DeVos vs Obama on education

[William Thornton]

I get that Dems, unions, and educrats have a visceral hatred of school choice and, seems to me, of the people like Betsy DeVos who favor some form of it.

Here's the Washington Post story on Obama's signature billions for failing schools:

There's data, brethren and wapo isn't a right wing rag.

So far, I like DeVos' ideas because they haven't failed. Obama's have.

Oh, the educrats at the DOE finally put this out on one of Obama's last days.

[Haruo]

Pyramid schemes are not successful models for systems like education where the crying need is for overall improvement, not just a higher point to the top of the pyramid. Much of capitalism is based on pyramid scheme-type models, and this is certainly what Mrs. De Vos is most familiar with as a major beneficiary of the very top of Amway. I am not sure what the most desirable approach to the problem set is, but I am frankly very pessimistic about her ability to find it (or to recognize it if she does).

[Dave Roberts]

The vulnerability of public education is due in most areas to the financing arrangements for it. In VA and most states, real estate taxes are the largest single contributor to local funding for schools. When you live in an area that does not have high value properties within it funding for buildings, salaries, and equipment suffers. I have been in PTA organizations that had to raise money to buy workbooks for the elementary schools because there was not enough local and state funds even for the basics. Maybe unions and political structures affect schools in larger cities, but that is largely a smokescreen, especially across the slice of the US that voted for Trump. It is impossible for the majority of school districts to compete with the districts that are in "high property value areas such as the DC suburbs or in Virginia Beach. A recent article from the Washington Post rated the twenty best high schools in VA. They were all east of I-95 and north of I-64. None were outside major cities with high dollar properties. As long as this system of financing is left in place, public schools will suffer greatly. Think about the amount of abandoned property in Detroit, MI, and consider why schools have so little money. I have lived in school districts where the parent-teacher organizations had to raise money to even pay for instructional materials in a school system in Appalachia. Until this is addressed, schools will continue to struggle. By the way, there is no market here for alternatives to public education. All the private schools in this area are still the 'segregation academies" from the sixties.

[Rvaughn]

[Rvaughn]

Our school funding in Texas is based mostly on property taxes, but I believe there are other factors that come into play. One problem with the system is that it continues to operate as when each community funded its own schools -- and were in charge of them -- but now they fund them but give much of the oversight to the state. Chapter 41 of the Texas Education Code does provide for what is called "wealth equalization," which seeks to equalize the "wealth per student" between poor and wealthy school districts. According to the Texas Education Agency, "The school finance system 'recaptures' funds from the property-wealthy districts to distribute to the property-poor districts." Our state Supreme Court recently ruled that the state’s public school funding system was constitutional. Though asserting it meets constitutional requirements, they used adjectives such as "Byzantine" (by that I think they meant way too complicated) and a "Band-Aid on top of Band-Aid" to describe it. There are lots of "special interests" who would like to see it addressed, though not necessarily in the same way.

That said, there are lots of problems that can't be fixed with money. And often the only "fix" that administrators ultimately offer is to keep throwing more money at something that has not worked. Someone said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. If so, some of the things schools do are insane.

One problem we have here, in my opinion, is the state testing system. There needs to be a benchmark for accountability, but often it seems this system requires the tail to wag the dog. So much is at stake that the school year and class instruction seem to revolve around it. A district in jeopardy is too likely to fall for the best snake-oil salesman who comes along to promise miraculous healing and deliverance. A school district with which I am well acquainted recently paid a 3-figure settlement (which is worth more than my house and 25 acres of property) just to get rid of one of these (because he was still under contract). This is tax-payer money that could have been much better used somewhere else in education. Yet getting rid of him was the wise choice. Too bad they hired a consulting firm and paid them good taxpayer money to recommend this snake-oil salesman as the sole candidate for the post in the first place. A simple Google search would have yielded enough information to realize that he had left a path of destruction in his wake of former jobs.

