The following letter to the editor appeared in the Northwest Herald. Mr. Quinn makes an excellent point. Many people spend so much of their money paying taxes they do not have money to give to other causes. He also makes an excellent point about personal responsibility. If more individuals would take personal responsibility instead of having the government take care of them we would not have to pay so many taxes. Remember these taxing bodies live off of your blood, sweat and tears. More often than not government employees have better schedules, pay, benefits and pensions than the average taxpayer. Because of their money and time off they have the time to lobby legislators for even more of your money. The two teachers unions are the primary and tertiary donors to legislators.
If you want to pay less taxes you can give their time to groups that fight taxes. You can also spend time writing to the legislators and encouraging friends and neighbors to write to legislators to stop the educational spending race.
Too much give and take
[published on Sat, Jul 1, 2006]
To the Editor:
Re: The June 27 editorial, "Giving hits miserly low."
I'm sorry if my giving to charities appears to have slacked off. But, I'm busy giving to the federal government. I'm busy giving to the state government. I'm busy giving to the county.
I'm busy giving to the township.
I'm busy giving to two school districts. I'm busy giving to the park district. I'm busy giving to the conservation district. I'm busy giving to the city of McHenry.
I'm busy giving to the secretary of state.
I'm busy giving to the oil companies. I'm just busy giving to lots of places with their hands out, crying, "Gimme, gimme."
I'm so busy giving to all of them, that I don't give to the tobacco or alcohol industries.
I don't give to the Lotto.
I don't give to fast-food restaurants.
I almost never give to the entertainment industry; no movies in quite awhile now.
Sorry, charities, but it became inevitable that something had to give.
And with all those hands out, maybe I just didn't see you fighting for your place in the crowd.
Also, I'm doing my best to avoid taking.
And I hope that I never will, so that others don't have to give.
Dave Quinn
McHenry
Saturday, July 01, 2006
Friday, June 30, 2006
Double-but-Nothing: More Education Spending Hasn't Yielded Better Results
The following partial piece below was posted on the Mackinac Center for Public Policy website. You will have to click the link at the end of the post to view the rest of the article.
Double-but-Nothing: More Education Spending Hasn't Yielded Better Results
Mr. Ryan S. Olson
Posted: Jun. 5, 2006
A proposal likely to appear on the November ballot would change Michigan law to mandate annual inflationary education expenditures. But the results of government education spending over the last several decades have shown little that would lead us to think simply spending more would improve schools. In large part, this is because schools generally operate without significant institutional incentives for producing improved results.
Source: Digest of Education Statistics 2004, National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education
Consider this: In what service sector have inputs more than doubled over three decades, while outputs have remained stagnant? If you answered, "Public education," go to the head of the class.
In both Michigan and the nation at large, the amount spent per student in public education has more than doubled since 1970, even after inflation is factored out. Compare that doubling of expenditure to students’ performance on the federally administered National Assessment of Educational Progress. The most recent average reading and mathematics scores on that test are virtually identical to the scores in the early 1970s.
Our educational institutions usually do not create incentives for instructional improvement by rewarding effective teachers and sanctioning ineffective ones.
To view the rest of the article go to Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
Double-but-Nothing: More Education Spending Hasn't Yielded Better Results
Mr. Ryan S. Olson
Posted: Jun. 5, 2006
A proposal likely to appear on the November ballot would change Michigan law to mandate annual inflationary education expenditures. But the results of government education spending over the last several decades have shown little that would lead us to think simply spending more would improve schools. In large part, this is because schools generally operate without significant institutional incentives for producing improved results.
Source: Digest of Education Statistics 2004, National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education
Consider this: In what service sector have inputs more than doubled over three decades, while outputs have remained stagnant? If you answered, "Public education," go to the head of the class.
In both Michigan and the nation at large, the amount spent per student in public education has more than doubled since 1970, even after inflation is factored out. Compare that doubling of expenditure to students’ performance on the federally administered National Assessment of Educational Progress. The most recent average reading and mathematics scores on that test are virtually identical to the scores in the early 1970s.
Our educational institutions usually do not create incentives for instructional improvement by rewarding effective teachers and sanctioning ineffective ones.
To view the rest of the article go to Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Choice-based reforms can help rural schools thrive
The following piece appeared in the State Journal Register and on Students First. For more information on Collin Hitt and the Illinois Policy Institute click here.
Choice-based reforms can help rural schools thrive
6/29/2006
By Collin Hitt
State Journal Register
Rural schools outperform urban schools, on average. Their students read better, and perform better in math. Like small towns, rural schools are safer. But like small towns, once they fall into decline, they founder hopelessly.
For those schools, reform has been slow in coming in Illinois. Students and parents have felt the effects.
There are those contented to relegate school reform solely to a matter of monetary relief, whereby meaningful reforms have been supplanted by strategies of how to better angle for state resources. Schools are made to jockey for the same funds. Through this process, reform comes at the expense of other reforms, and it is failing rural Illinois.
