"The taxpayers (who are paying most of the freight), are looking at this and wondering why this is so hard, so expensive to fix. ANSWER: Because our government schools are broken so badly, they don't need to be funded - they need to be fixed. And I mean fixed from the top down."
Well played Star/Tribune! Artfully done! In this morning's paper, it was the lead in the "A" section. GASP! Sure didn't see this one coming! Right after this highly compromised legislative session, where the whining Governor got his way and a ton more money for education, comes this headline: "$600 Million a year to fight Minnesota's achievement gap, and still it persists."
Where in the world was this story when the legislature was still in session? Before Senate Republicans caved and allowed the taxpayers to get fleeced by sending yet more money into a failing education system? But the best part of the story was in the details. Not only has the achievement gap stayed the same over the past decade (and maybe become a bit worse), many districts cannot account for how they spent this extra taxpayer funded money, to fix the gap.
Now in a business, if company investment was put into a project which resulted in zero progress, and the project manager could not account for the monies he was given to succeed in that project, he (and his staff), would have been walked out the door faster than one could say Taxing Timmy. In government however, that is not the case. The Democrats are looking at this and saying, "See! I told you we needed MORE MONEY to fix this problem." The taxpayers (who are paying most of the freight), are looking at this and wondering why this is so hard, so expensive to fix. ANSWER: Because our government schools are broken so badly, they don't need to be funded - they need to be fixed. And I mean fixed from the top down.
I have addressed this issue many times before. It would easy to say we have an achievement gap because kids in poverty or kids of color are not as bright as the white kids from better neighborhoods. But that would be a lie. There is no difference in how a kid can learn depending on income or skin color. But there is a difference based on expectations and commitment. That is why private schools such as Cristo Rey operate on a fraction of what the government schools do, have a zero achievement gap. Hmm...
This school year is almost over. For some districts, it already is. The failure machines in the inner cities are once again producing young people who are under educated. That is, the ones who have not flunked out or dropped out already. We need to value every kid in school as being a future member of our work force - not a statistic.
Many years ago, when my wife and I were getting ready to graduate from the University, we both needed an elective. So we took a class on child psychology. On the books which was required reading was How Children Fail, by John Holt. It was an eye opener. The book not only talked about how children fail, but also how they succeed. How failure leads to more failure and success begets success. This should be required reading for every lawmaker (and our carpet bagger Governor) before one more dime is spent on our failing education system.
Will this blog article do any good. Probably not. The beat will go on. Education Minnesota will continue to control the system which produces our achievement gap. And poor kids and kids of color will continue to fail. Actually - the only failure comes from us. We failed these kids. And will continue to do so, until we fix our education system.
You do not understand how success is measured. We have good intentions, so we can measure success simply by the amount of money we spend on the thing. My fantasy of a proposal would be that we would have universal vouchers-- every kid would get the average amount spent in his/her district and they could take that to any school, including public. Even more imaginative and unlikely, I would say each school should get the average state aid, and anything above that they would have to present a specific request to the legislature for the program to improve performance, WITH A GUARANTEE of performance or they lose the money.
ReplyDelete"There is no difference in how a kid can learn depending on income or skin color. But there is a difference based on expectations and commitment." <-- THAT right there is precisely where the money goes. When more money is allocated to address the "achievement gap", people assume it goes to fund ninja-level teaching skills. Nope. It goes to things like "equity" and "diversity" training. My district spent years and millions on paid outside consultants (the deservedly maligned Pacific Education Group) to basically come in, teach our teachers that white people are racist, expect less from our students of color, and carry that attitude into the classroom. If you disagree with any of it, well that's just evidence of you inherent racism and white privilege. (Doubt me? I can show you in PEG's book where they teach it.) In a PEG training session, I found what I originally assumed was a mere error in a narrative about how racial conditions had deteriorated. When I pointed out irrefutable proof that the evidence and timeline they were relying upon was wrong (it was a dated Time magazine story), the response was not one of reconsideration or even an acknowledgement of a possible simple lapse of proofreading. Instead, the instructor became defensive and shifted the entire narrative to try to make it match the corrected facts.
ReplyDeleteGetting PEG fired was the most satisfying thing I ever did during that period.
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DeleteAll that, and I neglected to mention "why" the money goes in this direction. It is due to the basic assumption that all *all* inequity stems from racism. Get punished in school? Racism (because only POC students get punished, right?) Act up in class? Racism (because only POC students are viewed as "acting up", right?) Motivated to act up in class? Racism (because only POC kids ever feel out of place, right?) Are you underprivileged and pissed off? Racism (because only POC end up poor, right?) No dad at home? Racism (because... ok I have no idea why, but it is still whitey fault.) Dad not at home because he's in prison? Are you on welfare? Racism (because racist white people *really* like housing and feeding POC, right?).
DeleteThe bottom line is, the money doesn't go towards actually teaching ABCs and 123s any better. It goes towards tenure rather than merit based teacher raises, and towards paying "experts" (who would be out of a job if they actually solved the problem) to put the blame on a straw man. Don't blame us, we just work here.
Bravo!
ReplyDeleteG.W. Bush was right about "the soft bigotry of low expectations." Where expectations are high the gap tends to go away. But the real failure comes when "all that money" is used to dumb down the curriculum (and discipline) rather than being targeted to kids that are educationally disadvantaged-- single-parent, broken home or even homeless, regardless of race. It isn't that "poor black kids cannot learn," but rather "SOME" kids, individually, have not had the advantages others have had. I've seen it WAY too many times to believe you can judge any kid's academic potential by looking. I've seen many kids come to school not knowing their numbers or alphabet and then fail reading and math. Duh! Give them that little boost, tutored or "catch up classes," and they may surprise you.