We have a saying, "If they can't teach, make them a coach, and if they can't coach, make them an administrator." Obviously, this is too general a statement since there are many good administrators out there. But there is far too much truth in it for it to only be funny and not hurt.

[William Thornton]

The point of the WAPO story on Obama's billions for education was that the money failed to increase any of the student metrics. It doesn't matter where the money comes from if it is ineffective in improving the education of students. DeVos may have a different idea for doing this. Since Obama's have failed, I'm for trying something that might have a chance of success.

[Dave Roberts]

[Sandy]

I don't think you'll find anyone here who lives closer to school choice than I do. As administrator of a private, Christian school, I'm not supportive of the DeVos nomination. Her role in education hasn't been leadership, but as head of various philosophical and philanthropic organizations that have either advocated for or supported alternatives to public schools. The only actual educational endeavor in which she was directly involved was the development of for-profit Charter schools in the city of Detroit, as an alternative to one of the worst public school systems in the country. From what I've read about that, it seems the only outcome that got a whole lot of attention was to make sure the school owners got their profit. Money got transferred out of the already cash-strapped Detroit schools, following students into the charters they attended. Measuring results by comparing test scores and drop-out rates, the Detroit Public Schools beat the charter test results by about 10%, and had about a 10% lower drop-out rate. She got the job because she and her hubby are billionare financial contributors to the Republican party. If Trump really wanted to improve the DOE and raise the standards, he'd have nominated someone who was capable, knew something about education, and had a successful track record in it. DeVos is none of that.

There aren't enough seats or space in all of the private, Christian and Catholic schools in the country to accommodate enough students to show a measurable increase in the overall performance of American students. We do make a difference, for each student who has the opportunity to be in our school, as all measurements show. But to make the kind of difference that shows up in statewide results, the enrollment of students in private Christian and Catholic schools, who generally average about 180 points higher than their peers on the SAT, you'd have to get the enrollment up toward 30-35%. Right now, I think Catholic and Christian schools together average about 7% of the total.

Charter schools are not particularly successful, especially those that are privately owned and must make a profit. Cyber education is a great convenience, and gets terrible results from an academic perspective. Throwing money at the public school system won't work until there's genuine accountability, and a gigantic cultural shift, before they will begin to see an increase in test scores. DeVos is just another Trump billionaire appointee who will contribute more water to the swamp, rather than anything meaningful to help drain it.

[Rvaughn]

Dave, "Teaching the test" is a common expression around here. I have also observed what your wife mentions. They are sometimes called remedial classes here. The need for them in college indicates that many students aren't getting what they need K-12, even though they pass high school and the state exam.

Another common expression is "It's all about the kids." But public education is not just education. It is also an industry, and as such children are the fuel that fires its engines. So when funding is tied to average daily attendance, who knows whether truancy concerns are more "about the kids" or "about the money." When parents of dropouts are encouraged to claim they are homeschooling so the child doesn't count against the school as dropouts, it sounds like it is as much or more "about the school" as "about the kids."

Teacher pay scales -- a step schedule based on years served -- present another problem. If brother Bill and sister Sue start teaching the same year, they will not see a reflection in salary for the better teacher. Bill may just be skating by, enjoying looking at the cheerleaders as much as he enjoys teaching. Sue may be giving her all to her career and her students. Bill and Sue will be paid the same. Maybe one thing that will eventually separate them is that Bill may fall by the wayside while Sue continues to fulfill her calling/dedication. Of course, merit pay can bring its own problems. The chief concerns seem to be that it creates competition between teachers rather than cooperation, and that teacher assessment for merit pay may have quite subjective standards.

All in all, parents are much of what is right and wrong in education. My experiential observation is that children whose parents care about their education generally do well, whether they are in public school, private school or home-school.

[Tim Bonney]

[William Thornton]

[KeithE]

[Sandy]

[William Thornton]

The story said: "Test scores, graduation rates and college enrollment were no different in schools that received money through the School Improvement Grants program — the largest federal investment ever targeted to failing schools — than in schools that did not."