Even in the districts where policy-makers have been particularly adept at bringing home education dollars, few positive results have followed. Pumping money into a struggling school is tantamount to subsidizing a failing factory. As relief it is temporary. As reform it is nominal. Choice-based reforms offer an alternative.
The word "voucher" is anathema to Illinois policy-makers. Utter the word and special interests will run you out of office faster than a quarter of rural eighth-graders can read a fourth-grade textbook. But vouchers or grants or "opportunity scholarships" - call them what you will - are needed everywhere, and immediately.
Most educators rail against the idea - "it would spell the end of our public school system." The fact is, educational grants have never spelled the end of public education, nor will they. Once parents are given the capability to genuinely direct their children's education, once schools are made to compete for their students, the public school system will respond to their needs.
Common to school choice opponents is the fear that, if given the opportunity, parents will send their children to private, parochial schools. Where possible, however, families are more frequently opting for charter schools - schools each somewhat unique in their approach, together offering a diverse array of programs.
Without the need to comply with rigid, statewide regulations, charter schools are able to focus their energies on an approach that is perhaps unique to their campus. They supply an education that responds to a local demand - a demand that may itself be unique to a given area; a demand that, due to statewide mandates, public schools are unable to meet.
Far from undermining local schools, "rural charter schools are providing an option to school consolidation by giving parents and educators the opportunity to keep their local school open," claims a report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education.
Still, there are those who are wary of charter schools, and rightfully so. Gains in flexibility and responsiveness are made at the expense of oversight and accountability. In response to such concerns, one charter principal wrote, "charters are not in themselves a reform strategy; they are a blank slate. They are simply an opportunity to try something new ... To discuss their effectiveness as a group means about as much as trying to evaluate whether restaurants, as a group, are good. Some are wonderful, some dreadful, some have shut down and some probably ought to."
The strengths of rural communities are tailor-made for a charter approach. The willingness and propensity of rural Illinoisans to time and again involve themselves in endeavors where they can make a difference is undeniable, and charter schools give them the opportunity to do just that.
Furthermore, rural educators - educators everywhere - must embrace distance learning programs. Online learning and "virtual schools" are revolutionizing education. They allow schools to provide an education otherwise unavailable, due often to faculty limitations.
"Virtual schooling," when provided, has proven especially effective amongst students who take online advanced placement and college preparatory courses. There is a dearth of such options currently available in rural classrooms. And it's not that rural schools cannot take advantage of existing distance learning options; it's that they do not take advantage of these options. They're an inexpensive way to diversify and improve offerings within a given school.
However, teachers would be made to compete with online offerings, which makes districts unlikely candidates to initiate distance learning approaches. Florida established a statewide virtual school, and so should Illinois. In Florida, rural parents have enrolled their children in droves, part time and full time. To the extent that online education was being used to supplant classroom education, schools and school districts received less money. In response, dozens of Florida school districts have since established district-based virtual schools, to compete with the statewide school, and parents now have a wider array of high-quality options.
Rural schools, when faced to compete for students, will respond to the demands voiced by parents who chose to send their children elsewhere. Attempting to recapture dollars lost will force those public schools to raise the bar. And when they do, all students will benefit.
According to the Thomas B. Fordham Institute: As a legislative priority, rural education in Illinois ranks 43rd in the country. Yet, as we have seen, there exist choice-based reforms that can bring positive results to thousands of underserved Illinoisans … now. Each can be enacted immediately. Each can be enacted independently. Each deserves support within the General Assembly. And each would leave families and students far better served than under the failing status quo.
Collin Hitt is director of education policy and reform at the Springfield-based Illinois Policy Institute. He can be reached at collin@illinoispolicyinstitute.org.
Choice-based reforms can help rural schools thrive
6/29/2006
By Collin Hitt
State Journal Register
Rural schools outperform urban schools, on average. Their students read better, and perform better in math. Like small towns, rural schools are safer. But like small towns, once they fall into decline, they founder hopelessly.
For those schools, reform has been slow in coming in Illinois. Students and parents have felt the effects.
There are those contented to relegate school reform solely to a matter of monetary relief, whereby meaningful reforms have been supplanted by strategies of how to better angle for state resources. Schools are made to jockey for the same funds. Through this process, reform comes at the expense of other reforms, and it is failing rural Illinois.
Even in the districts where policy-makers have been particularly adept at bringing home education dollars, few positive results have followed. Pumping money into a struggling school is tantamount to subsidizing a failing factory. As relief it is temporary. As reform it is nominal. Choice-based reforms offer an alternative.
The word "voucher" is anathema to Illinois policy-makers. Utter the word and special interests will run you out of office faster than a quarter of rural eighth-graders can read a fourth-grade textbook. But vouchers or grants or "opportunity scholarships" - call them what you will - are needed everywhere, and immediately.
Most educators rail against the idea - "it would spell the end of our public school system." The fact is, educational grants have never spelled the end of public education, nor will they. Once parents are given the capability to genuinely direct their children's education, once schools are made to compete for their students, the public school system will respond to their needs.
