Reality for Mr. Coulson
Andrew Coulson is the long-time director of the Cato
Institute's Center for Educational Freedom.
He recently opined on education in the conservative Wall
Street Journal.
Over the past ten years, he has criticized public schools
and public school funding with regularity. He trumpets private schools,
vouchers, and tax credits as the solution to the perceived mediocrity of
student performance. This is what he
does for a living, and he’s very good at it.
I teach third grade, and I like to think that I’m pretty good at
it. Much of my perspective is prejudiced
by my actual classroom experiences over the last 30 years.
It’s interesting to me that Mr. Coulson chose the last 42
years for his comparison.
Public-school employees have doubled in 40 years while student enrollment has increased by only 8.5%—and academic results have stagnated.
1970 was an interesting time. I remember it well. I was a fourth grader that year and shared a nice, naturally air conditioned classroom with 34 other white children. The year before, I had witnessed my grade’s first Black student sit in the front left of the room facing the wall for the entire school year, because my third grade teacher assumed that the dark child was a trouble-maker. Sometimes a nice wind blew in the big windows, but stifling June days were unbearable. Sometimes we were allowed to whisper. Daily, a parade of students went to the hall to receive their paddlings. We had no Art teacher and the Music teacher was able to visit once a week for a half hour. There were no computers. The library was stocked with nice books, and they had one TV on a cart that played an early version of video tape. Our school cafeteria had just opened. Before that year, we would line up at the kitchen, get our food, and walk back to the room with our trays.
Since 1970, the public school workforce has roughly doubled—to 6.4 million from 3.3 million—and two-thirds of those new hires are teachers or teachers' aides. Over the same period, enrollment rose by a tepid 8.5%. Employment has thus grown 11 times faster than enrollment. If we returned to the student-to-staff ratio of 1970, American taxpayers would save about $210 billion annually in personnel costs.
I have no doubt that his employee and enrollment numbers are
accurate. However, Coulson does not
mention what the pupil/teacher ratio was in 1970 (35/1 in my classroom[i]). Nor does he note how he arrived at the $210
billion in savings if we reverted to 1970 pupil/teacher levels.
But can we do that?
Is that even possible? Sounds
easy. Just get rid of them. Go back to 1970. Does that mean that we get rid of cafeterias,
special education, teaching assistants, art, music, pe, all technology and
technology support, test coaches, test coordinators, speech therapists, guidance
counselors, drug awareness educators, and school nurses to list a few? In my
experience, we’ve seen very little increase of actual instructional classroom
teachers. Instead of 35/1, I’m generally
teaching classes at between 20-28/1.
While there is no doubt that the pupil/ teacher ratio has been lowered
over the past 42 years, the majority of growth hasn’t come from that area.
Do we pay teachers like they were paid in 1970? Beginning teachers in my locality received
about $6,000 a year back then. These
days, a beginning teacher in my locality rakes in an astounding $36,000. There is no doubt that private schools pay
much less. I’m not sure if Coulson
accounted for the increase in the cost of living over 40 years, because he
didn’t mention if that was factored. My
goodness, think of all the money that could be saved if teachers were paid at
1970 levels!
Nor can the explosive growth in public-school hiring be attributed to federal spending on special education. According to the latest Census Bureau data, special ed teachers make up barely 5% of the K-12 work force.
Mr. Coulson is being selective in his use of facts
here. Earlier in the piece, he mentioned
that public school workforce has increased by over 3.0 million over the last 40
years. Then what he shovels here is a
fact that only 5% of teachers are special education teachers. What he’s neglecting to mention is that most
of the hiring in special education is not for teachers, but assistants. You see, when PL-94142 (special education
federal mandate) was passed in 1972, public schools (not private schools) were
required to educate every child in their least restrictive environment. This means, that if you have a physically
handicapped child and you can make the classroom their least restrictive
environment by providing a one-on-one teaching assistant, you must do that. The
same is true with mentally challenged children, autistic children, blind children,
etc. Many of these children require
adult assistance to help them navigate their way in the classroom. While such assistants are paid at about 1/3
of a teacher’s salary,[ii]
the need for these positions has sky-rocketed as public schools work to fulfill
the federal mandate.
The implication of these facts is clear: America's public schools have warehoused three million people in jobs that do little to improve student achievement—people who would be working productively in the private sector if that extra $210 billion were not taxed out of the economy each year.