One has to presume that wapo reporters weren't smart enough to dig into the data if one accepts Keith's spin. Huge amount of money.

The educrats had options and chose the least intrusive ones. Maintain the status quo. Too bad for students.

But ignore this; it will keep. Enjoy the cruise. Have read several books on the canal. Would be an interesting trip.

[William Thornton]

[KeithE]

[Haruo]

[Haruo]

[Sandy]

[James]

In the 1980's I traveled to Texas several times a year.

I remember reading the El Paso news paper a story about teacher testing. Texas was proud to announce that 97% of public school teachers passed the state's basic literacy test (read and write at the forth grade level). They achieved this high level by offering the test in English, Spanish, Vietnamese and some others.

I also remember a story out of El Paso about the new Hispanic principal who took over the High School in the barrio. His first act was to visit each student and parent in the home. He sold himself and his program to the parents and students. There were no miracles the first year. The pay off came in the third year. From a failing low budget school came five national merit scholarships to Ivy League schools. Then every year there were more. College became the norm for graduates of this school. All achieved by hard work from students, parents and school staff not some pyramid scheme. Local schools can work.

[Dave Roberts]

What I see is that schools are far more a reflection of their communities than of Washington. In poorly educated communities, schools struggle because parents do not see the value of education and do not know how to help their students. Often, there are parents who cannot help their children with reading because they never learned to read well enough to read a children's book. I live within 10 miles of one of Virginia's largest prisons. Many of the prisoners are functionally illiterate and turned to crime because they could not hold down a job in todays economy. Communities with great poverty do not have involved parents helping their children. In fact, many of those parents are holding two to three jobs, and what parenting is happening is done by other relatives or older siblings. I lived in one community where the census tract showed that there were five people with masters degrees in a five-mile radius. Four of them were in the church I pastored, and three were in public education. They were hardly skating by doing nothing. These were career people seeking to help kids who were struggling. One of the problems was that due to the lack of funding, class sizes were rising and children were getting less and less individual attention. I served another church that had 28 people in the congregation who were either teachers or administrators. Again, these were dedicated people who taught because they wanted to. One of them ran a painting business on the side so he could send his own children to college because his school job did not pay enough to help him. He said when it started, state testing will kill education. He was prophetically correct. Sadly, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43, Obama, and probably Trump all believe that it is government's role to hold teachers accountable, not instead to help them facilitate education.

[Rvaughn]

El Paso unfortunately later became a leading scandal regarding the state testing system. The former superintendent of El Paso became the nation's first superintendent convicted related to testing fraud (ca. 2006-2013). They started with one high school and then branched out.They did not test the poorest performing students, and changed failing grades to passing grades. Even worse, they even forced some of the struggling students to drop out of school. In the midst of this the school's state rating went from "failing" to "academically acceptable." The supt. was twice nominated for or named (I forget which, or both) "Superintendent of the Year" in Texas and received over $50,000 in bonuses. I think the fallout of that is still going on. Last summer two lesser administrators pled guilty to cheating in what probably was a deal to implicate others.

[Haruo]

We were actively involved in gossiping about that case at the time, here on BL.com. I'm trying to remember the name of the no-longer-active member here who was so involved in (or at least worked up over) the scandal. He's also a hymnwriter, with a song in Celebrating Grace I believe.

[Haruo]

Ah yes, David Montoya, author of "Light the Light, the Fire of Life",

[James]

My son went to the top rated elementary school in the state of Virginia. It was a TAG (Talented and Gifted) school with an outstanding principal. Student test scores topped all other schools public and private regardless of funding level or source of funds. The secret was the principal. Every student had an individual development plan. Then we got a new superintendent. He proclaimed Dutrow to be an embarrassment to the school system. He fired the principal, Transferred the teachers to different schools and gave the TAG designation to another school. Within two years Dutrow was the worst elementary school in the system and still an embarrassment.