have to admit that I have absolutely no idea of what the goal of the educational system is now.”
Neither do I. I think it’s on cruise control. We’re probably going to home school, since I have a pretty good idea of what my educational goals are.
Dave–fair enough, I missed the “specifically”.
Religious issues aside, there are problems with vouchers. Two major reasons why parochial schools do better are:
1) higher parental involvement demonstrated by willingness to pay tuition out of pocket.
2) ability to turn away the worst students.
There are simply not enough private schools for everyone, and are unlikely to be unless funding increases a lot. Public schools may be left with less involved parents, fewer bright students, and less money than ever.
We should equalize funding; it’s only fair. I am pro-charter schools, too. I don’t pretend that either of those are magic solutions. I don’t know what is.
College is easier to figure out. Increased financial aid, tuition at state universities that’s affordable to everyone, tax deductions for tuition itself and not just for interest, etc.
I used to think that socioeconomic affirmative action & better education would cut it, but the more I read about the persistence of racism and the studies how white applicants with criminal convictions do better than black applicants without, the less I think that. I don’t think racism is going to go away without real integration and I don’t know how we do that. Busing didn’t work.
The drug war & criminal justice system are another key part of all this.
So what is the goal of the United States education system? Honestly, nobody ever talks about this, which I think is perverse.
I’ve been saying this for years. No, really — just ask my wife. Is it (a) to train future scientists? (b) to produce good citizens? (c) to produce healthy, well-rounded individuals? (d) to provide “free” babysitting? The answers are different for different families and different children. And even if we all agreed on the goal, we’d still disagree on the best methods to reach it.
We’re probably going to home school, since I have a pretty good idea of what my educational goals are.
We looked long and hard at that. Finally decided that neither of us had the right temperament for it. What we would have preferred was small-group-schooling, i.e. get a few like-minded families together to share time, talent, knowledge, and resources; but we couldn’t find any like-minded families at the time.
The legitimate conservative goal with regard to race is found in the hope that someday people of all colors will be judged by their actions as people, not as a member of a particular race.
I don’t think you really need the adjective “conservative” in that sentence…
So what is the goal of the United States education system? Honestly, nobody ever talks about this, which I think is perverse.
I do, but no-one ever listens 😉
“We should equalize funding; it’s only fair. I am pro-charter schools, too. I don’t pretend that either of those are magic solutions. I don’t know what is.”
Is this really an issue in most large states? I know for a fact that California equalized years ago, and we still have awful schools here. (Some of the worst in the nation if reports are to be believed. I thought the same was true in New York, Texas and Florida. Those states alone educate a huge portion of US students (and if I recall correctly are toward the bottomish of the state rankings). I’m not sure that is such a big issue anymore.
And really I don’t see how we can do practically anything helpful without some sort of accountability mechanism–which teachers’ unions will resist until someone forces them to make it work.
Equalized funds rather than property taxes are necessary but not sufficient. I know, I know–“throwing money at the problem”. That phrase doesn’t impress me; it’s too often an all purpose talisman for pretending that funding doesn’t matter.
It’s not happened New York, nor in Texas as far as I know & can tell from Google. I can’t make any sense of the links on Florida.
What accountability mechanism do you propose? Standardized tests, or what? The teacher’s unions have their bad points, but I don’t think letting administrators fire them more easily is a very good solution. Believe me, my public school teachers were miles better than my public school administrators.
question 1: how much of the 90/10 ratio in the last presidential election do you think is related to specifically racial issues, and how much is related to economic policy and government spending?
question 2: why do you think there are there so few black G.O.P. politicians elected to Congress and state houses? (Not that there are so many Democrats above the House of Reps. level, of course. But at least we’ve got 37 House members–who range from the sublime to the ridiculous, like all House members–and hopefully soon we’ll have Senator Obama*.)
*Off topic: I am developing an enormous political crush on this guy. Who will be keynoting the Democratic Convention! And yes, I think mini-Obama could beat full-sized Ditka in a debate while standing on his head.
Funding is certainly not equalized in Illinois.
Katherine:
Yes, Obama is an impressive candidate. We should know whether Ditka will run this weekend (registration required). Obama’s obviously more qualified but it certainly would make for an interesting race.
