Mr. Shelden, with whom I usually cannot disagree with more politically, has a good write-up here of the issues surrounding Blagojevich's plan to finance education by selling the lottery.
www.illinipundit.com/2007/01/28/selling-the-lottery
I was pleasantly surprised to see him refer to the regressive aspects of the lottery--as my mother calls it, "A tax on people who are bad at math". In reality, it's much worse--an attempt to exploit the miraculous hope that the poor still harbor for a brighter future.
But let's examine the rest of the story: there is already an effective plan on the table to address educational funding that actually addresses problems rather than just diverting more money from the poor.
State Congressional leaders are currently pushing for comprehensive educational funding reform plan that will address the chronic underfunding of the school system that has resulted in a predominantly property tax based system.
For more details on the problems with the current system, read this:
www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx
Blagojevich has vowed to veto any such plan as a "tax increase". Instead he turns to his magical lottery plans which will only exacerbate the problems in the future.
The greatest lie is that it is the Chicago inner-city schools that are the only underfunded. We are terribly underfunded and our students our facing harrowing conditions in our decaying, resource-short buildings. But we are at least balanced out by the fact that there are high-property value areas of the city which contribute to our giant district's coffers.
As most of the readers of this blog are well aware, small-town, downstate districts have no such option, and in some cases face worse funding problems.
Personally, I would like to break down the bloated, over-administered district 299 (the largest in the country), but under the current system, any such move would likely be used to abandoned poorer sections of the city to their own devices.
So it is my hope that downstate conservatives will ally with Chicago representatives in overriding the governor's likely veto.
Education could use some detailed reform. The accountability that the current national administration is pushing is being executed in idiotic, self-defeating ways, but the central value is not bad.
But it all starts with equitable, adequate funding.
To give a personal anecdote, due to some scheduling issues, I started the school year with twelve students in one of my classes (instead of the normal 30). Halfway through the year, twenty more freshman were dropped into the class. The difference is stark. I managed to get most of the new students to pass, but it was a serious labor.
The original twelve are not only doing well in this class they are doing better in all of their classes. By experiencing a positive environment with a low student/teacher ratio, they now have some conception of how wonderful a classroom environment can be. They know how to act better even in the larger classes. The other students will likely never experience that environment in the entire duration of their high school career. How depressing.
Well, please provide feedback and a conservative perspective. I'll be up here putting pins in my Blago voodoo doll.
Hey Xian - nice post. I've been meaning to blog for some time now about a recent epiphany, but I'm too lazy. I'm stealing your space instead.
While I agree that smaller class size is crucial, I've come to the conclusion that you and I don't really stand a chance with these kids. I keep going back to my Korean experience, specifically how all-consuming school was (is) for those kids. In the Republic school starts at 7:30 a.m. and the kids leave the building around 5:00 p.m. Most go to hagwons (private tutoring firms) for at least an hour after school, and often return to the building late at night to study with their friends. Like I said, it's all consuming.
Compare that to the paltry 7 hour school day we are piecing together in this country. Make it six hours of actual education, go down to five or even four of core subject material. Got a 16 year old who is reading at a 4th grade level? We attempt to fix it with one or maybe two hours of instruction a day? Come on.
We need all consuming education. We need to set up schools that open at 7:00 a.m. and educate until 5:00 p.m. We need to cut back on summer vacation, teach on Saturdays, and generally pound these kids with learning for ten hours a day, six days a week.
I know it's not going to happen, and I still see the little miracles every day. But how else can we do these kids the way they need to be done? Hear me clear: I love my job. Love it. Nothing like it in the world, and I truly hope we can take some steps toward equal funding.
But until we get serious about teaching these kids for real, it still won't be enough.
Peace!
Why is the solution to every problem more funding? How much needs to be spent per student for an education? $10,000? $15,000? $20,000?
Money is ONE component of education, but it is perfectly possible to pay a bunch of dead weight six-figures and get no real teaching or administration out of them. I'm skeptical that schools need to have thousands of computers when we graduate people who can barely read to begin with. Foley does have a point in that most of the rest of the world is passing us by educationally. Our grad schools are full of people from outside the US, not because there is some bias, but because Americans simply cannot compete. The only place where it seems Americans can excel in grad school is law school, because if nothing else, Americans still takes the cake at petty bitching.
Education spending has grown an average of 10%/year for over 40 years, it's time to stop throwing more money at the problem and figure out exactly what is going on first.
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j
Part-Time Pundit
I'm promoting this to the front - another excellent post by xian.
Illinois school funding is a joke. Our state income tax is effectively regressive. Our property taxes are out of control. And there is a great potential solution to fix these problems that the politicians continue to ignore.
I don't understand why politicians are so afraid of HB750. I have never head a good argument against it. Yes, it is technically a tax hike, but it's only a net tax hike for the wealthiest 20% or so...
