by David Safier
A friend called and told me she thought I was too kind to Terri Proud in my Friday post about the forum where Chris Ackerley laid out the way Arizona education funding works. My friend was at the event as well.
"Too kind?" I responded. "I spoke well of the presentation by Ackerley, but I also said Proud & Co. have an education agenda I am in total disagreement with."
I fear I was trying to be overly clever and muddied up my point. So let me clarify what I wrote by changing the order and emphasis.
Proud and I could hardly differ more, on virtually every issue. Other than liking small children and dogs (I assume she does), we have almost nothing in common. She stands on one rim of the political Grand Canyon, I stand on the other, and I think the trails down to the bottom are washed out.
I can't make it any clearer than that.
To my surprise, though, at the "public seminar sponsored by Rep. Terri Proud and Educating AZ Right," the speaker was someone who did a great job, a high school teacher who stayed away from politics almost entirely and gave a thorough, down-the-middle, nonpartisan presentation about education funding which I learned a great deal from.
I also think his honest presentation did more to substantiate my ideas than Proud's. For me, his most salient point was that charter schools get approximately the same amount of funding for "regular education" as district schools. That flies in the face of the current conservative claim that charters are getting cheated out of funding they deserve and need to get more money. The conservative claim is wrong. And Chris Ackerley, the speaker at Proud's own forum, agrees with me, not the conservatives, on this issue.
That wasn't the agenda Proud & Co. had in mind, of course, but unhappily for them, they let the cat out of the bag, and I don't intend to let them put it in again if I can help it. Charters get equivalent funding for "regular education" as district schools. That's the truth. As a matter of fact, Ackerley said BASIS gets a thousand more per student than Marana. That's the truth as well. And I heard it at Proud's forum, from the person she hand picked to make the presentation, so I don't know how she's going to tell me it's not true.
What Proud and the people who put together the presentation wanted me to come away with is the idea that Arizona's ed funding mechanism is much too complicated. Their next step will be to say, "Let's simplify it." But the things they want to do in the name of simplication would make things much, much worse.
Here's an analogy (I love analogies). Jet planes are way too complicated for my poor little brain to understand. If I believed the "simpler is better" concept, when I was on the runway looking out the window of the plane that was about to carry me high in the air, I would want to see workers winding up the propellers to tighten the rubber bands that make them spin round and round. Now that's something I can understand!
To tell the truth, though, I prefer cruising at 30,000 feet knowing that better minds than mine have created engines with no rubber bands in them, engines so complex and sophisticated, I have no hope of ever understanding them.
Complicated is only bad if they are bad complications. Inefficiencies, bad priorities and unintended consequences are all bad results of poorly created complications. But jet engines are complicated. Education is complicated. Funding education is complicated. Life if complicated.There are rarely simple solutions to complex problems. I say, let's make changes for the sake of making things better, not just simpler.
Unfortunately, the politically savvy right likes to prey on its followers by coming up with easy-to-understand "solutions" which have been conceived to further their agenda. Their "solutions" almost always favor the fortunate few and make the lives of the rest of us far worse.
Discover more from Blog for Arizona
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Tullie,
I am sorry to read your sentence revealing that you moved your kids into a charter school in part because the teachers in the public school were bad mouthing Republicans and Tea Parties. Doing so in a classroom is unprofessional and inappropriate.
You’re disenchanted with public schools, so am I. I am disenchanted with our _underfunded_ public school system. 6, 7 and 8 years ago, my neighnborhood middle school was the best. Truly outstanding in every way. It has gone downhill, precipitously the last two years, and only two outside factors have changed: decline in real estate values, and drastic decline in funding for our school. It is understaffed, poorly administered, library is closed, no counselor, only a part time nurse, no VP, and classrooms are crowded.
Now, we know it doesn’t have to be that way. More funds mean better quality. You hire a VP and discipline improves; you hire a counselor, and kids with personal issues spend more time in the classroom; etc, etc, etc. I am also disenchanted with our state government. On the state level, the ruling legislative party keeps cutting even more funds away from our schools, precipitating their decline, and transferring that money instead into tax cuts for corporations and tax credits for wealthy people to pay for the kids’ private school tuitions. I pay taxes, and my tax money doesn’t go to my kids’ middle school, instead it goes into the pockets of people in a much higher tax bracket than me without any identifiable or redeeming social improvement. How does this make society better? So you bet I am disenchanted with our state government legislative leaders. The way they are spending our tax money is very ineffective and actually counterproductive. Time to stop digging a hole and to start filling it in instead.
