From Michigan Capitol Confidential We have here an informative, if one-sided, interpretation of developments in the Public Education sector, issued in a series of alerts by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Is a $23 billion federal bailout for teacher salaries a good idea? Mackinac Center policy analysts consider it. The salary history of a Michigan public school teacher and paying teachers not to teach are the subjects of our articles today. And the video is the New Jersey governor taking tough questions about his proposal to freeze public school employee wages. Is the state's forced unionization an indication of how desperate the labor movement has become? The Michigan Department of Education has been underestimating and underreporting the state's average public school teacher salary and has issued a correction. And in the video, a news report shows another recipient of the film subsidy program having trouble following the script. Across China, Violence in Schools requires police presence "On May 12th, seven children were hacked to death at a rural kindergarten. . . . It was one of half a dozen such cases  at schools across China in less than  two months.." In one city, "Police have orders to shoot perpetrators on sight."  On March 23rd, eight children were killed in one attack. The killer was executed on April 28th. -- The Economist Excerpts from a New York Times piece College degrees are simply not necessary for many jobs. Of the 30 jobs projected to grow at the fastest rate over the next decade in the United States, only seven typically require a bachelor’s degree, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Professor Lerman, the American University economist, said some high school graduates would be better served by being taught how to behave and communicate in the workplace. While some educators propose a radical renovation of the community college system to teach work readiness, Professor Lerman advocates a significant national investment by government and employers in on-the-job apprenticeship training. He spoke with admiration, for example, about a program in the CVS pharmacy chain in which aspiring pharmacists’ assistants work as apprentices in hundreds of stores, with many going on to study to become full-fledged pharmacists themselves. Funding Education The usefulness of pre-kindergarten education is again a topic of disagreement. There is opposition to its cost, of course, and there is concern about giving government the power to mandate sending 3-year olds away from home daily to be controlled by public employees. Say "authoritarian" in this context and European-style social democracy comes to mind. European funding for education and assignment of resources are reviewed in a study published by the United Kingdom's National Foundation for Educational Research, and VersagiVoice has added a summary of that study to its Education Folder as a reference document. [See] § Americans have "the shortest school year" anywhere, according to a comparison of education policies in a recent issue of The Economist. The piece goes on to offer: America has a 180-day school year. OECD countries average 195 days. Eastern Asia, 200 days. Average school day is also shorter than most countries: 6.5 hours, 32 hours/week, compared with 37 in Luxembourg, 44 in Belgium, 53 in Denmark, and 60 in Sweden. Pointing out that Americas' long summer vacations act like "a mental eraser," the magazine chides America for continuing schedules that were appropriate when "farmers needed their children at home ploughing the land at the end of each day." The overall theme of the article is that although Americans may work harder and longer than "lazy Europeans," our kids are spoiled rotten, with not enough demands made on them. -- 22 Jun 09 "Voters in Berlin are preparing to go to the polls to decide whether children should have a choice between classes in secular ethics or religion. Sunday's referendum has been organised by Berliners from the city's religious communities, including Muslims. Ethics classes have been compulsory in Berlin schools since 2006. But in most of the rest of Germany pupils have a choice between religion and ethics." -- BBC § Sweden and the Netherlands provide school choice, public or private. The Netherlands allow public money to be used for education in religious schools. § I'm not sure this falls under "Education," because it deals with greed and selfishness in an arena other than Wall Street. Despite increasing taxpayer furor and resentment over the high cost of benefits in the public sector, the Michigan Education Association is calling for paying 33% more to teachers with at least 10 years service to retire early -- or something like that. One opponent writes, "The state's largest school employee union would maintain its membership through hiring young replacement teachers, collect dues from them and force them to become new customers for MESSA, the MEA-owned insurance carrier that makes millions of dollars for the teachers union each year." MEA President Iris Walters is quoted as saying, "Everyone in Michigan is making sacrifices." Mandatory pre-school? Controversy over performance aside, public schools have long been considered suspect by libertarians, some of whom point out, correctly, that government-forced schooling is socialistic and dictatorial. (How many other situations other than prison are there where an individual is forced to spend specified time in a specified facility and forced to absorb specified information whose content is determined solely by government?) Now come Obama and the Democrats with a plan to expand government-funded preschool. "Studies," most of them funded or conducted by education community, seem to conclude that attending preschool slightly benefits disadvantaged children and, to a lesser