Common to school choice opponents is the fear that, if given the opportunity, parents will send their children to private, parochial schools. Where possible, however, families are more frequently opting for charter schools - schools each somewhat unique in their approach, together offering a diverse array of programs.
Without the need to comply with rigid, statewide regulations, charter schools are able to focus their energies on an approach that is perhaps unique to their campus. They supply an education that responds to a local demand - a demand that may itself be unique to a given area; a demand that, due to statewide mandates, public schools are unable to meet.
Far from undermining local schools, "rural charter schools are providing an option to school consolidation by giving parents and educators the opportunity to keep their local school open," claims a report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education.
Still, there are those who are wary of charter schools, and rightfully so. Gains in flexibility and responsiveness are made at the expense of oversight and accountability. In response to such concerns, one charter principal wrote, "charters are not in themselves a reform strategy; they are a blank slate. They are simply an opportunity to try something new ... To discuss their effectiveness as a group means about as much as trying to evaluate whether restaurants, as a group, are good. Some are wonderful, some dreadful, some have shut down and some probably ought to."
The strengths of rural communities are tailor-made for a charter approach. The willingness and propensity of rural Illinoisans to time and again involve themselves in endeavors where they can make a difference is undeniable, and charter schools give them the opportunity to do just that.
Furthermore, rural educators - educators everywhere - must embrace distance learning programs. Online learning and "virtual schools" are revolutionizing education. They allow schools to provide an education otherwise unavailable, due often to faculty limitations.
"Virtual schooling," when provided, has proven especially effective amongst students who take online advanced placement and college preparatory courses. There is a dearth of such options currently available in rural classrooms. And it's not that rural schools cannot take advantage of existing distance learning options; it's that they do not take advantage of these options. They're an inexpensive way to diversify and improve offerings within a given school.
However, teachers would be made to compete with online offerings, which makes districts unlikely candidates to initiate distance learning approaches. Florida established a statewide virtual school, and so should Illinois. In Florida, rural parents have enrolled their children in droves, part time and full time. To the extent that online education was being used to supplant classroom education, schools and school districts received less money. In response, dozens of Florida school districts have since established district-based virtual schools, to compete with the statewide school, and parents now have a wider array of high-quality options.
Rural schools, when faced to compete for students, will respond to the demands voiced by parents who chose to send their children elsewhere. Attempting to recapture dollars lost will force those public schools to raise the bar. And when they do, all students will benefit.
According to the Thomas B. Fordham Institute: As a legislative priority, rural education in Illinois ranks 43rd in the country. Yet, as we have seen, there exist choice-based reforms that can bring positive results to thousands of underserved Illinoisans … now. Each can be enacted immediately. Each can be enacted independently. Each deserves support within the General Assembly. And each would leave families and students far better served than under the failing status quo.
Collin Hitt is director of education policy and reform at the Springfield-based Illinois Policy Institute. He can be reached at collin@illinoispolicyinstitute.org.
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Is Michigan's Largest School Employee Union Helping or Hurting Education?
The following is a link to a series by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
This is a must read series. Although this series is about the Michigan Education Association the information contained in the series could be applied to any of the teachers unions in the United States including Illinois.
This is a must read series. Although this series is about the Michigan Education Association the information contained in the series could be applied to any of the teachers unions in the United States including Illinois.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
STATE'S ATTORNEY STONEWALLS MORTON DIST. 201 ELECTION INTERFERENCE ACT PROBE
Many of us have had problems with our State's Attorney offices following through with election interference complaints. We borrowed this line from someone but we totally agree with the statement "I'm starting to wonder if a yes person would actually be prosecuted for literally holding a gun to someone's head for a yes vote. " The antics will continue come November. The disgraceful behavior pro-referendum people in 158 and 300 used in past elections has set the bar for future behavior. They are counting on you not to speak out. Pro-referendum behavior and apathetic voters is the sure way to increased property taxes and reduced accountability on the part of our government schools. Your most powerful weapon is a no vote. Your second most powerful weapon is your voice you must be heard and not be afraid to speak out. Your third most powerful weapon is to stop re-electing elected officials who are beholden to public school employees, unions and those who do business with public schools.
Many do not want to speak out because their children our in school and they fear retaliation. But what kind of burden are you leaving for your children when they are taxpayers and parents? The public school employees will only become more wealthy and powerful and more difficult to fight.
School employees will be laughing all the way to the bank with retirement at age 55 and piles of money while your children will have to work well past 70 to pay for the tax burdens that you left because you refused to fight for education spending reform.
The following is a news release from National Taxpayers United of Illinois.