Mr. Coulson is entitled to his opinion, but I will argue that the $210 billion, if that indeed is an accurate number, isn’t taxed out of the economy. It’s not like those three million are tax evaders and societal free-loaders. They pay taxes, buy goods, and use services. They do their fair share for the economy. What Coulson is really arguing for is for different people to use the $210 billion dollars to pay taxes, buy goods, and use services. Furthermore, Coulson’s use of the term “warehoused” is quite inflammatory and inaccurate.
We have already tried President Obama's education solution over a time period and on a scale that he could not hope to replicate today. And it has proven an expensive and tragic failure.
What time period have we tried President Obama’s educational
solution? He’s only been president for
3.5 years. During that stretch of
time, the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act[iii]
had NOT been reauthorized, even though it should have been four years ago. The House simply hasn’t put it on their
agenda.
Obama, instead, has built upon the previous two
administrations policies on standardized testing and teacher evaluation as the
primary tools of school “reform.” Only
recently has Secretary Duncan relaxed some of the NCLB AYP[iv] for some states. But these waivers come with more
accountability and evaluation strings attached.
To avoid Greece's fate we must create new, productive private-sector jobs to replace our unproductive government ones. Even as a tiny, mostly nonprofit niche, American private education is substantially more efficient than its public sector, producing higher graduation rates and similar or better student achievement at roughly a third lower cost than public schools (even after controlling for differences in student and family characteristics).
I don’t understand what Greece has to do with this. Coulson just tossed that threat out
there. He could have just as easily said
that “To avoid the inevitable mutation of a virus with no known cure because
our public school graduates are incapable of finding a vaccine, we must
create….” Seriously though, I personally disagree that private schools as
a whole provide better student achievement.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress is the most
frequently used method to chart student progress in the United States. Coulson bases his whole argument using that
measurement to show flat academic growth in students over the past 40
years. In a NAEP study looking at 2003 data
(latest I could find), the Department of
Education found that private schools and public schools were statistically even
in Fourth Grade Reading and Eighth Grade Math after the scores were “adjusted
for student characteristics.[v]” Public Schools performed significantly better
in Third Grade Math while private schools performed better in Eighth Grade
Reading. Religious schools (Lutheran,
Catholic, and Conservative Christian) performed similar to private schools at
all levels except the conservative Christian schools performed much worse than
public schools at Eighth Grade Math.
I would expect that private schools have a higher graduation
rate than public schools. After all, when most people drop out of private
schools, they enroll in public schools.
One way that private schools save money is by paying its
instructors about 2/3 of what a public school teacher makes. Personnel costs generally claim about 80% of
a school budget, public or private. Most
private schools do not provide transportation. Another savings is private
schools do not have the cost associated with providing special education. Most
don’t accept those children. In fact,
what’s happening now is that when private school children are identified as
having a special education need (speech, learning disability, etc), the public
school district has to provide the service.
One of my friends is a speech and language teacher. Many of the 60 children on her caseload come
from a private school nearby. This cost
is born by the public school district, not the private school.
By making it easier for families to access independent schools, we can do what the president's policies cannot: drive prosperity through educational improvement. More than 20 private-school choice programs already exist around the nation. Last month, New Hampshire legislators voted to override their governor's veto and enact tax credits for businesses that donate to K-12 scholarship organizations. Mr. Romney has supported such state programs. President Obama opposes them.
The reason that the president opposes these tax credit
schemes is that they will inevitably reduce the amount of money available to
fund public schools. One might argue
that if the children are not there, you don’t need money to educate them. Buildings don’t understand the
difference. They turn on lights no
matter how many are inside. They
condition the air no matter how many are inside. It would take a mass exodus for that model to
be a fair trade.
While America may have too many teachers, the greater problem is that our state schools have squandered their talents on a mass scale. The good news is that a solution is taking root in many states.
I agree with Mr. Coulson on
this most key point. My talents have
been squandered for the past 15 years.
During this ridiculous political struggle for our public schools, my
opportunity to teach has been corrupted and turned into a mandate to test. That’s where the great threat is to public
schools today. I also agree that a
solution is beginning to take root in many states; one that is different than
he may imagine. Parents are finally
beginning to stand up against the high stakes testing that is destroying their
children’s public schooling.
[i]
Many school divisions use unusual formulas to calculate pupil teacher
ratio. For example, they sometimes count any person who works in
the school, not just teachers, in the formula.
So be wary of such numbers if they see low.)
[ii]
One assistant at my school has to write the county a check after the county
deducts her entire paycheck for health insurance.
[iii]
Aka NCLB No Child Left Behind
[iv]
Average Yearly Progress
[v]
This means race, gender, socio-economic status, special needs, etc
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