degree, other youngsters. As has been found about other early efforts, like Head Start and TV entertainment-focused education, even that slight benefit seems to wear off after third grade. Then there is the consideration that families with both parents working benefit from access to preschool. So why would even libertarians have reservations? Well, because -- given the government-knows-best mindset of the incoming administration -- the next step will be that government-funded preschool will be made mandatory. Stay-at-home mothers would be forced to send their kids to school to learn to "socialize," to interact with other children and with adults. (If they stay home with mom, you see, they never visit or are visited by family or friends.) En garde! § "There is respect for our religion here," said Nadia Qualane, 14, her hair covered by a black headscarf. The religion is Islam. The "here" is a Catholic school in France. Despite its historically fierce determination to remain secular in all things, and withdrawing all financial support or even recognition of anything religious, that country has found it helpful to pay teachers' salaries and a per student subsidy to Catholic schools which teach the "national curriculum" and and are open to students of all faiths. That curriculum bans any religious instruction "beyond general examination of religious tenets and faiths as it occurs in history lessons." Religious instruction, such as Catholic catechism, is "strictly voluntary." -- International Herald Tribune  An example of the concept that education funds should follow the student xperimenting with modifying or supplementing public schools continues. In Chicago, for example, a group of business leaders dubbed "education entrepreneurs" are funding a "Renaissance 2010" program. The guidelines permit them to establish charter schools with longer days, their own salary structure, unionized or not, so long as they meet standards. The schools receive funding on a per pupil basis and can raise private funds as well. In New York City the school chief has suggested "charterizing" the entire school system. In Harlem, 3,600 applied for 600 spaces available in charter schools. One reason, according to a report in The Economist: "Tests taken at the beginning of 2006-07 school year at Harlem Success showed only 11% of six-year-olds were at their grade level in mathematics. By the end of the school year, 86% were. This may have something to do with grouping children by ability rather than by age . . . " -- 09 Jul 08 Vouchers in Denmark “In the United States, school vouchers are promoted by the right as a way of undermining the public-school system; in Denmark, state-financed private schools are accepted by the left as a safety valve.” -- Foreign Affairs, Mar/Apr  2008 The U.S. is not alone " . . . there had been (until recently) no measurable improvement in the standards of literacy an numeracy in primary schools for 50 years." -- from a report about the effectiveness, or not, of increased funding for education in Great Britain. The report continues: "Australia has almost tripled education spending per student since 1970. No improvement. American spending has almost doubled since 1980 and class sizes are the lowest ever. Again, nothing" That money is not the answer is suggested by the fact that per capita expenditures tends to be lower in countries whose education systems perform well (Canada, Finland, Japan, Singapore, South Korea). The study rather despairingly mentions hours, length of the school day, and length of the school year as factors about which there is uncertainty about their relationship to student performance. Do away with SAT? Charles Murray, the same scholar who contends that not everyone can learn the same academic subjects or occupational skills, now suggests that Scholastic Aptitude Test scores no longer serve a useful purposes, that "high school grade-point averages and subject achievement tests" are equal or better predictors of a college freshman's performance. Murray maintains that the "vast coaching industry" is rigged against disadvantaged students. A Detroit teacher replies to Newt Gingrich Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich has made headlines by sharply criticizing and laying blame for the condition of Detroit Public Schools. Gingrich made his initial comments during a TV interview then expanded on them in print. Royal Oak resident Rob Duchene, who serves on Royal Oak's Historic District Study Committee, is history teacher at King High School in Detroit, and he provided the following paragraphs in response to VersagiVoice's request for a reaction to Newt. Newt offers the now familiar narrative of the decline of an industrial giant. The narrative is sad and poignant.  However, Newt then subtly implies that the Detroit Public Schools are responsible for "fleeing populations, rising unemployment, declining wages" and so on.  That a man who fancies himself a historian would resort to such outrageous simplification is telling. But as far as the bureaucracy is concerned, Mr. Gingrich has a point - DPS is over-administered.  But his list of the usual conservative remedies - charter schools, merit pay, coupons to allow students to attend parochial schools - tired and tried and found wanting.  The remedy offered for merit pay shows Mr. Gingrich typically looking for thunder rather than lightning - if the "bureaucrats" are to blame for the mess, who did Newt think was going to be signing merit pay checks?  And class size limits - everyone is in favor of that.  But who will pay?  No Child Left Behind punishes "failing" schools - no money there to limit class size. Detroit's decline is the result of numerous social and economic forces that are actually global in size and effect. Newt seems to want to establish yet another GOP candidacy for President.  