NTU NEWS RELEASE
NATIONAL TAXPAYERS UNITED OF ILLINOIS
407 S. Dearborn, Suite 1170 * CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 60605
(312) 427-5128 * Fax (312) 427-5139 * Web Site * E-mail
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 26, 2006
Contact:
Jim Tobin
(312) 427-5128
(773) 354-2076 (Cell)
STATE'S ATTORNEY STONEWALLS MORTON DIST. 201 ELECTION INTERFERENCE ACT PROBE
CHICAGO-The president of Illinois' largest taxpayer organization today charged that the staff of the Public Corruption and Financial Crimes Division of the Cook County State's Attorney office has let taxpayers down by stonewalling a probe into violations of the Illinois Election Interference Statute (10 ILCS 5/9-25.1) by J. Sterling Morton High School Dist. 201. The alleged violations occurred when the district sought a property-tax increase of about $400 a year for the average homeowner through a referendum on the March 21, 2006, ballot.
"The local newspaper, The Life, reported that a fax machine with a phone number belonging to the Superintendent of Dist. 201 was used to promote a fundraiser of a political committee promoting the tax hike," said Jim Tobin, President of National Taxpayers United of Illinois (NTU). "Additionally, the paper reported that some district employees complained they had been forced to work on the campaign during school hours."
The paper also stated that a "Vote Yes" banner was hung on school property, that cheerleaders passed out pro-referendum ribbons during a school basketball game, and that the school web site displayed a message urging a "yes" vote.
"NTU sent a letter to Mary Bucaro at the Cook County State's Attorney's office on March 9, and a second letter on March 13, detailing evidence of the violations," said Tobin. "In a phone conversation that took place in mid-March, Ms. Bucaro told me the court's standards of evidence are high, and that courts want to see a 'line item' for political activity in the budget. She said that if I knew anyone with 'first-hand evidence,' these persons could call her, but otherwise she couldn't do anything."
The NTU staff spoke with a Dist. 201 parent, who called Ms. Bucaro and related a first-hand account of a superintendent and a principal from a public high school speaking and distributing pro-property-tax-hike literature on school grounds. Ms. Bucaro was unconcerned, and wanted to know only who paid for the literature and other materials promoting the referendum.
On May 25, NTU Executive Director, Jeffrey Babbitt, called Ms. Bucaro, and when she returned the call, she left a message that the State's Attorney Office would be taking "no additional action" because the evidence NTU presented "did not rise to the level of the very strict interpretation that the courts have made of the Election Interference statute in terms of actual expenditure of government moneys...promoting...a subjective 'yes' vote."
On June 15 Mr. Babbitt spoke to Ms. Bucaro's junior colleague, Lynn McCarthy, asking for clarification on what would "rise to the level" that courts expect. Ms. McCarthy told him that there was no easily accessible case law because "there aren't a lot of cases that go forward under this law."
"The lethargy of the State's Attorney's office in this matter is stunning,"= said Babbitt. "Laws get passed supposedly to protect voters and taxpayers, but these laws mean nothing unless they are enforced and honored by the judicial system."
Founded in 1976, NTU is the largest taxpayer organization in Illinois with over 10,000 members and affiliation with more than 200 local taxpayer groups. ###
Many do not want to speak out because their children our in school and they fear retaliation. But what kind of burden are you leaving for your children when they are taxpayers and parents? The public school employees will only become more wealthy and powerful and more difficult to fight.
School employees will be laughing all the way to the bank with retirement at age 55 and piles of money while your children will have to work well past 70 to pay for the tax burdens that you left because you refused to fight for education spending reform.
The following is a news release from National Taxpayers United of Illinois.
NTU NEWS RELEASE
NATIONAL TAXPAYERS UNITED OF ILLINOIS
407 S. Dearborn, Suite 1170 * CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 60605
(312) 427-5128 * Fax (312) 427-5139 * Web Site
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 26, 2006
Contact:
Jim Tobin
(312) 427-5128
(773) 354-2076 (Cell)
STATE'S ATTORNEY STONEWALLS MORTON DIST. 201 ELECTION INTERFERENCE ACT PROBE
CHICAGO-The president of Illinois' largest taxpayer organization today charged that the staff of the Public Corruption and Financial Crimes Division of the Cook County State's Attorney office has let taxpayers down by stonewalling a probe into violations of the Illinois Election Interference Statute (10 ILCS 5/9-25.1) by J. Sterling Morton High School Dist. 201. The alleged violations occurred when the district sought a property-tax increase of about $400 a year for the average homeowner through a referendum on the March 21, 2006, ballot.
"The local newspaper, The Life, reported that a fax machine with a phone number belonging to the Superintendent of Dist. 201 was used to promote a fundraiser of a political committee promoting the tax hike," said Jim Tobin, President of National Taxpayers United of Illinois (NTU). "Additionally, the paper reported that some district employees complained they had been forced to work on the campaign during school hours."
The paper also stated that a "Vote Yes" banner was hung on school property, that cheerleaders passed out pro-referendum ribbons during a school basketball game, and that the school web site displayed a message urging a "yes" vote.
"NTU sent a letter to Mary Bucaro at the Cook County State's Attorney's office on March 9, and a second letter on March 13, detailing evidence of the violations," said Tobin. "In a phone conversation that took place in mid-March, Ms. Bucaro told me the court's standards of evidence are high, and that courts want to see a 'line item' for political activity in the budget. She said that if I knew anyone with 'first-hand evidence,' these persons could call her, but otherwise she couldn't do anything."