Which relates to your next point about our current economic circumstances and your belief that in response “we need to make drastic cuts in most government spending.” I am still waiting for that popular concept to be seriously defended or supported. I hear that idea all the time — everybody from Eric Cantor to Al Melvin has been saying for a long time that if we cut gov’t spending a lot more jobs will magically appear. I could never connect those dots, could never establish any sort of cause and effect relationship. As a matter of fact, what I see is the exact opposite. For example, Bill Clinton recently wrote an article published in Newsweek titled “It’s Still the Economy, Stupid” wherein he described 14 ideas to create jobs. (http://www.newsweek.com/2011/06/19/it-s-still-the-economy-stupid.html) #2 is a perfect snapshot of the differences between the two parties, and of what I understand from your posts to be the differences between you and me. In short, a government incentive program helped spur a new and burgeoning industry, car batteries for electric cars, and it was very successful: many new factories were built, thousands of people got jobs, and the Republicans shot it down and defunded it because it was a spending program and not a tax cut.
I have never seen an example of cutting gov’t spending as a response to our dire economic environment leading to more successful outcomes. It hasn’t worked here in Arizona, it hasn’t worked in Cameron’s England, it hasn’t worked in Michigan and Ohio. What did work? The program Bill Clinton described worked.
That one episode is the perfect snapshot highlighting the differences between Democrats and Republicans. I see it being played out nationally, and I wish it could be played out more on the state level…but unfortunately, it’s all Republican, all the time here in Arizona at the state level, so Democratic ideas don’t even get to be talked about, let alone tried.
I do not have a powerful reply to your idea about more spending leading to more corruption. I know examples where that is true, but I also know examples, like Massachusetts or Finland, where more spending leads to much better results, and the cause-effect relationship is fairly or very clear: they spend more money to hire smarter people who then come up with better ideas which produce better results than anybody else. Glass half empty or glass half full?
And I see the exact opposite here in Arizona, where we spend less money and the ideas being promulgated are really sophmoric and insipid, like the current “Blended Learning” model that charter school in Yuma (the one also being written about because of all the erasure marks on their AIMS tests) is well known for. We can spend less money by hiring fewer teachers and putting the kids in front of a computer screen most of the day and let a software program do all the work. No thank you. I want my kids to spend less time in front of a screen, not more time. I believe in real life, not virtual life.
Next, charter schools are known for paying new teachers more than public schools do. I did not know about the 10%; do you think they offer more money to get a higher quality teacher? The flip side of that coin is successul experienced teachers are known not to go work in Charter schools. Stability and job security is important to many teachers. The subject of Charters is a whole ‘nother can of beans,and I won’t open it up here in this (already long) post.
I believe I can sum up in a general way how we agree by saying we both remember a time when people assumed that students’ performance in school was largely determined by their own efforts and by the circumstances and support of their family. We all experienced a succession of good teachers and mediocre teachers, or even sometimes a bad teacher, and the general experience was that public school offered everybody the chance to get smart if they were willing to pursue it. And this served the larger public good. I still believe that is the case, but I think you believe something has changed and the basic dynamic has changed. I think you sense a loss of values, and you feel somehow suckling off the gov’t-run school has led to the loss of self-sufficiency and has led to a general moral and economic decay.
I think there may be a sense of moral decay (which I would ascribe to severe and entrenched poverty…but that is another topic), but I have never sensed or seen a loss of self-sufficiency. I think our world demands as much or more self-sufficiency that it ever did, in school, at work, in general. Nothing has changed, if you want to succeed, you better get out bed, stand up, put on your pants, and work damn hard.
Where you and you and I disagree is in our responses to the dire economic situation, and on how much money should be spent on schools. In both cases the underlying value revolves one way or another around money. And I thank you for stepping up and stating your ideas in a way that makes the vales you support clear. In a crass, general way, my position can be summed up as spend more of it because it is an investment that pays off, and you say save and spend less because we’re just frittering away a precious resource that we have less and less of. Two starkly opposed paradigms. I won’t make a value judgment by saying one is right and one is wrong, but I will say there is evidence that one way leads to more success, and there is no evidence that the other way does.
I believe in the scientific process. Propose a hypothesis, test it, and then draw your conclusions from the evidence. The old economist John Maynard Keynes said: “When the evidence changes, I change my mid. What do you do?”
Thank you, Tullie, for sharing your thoughts and opinions and supporting them with facts about your life — that was honest and showed integrity. If my general conclusions about the values your positions support are wrong, please correct me. We need agreed upon facts before we can agree on the best possible policy positions.
Tullie and Phillip, I enjoyed reading your latest comments. The three of us agree on the broad concept that we want the best education and the best future for our children. But when it gets down to the details, there is a huge difference in ideas of how we should get there. And that difference hasn’t been bridged in these conversations.
To me, the idea that Arizona in spending enough on education and the problem is that the teachers aren’t good enough to exercise control over their classes and some parents aren’t giving their children enough enrichment is the wrong way to look at the situation. Overburdened, underpaid teachers are going to be less able to educate students. And acknowledging that many parents aren’t doing enough to help their children — which I agree with — doesn’t lead me to conclude that our schools shouldn’t try to make up for the deficit. Schools supplementing education in the home is one of the principals on which public education is based. It’s the reason literacy, education in general and, yes, even I.Q., have climbed in this country (The measured I.Q. of our children leave their grandparents in the dust). It’s why we now have over 90% of our high school aged students in school, while that number was more like 20% in the early decades of the 20th century. For all our problems, we have created the most literate and educated population in the history of this country.