And there’s a reason that your teachers were better than the administrator’s: tenure. You can’t fire a bad teacher so they get kicked upstairs. IMO this is one of the key problems with the educational system—bloated Peter-principled administrative staffs.
The goal of public education now is the same as it was 14 years ago when I studied this in graduate school, to rank those students headed to college for selection purposes, and to baby-sit those students who were not headed to college.
I found the main issue to be the educational requirements in workplaces that hire non-college graduates. Workplaces that do not require a college degree are not interested in the grades of high school graduates*. So, there really is no market pressure driving the education of students not headed to college to anywhere near the level of those headed to college. Parents understand this, students understand this and teachers understand this.
Honest question, with Pell Grants, credit cards, student loans and in-state tuition, isn’t the opportunity to attend college open to virtually everyone? Sure, it’s not easy, but that which one values rarely is, no?
It’s my VHO that as opposed to monetary roadblocks barring the educational path of many children there exists today a state of affairs in which mental and emotional roadblocks are placed in that educational path by both parents and peers. Until those roadblocks are removed, bettering oneself through education will not be valued by students and all the money in the world spent on schools will not drive the students to want to expend the effort required to master Calculus (or whatever).
What I’d like education to do would be to offer students a taste of as many different things as possible, from welding to band to chess to art to sports, while also educating everyone at least well enough to not embarrass themselves if Jay Leno asks them who the Washington Monument commemorates.
*Some actually are, but realize that they must train their workers themselves. They’re much more interested in the character of the worker than his/her grades in high school.
BTW, I must agree whole-heartedly with Dave regarding Sidereal’s commenting.
The goal of public education now is the same as it was 14 years ago when I studied this in graduate school, to rank those students headed to college for selection purposes, and to baby-sit those students who were not headed to college.
crionna, that’s a good, workable definition. It makes my stomach roil but it’s good. The definition suggests two potential metrics for success. For the non-college bound the system will have succeeded if the dropout rates are low and truancy is low. For the college bound the system will have succeeded if either a conventional numeric score can be assigned to every student e.g. the SAT or ACT score or a universal curriculum and grading guidelines can be adopted.
The stability of dropout and truancy rates over time suggests that despite increasing expenditures for education the system is not succeeding for non-college bound students. Absence of a standardized curriculum and grading standards and increase reluctance by colleges and universities to use numeric scores suggest it’s not working for the college-bound, either.
School vouchers have some potential, but they’re not some kind of magical elixir that will make education perfect.
Sidereal, I’m not looking for pefection but I am looking for material improvement.
As for the separation of church and state, vouchers would go to parents (self-empowerment) to spendt on state certified programs. I believe the courts have ruled on the constitutionality of these types of programs.
If you make parents responsible for their children’s education, I believe there will be an overall improvment.
Crionna’s post is the best short piece of writing I’ve seen on the subject in years.
Seems to me that the very best thing that can be done for schools is to find interesting and energetic teachers — committed to their material, and to getting the kids excited about it. To attract and keep such people, there has to be real money and respect involved, or they’ll find something else to do. (I don’t know what kind of lifestyle $38,000 buys in Chicago, but in DC it’s not exactly living the high life).
In terms of deadening the spirit and failure to reward energy and innovation, the current craze for standardized testing looks worse to me than even mandatory tenure (and other union type stuff). Can you imagine what it would be like teaching to the same test that 5th year in a row? If the real goal, at the minimum, is trying to get the non-college bound students to stay interested enough in learning that they’ll stay with it, and maybe build a foundation for greater options in he years ahead, maybe the entertainment value is too important to throw away for what mistakenly called “accountability.”
Vouchers, if they “work,” would have the effect of separating interested and motivated students from those not interested or motivated. While this will have some advantages for the former, there would be a real social cost of even further dis-integration of society.
Vouchers, if they “work,” would have the effect of separating interested and motivated students from those not interested or motivated.
Mr. Fish the best rebuttal is what is going on in Milwaukee, WI.