The NTU staff spoke with a Dist. 201 parent, who called Ms. Bucaro and related a first-hand account of a superintendent and a principal from a public high school speaking and distributing pro-property-tax-hike literature on school grounds. Ms. Bucaro was unconcerned, and wanted to know only who paid for the literature and other materials promoting the referendum.
On May 25, NTU Executive Director, Jeffrey Babbitt, called Ms. Bucaro, and when she returned the call, she left a message that the State's Attorney Office would be taking "no additional action" because the evidence NTU presented "did not rise to the level of the very strict interpretation that the courts have made of the Election Interference statute in terms of actual expenditure of government moneys...promoting...a subjective 'yes' vote."
On June 15 Mr. Babbitt spoke to Ms. Bucaro's junior colleague, Lynn McCarthy, asking for clarification on what would "rise to the level" that courts expect. Ms. McCarthy told him that there was no easily accessible case law because "there aren't a lot of cases that go forward under this law."
"The lethargy of the State's Attorney's office in this matter is stunning,"= said Babbitt. "Laws get passed supposedly to protect voters and taxpayers, but these laws mean nothing unless they are enforced and honored by the judicial system."
Founded in 1976, NTU is the largest taxpayer organization in Illinois with over 10,000 members and affiliation with more than 200 local taxpayer groups. ###
2 school council members can keep seats
The piece below is an excellent example of how board members break the law but nothing happens to them. We have a huge battle ahead of us. You need to decide if you are going to sit back and take it or start to speak up. The following piece appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times. Chicago Sun-Times.
2 school council members can keep seats
June 4, 2006
BY ROSALIND ROSSI Education Reporter
Two South Loop local school council members can keep their seats, even though they were won in an election in which six "seedy'' men were paid $5 each for their votes, a hearing officer concluded Friday.
Buying LSC votes may break the law, but the six votes were not enough to change the outcome of the election, so the results must stand, Chicago Public Schools hearing officer Stephen Pugh ruled.
During an earlier hearing, a resident of the New Ritz Hotel said on videotape that a man went floor to floor at the South Loop flophouse April 19, offering people $5 to vote in the nearby South Loop LSC election. Takers were told to punch 27 and 29 -- for LSC community candidates Enrique Perez and Jacques Eady -- the resident said.
'What a great example'
"The petitioners have demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence that six individuals were paid to vote for Mr. Perez and Mr. Eady,'' Pugh ruled. "The penalty for any such violation, however, is in the hands of other authorities.''
South Loop LSC parent member John Jacoby, who challenged the election of Perez and Eady, said Friday's ruling "sent a horrible message.''
LSC members oversee school budgets, decide the fates of principals and vote on other school matters.
"I'm outraged that they are now representatives of the school when the hearing officer said, 'Yeah, they bought votes,' " Jacoby said. "What a great example for the kids at our school.''
CPS spokesman Michael Vaughn said the case will be referred to the Cook County state's attorney's office for investigation, and CPS officials will review the LSC election handbook to see if it needs to be improved.
"Vote-buying should, if proven, make a candidate ineligible to serve,'' Jacoby said. "That's one sentence they can put into their handbook to resolve our issue.''
rrossi@suntimes.com
2 school council members can keep seats
June 4, 2006
BY ROSALIND ROSSI Education Reporter
Two South Loop local school council members can keep their seats, even though they were won in an election in which six "seedy'' men were paid $5 each for their votes, a hearing officer concluded Friday.
Buying LSC votes may break the law, but the six votes were not enough to change the outcome of the election, so the results must stand, Chicago Public Schools hearing officer Stephen Pugh ruled.
During an earlier hearing, a resident of the New Ritz Hotel said on videotape that a man went floor to floor at the South Loop flophouse April 19, offering people $5 to vote in the nearby South Loop LSC election. Takers were told to punch 27 and 29 -- for LSC community candidates Enrique Perez and Jacques Eady -- the resident said.
'What a great example'
"The petitioners have demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence that six individuals were paid to vote for Mr. Perez and Mr. Eady,'' Pugh ruled. "The penalty for any such violation, however, is in the hands of other authorities.''
South Loop LSC parent member John Jacoby, who challenged the election of Perez and Eady, said Friday's ruling "sent a horrible message.''
LSC members oversee school budgets, decide the fates of principals and vote on other school matters.
"I'm outraged that they are now representatives of the school when the hearing officer said, 'Yeah, they bought votes,' " Jacoby said. "What a great example for the kids at our school.''
CPS spokesman Michael Vaughn said the case will be referred to the Cook County state's attorney's office for investigation, and CPS officials will review the LSC election handbook to see if it needs to be improved.
"Vote-buying should, if proven, make a candidate ineligible to serve,'' Jacoby said. "That's one sentence they can put into their handbook to resolve our issue.''
rrossi@suntimes.com
Stopping School Corruption
The following piece appeared at the Yankee Insititute.org. CRAFT suggests all tax fighters and concerned parents obtain the manual in the piece outlined below and read Armand Fusco's book School Corruption: Betrayal of Children and the Public Trust.