If he is running on being an idea guy, this article reveals a long Georgia retirement in his future.   Breaking the public school monopoly Education money belongs to the student Call it "voucher" or not, those Birmingham parents who are suing to force the school district to pay for at-home teachers and therapists offer another example of the need to break the public school monopoly on education. A bipolar son cannot be safely and effectively accommodated in the conventional school environment. Using "the money follows the individual" philosophy applied so successfully in collective bargaining, per- pupil allocation of tax-provided education funds would go to this family. In New Jersey, the Black Ministers Council, the Latino Leadership Alliance, and Excellent Education for Everyone have filed a class action suit which, if successful, will allow children to be transferred from failing schools and grant pro rata share of public money to parents. -- Nov 2006 School choice expanding According to news reports, including a Wall Street Journal piece headlined Democrats for (School) Choice, "choice begets choice." Arizona, with a Democrat governor, is putting in-place four new or expanded programs which will allow "disadvantaged children to attend private schools." In Iowa,  a "corporate scholarship tax credit bill has been signed into law. Wisconsin is increasing Milwaukee's voucher program. Ted Kennedy endorsed legislation which included private schools intended to aid Louisiana children displaced from  their schools by Hurricane Katrina. Utah is expanding a choice program for  disadvantaged children. "For Democrats who truly believe in social justice," WSJ comments, the choice is between forcing children to remain in schools where they have little prospect for a bright future, or enlisting private schools in a rescue mission." -- 13 Sep 06 Another case for Education Vouchers Milton Friedman, Nobel Memorial Prize for Economic Science winner and advisor to Presidents Nixon and Reagan commented about Education Vouchers, during a conversation reported in the July 2006 issue of Hillsdale College's Imprimis. Among the points Friedman makes: You can subsidize the producer or the consumer. In education we subsidize the producer -- the school. If you subsidize the student instead -- the consumer -- you will have competition. Today, the schools pick the children. We must have a situation in which the parents choose the schools their children attend. Income-limited vouchers are "charity vouchers." Vouchers should be made available to everybody. The money we are spending on education ought to travel with the student, not be spent on beautiful buildings. [VersagiVoice previously compared education funds with compensation benefits for unionized workers. See.] Take the money we spend on education, divide it by the number of children, and give that amount to each parent. It isn't the public purpose to build brick schools and have students taught there. The public purpose is to provide education.  Readin', writin', 'rithmetic: Why they still matter There are educators today who remind us how stupid it is to demand memorizing the multiplication table or learning to add a column of figures, when all that one need learn is to operate an electronic calculator. A couple of real life examples easily rebut, refute that philosophy. For many years I participated in the screening and approval of applicants for apprenticeships as a pipefitter. In every batch of applicants, we could measure the unfortunate plight of individuals who had not learned the 3R's. Personnel tests I used for even a longer time showed the same results. Armed with their calculators, but unarmed with arithmetic principles, individuals could not determine what percent of copper tubing would be left after they had cut several specified lengths from their coil. Why? "I can never remember whether to multiply or divide to calculate a percentage." Asked to determine how many 9x12-inch squares can be cut from a 4x8-foot sheet of plywood, and how much waste will be left, the arithmetically uneducated get bogged down trying to decide: whether and how to change square inches to square feet, or vice versa. They may not understand that this problem deals with areas and that they must convert to square feet or square inches before proceeding. And they are stumped even when the problem suggests an approach, like: Total area of sheet - (number of squares x area of each square) = waste That's 'rithmetic. Let's move on to readin'. Because they can't read, they can't comprehend what is being asked of them in a word problem, even when they can do the math. Repeatedly I encounter people who can get a correct answer when a math problem is presented orally: "First, determine the area of the sheet. Then determine the area of each square. Then multiply the number of squares by the area of each square. Then subtract that total from the area of the whole sheet." As for wrtin': forget any essay question, even if all you ask for is a single 50- to 75-word paragraph. Some of these unfortunate souls, though, have been taught self-esteem. Charter Schools, anyone? Forty states and Washington. D.C., now have charter schools. "Charters are public schools -- a fact that opponents like to play down -- but they are not overly burdened by union rules and hence are free to try different pedagogical approaches. A charter might extend the school day, for instance, or pay teachers based on results rather than seniority." That extract is from a Wall Street Journal editorial which criticizes Republican Governor of Connecticut, Jodi Rell, for opposing the attempt by the state's Democrat legislature to lift the enrollment cap and make funding more equitable ("charter students receive several thousand dollars less than what the state spends for non-charter students"). It's a good sign for charter school proponents that we have here a crossover of expected partisan politics. Well, partly, because the real issue seems to be Governor Rell's fear of alienating the Connecticut Education Association "which is dead set against charters and any other education reform that threatens its monopoly."  