I stand corrected:
The Hispanic population is projected to nearly triple by 2050 to 92 million, or 24 percent of the total population. The Census estimates that 12 percent of the U.S. resident population in last year were Hispanic, equivalent to 31 million. In the following 50 years, the group is projected to hit 190 million, or one-third of the population.
http://www.uta.fi/FAST/US8/SPAN/hisp2100.html
“What accountability mechanism do you propose? Standardized tests, or what?”
I don’t know. My untutored mind leaps to standardized tests as at least being a rough metric, but perhaps there is some other system.
I simply refuse to believe that professional educators cannot come up with some fairly good metric for (at the very least) measuring minimum competency. I’m not asking for a test that can detect every possible gradation of student ability. I would be thrilled with a test that generally allowed us to look at classrooms and say “Great”, “Ok”, or “Awful”.
And as for ‘throwing money at the problem’ frankly that is exactly what we have been doing in the past decades. School funding is up, way way up. And there doesn’t seem to be a similar increase in education level. Arguably there may be a decline, though once again the method of measuring it has been actively resisted by those involved. (Hmm this is becoming a recurring theme in my writing on topics that are important to me.)
Why throw money at the problem if we don’t even have a way of measuring if it is effective?
“Why throw money at the problem if we don’t even have a way of measuring if it is effective?”
Because if you don’t your opponent in the next election cycle will eat you alive for voting against our children.
We really need a total transformation. Ditch the idea of year-based advancement. Create tangible rewards for good effort. Ban textbooks. Look into the Japanese system of early pathing into trade schools or academic schools depending on interests. Resurrect the apprenticeship model. Still, we don’t know what the goal of education is, but I’m pretty sure most or all of those would help with whatever it is.
crionna’s suggestions above are excellent. I should point that that there isn’t a shred of scientific evidence that the age cohort system now in place helps students. It’s pretty obvious that it helps administrators.
The problem with these suggestions is that we just can’t get there from here. (Theoretically) egalitarian America just would not accept the tracking system suggested. And the teachers’ unions will oppose any system that differs too radically from what’s already in place.
We’re not even strictly talking about throwing extra money at it; we’re talking about adjusting funding more equitably. (And if money has no effect, why, then the upper-income districts have nothing to worry about!)
I agree about age cohorts.
Tracking’s a tricky one. I could not have gotten where I am without a tracking system, but it probably wasn’t so far to the other students. Way too much turned on how much your sixth grade elementary school teacher or junior high guidance counselor liked you. I tend to think tracking systems are okay if fully optional–if a student is willing to do extra work or get lower grades to take more challenging classes, good on him; the school shouldn’t stand in the way.
“Honest question, with Pell Grants, credit cards, student loans and in-state tuition, isn’t the opportunity to attend college open to virtually everyone? Sure, it’s not easy, but that which one values rarely is, no?”
Credit cards? With 20% interest rates? What the hell kind of solution is that?
It’s usually possible but not always, and it’s not always clear to students that it is possible. Pell grants have been cut dramatically. In-state tuition has risen dramatically in many places, to the point where it’s no longer affordable for many families without need based age. Financial aid that allegedly meets 100% of need often does not, even at wealthy schools (for one think you are semi-screwed if your parents are divorced.) The government academic scholarship programs are a shadow of their former selves–the Regents scholarship paid my parents’tuition; now it’s a certificate that says “congratulations, you would get a Regents scholarship if it still existed!”. Increasingly you are at a competitive disadvantage if you can’t afford to do unpaid summer internship. Debt levels are increasing, and while they’re still manageable on their own terms for most students, students don’t realize this at the time (speaking from personal experience–I almost dropped out for a semester sophmore year for financial reasons, which would have been stupid with the loan options available) & when you combine them with the cost of post-graduate study it becomes a real problem. Work study prevents you from doing a lot of resume building activities.
All of these things set me back in noticeable ways. Obviously, I ended up doing just fine and have no real cause for complaint, but my family is not poor by any stretch of the imagination; I have a bizarre gift for standardized tests that makes up for a lot; and my husband’s family is very wealthy.
College is more important to the general well being of society than buying instead of renting a home, and compare the size of the tax deductions and subsidies. It makes no sense.
Anyway, whatever happened to the old-fashioned idea of equal opportunity? (This began as a discussion on race….)