Stopping School Corruption
by Armand Fusco
Hartford, May 17, 2006 -- In a new manual for Nutmeg State taxpayers, the Yankee Institute for Public Policy outlines strategies to combat corruption in Connecticut’s school districts.
"Stopping School Corruption: A Manual for Taxpayers," by Armand Fusco, Ed.D., is designed to assist Connecticut taxpayers who are seeking responsible answers from districts about whether school resources are being protected from abuse.
Fusco's manual lists ten questions school boards should be asked to determine whether school corruption is being committed. Topics covered by the questions include asset management, credit cards, student-activity funds, state/federal grants, contracting, and personnel policies.
"This manual will be a powerful tool for citizen-activists all over Connecticut," said Yankee Institute Executive Director Lewis Andrews, Ph.D. "'Stopping School Corruption' is the latest step in the Yankee Institute's mission to supply helpful tools to the leaders of taxpayer groups, who are fighting important battles at the local level."
Fusco, the former superintendent of the Branford School District, is also the author of School Corruption: Betrayal of Children and the Public Trust. The book, published last year, documented hundreds of examples of corruption in government schools throughout the nation.
"We must realize," Fusco said, "that Connecticut is no stranger to corruption in its school districts -- no state is. This problem can only be addressed responsibly and effectively by alerting the public and by generating outside pressure and public discussion. That's what the Yankee Institute is committed to doing."
Dr. Fusco holds a master's degree from Columbia University and a doctorate from the University of Massachusetts. Since retiring from his superintendent post in 1992, he has authored many professional works, as well as a regular column, "Inside Education," which is published by several Connecticut shoreline newspapers.
"With 10 simple questions," Andrews said, "Dr. Fusco empowers citizens with the ability to discern if their school districts are really being run in the best interest of the community."
Yankee Institute Philip Gressel Fellow for Tax and Budget Policy D. Dowd Muska believes the release of Fusco's manual is timely, given the municipal-budget fights that are currently being waged across the state: "Adjusted for inflation, Connecticut more than doubled its spending on government schools between 1981 and 2001 -- despite a very small increase in student enrollment. It is entirely appropriate for taxpayers to demand greater transparency and better management of school districts."
The Yankee Institute is a think tank that creates new ideas for lower taxes and better government in Connecticut. As a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, donations to the Institute are tax-deductible. It is based on the campus of Trinity College in Hartford.
Dr. Fusco is available for print, radio, and television interviews. Contact Mary Crean at (860) 521-6164 or mary@yankeeinstitute.org.
The Yankee Institute
for Public Policy Studies
© 2006
Stopping School Corruption
by Armand Fusco
Hartford, May 17, 2006 -- In a new manual for Nutmeg State taxpayers, the Yankee Institute for Public Policy outlines strategies to combat corruption in Connecticut’s school districts.
"Stopping School Corruption: A Manual for Taxpayers," by Armand Fusco, Ed.D., is designed to assist Connecticut taxpayers who are seeking responsible answers from districts about whether school resources are being protected from abuse.
Fusco's manual lists ten questions school boards should be asked to determine whether school corruption is being committed. Topics covered by the questions include asset management, credit cards, student-activity funds, state/federal grants, contracting, and personnel policies.
"This manual will be a powerful tool for citizen-activists all over Connecticut," said Yankee Institute Executive Director Lewis Andrews, Ph.D. "'Stopping School Corruption' is the latest step in the Yankee Institute's mission to supply helpful tools to the leaders of taxpayer groups, who are fighting important battles at the local level."
Fusco, the former superintendent of the Branford School District, is also the author of School Corruption: Betrayal of Children and the Public Trust. The book, published last year, documented hundreds of examples of corruption in government schools throughout the nation.
"We must realize," Fusco said, "that Connecticut is no stranger to corruption in its school districts -- no state is. This problem can only be addressed responsibly and effectively by alerting the public and by generating outside pressure and public discussion. That's what the Yankee Institute is committed to doing."
Dr. Fusco holds a master's degree from Columbia University and a doctorate from the University of Massachusetts. Since retiring from his superintendent post in 1992, he has authored many professional works, as well as a regular column, "Inside Education," which is published by several Connecticut shoreline newspapers.
"With 10 simple questions," Andrews said, "Dr. Fusco empowers citizens with the ability to discern if their school districts are really being run in the best interest of the community."
Yankee Institute Philip Gressel Fellow for Tax and Budget Policy D. Dowd Muska believes the release of Fusco's manual is timely, given the municipal-budget fights that are currently being waged across the state: "Adjusted for inflation, Connecticut more than doubled its spending on government schools between 1981 and 2001 -- despite a very small increase in student enrollment. It is entirely appropriate for taxpayers to demand greater transparency and better management of school districts."