Schools of Choice in Great Britain Unhappy that Great Britain's schools offer pupils "nothing better than mediocrity," that country is working to make it easier for "independent religious schools to move into the state sector." The government is setting up "choice advisors to help poorer parents consider" schools and transportation options. At the same time, popular state schools are being encouraged to take over failing ones, and independent schools are being encouraged to federate with state schools. A bit leery, one spokesman for an independent consortium which already manages a number of state schools through a subsidiary charity warns, "The state has a habit of promising freedom and then not delivering it." Nov 2005 Making Elections consistent and convenient for voters excerpts from a presentation by Oakland County Clerk Ruth Johnson to the Royal Oak Republican Women's Club Wednesday 09 February 2005 Consolidated election laws signed by the Governor over a year ago transferred authority to conduct school elections to the County Clerks beginning January 1, 2005. As a former State Representative, I know the intent of the law was to make elections consistent and convenient for voters with the goal of increasing participation. Elections will now only be allowed on four dates per year, on specific days in February, May, August and November, except in unusual cases which must meet certain criteria. Recent criticism of the Oakland County Clerk's office from Oakland Count Intermediate School District and a few local school officials is factually flawed. The new plan encourages voter participation, provides consistency, and eliminates government duplication. Elections will now be held on consistent dates in consistent places and in a consistent manner from year-to-year and from town-to-town throughout Oakland County. One goal is to stop "stealth" elections like the Oakland County ISD held on September 25, 2001. This never-ending property tax increase of over $60 million annually passed with less than 4% of the voters' approval. The school elections will no be as consistent and "voter friendly" as all other elections, including informing seniors by mail of t heir right to request an absentee ballot [see school bond] before every school election. Additionally, the practice of requiring the voters to go to different polling locations, for school elections, will be stopped. The new plan does away with voter confusion and makes the polling locations and the absentee ballots consistent. The new state law scheduled school elections on the same date as the November federal land state elections, thus increasing voter participation and saving schools the cost of conducting elections. However, the vast majority of schools in Oakland County recently chose a May election date. As a result, these schools will be responsible for the total expense of May elections. Recent comment from some school officials suggest they may be using education money to prepare for a legal challenge against this election reform. Their efforts are misguided and appear to be an attempt to continue to protect and control "stealth" elections, and our children lose. When the new legislation is fully implemented, the people's choice will be heard, our system of democracy improved, and accountability to the people improved, thanks to state legislation and the commitment of our local Clerks. Also see Schools of Choice in Great Britain Johnson on School Elections School District History "One hundred and twenty-five men and women will form the teaching and executive staff of Royal Oak Schools for the year beginning September 8." -- Daily Tribune: Thursday, August 26, 1926 Teachers and staff were named for each school. Curriculum and positions included: English, Latin, Home Economics, Music, Manual Arts, Commercial Geography, Physical Education, Mathematics, Biology, Chemistry, History, Athletics, Librarian, Nurse. The 1926 article didn't report how many students the district was serving.  An archive-copy of  the 1926 publication is available for viewing at the Royal Oak Historical Society Museum. [See] Royal Oak School District website School vouchers found illegal in Florida The Florida Supreme Court struck down the voucher system that allows some children to attend private schools at taxpayer expense, "saying . . . that it violates the state constitution's requirement of a uniform system of public schools." The program was implemented in 1999. -- Jan 2006 Student performance in schools -- Study suggests caring parents make no difference Students in schools which "don't expect help from homes" do better than students in schools which seek active participation by parents. That, at least, is one finding of a study in California which found that such factors as a rigorous curriculum and experienced teachers are much more important. This doesn't mean that parents aren't important, one researcher commented. Their impact does matter, but "other factors have a much greater impact on school performance." -- Dec 2005 Is $10,000 per student enough? The Texas Supreme Court, while ruling that $10,000 per student is adequate, struck down the statewide property tax for funding public schools and declared, "More money does not guarantee better schools nor more-educated children." On a roll, the court went on to suggest that the state's 43.million students would be better served by giving parents choice: "Public education could benefit from more competition." -- Jan 2006