I second the frustration about unpaid internships. My law career was definitely hampered by my inability to go through the summer without a paycheck.
(Flipside, that was great because I certainly wouldn’t be in the happy job I am now if I had gone the normal law firm route. But that is just a personal thought, not very relevant to the argument.)
Granting that my knowledge here is extremely limited, reporting continues to assert that Japanese education is still overwhelmingly focused on rote memorization and reguritation of Correct Answers, teaching solely to the test, and completely discouraging of, let alone teaching towards, any signs whatever of creativity or thinking. Articles translated from Japan constantly denigrate their system for its failures to encourage innovation or creative thinking in comparison to the American educational system.
The grass frequently tends to be greener in education, as in other things.
Yes, the Japanese system overall is a centrally planned machine, like much of Japanese infrastructure. But you’ll note that my suggestion was limited specifically to different schools with different focus and distributing students to them according to their interests.
Anyway, I’m not running for school superintendant so my specific policy suggestions don’t matter much. But I strongly believe that meaningful change will not be incremental, it will be fundamental.
But I strongly believe that meaningful change will not be incremental, it will be fundamental.
I completely agree with this, sidereal, and I strongly doubt that paying the current faculty and staff (who have a vested interest in things as they are) more is likely to encourage either incremental or fundamental change.
BTW the AFT has put out a new teachers’ salary survey. I think you’d be hard put to find a correlation between salary and achievement here.
“BTW the AFT has put out a new teachers’ salary survey. I think you’d be hard put to find a correlation between salary and achievement here.”
But you’ve got to control for cost of living and lots else. I think the more relevant comparison might be between districts in the same metro area.
Katherine: Credit cards? With 20% interest rates? What the hell kind of solution is that?
Hey, there are always title loans.
sidereal: Resurrect the apprenticeship model.
This certainly worked well in an age of artisans, when you could probably count on being a silversmith for the rest of your working life. But in today’s global economy when an entire stateside industry can evaporate in the course of a few years, how would apprenticeship work?
how would apprenticeship work
How would it NOT work, in the context of education? Education is hardly a “stateside industry” that can quickly evaporate. If it were that volatile, we’d be over on the other end of the spectrum, problem-wise.
I interpreted sidereal’s suggestion to mean apprenticeship as a general educational model, not apprenticeship as an approach to teacher education. Was I incorrect?
You were correct.
First, I should point out that ‘resurrect’ wasn’t entirely accurate, since grad students are already essentially apprentices and internships kind of qualify. But I’m looking at a broader application.
My loose definition of an apprenticeship is an educational association wherein the teacher and the student both engage in practical pursuits in their craft or area of study and learning occurs as a byproduct of experience rather than dissociated indoctrination.
It requires a very high student/teacher ratio, which is balanced somewhat by the fact that the teacher is actually accomplishing something other than teaching, which can offset the cost.
It’s the default education model historically and in most of the world and while that doesn’t necessarily mean anything it should at least be justification for trying out variations.
It probably also counts, legally, as child labor.
That should be very low student/teacher ratio
College is more important to the general well being of society Actually, I think a desire to advance oneself and especially support in that desire by ones parents and peers is more important than college as it drives a demand for excellence from oneself in any endeavor. Without it, the opportunity to attend college is worthless. Unfortunately, you can’t legislate that desire or the support and so even the best teacher in the most highly equipped classroom will have difficulty teaching if that desire to advance is missing.
I think the way for K-12 school to have some effect on that desire is to offer more subjects, not less. Lacking support for a more general advancement from parents or peers, students will need to find something specific to desire, their “calling”, and fight for the opportunity to follow up on it. Once uncovered, advisors should, instead of trying to be some kind of “reality check”, provide guidance on the value of studying history to an art student, or why math would be useful to someone who loves welding and most importantly, why a person with a desire to do X could find the college experience valuable…or not. That way the teachers can concentrate on teaching, not motivating.
So that’s Crionna’s fundamental change. Offer enough variety so that those students not initially driven to attend college by their parents or peers have the opportunity to find their own calling. Then have guidance counselors be the one adult willing to dream along with them and create a plan to reach that dream, rather than being just another adult who thinks the dream is crazy or out of reach.
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