Though I’m sure Phillip and I have some disagreements on details, we’re both on the same side of this discussion. I sincerely believe, Tullie, that what you advocate would harm our children in the short term and the long term. I think legislators like Terri Proud are harmful to our children in the short term and the long term. I am happy to carry on a discussion like this and attend events like the one you put on last week, because I think these issues should be aired publicly, and preferably in a forum where open discussion is encouraged. The more we talk about these issues, the more the public can make informed choices.
What you’ve eloquently described is only a few degrees from what I envision. I cannot disagree. I’m pleasantly surprised to see you think it’s important to attract business to communities because I do believe we need a good balance of public/private (usually my idea of balance is much different than Democrats’). I think the main difference between us is that I have experienced a dramatic disenchantment with both the education system and government in general. Learning is SO important but I’m viewing school as only one provider of knowledge. For many, college is not even a good investment anymore. Considering the current economic circumstances (which I believe are atypically dire) I believe we need to make drastic cuts in most government spending, and minor cuts in education because it is a critical investment… and I really do say that with my children’s future in mind. I’m disenfranchised because of my personal experiences but also because of my broader observation that more spending coincides with more corruption. I am also tired of school staff badmouthing Republicans and tea partiers – enrolling my son in charter school has alleviated that issue (incidentally, they pay their teachers 10% above average, which I think is great). Have to get back to work.
Tullie,
The types of supervision, discipline, and administration problem you describe in the first part of your post above can be addressed with more money.
Without getting into the specific experiences of your children, I do disagree when you conclude that, “Here is a problem that I don’t think money can solve.” I disagree for this reason: Better pay can attract better employees; How much would you bet that school districts that pay the highest salaries will have the highest quality individuals — the kind that are organized and responsive and effective so that there are not the kind of problems you describe? And conversely, how much you want to bet that school districts that pay the least are going to have the least effective teachers from the whole teaching pool?
On the administration side, my neighborhood middle school used to have two school counselors, two vice principles, and one principal. It was a highly successful school — test scores high, school ranking high (Excelling or Highly Performing each year), parents happy — there was even a waiting list more than 200 long for out-of-district parents trying to get their kids into this school. First round of budget cuts got rid of one VP and one counselor and one monitor. The even deeper budget cuts mean no school counselors, no vice principal, no monitors and just one principal. Discipline has gone downhill, moral of the teachers has dropped, classrooms are crowded, teachers have to ask parents to bring in paper, no more in-school suspension or after school detention, and one principal cannot do the job that a larger administrative staff used to do effectively. The whole system does not work as well as it used to because of budget cuts and the resulting loss of staff. Cause and effect. Money can solve problems, and lack of money can create its own problems.
I am not happy with the amount of money currently being spent. It is inadequate.
Another analogy: We are paying for a cook, when what we really want is a chef.
Charter schools are alternative schools. I started one myself many, many years ago in a different time and different part of my life. They have a place at the table, but they should not be the main course. Charter schools operate within a business model that dictates competition between competitors, hoarding of trade secrets that lead to success, and I believe the current system, where cooperation is possible and where trade secrets can be shared without the worry of losing market share is much preferable because more people benefit to a higher degree. Our kids will be better served with a system where trade secrets and strategies leading to success can be shared among professionals without them suffering financial loss.
Last, in response to your comments about parents and poverty – ” but sometimes I wonder if our town attracted business, maybe the mother and father could provide more for their kids at home” — I’ll point out that places with high quality school systems and well funded university systems attract companies with highly paid jobs. There is a reason tech companies all go to Silicon Valley in California: a large pool of highly skilled workers, which are the result of a terrific school system and a number of very high quality universities. They do not go to low tax states like Nevada or Texas because they need high quality school systems. No matter where you look around this great nation of ours, the places that attract the kind of companies that pay high wages — engineering firms, pharmaceutical companies, high tech concerns — always go to states that fund their school systems well and provide high quality schools for employees’ kids. Check this out by looking at median incomes in states like Massachusetts, and comparing them to states like Arizona or Texas. Then look at what those states pay teachers. You think public schools in Cambridge, Massachussetts are paying their teachers 23% more than the national average (or about $25,000 more a year than in TUSD) without getting higher quality results? There is a reason high paying companies locate next to M.I.T. in Cambridge and extremely smart and skillful employees want to work there. And there is a reason why schools in Massachusetts have figured out how to raise reading scores more than any other states. High quality costs money, and high quality produces high quality.
The kids of employees who work at an engineering firm next to MIT will go to high quality schools where highly paid teachers produce high quality students who then turn into high quality employees that high paying companies want to hire.
therefore, the conclusion is inescapable and undenaible: Investment in the public sphere pays off. Spending more money and getting higher quality in our schools pays off. This is the difference between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats say the amount we spend now on our schools is not enough, and we are not enjoying the rich benefits of such smart public investments. We are not getting high paying companies to move here for a reason, which I just explained.