This is one of my biggest pet peeves, and I can't for the life of me wrap my head around who would be against it and why they are fighting so hard. It makes sense for the majority of property owners, tax payers, and everyone with children in public school. It is the smart financial move to promote economic development: better funding for education will provide smarter employees.
Can anyone explain to me how this is bad for anyone who doesn't pull in 6-figures and have their kids in private school?
Why should poor people have to pay for rich suburban kids to party at U of I? End state support of higher education and put that money towards the elementary schools. Individuals who wish to have very marketable and wage-earning skills can pay for college themselves. Those who aren't willing to pay for their college shouldn't go in the first place.
Among the problems with HB 750...
It would TRIPLE education funding... not 20%, 200%.
EVERYONE would take an immediate 5% hit to income. Income taxes in Illinois are flat across all income levels.
Businesses would be taxes at rates that rival Europe leading to an even further exodus of business from the state.
All these costs would be passed down to the poor. Businesses pass costs of production to consumers. The consumers who can't renegotiate their wages (i.e. the poor) bear the brunt in higher costs of living, more taxes, less jobs as businesses leave, and so on.
And NO ONE has established why money is the problem. I've looked at the PFAW article... only one district is below $5000 and that's downstate, in fact, all the districts that are on the bottom end are downstate. Education funding has risen above the rate of inflation for 40 years... how did we all the sudden get behind?
I'm not entirely unsympathetic to Adam's point either... in fact, from the University's point of view, I believe we get less than 10% of our funding from the state and it's probably approaching more effort than its worth to keep dealing with ILGA.
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j
Part-Time Pundit
"Yes, it is technically a tax hike, but it's only a net tax hike for the wealthiest 20% or so..."
Yes, yes, yes, I know. We're all conservatives and liberatarians who think the evil government is going to steal my hard earned trust fund and give it to *those people* who live in the inner city and poor rural areas. How dare the state provide a basic service to its citizens!
But to refute some claims by those who may not be as informed about the mechanics of HB 750 as the rest of us:
yes, the state constitution requires a flat tax. that is why HB 750 has a set of standard deducitons that make it equivalent to a (dirty word alert) progressive tax.
and where are those people going to move to? they could move to a state with a lower income tax, although that severely limits their choices. Our current rate is redonkulously low. Even if we raise it to the level called for in HB750, the official rate will still be around the national average, and the effective rate will be much lower for most people.
and as far as losing corporations, that's another false arguments. 99% of companies make their locational choices based on logistical factors, such as where their suppliers and customers are, and, oh, I don't know, where they can find an educated workforce.
There isn't any doubt that the public educational system is broken in the US. If not, then we wouldn't be graduating people who can't read and do simple math, much less compete with the rest of the world. However, I don't think that more money is the answer. If money were the answer, then how are other countries producing better students with less money? I also agree that you can't trust the current Governor to raise more money for education and turn around and spend it on something else. I've never seen an administration that simply believes the law applies to everyone else. More emphasis on basic education, and less emphasis on other wasteful things would be a step in the right direction.
you said you couldn't understand how people could be opposed - we gave you some reasons.
as to regressive taxation, are you ready to reduce/eliminate the taxes on beer and cigarettes - hugely regressive - or the lottery? If you want to make the argument that our taxes are too regressive, lets start there.
Several issues:
1. Foley: I'd agree based on my experience in the Japanese school system. That's part of the reason that I donate my own time well beyond the school day to provide a safe space for kids to work after school and during lunch and planning periods.
And of course there are hundreds of more teachers like ourselves, who go far beyond what we've been compensated for.
In response to the others, I can see you understand taxation, but you seem to not have much grasp on what it is like to teach in a economically challenged classroom. Other than calling me an idiot, what are your proposed solutions to overcrowding, a complete violation of IDEA, the atrocitious NCLB program.
Other than putting costly, poor-thought out, self-defeating regulations to hinder my teaching, what are you going to do to SUPPORT it?
This week, we lost three kids to a car wreck, one kid was abducted and I was punched three times breaking up a fight that her sister was involved in because she was upset (I'm actually not supposed to break up fights, but since there's no money to hire security guards, I can choose between letting them beat each other to a pulp or do something.) In the meantime, a couple of my kids wrote grant proposals, several dozen completed family projects entirely in Japanese, and one wrote what we hope is an award-winning speech in Japanese.
Anyway, I hope that a fruitful discussion will continue, but I also hope that people might lower themselves enough to actually come experience some of educational environments that appear to feel justified in being so judgemental about.
If you want to earmark funds so they are not lost in bureacracy, I would love that. We have way too many adminstrators and not enough people in the classroom. Why do we pay so many people to NOT teach students?
But I'm really curious if people actually believe that smaller classroom sizes and more individualized time and extended school days can't help troubled kids? It has been my experience that all of them do help, but perhaps I'm just a freak of nature.
