Money is NOT the answer!

Worst of all, the American education system is effectively un-American. What has made America great is the availability of opportunities for ambitious, hard-working folk. In today's world, the lack of an education closes just about all of the doors.

A good education will reduce the racial tensions in our nation to tolerable levels (you'll never eliminate racism until you start executing stupid people). It would do more to win the War on Drugs than all the CIA missions in Columbia and Bolivia combined. It will make the American Dream possible for any American.

The system is broken, and no one will take the issue head on because it would cost them their political career. Democrats pander to the Union of Ineffective Teachers National Education Association, and Republicans pander to drunken powerful Democrats like Ted "blonde in the pond" Kennedy. (I regard Bush's capitulation to Kennedy by removing vouchers from the now-ineffective "No Child Left Behind" initiative his biggest failure to date, including the steel tariffs.)

No one can deny that there is a tremendous gap between the performance of white and African-American students, yet this is not a subject that is "PC" enough to talk about - so we don't. (Well, bloggers do because no one can fire us. The media ignores it and politicians are too frightened to touch it.)

But a pair of highly respected authors have published a book called No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning:

If you read just one book about American education all year, this should be the book. It not only goes into the causes and cures of racial disparities in education, in the process it punctures many of the fads, dogmas, and pious hypocrisies of the education establishment.

First, the existing gap: Black high school students graduate an average of four years behind white students in academic skills. In other words, the high school diplomas they receive are given—not earned—for a junior high school education.

One item that is near and dear to my heart that the authors address is the simple fact that more money is not the answer: While federal spending has skyrocketed upwards over the years, student performance has not changed, and in some instances, has actually declined. Essentially, we have wasted $321 billion of our federal budget since 1965.

This chart shows the amount of dollars spent per pupil (in beige) charted against each state's SAT scores (the red bars). Clearly, there is little to no correlation between the two. While it is silly to suggest that money is not necessary at all, there must be other factors.

Study after study has shown that more dollars spent per pupil does not guarantee better learning. Nor is the answer smaller class size.

"Class size makes a small difference, but doesn't have a substantial effect. There are other kinds of interventions that can have much more powerful effects."

Fifteen years ago, Dr. Willms thought differently. But after analyzing the effects of reducing class size in more than a dozen countries in a massive project for OECD, he now says other measures have a more significant impact. These include improving relations between teachers and students, hiring literacy specialists, intervening earlier than Grade 2 when a child is having trouble learning to read, teaching educators better classroom management, encouraging parents to read to their children in the evenings, and offering early childhood education programs.

Legislation to provide voucher's for 2% of the children who need it the most in Washington D.C. has bogged down in the Senate due to partisan politics. For this, we all suffer.

Perhaps we should take up a collection, buy 100 copies of the book, and send them to the Senate. But that would assume that the occupants therein can read, and want to fix the problem.

Blog post #1402 in category Education

Truly superior bloggers that reference Money is NOT the answer!:

» Education Spending from Say Uncle:

AlphaPatriot addresses the relationship of school performance and money (i.e., there isn't one). Of course, our politicians only response to anything is to throw money... [Read More]

Tracked on September 30, 2003 7:51 AM

» Council Winners from damnum absque injuria:

Once again, it's time to announce the weekly winners for the Watcher's Council. Congratulations to Alpha Patriot for the winning Council entry, "Money is NOT the Answer!" and to Brain Terminal for the winning non-Council entry, "Michael Moore's Call to... [Read More]

Tracked on October 3, 2003 3:02 AM

» THE COUNCIL HAS SPOKEN. from The SmarterCop:

Not spoken, shouted! Congrats! To our two finalists this week: Our own AlphaPatriot, with Money is NOT the Answer, who sums up my feelings on school funding entirely; and Outsider Brain Terminal, with Michael Moore's Call to Arms. Excellent bunch... [Read More]

Tracked on October 3, 2003 9:11 AM

» The Council Has Spoken ! ! from e-Claire:

The Winning Entries for the Watchers Council this week are: *drumroll* Money Is NOT the Answer ! ! by AlphaPatriot, and Michael Moore's Call to Arms by Brain Terminal. I must give a special recommendation to this post from a... [Read More]

Tracked on October 3, 2003 1:43 PM

» Some Monday morning linky-love from The Accidental Jedi:

Miss Kelley has gone and announced that the much-anticipated Cul-de-Sac will be running a little behind schedule this week. Good for you, girl. It's healthy to have a little too much fun every now and then. I doubt, though, that... [Read More]

Tracked on October 6, 2003 7:58 AM