In my mind, analyzing all the factors is like adding 2 and 2. The conclusion is clear. We know what works, and we know what doesn’t. I feel like we are betrayed by politicians and by citizens who vote for those politicians who pursue policies we all know don’t work, and refuse to do what we all know does work. Do we want a better future? Then we need to invest in it. There is a difference between a cook and a chef.
Regarding money – I agree that its purpose is to purchase the things that enrich our lives. I am not suggesting we don’t spend money on schools at all… trying to teach kids in a one-room schoolhouse would not be effective. We could look at examples of classrooms with 40 kids and not enough desks or books, contrasted with state-of-the-art classrooms with a computer for each child, but for the purposes of this discussion, I’d like to look at the most accurate frame of reference I can find – my kids’ classrooms (most kids’ classrooms in AZ) are somewhere between those two situations.
I think sometimes teachers, activists, lobbyists and legislators get wrapped up n the politics of education. From the parent’s perspective, looking back over the past 14 years of having children in public school in AZ, I can tell you that supplies have not been our biggest struggle. The tools and supplies that money can buy have not always been there, and yet the work was accomplished. My children generally love learning, as I did when I was a kid. What we have struggled with the most is conflict. Conflicts have continuously required my attention, and have resulted in lost instruction time. When I think back, the conflicts with teachers have been related to a lack of supervision, or a failure on the teacher’s part to stay organized. There have been countless instances of conflict where other kids are bullying mine and the schools have rarely done anything to help us stop it. Full disclosure: One of my children was sexually abused at school. Here is a problem that I don’t think money can solve. I see administrators and teachers constantly complain about funding and I think sometimes they don’t see that running a great school isn’t all about books. It’s also about helping kids become great adults. I admit, some baggage is coming into play here. These are my personal gripes but when I talk to other parents, we don’t talk about needing more computers or more books. My “dishonest connection“ about gym floors is better described as a “hurried connection”. I think we’re in agreement that libraries are essential in a school. I think sometimes school administrators cut supplies at the bottom that will get attention from parents/voters, and I wish they wouldn’t politicize our kids like that. (Maybe I suspect deceptiveness too.)
So regarding money – I like the level we currently spend just fine and I agree with you that we can’t cut it drastically. We agree the goal is to get the most bang for our buck, “the most effective and efficacious and efficient use of our money.” Considering the parents make the decisions for their own children, and the parents, rather than the educating community, make up the bulk of the taxpayers, the parents should decide how much money schools should get. Whatever is not funneled to education through votes, is invested elsewhere. Whatever taxes are not collected are invested according to the individual’s values. Dollars I invest in a business still benefit my child if the business makes a profit that I can turn around and use to purchase books for our home bookshelf or trips for my family. I see nothing wrong with the idea that schools (government) should not be the primary providers of enrichment for a child. Often we see children get everything they need from school, including meals, and then return home where their needs can’t be met… but sometimes I wonder if our town attracted business, maybe the mother and father could provide more for their kids at home. Granted, some parents are never going to work themselves out of poverty for various reasons, and that’s why I do support adequate schools – to give kids the tools to get out of those conditions… but if they don’t, they grow up and repeat their parent’s lives, and as sad as that is, that is their choice.
Without getting too deep into the economic/fiscal side– I agree with you that “rigged privilege” and corporate favors are disgusting. I support business but I deplore a government that picks winners and losers. I think there’s a name for that… corruption isn’t exclusive to one party. I have nothing against wealthy people as long as they haven’t broken the law to get wealthy. I don’t think govt should penalize successful people by taking a larger proportion of their earnings, either.
I don’t think charter schools will always be better than public. I just think charter schools can sometimes be a better fit for an individual child. That’s my experience.
David was right that we could spend hours…. but because I don’t have hours, I’ll leave it there. Thank you for the conversation, gentlemen.
I’ll check back, Tullie.
Yes, your shirt works as well as mine, and mine is more expensive. So the implication is that we can spend _less_ money on schools and still get the job done. That my shirt is just a waste of money and we could get by with less. I’ll tweak your analogy just a little in order to highlight my point a little better.
One part of my life is I have a horse ranch, down along a river, and I need to go buy bales of hay each week. I can drive 5 miles to the feed store just as well in a ’67 Ford F-150, bad shocks, bald tires, no air conditioning, no power steering and no power brakes. This truck didn’t cost much and it still gets me down the road and I can complete my chores in it(even though a flat tire or a broken shock and my sliding off the road is imminent). But, and here’s the point, my quality of life will be much better and more secure if I invest in a new F-150, with air and suspension, and power brakes and power steering, and I’ll be safe and secure with better and more assured future possibilities. Heck, I could even trailor my horse around to other places and have even more fun if I spend a little more n a F-250. We want that for our kids too.
The same principle is true with our kids’ education. We could cram a crowd of kids into a lecture hall and have one guy just tell the masses how to add and subtract, multiply and divide, and rely on their self sufficiency to go home and actually try and apply what they heard on their own. No practice, no check for understanding, no individual help when your child gets stuck on difference between numerators and denominators. No power steering, no power breaks, bad suspension, but it still gets you down the road. Right? It’s still a school, right? No.