Royal Oak School District website Johnson on school elections Schools of Choice in Great Britain School vouchers found illegal in Florida Study suggests caring parents make no difference Is $10,000 per student enough? Education money belongs to the student Milton Friedman on Vouchers School choice expanding 40 states have charter schools Impact of school closings on real estate values The 3 R's still matter In Education Folder Royal Oak Schools news Chinese Teachers in Royal Oak Comments on Education around the world VersagiVoice essays re education Funding the School District

§ Sweden and the Netherlands provide school choice, public or private. The Netherlands allow public money to be used for education in religious schools.

§ I'm not sure this falls under "Education," because it deals with greed and selfishness in an arena other than Wall Street.

Despite increasing taxpayer furor and resentment over the high cost of benefits in the public sector, the Michigan Education Association is calling for paying 33% more to teachers with at least 10 years service to retire early -- or something like that. One opponent writes, "The state's largest school employee union would maintain its membership through hiring young replacement teachers, collect dues from them and force them to become new customers for MESSA, the MEA-owned insurance carrier that makes millions of dollars for the teachers union each year." MEA President Iris Walters is quoted as saying, "Everyone in Michigan is making sacrifices."

Mandatory pre-school?
Controversy over performance aside, public schools have long been considered suspect by libertarians, some of whom point out, correctly, that government-forced schooling is socialistic and dictatorial. (How many other situations other than prison are there where an individual is forced to spend specified time in a specified facility and forced to absorb specified information whose content is determined solely by government?)

Now come Obama and the Democrats with a plan to expand government-funded preschool. "Studies," most of them funded or conducted by education community, seem to conclude that attending preschool slightly benefits disadvantaged children and, to a lesser degree, other youngsters. As has been found about other early efforts, like Head Start and TV entertainment-focused education, even that slight benefit seems to wear off after third grade.

Then there is the consideration that families with both parents working benefit from access to preschool.

So why would even libertarians have reservations? Well, because -- given the government-knows-best mindset of the incoming administration -- the next step will be that government-funded preschool will be made mandatory. Stay-at-home mothers would be forced to send their kids to school to learn to "socialize," to interact with other children and with adults. (If they stay home with mom, you see, they never visit or are visited by family or friends.)

En garde!

=====

"There is respect for our religion here," said Nadia Qualane, 14, her hair covered by a black headscarf. The religion is Islam. The "here" is a Catholic school in France.