Foley does have a point in that most of the rest of the world is passing us by educationally.
I never said any such thing, and I would appreciate it if you would refrain from using my points to justify ideas like:
Americans simply cannot compete. The only place where it seems Americans can excel in grad school is law school, because if nothing else, Americans still takes the cake at petty bitching.
Yeesh. What I did say, and what I believe, is that we are not best serving the least of our students. Anyone who actually knows anything about the status of American Public Education knows that we continue to produce some of the brightest, most creative, and articulate folks around. Hands down, our best students are the leading scientists, lawyers, and entrepeneurs in the world today. They can, and do compete successfully against the best the rest of the world throws our way. And, believe me, the foreign students in our grad programs are the best their respective countries have to offer.
The problem here in America is that we also have a lot of students who really struggle in school, and for whom the system just doesn't work. That is the point I would like to address, the area where I believe we have been failing our society for far too long. I am not convinced that switching our funding from property to income tax will solve the problem, but it is probably a step in the right direction.
it's time to stop throwing more money at the problem and figure out exactly what is going on first.
Finally something we can agree upon. You definitely need to figure out what is going on in our schools today.
Let's offer every family making less than, oh, say $30,000, a fully refundable tax credit for private school tuition up to $7,000, promise to keep the program alive for 4 or 5 years, then see what happens.
As to switching from property to income tax, remember that income tax is subject to much greater variability than property taxes are. What are the schools going to do if income tax receipts actually drop 2 - 5% in a given year? (I am not saying I am necessarily opposed to changing the funding mechanisms, but we all need to be aware of potential problems with various funding sources.)
RSWB, your plan would just result in the good private schools raising their rates to meet the demand. Poorer students would still have to attend second-rate schools. In fact, it would be far worse than now since they would no longer have the option of attending high achieving public schools (magnets, specialized academies, etc.)
Finally something we can agree upon. You definitely need to figure out what is going on in our schools today.
Agreed. It's really uplifting to have successfully educated students through several pregnancies, losing their classmates to car accidents/gang violence, getting punched in the head by a very good student who is trying to fight another student after her little sister was abducted, (all in one semester) and come home to people on a web site who don't appear to have experience much of school life as of late telling me I'm bad at my job.
I would trade jobs with anyone--I love my job. But I'd gladly let anyone teach a six class day in my place.
Poorer students would still have to attend second-rate schools.
They are in second-rate schools right now - at least they would have the option of picking a different one. And if they choose not to, they could just stay at the second-rate public school they are in now.
In fact, it would be far worse than now since they would no longer have the option of attending high achieving public schools
Why would they no longer have that option?
Because unless you are planning on financing your plan by selling our bombers, your plan would result in the diversion of funds from the existing public schools.
I don't understand your other point. Poorer students would have the option of picking from any of the crappy private schools sprinkled across the city? What good does that do them?
I don't understand the lure of wasting another half-decade or more on bad educational reform that a basic understanding of market economics explains why it will fail in advance.
If you want such a plan, why not have a weighted system. We can easily identify at risk groups, so why not pay more for a higher difficultly rating? Anotherwards, if a school successfully educates a student with much more difficult life conditions, we would good far MORE funding than a school that simply educates someone who receives plenty of home guidance.
Under the current system, I get the kid who's pregnant and beaten and has no food or reading materials at home and I get judged negatively if she pulls straight Cs instead of straight As like the kids whose parents spend $50,000/year on extra supplies and private tutoring.
When she gets straight Cs, my job security is threatened and we get LESS funding to educate her. But how many Golden Apples would it take to do the same job?
This isn't "accountability", it's making the most courageous teachers' jobs more difficult. And yes, I am full of myself. But hey, if you can be me, please do so, we need all the good people here we can get.
Because unless you are planning on financing your plan by selling our bombers, your plan would result in the diversion of funds from the existing public schools.
Public school teachers are always worried about diverted funding - I forgot that angle, but shouldn't have. How much funding does a public school get from the state? If we had an equivalent tax credit, it wouldn't cost the state a dime. And who's to say we couldn't add to it to help the most disadvantaged children.
I don't understand your other point. Poorer students would have the option of picking from any of the crappy private schools sprinkled across the city? What good does that do them?
I was just countering your contention of what I consider the worse-case scenario. The kid is no worse off, and the state trades expenditure at public schools for tax credits spent at private schools. The only person really hurt is the unionized public school teacher, who just lost his job to the teacher at the private school. I don't think the schools would be crappy though. You act as if there are a finite number of private school seats. There are not. If there is demand, supply will develop. In Champaign, without tax credits, private schools are adding to enrollment each year, and looking for new buildings.