The Yankee Institute is a think tank that creates new ideas for lower taxes and better government in Connecticut. As a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, donations to the Institute are tax-deductible. It is based on the campus of Trinity College in Hartford.
Dr. Fusco is available for print, radio, and television interviews. Contact Mary Crean at (860) 521-6164 or mary@yankeeinstitute.org.
The Yankee Institute
for Public Policy Studies
© 2006
Monday, June 26, 2006
A Coming Crisis in Suburban Schooling? by Lewis Andrews
The following piece was sent to us by Kevin Killion of The Illinois Loop.org. If you are not a regular reader of the Illinois Loop.org besure to add it to your list. The piece below is published by the Yankee Institute. To view all of their articles on school reform be sure to visit the Yankee Institute website.
A significant and important article appears in the new July/August issue of The American Enterprise:
A Coming Crisis in Suburban Schooling?
by Lewis Andrews
The article is copied in its entirety below. I encourage you to note its observations about the state of suburban education, and where it might be leading. The key themes of the article are:
1) "Bell and whistle bonanza"
"While the vast majority of Americans have historically accepted a common interest in paying for the education of successive generations, today's suburban parents and educators have increasingly abused that sense of obligation. Families are more and more being provided with benefits that go far beyond any traditional notion of required schooling. ... very little of the heavy funding funneled into schools in wealthy commuter districts was spent on improved academic performance. ... Where then does this surplus money go? Much of what passes for a quality education today in America's prosperous suburbs has little to do with academic rigor."
2) "Middle-class racketeering"
"The existence of self-serving relationships between municipal officials and the public employees they supposedly supervise is hardly news. But suburban school boards and administrators are especially gifted in their ability to portray mutual backscratching to the broader taxpaying public as academic idealism. Organized public-school parents have in many places ensured that both Republicans and Democrats produce local candidates who think identically on the 65 to 80 percent of local expenditures that are related to public education. On most school boards and town councils, would-be reformers have little or no influence."
3) "Backlash on property taxes"
"With house assessments ballooning, the property taxes that support most schools are becoming onerous burdens for many newlyweds, widows, families with children in private or parochial schools, or older couples on fixed pensions. Property tax collections went up an average of 23 percent nationwide between 2000 and 2004 ... clearer connections are beginning to be established in many taxpayers' minds between skyrocketing public school costs and ever steeper real estate levies. ... In what is perhaps the most ominous sign for suburban parents and public educators, the leadership of local taxpayer groups -- historically dismissed as 'kooks' and 'cranks' -- is becoming more politically sophisticated."
4) "Priced out and dumbed down"
"Perhaps the most telling defectors from suburban education are the growing numbers of parents who believe that local schools are failing in their most important obligation -- to provide children ... with a challenging and academically sound curriculum. ... Many suburbanites are just as concerned about low academic standards in local schools as urban and rural parents are known to be. On April 28, 2001, the New York Times ran a front page story entitled 'Parents Hungry for ABCs Lead New School Movement.' It profiled Princeton, New Jersey parents who had become 'horrified' by the poor quality of local education and founded a no-frills charter school, free from the yoke of district bureaucracy and dedicated to a more demanding academic curriculum. Today ... charter schools are starting to become more common in affluent suburbs." (This section has a nice mention of our Looper friend Margaret McIntyre, tireless education activist in Wilmette!)
5) "Mediocrity forever?"
"Certainly many of the suburban schools just down the street are much less successful in getting top results than many parents glibly assume. 'A lot of suburban Americans are living in a kind of fantasyland' right now, says education expert Chester Finn. ... Public education in America's suburbs could soon experience some jarring and unexpected changes. And you know what? That is long overdue."
Make use of this article in your own local efforts! You are not alone in working for better education options in the suburbs!
The article is part of several articles on education in this July/August issue of American Enterprise (it's available at Border's and other stores with good magazine selections). The cover story on "Education Fairy Tales: Our 'money-starved' schools and other costly myths" also will be of great interest to some of the participants on the Illinois Loop list.
For more on suburban schools, see our roundup page at:
Illinois Loop: The Suburbs
http://www.illinoisloop.org/suburbs.html
-- Kevin Killion'
==========================================
THE AMERICAN ENTERPRISE
July/August 2006
A Coming Crisis in Suburban Schooling?
by Lewis M. Andrews
Lewis M. Andrews is executive director of the Yankee Institute for Public Policy in Hartford, Connecticut
We are all accustomed to the idea that America faces problems in its public education systems. But mostly it's the other guy's school, in the city next door, where we think the troubles center. Suburban schools in neighborhoods with rising home prices -- those are the ones where U.S. education is just fine. Right?
Not exactly. Suburbia is afflicted with its own problems of public school mediocrity. That much is beginning to become apparent to some striving middle-class parents. And there's another threat stalking public education in upscale commuter enclaves that hasn't even begun to sink into the public consciousness: money troubles.
