Congressional education report: 5 years and $700k to recommend "equity"
Summary: A lengthy effort to examine the state of education in American schools released their final report today. Apparently, we need equity in our schools.
I don't think the rant that's about to follow was exactly what US Congressman Mike Honda's (D-CA) office had in mind when they sent me the press release this morning about the education report he spearheaded. His communications director actually had the gall to be upbeat about it. Sorry, folks...no kudos coming from this blogger today.
First, a bit of background. Congressman Honda represents the California Congressional District that encompasses Silicon Valley. He spent 30 years as an educator and before I launch into the vitriol, I applaud his ongoing focus on education, civil rights, STEM, and the development of a 21st century economy. Good stuff, all of it. However, this report, meant to be inspiring and galvanizing, leaves me feeling even more jaded and pessimistic about the future of education in this country.
To be clear, the actual text of the report isn't available yet. It's being presented to Secretary of Education Duncan later today. However, the materials coming out of Congressman's Honda's office, including the forward to the report, do nothing to suggest that our government has any ability to affect real change in our educational system. Five years ago, Congressman Honda introduced legislation to form the Citizens' Commission on Educational Equity "to convene a commission to examine and propose solutions to the inequalities and present in the public education system". Oooh, good idea...let's form a commission to propose some solutions.
Apparently the vast array of really thoughtful, workable solutions flowing out of educators, businesses, analysts, and policymakers for the previous 30 years (and in earnest, focusing on 21st century learning for the previous 10) weren't good enough. One would have thought a few interns could have done a meta analysis of the existing body of work on this topic, but, gosh, a "Commission" just sounds so official. Yeah, we should definitely have another one of those. Not that it mattered since the legislation failed anyway.
Of course, it wasn't until the end of 2009 that Congressman Honda was able to form an advisory committee to "discuss the formation, direction, and charge of the commission that was to be formed". Because an advisory committee thinking about how a commission should work will definitely fix the mess that is public education in the US. In a brilliant example of how things get done in Congress, Congressman Honda managed to get funds appropriated for the Commission when he served on the (shocker!) House Appropriations Committee. Again, this isn't a criticism of Congressman Honda specifically. It's just one more indication of a broken system in Washington that certainly doesn't have the means or wherewithal to fix a broken educational system.
Ultimately, the Office for Civil Rights within the Department of Education funded the Commission to the tune of $200,000 in FY2011 and $500,000 in FY2012. Relatively speaking, this is loose change that can be found in the seat cushions of the House and Senate. When you're trillions of dollars in debt, less than three-quarters of million dollars isn't worth batting an eyelash, right? Mitt Romney paid well over twice that in taxes in 2011.
Then again, that meta analysis I mentioned earlier would have been free and probably would have come to the same conclusions. Before we get to the conclusions, though, let's see what $700,000 bought us, shall we? According to Congressman Honda's office, for the low, low price of $700k, we got
- "Six town hall meetings across the nation to hear from students, parents, teachers, and local community members on their experience with the public education system"
- "Six [Commission] meetings to hear expert testimonies and engage in discussion and deliberation around the issues"
Wow. Twelve whole meetings. And they talked to actual people in six of them! And experts in six more! Actual experts!
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Talkback
A study of history and human nature
And what is your solution to this problem?
Die, straw man!
What it does do, regardless of system, is lay down the boundaries within which all problems will be solved or not-solved.
The framework of law, for instance, and its execution.
The framework of infrastructure, health, schooling. Defence. Police. Fire protection. Rescue. Environmental protection. Law. Higher education ...
In France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, etc, higher education is essentially free. Think what that means in terms of freedom, freedom to pursue your goals, realise your potential.
Education Reform
joint the discussion
I do think that federal involvement in education needs to be cut back
Education has traditionally been under state jurisdiction with operational authority over primary and secondary education delegated to locally elected boards. This provides lots of opportunity to see what works and what doesn't and makes it easier for voters to determine which politicians should get the credit and which should get the blame (that and people have the opportunity to vote with their feet). The traditional system is nowhere near perfect, but federal efforts to fix it don't seem to be helping.
Desire to learn...
Back when schools simply taught subject matter, kids who wanted to learn, learned. They weren't there for socialist taxpayer-funded breakfasts and lunches. In our nation's history, we see examples of those who didn't even have much formal schooling, but acquired knowledge on their own, become world-famous scientists (Edison) and political leaders (Lincoln). Not every school need be equally funded per capita, in order for the kids to be "equal". It comes from desire to learn.
We are trying to treat the symptoms, instead of addressing root problems (cultural and familial decay).
So what is your proposal?
Or would you prefer to scrap the whole system of public education and reserve formal education to those whose families can afford it?
Regardless, consider the plusses and minuses, remembering that there ain't no such thing as a free lunch (not even anarcho-capitalism is free).
Quite a mouthful
Given this, the next Edison gets a chance, even if he (or she, gasp!) is born in a less than privileged part of town.
You can look at this from a utlity perspective - society needs highly educated people. Or you can look at it as an ethical question - equal opportunity, regardless of where you happen to be born. The latter will never be achieved, but let not that stop us from thinking in a principled manner.
Opponents of state/federal solutions seem to think that there is something magical about "private" money. In my experience, there is equally as much silliness in the private sector. It just doesn´t get talked about quite so much.
The big difference is that the public purse - in theory - is controlled by the people, which in theory, makes for a more democratic decision process, and more equal , or is that equitable, distribution of resources.
The fact that this report was a waste of money does not prove that public funding of schools is "bad". That in turn depends what you want to achieve. If you are content to butter the path of the already privileged - effectively killing the american dream - then well-funded public schools are unnecessary. I would argue that that is again an ethical question.
An excelent piece, Chris!
To decide who gets laid off, states turns to seniority as their only guiding principle. In my small community alone, in two back-to-back budget cycles, award-winning teachers have been laid-off because they lacked seniority so that less-competent but longer-serving teachers would keep their jobs.
No Child Left Behind has made matters worse. Schools have been left to act as social services for children living in poverty. School districts serving the poor become isolated and fair poorly when put up against schools which are predominantly upper-middle class in state-sponsored testing.
Schools serving these kids end up under-funded, branded as "under-performing", and often lose their best teachers to school districts who can pay more based upon their being schools in upper-middle-class neighborhoods.
The fact that poverty has a much more profound affect on learning than any other single factor is ignored. Raise the quality of living for these kids and their ability to learn will become apparent. The schools cannot do that - but Congress can.
Congress can reduce poverty?
We Get What We Fight For
That would be a good thing
That which we can do should be done and it can be only beneficial for citizens to pay attention to what their politicians do in their name and to nudge them into doing the right thing whenever necessary.
And While I'm At It