We want better for our kids. We want them to drive a new truck and wear a handsome shirt because we care about their future possibilities and present securities. Saying an old shirt is just as good a new shirt and an old truck gets the job done just as well as new truck doesn’t work when we are talking about our kids. Education is an investment in the quality of life and it is not accurate to say a cheap school with low funds is equivalent to a well funded school in just the same way a 67 Ford is the same as a brand new new F-250. A kid cannot learn as well in a crowded classroom as they can in a classroom where the teacher can answer questions and give some individual attention. The difference in quality translates into not only a present higher quality of life (it’s nice when you can raise your hand get a question answered by the teacher)but also translates into brighter, and bigger, and bolder possibilities.
I do believe we have a lot of politicians who say we spend too much on schools, that we could do just as well spending a lot less, just like an old truck will get you to the feed store. Al Melvin is like that. Why spend on a new one when you don’t have to?
We spend more and think of it as an investment because they are our kids! We want the to go to Stanford, not Bob’s Institute of Tires down on West Speedway Blvd. We want them to have a higher quality of life, like we want them to have straight pretty teeth and we want them to drive a safe, reliable car. That’s why we buy them braces — afterall, they could still chew their food with crooked teeth and survive just fine. Well, we don’t want them to survive just fine with crooked teeth; an investment in higher quality of life for our kids and for more opportunities in their future is a worthwhile investment. Not wasted money.
I want a new truck, nice shirts, good food, and I want a good school for my kids. I work hard, I pay my taxes, and my tax dollars should be invested wisely in top notch schools with top notch teachers for my kids. Would I want to live in a world where I don’t have to pay as much in taxes and my kids go to Bob’s Burger Flippin’ Charter School on West Broadway? No. That’s why I vote for Democrats. And that’s why I pay for braces on my kids’ teeth. Quality of Life Is Important, and it costs money. And money is not a bad word. We all like it, we all use it, we all invest it in what we want.
Tullie, I want to approach some of your statements from a different angle than Phillip took.
Your concern with district schools’ bureaucratic, top-down control implies to me that charters and private schools have less of those qualities and therefore have a greater chance at raising students’ achievement. But studies find no evidence that is true, including studies from conservative sources.
The Bush administration’s Dept of Ed conducted two studies comparing achievement at district, charter and private schools, comparing similar children in each type of school. The result was pretty much a wash. There was no significant, consistent difference in student achievement in the three types of schools.
A recent study out of Stanford University compared achievement of similar students in charters and district schools in a number of states, including Arizona. In some states, charter students has slightly but statistically significant higher achievement scores than district schools. In other states, like Arizona, charter students scored slightly lower than district schools.
Milwaukee has had vouchers for twenty years. A group of scholars compared the achievement of similar students at district schools and voucher students at private schools. A member of the team of scholars was Jay Greene, a prof who is also a fellow at the Goldwater Institute — in other words, a conservative. The multiple studies could find no consistent pattern of greater achievement between the two groups of students. All they could find is that, maybe, district schools faced with competition from vouchers raised their achievement.
Similar studies of the Washington D.C. voucher program had similar results. The only plus for the voucher students was that their parents liked the private schools better than the public schools (They felt their students were safer, things like that). The students showed no greater preference for private over public schools.
When Goldwater Institute’s Matthew Ladner wrote about vouchers in Florida, he too could find no clear evidence that similar students did better in private than in district schools.
I would be happy to supply links to all the studies — or most, anyway. I’m not sure I can dig up the ones on D.C. and Florida, though I’ll try.
My point is, there is no good evidence that district, charter or private schools offer superior education when you compare similar students in all the schools. That means the “benefits” of charters and private schools are subjective at best. No one has shown that they use whatever financial and bureaucratic freedom they have to turn out a better educated group of kids.
One more point, about school finances. Arizona has the lowest per student spending in the country, and one of the highest class sizes. Arizona students’ performance on the national NAEP exams are way down in the bottom half of the country. But more significantly, Arizona students’ NAEP scores are lower than similar students in other states. That implies to me we’re not educating our students as well as they are in other states, putting our future adults at a serious disadvantage. Is the reason our low funding level and high class size? I can’t say for certain, but I would suspect that is true, and I would also suspect that more money would make our students’ achievement more like the achievement of similar students in other states.
A lot to think about. I am working so I will not respond now but I’ll leave you with a funny thought: I find diamonds a waste of money and the $17 shirt I am wearing right now covers my back as well as your $75 Ralph Lauren polo. Thanks for the thoughtful response, I will respond in kind.
Tullie,
What I just read is a concern about money, and a concern about the quality of your kids’ future. I’ll address each one. The first concern about money, I believe, can be fairly summed in in two of your statements:
1) “I don’t necessarily feel that more money spent will translate into higher quality. I value self sufficiency…”
2) “The big picture for me right now is accepting the reality that government is a mess; the money is not there. Fundamentally, government has grown too large and too corrupt.”