Despite its historically fierce determination to remain secular in all things, and withdrawing all financial support or even recognition of anything religious, that country has found it helpful to pay teachers' salaries and a per student subsidy to Catholic schools which teach the "national curriculum" and and are open to students of all faiths. That curriculum bans any religious instruction "beyond general examination of religious tenets and faiths as it occurs in history lessons." Religious instruction, such as Catholic catechism, is "strictly voluntary." -- International Herald Tribune 

An example of the concept that education funds should follow the student
Experimenting with modifying or supplementing public schools continues.
In Chicago, for example, a group of business leaders dubbed "education entrepreneurs" are funding a "Renaissance 2010" program. The guidelines permit them to establish charter schools with longer days, their own salary structure, unionized or not, so long as they meet standards. The schools receive funding on a per pupil basis and can raise private funds as well.

In New York City the school chief has suggested "charterizing" the entire school system. In Harlem, 3,600 applied for 600 spaces available in charter schools. One reason, according to a report in The Economist: "Tests taken at the beginning of 2006-07 school year at Harlem Success showed only 11% of six-year-olds were at their grade level in mathematics. By the end of the school year, 86% were. This may have something to do with grouping children by ability rather than by age . . . " -- 09 Jul 08

Vouchers in Denmark
“In the United States, school vouchers are promoted by the right as a way of undermining the public-school system; in Denmark, state-financed private schools are accepted by the left as a safety valve.” -- Foreign Affairs, Mar/Apr  2008

The U.S. is not alone
" . . . there had been (until recently) no measurable improvement in the standards of literacy an numeracy in primary schools for 50 years." -- from a report about the effectiveness, or not, of increased funding for education in Great Britain. The report continues: "Australia has almost tripled education spending per student since 1970. No improvement. American spending has almost doubled since 1980 and class sizes are the lowest ever. Again, nothing"

That money is not the answer is suggested by the fact that per capita expenditures tends to be lower in countries whose education systems perform well (Canada, Finland, Japan, Singapore, South Korea). The study rather despairingly mentions hours, length of the school day, and length of the school year as factors about which there is uncertainty about their relationship to student performance.

Do away with SAT?
Charles Murray, the same scholar who contends that not everyone can learn the same academic subjects or occupational skills, now suggests that Scholastic Aptitude Test scores no longer serve a useful purposes, that "high school grade-point averages and subject achievement tests" are equal or better predictors of a college freshman's performance. Murray maintains that the "vast coaching industry" is rigged against disadvantaged students.

A Detroit teacher replies to Newt Gingrich
Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich has made headlines by sharply criticizing and laying blame for the condition of Detroit Public Schools. Gingrich made his initial comments during a TV interview then expanded on them in print. Royal Oak resident Rob Duchene, who serves on Royal Oak's Historic District Study Committee, is history teacher at King High School in Detroit, and he provided the following paragraphs in response to VersagiVoice's request for a reaction to Newt.

Newt offers the now familiar narrative of the decline of an industrial giant. The narrative is sad and poignant.  However, Newt then subtly implies that the Detroit Public Schools are responsible for "fleeing populations, rising unemployment, declining wages" and so on.  That a man who fancies himself a historian would resort to such outrageous simplification is telling. But as far as the bureaucracy is concerned, Mr. Gingrich has a point - DPS is over-administered. 

But his list of the usual conservative remedies - charter schools, merit pay, coupons to allow students to attend parochial schools - tired and tried and found wanting.  The remedy offered for merit pay shows Mr. Gingrich typically looking for thunder rather than lightning - if the "bureaucrats" are to blame for the mess, who did Newt think was going to be signing merit pay checks?  And class size limits - everyone is in favor of that.  But who will pay?  No Child Left Behind punishes "failing" schools - no money there to limit class size.

Detroit's decline is the result of numerous social and economic forces that are actually global in size and effect. Newt seems to want to establish yet another GOP candidacy for President.  If he is running on being an idea guy, this article reveals a long Georgia retirement in his future.