Comments
by Scoper...
Cha-Ching! (For the Children)
On November 7th,
in addition to choosing a President, a Governor, and various other elected
officials, voters in my county are being urged to approve $275 million
dollars in school bonds. It's a large county with a lot of people in it,
but that's still some major coin. The "education establishment" claims
it can't smarten up the kids without it. I've got to ask: why not? Because
the truth is, one has very little to do with the other.
Don't worry, I won't dwell
on young Lincoln scratching out his lessons on the back of a shovel blade.
But I do want to go back to 1964, when I started public school. This was
a "spike year" for the baby boom, when those born in the late 1950's were
beginning that wondrous educational journey.
Most school systems did not
plan for the flood of 6-year-olds, and even those that did found that it
took a few years from concept to finished building to bring a new school
"on line." Overcrowding? Hell, yes! But here's the difference: you got
an education regardless.
At my first elementary school,
class size was literally determined by how many desks you could physically
fit into the room and still have aisles. In second grade, the room held
43. There was one teacher, and she still taught the whole curriculum to
the whole class. The lights were florescent, the floors were linoleum (easier
on the janitor; sometimes little kids throw up.) The air conditioning was
non-existent: you opened as many windows as necessary, and there were lots
of windows. The drinking fountains gave up tepid water; the plug-in models
weren't deemed necessary. You were not fed breakfast at school.
No, I don't remember those
days as "the good old days." They weren't. My glasses are not rose-colored.
Anybody in their 40's knows those conditions were standard at the time,
yet the kids still learned. Schools and classrooms were Spartan, but not
Devil's Island. The kids still learned. Schools (even government schools)
were different then, and it had nothing to do with $275 million dollar
bond issues.
The teacher's authority was
virtually absolute. She didn't have to do "crowd control" to keep a large
group of kids in line. The occasional cut-up was banished to the corner,
or in extreme cases, paddled. It really worked.
How did we get along without
Ritalin? It was called "recess" or "play period," when much of that pent-up
energy was released. Some schools have actually done away with that, believing
it cheats the kids out of still more academic rote. Of course, now the
kids are squirming in their seats (surprise!) Now we must sedate them chemically.
In 1968, a new elementary
school materialized in my hometown, just in time for me to spend the 5th
and 6th grades there. It was a beautiful school, with wall-to-wall
carpeting, air-conditioning and (no kidding) Muzak from the ceiling speakers.
We learned about as much - but no more - than we would have learned in
any other building.
There must be a point to
this somewhere, right? There is. The reason public schools are failing
is not due to the lack of "plant assets." And schools that look like frequent-flyer
VIP lounges at airports don't guarantee any child an education.
A recent pro-bond editorial
in my local newspaper was headlined: "Fix facilities if you want students
to achieve." But linking more than a quarter-billion dollars to smarter
students is just plain bogus. All we've done to try to "fix" public education
for the past 25 years is throw more money at it. But since that wasn't
the problem, it can't be the solution.
If the bond issue fails,
here's what will be told to the taxpayers: "of course your kids didn't
learn jack-spit, because you didn't fork over the money we asked for."
But that money (in this locale and many others) was authorized time and
time again in past years, and nothing changed.
There are no quick fixes
to complicated problems. And school buildings need to be kept up to code
like any other facilities. But if you want money to make an impact on education,
pay
the teachers more! Take a hundred million dollars of that bond
issue and put it in a trust fund to augment teacher salaries.
Any man or woman who makes
a career out of teaching should at least be able to afford a car and a
mortgage payment. And get the bureaucratic minions off their backs! Let
teachers teach! And let those who do it well be rewarded!
Moms and Dads, this will
do more for your kids than all the wall-to-wall carpeting in the world.
Scoper
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