First, we know that money can’t buy you love, but when talking abut goods and services, money always is related to quality, is it not? Go buy a new car, new shoes, remodel you kitchen, landscape your yard, go to the jewelry store, go to the grocery store, go buy some clothes, go buy a college education. There is a reason Stanford University costs more than Santa Clara State College, and there is a reason a BMW costs more than a Ford Fiesta, and there is a reason big diamonds put a large smile on my wife’s face and small ones not so much, and there is a reason I buy shirts made by Ralph Lauren instead of the shirts sold at Walmart. Money buys quality. That cannot be denied or ignored.
We also know that the countries with the best public education systems in the world according to the TIMMS tests (math, science, reading) are countries that improved their systems by spending more money.
Now, self-suffiency is a time-honored and revered value. It’s part of the American landscape: psychologically, emotionally, materially. People who do not have or practice self-suffiency are labeled “lazy slacker” or “Character disordered.” Students have to step and prove themselves to succeed in school, just like adults have to step up at their job and in their marriage to prove themselves. But we don’t live in a world where a one-room school house can operate and serve the needs of the American children anymore. We have large urban districts serving kids living in poverty, and we have poor rural districts serving kids living in poverty, and we have well to do suburbs serving kids living in a upper or middle class families. Each and every one of them needs to practice self-suffiency in the classroom — but every one of them also needs money to operate. They are not mutually-excluding values. They are complimentary, not contradictory.
So we have two real questions. And neither one is about self-sufficiency or doing better with less. No, the real questions are how do we get the most bang of our bucks (what is the most effective and efficacious and efficient use of our money) and next, how much money are we willing to spend as a society and as a community.
Around the world, Finland and Singapore decided on using market incentives by paying teachers more money in order to attract the best qualified people. They determined that was an effective use of their money. Instead of paying teachers less than what people in the private sector make, they pay more and turned education into a highly competitive market where truly talented people compete for high paying jobs. They have scored at the top of the world tests, revealing that spending more money can lead to better results. Second, as a society they made the decision to funnel a higher percentage of their tax revenue into public education. Many people here in Arizona made a similar decision recently when we voted ourselves an increased sales tax to help schools.
So I conclude, we have to spend money, and we have to figure out how to spend it effectively. I do not understand how a serious argument can be made that we could educate our kids better for less money. Conversely, lots of evidence exists that more money can produce better results. (And we all know it’s intuitively true because it is a regular part of life when we buy cars, clothes, shoes, jewelry, cell phones, etc). We just don’t want to get ripped off.
Which leads to your second concern/value – gov’t is too big, too corrupt, a mess, and the money isn’t there. I say the money used to be there. Where did it go? I know we funnel $52 million a year into wha tthe Libertarian East Valley Tribune newspaper called the “Rigged Privilege” of private school tuition tax credits: http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/special_reports/rigged_privilege/ I know we just decided to transfer another $500 million or so back into the pockets of corporate CEO’s through corporate property tax cuts corporate income tax cuts. We also know that 37% of the $1.5 billion in tax cuts in the last 15 years has gone to the top 5% in Arizona. So there is still a lot of money that could be used in schools instead, millions of dollars. We just seemed to have made a decision, though the ballot box, that we would rather spend all those millions on tax cuts for CEO’s and corporate entities, hoping that would prove to be an investment in job creation. We decided to spend our money on something else besides schools. But money is there.
I would argue that it is corrupt to transfer tax payer’s money into corporate coffers and into bank accounts of already wealthy people, rather than spend our tax money on schools for our kids. I still pay taxes, so why is my money shifted someplace else or given to private schools where our elected officials skim 10% off the top of all the millions that pass through their STO’s, and my kids are crammed into an overcrowded classroom with 39 other kids? That’s my definition of corrupt. Now, is the fact that the majority party in our elected state legislature is spending our money in unfruitful ways and enriching a few particular people at our expense, in other words, being corrupt, a serious reason for our state to not spend money on our public schools? The logic doesn’t work. You can’t say, our legislature is corrupt, therefore, let’s not spend money on schools. That doesn’t make sense.
Last, when you connect the ideas of your children’s future prospects with new gym floor or more field trips, you are making a dishonest connection. Schools are short teachers, classrooms are crowded, school counselors and librarians lost jobs and now the only time a school library can be open for the kids is when a parent volunteers. It’s not like schools are wasting money on field trips and balloons. So a more accurate statement would be: Will my child’s future prospects be brighter if the school library is open? Will my child’s future prospects be brighter if his 3rd grade classroom has 18 kids in it rather than 34? The answer is an unequivocal “YES.”
The larger question imbedded within your last statements about whether or not your kids will be able to enjoy the prosperity people in our generation have, or our parents’ generation did is a different and separate question. We do know median incomes have remained stagnant or fallen, and it appears the only way now for our kids to make money is either through professions that require a lot of education (law, medicine, accounting, etc), or though successful business ventures. Therefore, high quality education seems very important to get into a high paying profession. And business? It’s the same as it always was. Buy low, sell high, find a market with high demand and offer a supply. Success or failure in business is not directly related to whether or not our gov’t is too big, or whether or not you believe we should spend money on schools or on corporate tax cuts.