You are right that the current system doesn't reward you for helping the pregant girl get a "C". But my system would, because the parent would believe that you were doing a good job and keep the child at that school. It is hard to objectively show how effective a school or teacher is. The market, through the decisions of hundreds or thousands of individuals, would provide a better indication than anything the gov't could ever develop.
I'm not a teacher and probably wouldn't be any good at it, but I don't think I understand some of the arguments. I understand that we have some students who don't do well for a variety of reasons, many of which start in the home. So, Xian, how do you propose to address the C student who has a terrible home life; no support from parents, etc? Throwing more money at that situation doesn't address the real problem: parents who have abdicated their responsibility. I'm all for supporting education, but I absolutely don't believe in throwing good money after bad. I don't presume to have the solution, but more money can't solve that problem. You can place the C student in a better school, but if she has no support at home, or has to get a job to support herself or her family, or has a lot of other problems, like drugs, pregnancy, etc. how will more money to the school solve those?
So, Xian, how do you propose to address the C student who has a terrible home life; no support from parents, etc? Throwing more money at that situation doesn't address the real problem: parents who have abdicated their responsibility.
Of course throwing money at the problem addresses the problem. What kind of capitalists are we if we don't believe that? If I offered 10 million dollars to someone to raise my child, do you really think I wouldn't get more applicants than if I offered $10,000?
Parents have abdicated their responsibility. Great, so what? Jail them if you want--I don't care. But how is any of that the fault of the kids? Do we believe in equal opportunity or not? Do we believe in the kids being held for the sins of the father or not?
Poorly raised children can be a terrible drain on society--exponentially more so as they reach adulthood. It is economically sound to devote whatever resources are necessary so as to turn them into productive adults. So why not do it?
If every troubled kid turned into a productive adult, think how that would affect every major social area--health costs plummet, crime plummets, the tax base skyrockets.
But we need to get beyond--"I don't want to invest money in children".
How many of you have ever said, "Investing money in a business never solved anything"? Are children less important than businesses? Do they have less potential?
No. But sadly, to some people, they are somehow less worthy of funding.
I was just countering your contention of what I consider the worse-case scenario. The kid is no worse off, and the state trades expenditure at public schools for tax credits spent at private schools. The only person really hurt is the unionized public school teacher, who just lost his job to the teacher at the private school. I don't think the schools would be crappy though. You act as if there are a finite number of private school seats.
And you act as if there's an infinite amount of people who can educate a room full of kids with challenging backgrounds.
If my union collapsed, who would suffer? My students. I would have to worry about my mortgage and my health benefits instead of putting in an extra 20 hours a week over my normal hours. I would do more private tutoring and less instruction of underserved children.
You may consider my contention the "worst-case" scenario. I contend that it is the only case scenario. You act as if there's some possibility that those opening the best schools will not be drawn to where they can make the most money.
You are right that the current system doesn't reward you for helping the pregant girl get a "C". But my system would, because the parent would believe that you were doing a good job and keep the child at that school. It is hard to objectively show how effective a school or teacher is. The market, through the decisions of hundreds or thousands of individuals, would provide a better indication than anything the gov't could ever develop.
The market you describe would consider that act of helping the pregnant girl get a "C" be worth the same as keeping a kid with all of the advantages of the society in school. Students from transient backgrounds would be treated with an even greater lack of respect than now.
The problem with capitalist based free markets is that they do not account for a lack of long-term vision. When I take a kid who is on a dangerous path and turn them around, that's worth a tremendous amount to the society. But who is going to pay me for preventing that kid from killing a bunch of people or spending a lifetime on public aid?
I understand that that's difficult to quantify. That's why as long as you acknowledge that I deserve what I make and probably a lot more, I'll be underpaid so I can help the society to the greatest amount.
It's a real slap in the face though when I take the job that no one else is willing to do, and then I'm told I suck at my job because I can't get my kids in overcrowded rooms and limited resources to score as well as kids at New Trier (or Uni ;)) and you try to break up my union--the only thing that protects me while I spend my free time putting extra into my job.
"and you try to break up my union--the only thing that protects me while I spend my free time putting extra into my job."
you give a big explanation as why free markets won't help in education, but throwing more money into the public trough will, and then close by saying I am trying to break up your union. Hmmmm....
If you are working more than you are supposed to, then the union isn't helping you, it's hurting you. At most companies, employees who do well or put in extra time can expect a raise. But in the government schools, the quality of your teaching or your dedication have very little to do with advancement. The passing of time and resisting illegal activity lead to better pay in the public schools.
If parents had a choice about where they send their kids to school, do you think school administrators would value teachers like Xian who spend extra time with students? I think Xian would get paid much more if parents were able to choose to have him teach their children.
The reason Xian's job is threatened while he puts extra effort into teaching is that the school administrators really don't care that much about the children, they mostly care about their own careers.
George Will is on my side. A state tax credit for donations to private-school scholarship funds is a neat idea. My favorite quote: