Most recent diaries seem to be on polling... or perhaps on general political strategy. This diary is going to be my humble attempt to refute some basic conservative myths on public education. It is no secret that Republicans hate public education. Before, they wanted to eliminate the Education department, now they want to practice school vouchers and charter schools. The idea that American Government, and by inference, the American people as a whole, take responsibility for the raising of their children seems to be anathema to conservative thought. The benefits of public education are being brought up in my economics classes. For example, public education ideally creates knowledge that we can all be guaranteed we share.
I am bringing this up because I recently read, browsing an article on townhall.com, a stinging attack on Calvert county schools, in my home state of MD. While the article does make some relatively useful points, the majority of it is myth or blatant misinformation.
The article can be found
here. The author is apparently a disgruntled public elementary school teacher in Calvert County, Maryland. Emphasis on disgruntled. In extended I shall reprint egregious parts of the article and explain my complaint against them.
He begins the article by stating a new policy of requiring $75 in dues for participating in athletics, an unfortunate side effect of the underfunding in education Gov Ehrlich has been implementing in order to shove slot machines down the throats of Marylanders. For about four paragraphs, he rants without saying much of anything.
Finally he gets to a point where he states that each student costs the state 9,000 which he assumes is high. Newsflash for ya, as a college student, my tuition is arount 20,000... and I pay for my own text books. Simply stating the number and declaring outrage is like comparing apples to non-existant oranges.
Next on the list is this gem of a paragraph...
For years we've been throwing more and more money at our public schools nationwide while student academic performance has remained virtually unchanged. For only one average Maryland classroom, the state compels taxpayers to foot about $225,000! ($9,000 x 25 students = $225,000) If we deduct $50,000 to pay for the teacher, even given the cost of health insurance benefits, the state still comes away with well over $150,000 to spend elsewhere. Where's all this money going?
For years we've been throwing more and more money at our public schools nationwide while student academic performance has remained virtually unchanged. For only one average Maryland classroom, the state compels taxpayers to foot about $225,000! ($9,000 x 25 students = $225,000) If we deduct $50,000 to pay for the teacher, even given the cost of health insurance benefits, the state still comes away with well over $150,000 to spend elsewhere. Where's all this money going?
So, first of all, let the math geek redo your math for you. First, students do not have only one teacher. In highschool I had seven teachers a year. Obviously they each taught more than one class, but they only taught five classes each. So 25 students require 7/5 of a teacher or 70,000 dollars. This doesnt include the salaries of janitors, guidance counselors, speech therapists, school nurses, librarians, security guards, school cooks, and so on, unless these are the "intelligence lacking public school bureaucrats" he mentions.
Of course, you could argue that I still havent accounted for the majority of that money, but I can tell you where most of it goes... Special education. Special education costs an incredible amount of money. In school, I knew several students who required an assistant to guide them through the entire school day. Add to that psychologists and so forth and special education becomes a huge hurdle for public schools to deal with. And make no mistake about it, if we lose public education, the future of almost every child with special needs will be sacrificed.
On top of this, teachers are paid extra to coach sports teams, lead extracurricular activities, proctor SAT's, hold detention or Saturday school, and so on.
So, the next major number he drops and mentions anything about is 450,000 for "class size reduction" which he says only bring in 6 new teachers. Well, 6 new teachers at 50,000 comes out to 300,000... and once you take into account health insurance, and the numerous other employees necessary to running a school, 450,000 doesnt seem far off. Unless perhaps he thinks the state should funnel more money into this program.
The next paragraph really gets my blood boiling...
Willingness to discipline students and remove from class the ones who refuse to behave is worth a helluva lot more than what this district is wasting on a fad. How many students do college lecture halls hold? 300? 400? Where's the outcry for reducing class sizes here? Apparently, effecting academic improvement takes a backseat to basking in self-righteousness.
First of all, what the hell is he talking about at the beginning, My teachers would have failed jagged writing like this. Second of all, college students have different capabilities and requirements than highschool and especially elementary school students. But even though that is the case, students themselves have been demanding lower class sizes. The low class size is one of the reasons I chose the University of Rochester. Here, I have only had one class that had more than 100 students in it. Furthermore, Teaching assistants are hired to deal with large classes. I am one of six teaching assistants assigned to 2 30 person classes. Thats right, they have one professor and 3 TAs assigned to 30 students for a math class. I dare you to find that kind of student:teacher ratio in a public school. Fact of the matter is, low class size is something universities and colleges are being forced to adapt just to stay competitive.
Finally he mentions materials of instruction costs, without bothering to give any factual idea of what exactly these are. I couldnt find the answer online, but since he speculated, i think i might speculate a bit on my own... Perhaps materials for instruction includes, paper, calculators, computers, computer programs, internet access, laboratory materials (microscopes, beakers etc... this crap is expensive!), wood for wood shop, food for home ec, art supplies, musical instruments, gym equipment, tvs, vcrs, educational videos, probably the maintanence costs of all this stuff. All in all, i think my speculation is far more based in reality.
Fact of the matter is, when it comes to education, conservatives just have no f---ing clue just what it takes to run a school, but are more than happy to bash the people who do.
Incidentally, in Howard County, MD, students are being expected to pay for some of their textbooks for classes. More evidence of reduced funding of education. I bet I could find tons more examples, of course I'm sure every administrator is clearly incompetent to allow this to happen. Yeah, that seems really plausible.