Personally, I share your values and your concerns. Let’s be effective, efficient with our money, don’t throw it away on wasteful spending, and let’s still instill the time-honored and time-tested values we always believed in, like self-sufficiency. But I think spending more money on our public schools is a wise investment, and a better educated child will have brighter prospects and will also be able to navigate the world of business with more dexterity and more insight.
Let’s see if I can summarize my values (thank you for asking). Keep in mind, these are my personal opinions, and have nothing to do with the political consensus on either side.
I grew up in a poor neighborhood, naturally believing that if we had more money everything would be better. I know what it’s like to be on welfare and it wasn’t entirely “helpful”. In fact, it did more to limit my success and my confidence than anything. That might be the frame of reference having the most impact on my opinion today.
I want my children to have an excellent education but I don’t necessarily feel that more money spent will translate into higher quality. I value self-sufficiency and resourcefulness and believe those qualities can’t be learned when you have everything you need handed to you. There are lessons to be learned from going without (this is the fertile ground where the political parties accuse each other of being either heartless or helpless). Teachers should have what they need to teach class but the lines are blurry between “needs” and “wants”. The best teachers can rely on creativity to make up for the tools their school cannot afford. I think our quality of life is excellent and if it is less than that, there are opportunities to improve it with effort.
The nature of public school is bureaucratic, top-down control, and I feel that is the system’s fatal flaw. Legislators and administrators controlling the purse strings for large districts do the best they can but regulations often prevent the funding from getting where it’s needed (Chris Ackerley touched on this when talking about professional development requirements). I agree that professional development for teachers is essential but if the kids don’t have books, should they be bound to spend money on a non-essential expense? I’m trying to keep it general.
Depending on a child’s individual needs (lower ratios or more extra-curricular activities for example) I think charter schools can offer more customized instruction. Incidentally, I have kids enrolled in charter school AND public school. My girls are more involved in extra-curricular activities, so they prefer public school. Anecdotal fact: the charter schools don’t send home supply lists as often and the quality of school lunches is higher.
The big picture for me right now is accepting the reality that government is a mess; the money is not there. Fundamentally, government has grown too large and too corrupt. When I say “we express our love in different ways” I am thinking about my children’s long-term future. I am deeply concerned about whether they will be able to find jobs when they graduate, and whether they will be able to enjoy the kind of prosperity my generation and the one before mine have. In the grand scheme of things, will our country be a place where they can put this knowledge to good use? They are smart, capable individuals, and they will need to be resilient. I’m not sure it will make much difference whether they had a new gym floor or more field trips. School isn’t their only exposure to the world.
I wish I was there too, David. Thank you for reporting about this.
Let me add this to be clear:
People on both sides need to be very clear on the specific values that underlie their positions. Only when the values are clear can an analysis be made, and solutions evaluated.
For example, I think it is clear that the value Melvin fights for is money. I also hear Antenori make comments about how Vail does better with less money than TUSD, therefore the underlying value important to him also appears to be money.
Their goal: how do we figure out how to spend less money?
Me, I care about quality and effectiveness and the intrinsic, historical value of public schools being the main tool our society uses to ensure equal opportunity for everybody. So, to pursue my values, I advocate for more spending on public schools, and to pursue Melvin’s or Antenori’s values, they advocate for less spending.
So the battle is really about which value are we promoting or diminishing. An awareness of this is left out of discussion, so it’s really difficult to come to any agreements.
If the values change, then the discussion changes. What I see is a lot of people making assertions without even being clear what values they are fighting for.
SO, I wish Tullie would come back, state what value or values it is that are important to her, then we could have a foundation upon which to build agreements, or compromises, or solutions. Without values being really clear, we end up with disparate comments that don’t often even connect with each other.
Phillip, your comment about Melvin’s $9,500 per student number occurred to me many times during the Thursday event. Ackerley scrupulously kept the capital improvements numbers, which Melvin and the Goldwater Institute use to come up with their number, out of his figuring. Then he went even further and took categories like transportation, food and others out of the total figure so he could come up with the amount of money used to educate students. Ackerley pared down the numbers to their essentials better than anyone I have heard, which is why I was scribbling down his information madly as he spoke.
I should mention, Tom Horne, when he was Ed Supe, agreed that the $9,500 number is nonsense.
The rest of your questions to Tullie — those could form the basis of hours of purposeful discussion and dialogue. Great questions.
David,
I agree with your concluding assessment that it is vitally important everybody has a set of facts they agree on and can use as a basis for future discussions and and as a basis for evaluating proposals.
