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October 23, 2007
The tragicomic state of public education
Russell Roberts
Are your local property taxes too low? Feel like the public schools aren't getting enough funding? After all, spending per student has only DOUBLED over the last 40 years and increased almost every year for the last 25 years or so. But we know it's not enough. Well now you can make a difference. You can contribute even more than what you're forced to contribute through your property taxes. At DonorsChoose.org, you can help the cash-starved public schools finally get the resources they need! This is not from the Onion:
DonorsChoose.org is a simple way to provide students in need with resources that our public schools often lack. At this not-for-profit web site, teachers submit project proposals for materials or experiences their students need to learn. These ideas become classroom reality when concerned individuals, whom we call Citizen Philanthropists, choose projects to fund.
Proposals range from "Magical Math Centers" ($200) to "Big Book Bonanza" ($320), to "Cooking Across the Curriculum" ($1,100). Any individual can search such proposals by areas of interest, learn about classroom needs, and choose to fund the project(s) they find most compelling. In completing a project, donors receive a feedback package of student photos and thank-you notes, and a teacher impact letter.
The tragedy is that creative teachers probably do struggle to find funding for creative projects. That's because they're in public schools. There is little or no incentive for funding increases to please the customers, be they students or their parents.
Alas, In 2007, donors have already funded $4,176,945 worth of resources for students through DonorsChoose. Please, if you are one of those donors, give your money elsewhere. Help students get out of a system that wastes resources on such an extraordinary scale. Give to a charity that helps students get into private schools where there is at least some accountability. Go here, then choose your state, and then select "Private Scholarship Groups" to find a charity in your state.
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California State Senator Tom McClintock has this "modest Proposal" from 2005:
http://republican.sen.ca.gov/web/mcclintock/article_print.asp?PID=292
Excerpt:
Devoting all of this money to the classroom would require turning tens of thousands of school bureaucrats, consultants, advisors and specialists onto the streets with no means of support or marketable job skills, something that no enlightened social democracy should allow.
Posted by: Rob Dawg | Oct 23, 2007 10:38:36 AM
Schools would be better off if these bureaucrats were sent home with their full pay.
Posted by: dave smith | Oct 23, 2007 11:54:40 AM
In 2000 Colorado voters passed a referendum amending the State Constitution to require that K-12 funding increase every year by the rate of inflation plus 1%. The education establishment pushed this measure by arguing that Colorado education funding had not kept up with inflation and that it needed to "catch Up." Thus the extra 1% for ten years.
The argument that Colorado had not provided adequate funding for K-12 education was, of course, a crock. In 2006 the newly elected Democrat governor pushed through another measure that increases property taxes in Colorado with all the extra tax revenue going to K-12 education.
Not only is there no positive correlation between K-12 funding and educational achievement, there seems to actually be a negative correlation. Correlation may not be causation, but a negative correlation surely negates the proposition that increased funding leads to improved outcomes.
Nobody ever seems to notice that while the Democrats fight for increased education funding the teachers' union is their largest financial supporter, to the point that no elected Democrat can go against whatever the unions want and keep his or her office.
Since the only money teachers' unions have is what they take from teachers, and teachers' salaries are paid by taxpayers, the cozy relationship of the Democrats and the teachers' unions operates as a funnel for tax dollars to Democrats.
Posted by: Flash Gordon | Oct 23, 2007 12:21:10 PM
Not only is there no positive correlation between K-12 funding and educational achievement, there seems to actually be a negative correlation. Correlation may not be causation, but a negative correlation surely negates the proposition that increased funding leads to improved outcomes. - Flash Gordon
I think not, because the situation would be even worse if it were not for the extra funding!
Posted by: Lee Kelly | Oct 23, 2007 12:30:57 PM
"I think not, because the situation would be even worse if it were not for the extra funding!"
You've got to be kidding. How is it that the rest of the industrialized world can spend less than we do, and still outperform us in their test scores?
Something is seriously broken with our system, and it's not a lack of funding.
Posted by: Ryan Fuller | Oct 23, 2007 1:07:07 PM
You've got to be kidding. - Ryan Fuller
I am kidding, but I do not have to be kidding. There is always another way to interpret any set of facts, and it is always possible to propose ad hoc conjectures to save a theory.
In this particular instance, I might conjecture that the local school population is increasing faster than the funding can keep up. If this is true then nothing has been negated.
I do not mean to suggest that this is true, but it could be true, and there are other possible explanations. There is no way to confirm that any particular explanation is true.
Regards,
Lee
Posted by: Lee kelly | Oct 23, 2007 1:29:40 PM
I realize I have been downwind from the so-called "Irvine Fire" for the better part of 2 days now breathing the equivalent of 5 packs of cigarettes an hour and that may be affecting my judgment, but I don't get this post at all.
Public education is a giant clusteryouknowwhat, and reforms like NCLB have made it all the worse, but... I see this kind of thing as a way that enterprising teachers can do innovative educational experiments without having to clear horrendous bureaucratic hurdles, instead relying on a funding market that we could expect to generally filter out the obvious BS and award worthwhile endeavors.
For example, the company I do most of my work with these days makes software and web solutions for early childhood literacy. A key market for us is Native American schools, where literacy is a long-standing problem, but we've also enjoyed success in some regular suburban schools as well where the problems of getting kids to read and write are more about cheerleading than getting the kids to show up. Depending on the project a school does, their costs to purchase the software, support, and supplies from us might range from $250 to thousands of dollars. When we get a purchase approved, that's half the battle, as we often (1/3 of purchases or more) have IT issues mostly related to mandated content filtering of Internet connections. It turns out (we think/hope) that we can do this more economically than any teacher freelancing with a similar idea.
In suburban schools back in the mid-80s when I was in high school, a project like this would typically be funded by the PTA or a parent booster club. My Mom was very involved in these things, and I can attest that parents were generally happy to contribute to well thought out projects and purchases, and pretty resistant to buying things the school should be buying, like pencils for art class. For example, they bought a few computers for teachers who had ideas for using them in the classroom (outside "computer class") long before computers were cool. Some, like my chemistry lab, enhanced the educational process directly -- I even got coaxed into writing some of the data gathering and analysis software. Others, like a Mac used by the social studies teachers, printed pretty tests and might have been an extravagant waste for the time. But at least because of the detachment of the funding source from the district bureaucracy, there was real experimentation.
Posted by: Brad | Oct 23, 2007 1:48:40 PM
Hi Russell -
DonorsChoose.org was created with accountability at its core. When somebody gives to a classroom via DonorsChoose.org they know exactly how their dollars are spent & when we spent 'em.
Sadly, no amount of scholarships will make private school a reality for most children of poverty. Thankfully - because of organizations like ours - many of these students will now have access to private-school-like resources.
Please let me know if you have any questions about our site or our mission.
- Zach
Posted by: Zach AT DonorsChoose.org | Oct 23, 2007 2:10:33 PM
Russ,
My wife and I donate to our underfunded public school regularly in both time and money. We know it's underfunded because it's a Utah Charter school that gets less money for capital expenses than local district schools. We get to see exactly where our donations go through our involvement in the school. This is probably as close to the idolized 1-room community schoolhouse of long ago that you can find today.
In 2 weeks, we get to vote on a statewide voucher law. It's likely to lose due to FUD from the NEA and others. The arguments for and against seem to follow the model you outlined in "Fooling ourselves". I hope you can find time in the future for an Econtalk on the subject, it would be comforting. I don't really see how the present public education system is ever going to improve with its inherent lack of incentives.
Posted by: steep | Oct 23, 2007 5:45:36 PM
so the spending per pupil has doubled but the output per student has decreased...sounds like we've reached diseconomies of scale in education...i think it's time we quit trying to educate every child...
Posted by: Mike Fladlien | Oct 24, 2007 7:33:38 AM
Lee Kelly:
"I think not, because the situation would be even worse if it were not for the extra funding!"
Time to tune up your logic, Lee. A negative correlation means that if you decrease the money the educational achievement improves. It never means that pouring more gas on the flame puts the fire out. And real world experience proves it empirically. Many private schools beat the public schools with half the money per pupil.
You say you were kidding. No you weren't. You were trying to sound like a Democrat politician in the pocket of the teachers' union. Are you?
Posted by: Flash Gordon | Oct 24, 2007 12:57:31 PM
Flash Gordon,
I am a 21 year-old administrator for an insurance company in Essex, England. For the record. I am certainly not a Democrat, nor in the pocket of any teachers' union. In fact, I am opposed to coercively funded education, whether in the United Kingdom, United States, or anywhere else.
The point of my post was that for any given set of facts, there is always a way to interpret those facts so that a theory can be saved from refutation, and this case is no different. I simply proposed one possible explanation which an opponent may suggest. In fact, I was hinting at a deeper issue regarding methodology.
Regards,
Lee
Posted by: Lee Kelly | Oct 25, 2007 6:08:32 AM
I found some great educational resources in the link in my name.
Posted by: Teaching resources | May 22, 2008 9:07:53 AM
As a teacher in Chicago's poverty & crime stricken West side I made extensive use of Donor's Choose. Here's why I would think Cafe Hayek would love this program:
- private funding cuts out the government red-tape. This prevents the skimming of funds to support top-heavy admin. It also completely circumvents the need to play all the political games that can be needed to procure funds for the classroom.
- I used the funds to start and maintain the school's only AP course, AP chemistry. Although our scores are abysmal, we have had a greater percentage of students declare and complete a chemistry (or chemical engineering) major in college than the national average (as reported by the American Chemical Society).
- This program also exemplifies and rewards entrepreneurialism and creativity in the only ways teachers are able to be innovative within the current regulation-laden system.
I agree with the education funding literature - all the the funding in the world will not change achievement for students who have been acculturated to sub-par academic standards and social promotion. But for those top five or ten percent of students who are giving it their all in a terrible learning environment, AP programs and a teacher who can deliver the material, and the funds to make the the vision a reality are a strong step in the right direction.
*note: if I could fire one or two vice-principals and use their salary to fund my programs, I would just as soon do that too.
Posted by: Peter Goff | Jun 26, 2008 10:40:52 AM
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