It's great that Barack Obama is promising to support the expansion of charter schools if he's elected in November. While he's at it, can liberals officially dispense with the myths that America's education system is underfunded, teachers are underpaid, and the best way to improve public schools is to keep throwing money at them?
Although Obama has diverged from Democratic party orthodoxy on education, we can bet that many of his supporters ' especially teachers' unions ' will continue to recite falsehoods about the issue. Therefore, I've decided to create a handy list of education myths for Post readers to consult during the debates.
Myth #1: America doesn't spend enough money on public education. If not enough is a code term for more than any other industrialized country
then that statement is true. In 2003, a French group called the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that of 25 industrialized nations, the U.S. spends the most on education ' about $10,000 per student.
Not that it helps. The same report found that American students' performance on math, reading and science tests were mediocre compared to the other 24 countries, including some that spent far less on their public schools.
The countries that spend more tend to be the countries that do better. But ... it's not a perfect relationship said the OECD's education director. There are countries which don't get the bang for the bucks. And the U.S. is one of them.
Myth #2: School districts that spend more per student see better results than districts that spend less. In 2005, the three U.S. cities that spent the most on public schools were Boston, New York and Washington, D.C. All three are home to some of the worst school districts in the country. In New York, the public school system can't even manage to get half its students through high school, and the graduation rates in Boston and D.C. hover around 58 percent. In 2006, 33 percent of New York City schools and 50 percent of D.C. schools failed to meet basic federal education standards.
On the other hand, when the Heritage Foundation ranked 50 U.S. cities for education spending per student, the city that came in dead last ' Mesa, Arizona ' had the highest graduation rate at 77 percent.
Myth #3: Public school teachers don't make enough money. Actually, it's hard to find Americans who make more money than teachers for nine months' worth of work. Even the American Federation of Teachers ' one of several unions constantly screaming about how little teachers are paid ' admitted in 2005 that the average teacher's salary was $47,602. In the same year, the median income for all full-time U.S. workers was $39, 336 (and that includes people who actually have to work in the summer and don't go home at 3 p.m.).
In The Audacity of Hope, Obama recounts a visit to a poor, predominantly black school in Chicago. As he described it, their number one issue was this: Because the school district couldn't afford to keep teachers for a full day [the school] let out every day at 1:30 in the afternoon G? there was no time for students to take science lab or foreign language classes. 'How come we're getting shortchanged?' they asked me.
Here's the answer: the average teacher at the school was making $83,000 per year, and over one-quarter were making more than $100,000. They didn't think they should have to work for any less. With such exorbitant teacher salaries, it's no wonder the school couldn't afford to stay open.
Myth #4: The best way to improve a school is to spend more money on it. The next time someone recites this shibboleth, tell them about the Kansas City experiment. In 1985, a liberal judge ordered the low-performing Kansas City district to lavish $2 billion on the public schools. According to the CATO Institute, the judge invited district educators literally to 'dream' ' forget about cost
let their imaginations soar
put together a list of everything they might possibly need to increase the achievement of inner-city blacks. They built fancy new campuses, installed computer labs, reduced class sizes and raised teacher salaries.
The result? As CATO put it, There was little to show for all the money spent. Although the students enjoyed perhaps the best school facilities in the country G? black students' achievement hadn't improved at all
and the black-white achievement gap was unchanged.
Myth #5: Charter schools are not the answer. Tell that to the hundreds of Philadelphia parents who are desperate to pull their kids out of the public schools and enroll them in Chester Community Charter School, which is run by a private company.
It's not hard to understand why CCCS' waiting list is so long. According to reporter Amanda Carpenter, the Philadelphia public schools are miserable: 3 percent of 11th-graders were deemed 'proficient' at math last year G? a mere 9 percent met reading proficiency standards. The schools had to close twice in the middle of the school day over the last two years because of outbreaks in fighting. In comparison, administrators at CCCS say they have almost no discipline problems '-
and 60 percent received proficient or advanced scores in math.
Of course, don't expect rich liberals to have any comprehension whatsoever of the problems facing low-income people stuck in awful school districts. Last month, a columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution insisted, against all evidence, that the only fair and effective way to go about educating America is to dramatically increase funding for public schools and leave school vouchers behind.
My request for Barack Obama: don't listen to him.
Ashley Herzog is a senior studying journalism. This quarter she writes from Washington, D.C. She is also a former Townhall employee. Send her an e-mail at ah103304@ohiou.edu.
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