The fact that both sides don’t have a set of facts they agree on prevents any further dialogue or solutions. If we can’t agree on the facts we don’t even agree on the problem. For example, Melvin always uses that GoldWater number, 9 thousand something, as his fact about how much Arizona spends per student. Therefore, the problem for him is only how to reduce the amount Arizona spends on public education. The other side sees drastic budget cuts leading to overcrowded classrooms which in turn diminishes the quality of education each child receives. So, because they don’t share the same starting facts, both sides don’t even see the same problem, therefore no solution is even possible.
I see the main issue a little differently than you do. You say republicans want to make sure Charters get more money, and I think the real issue is just that Republicans want to reduce the amount of money the state spends so they can keep taxes lower. Period. Whatever method possible to achieve that end they will pursue: Charters, vouchers, online schools…whatever allows them to spend less on public education is whatever course they will promote.
Last, I was very interested in Tullie’s comment: “Since my Democrat days, I’ve learned that we all love our children; we just express it in different ways.”
In the context of education, what does that mean exactly? There are several clear implications, but I don’t know which one is hers. Does she want to make sure the children are sent to private schools or charters because there she believes everybody will receive a better education compared to public schools? Is that what she means when she says we express our love for children differently? Or does it mean she wants gov’t out of the education of our children, that children would all be better off without gov’t regulations, without gov’t standards, without gov’t required curriculum goals? What is it? Should the Ten Commandments be taught in public schools? So that amorphous comment about we conservatives choose to love our kids differently sparks my curiosity.
Tullie, with your last comment in mind, let the discussions and dialogue continue! I agree, there are different ways of perceiving reality, different world views. It will be interesting and informative to see if people whose views differ as much as, say, yours and mine do can carry on a purposeful conversation.
I dedicated my professional life to helping young adults — high school students — develop into the best versions of themselves. Now I’m devoting part of my post-professional life to working on the bigger picture, since I no longer have a group of individuals sitting in my classroom. I imagine we both agree that the end results of our efforts are supposed to lead to a better present and a better future. Maybe that’s enough common ground to anchor a discussion.
Knowing that in her first session at the lege, Ms. Proud and her LD26 colleagues voted against public education 100% of the time, I have serious doubts that the objective of the presentation was to seek simplification of the funding.
Fair enough. I am sorry you believe Conservatives are deceptive but I can relate to your reservations. Being a former liberal, I can remember thinking the way you do about Republicans. My worldview shifted dramatically through this type of dialogue and countless hours of research and soul-searching. That is not to say you haven’t a well-developed perspective; I simply want to point out that two thoughtful, intelligent individuals can arrive at contrasting destinations without one being more correct than the other. Politics are not merely defined by fact – values, experience and personality come into play.
I am by no means an expert on education but I am a Mom and an informed taxpayer, so I care about how our state addresses this. I agree with you that simplicity is not always best but I have not heard any proposals to simplify education funding without some inherent improvement to the process.
My hope is that citizens will take the time to gather facts and develop informed opinions based on what is important to them, not what someone else tells them they should believe. This event, I think, encouraged people to do that.
Tullie, This is where we start parting ways. I’m sure you don’t agree with me on this, but I honestly believe the most knowledgeable and strategic people promoting the conservative agenda know they have to deceive their followers to get what they want. I believe the agenda is to make the powerful on the right more powerful, and the rich richer. Much of what is said by the leaders on the right is a means to further that end, in my opinion.
I think the conservatives’ notion of simplifying education funding has more to do with moving the money in the direction of those in power than with improving the educational system for all children. Some children will benefit greatly by the kinds of simplification people like Lisa Graham Keegan propose, but others will be left with poorer education than they currently have. I am being frank here. If you feel that is insulting, then that’s the kind of problem people on different sides of a political and ideological divide have with each other when they speak frankly.
My airplane analogy wasn’t meant to be simply clever. My purpose was to point out clearly that simple isn’t necessarily better. Sometimes it is, but often, simple “solutions” to complex problems create even more serious problems.
The question my friend raised, and more than one person raised similar questions with me, was whether my first post implied I agreed with Terri Proud on what should happen in education. I was told, a casual reading of my post could give someone that impression. The purpose of this post was to correct what might be an incorrect impression that I left.
None of this changes my feelings about the quality of Chris’ presentation or the warm greeting I received from you and others. I am hopeful we can continue some kind of dialogue. I’m sure the disagreements will increase and tensions will rise, but I still feel it’s good to air ideas face to face. Everyone learns something.
I am proud of Terri Proud and Chris Ackerley. I think they both do a fantastic job on educating the citizens of Southern AZ on the state of education in Arizona. The schools have suffered a lot the last few years. Lincoln thought educating our children was the most important job we do as a country. I wish all my Republican, Democrat, and Independent friends thought so, too!
I liked your first blog better and it’s unfortunate your friends don’t want you to be nice to people you might disagree with politically. It was never assumed you agreed with Terri Proud on anything; it was just nice that you took the time to say you found the presentation informative. The airplane analogy is clever, except you have now insulted all those who think education funding could be made more efficient or effective by insinuating those people can’t understand the current complexities. Did you intend that, or am I misinterpreting?
Excellent airplane analogy!