Bell and whistle bonanza
The tax base supporting public education in the suburbs is broad. Those who have no children contribute. So do families who send their children to private schools. Couples who have seen their children graduate and move out are also paying. The beneficiaries, meanwhile, are a much smaller group. Families with children attending public schools can easily net a yearly gain from the community of $10,000-$20,000 in educational services.
While the vast majority of Americans have historically accepted a common interest in paying for the education of successive generations, today's suburban parents and educators have increasingly abused that sense of obligation. Families are more and more being provided with benefits that go far beyond any traditional notion of required schooling. Last year, a researcher at the Yankee Institute for Public Policy at Trinity College completed a study of every school district in Connecticut, a state noted for its affluent suburbs. Using per pupil costs and student scores on mastery tests, he found that very little of the heavy funding funneled into schools in wealthy commuter districts was spent on improved academic performance. "Many affluent towns spend much more.. .for the same educational outcomes," the study concluded.
Where then does this surplus money go? Much of what passes for a quality education today in America's prosperous suburbs has little to do with academic rigor. "Quality" has become a deceptive code word for an ever-expanding menu of non-essential services, hobbies, and recreational activities for school children and their families. These include low-cost forms of day care (both before and after school), expensive and eclectic sports programs, holiday "socials," subsidized recreation camps run out of public school buildings during summers and holidays, and a variety of school-day distractions for students like pottery and ballet lessons, cafeteria pasta bars, media centers with state-of-the-art video technology, glitzy rooms overflowing with shiny electronic equipment, and even costly observatories, stadiums, and galleries.
High schools in commuter enclaves outside of New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and other large cities have curricula as diverse as many small colleges, offering credit for hundreds of nonacademic electives, including courses in jewelry making, computer animation, and television. The burgeoning cost of these services is only partially reflected in the staffing lines of annual school operating budgets. Much of the expense is buried in 20- to 30-year bonding for school additions and renovations. "Back in the 1950s and '60s," explains James Hughes, dean of the Bloustein School of Public Policy at Rutgers University, schools "were so much cheaper. You didn't have the bells and whistles. A lot of high schools now have TV studios, swimming pools, and computer labs. The schools have to be triple-wired and air conditioned."
Persuading taxpayers that high school pupils should have the right to take exotic electives has proven a surprisingly easy sell -- particularly since parent-dominated school boards have crafted mutually advantageous relationships with the educators they are supposed to be regulating. That's how we've ended up with thousands of suburban schools where all students are entitled to study video production or play golf at voter expense.
Middle-class racketeering
Margaret Tannenbaum, professor of education at New Jersey's Rowan University and formerly on the school board in her home town, notes that the resulting quid pro quos are never publicly stated, but always clearly understood. In most cases, she explains, parent board members know that being "supportive of the schools" is code for accommodating generous salary and benefit increases for unionized teachers and schools administrators. In return, even the most superfluous perks for suburban schoolchildren -- like academic credit for district-subsidized trips abroad -- are deemed "educational" by local school officials.
The existence of self-serving relationships between municipal officials and the public employees they supposedly supervise is hardly news. But suburban school boards and administrators are especially gifted in their ability to portray mutual backscratching to the broader taxpaying public as academic idealism. Organized public-school parents have in many places ensured that both Republicans and Democrats produce local candidates who think identically on the 65 to 80 percent of local expenditures that are related to public education. On most school boards and town councils, would-be reformers have little or no influence.
For their part, educators have developed a language which makes the self-serving policies of parents and teachers appear pedagogically sound. More financially efficient alternatives are characterized as "too risky" or "cold-hearted." Costly requirements like smaller class sizes, which create a need for more teachers and administrators, are consistently praised for the "personal attention" and "individualized instruction" they supposedly offer students. Such glowing phrases are rarely used to describe Internet-based courses, however, though they too can provide truly individualized instruction, without the need to hire more educators.
Biased language is supplemented with selective statistics. Washington Post education writer Jay Matthew has noted how suburban principals brag about the large number of advanced placement (AP) courses their schools offer, conveniently ignoring the fact that only a fraction of the students who take them actually earn college credit by passing an objective test. Suburban administrators similarly boast about the high percentage of seniors that go on to college. Few care to find out how many of their graduates drop out of college, or are required to take remedial courses in math, reading, and writing.
The successful partnership between suburban parents and professional educators is facilitated by Americas continuing tolerance for a blatant conflict of interest, whereby a school board member is permitted to vote on an issue that can directly affect his own family. It is not an exaggeration to say that public schooling in many suburbs is a form of upper-middle-class racketeering. Under the banner of "advancing learning;' parents of district children and their public-sector allies collaborate to serve their own narrow interests, at the expense of the broader taxpaying community.
Backlash on property taxes
One need only observe the swarms of angry parents who descend on local politicians whenever the school athletic budget is threatened, or see the care school boards take not to offend the inevitable union monitor at their meetings, to conclude that the vested interests currently driving suburban education are firmly in control. Yet history shows that recipients of public subsidies inevitably court opposition from those who pay the bills. And suburban public schools are beginning to come under fire.
Those with the most obvious reason to be critical are voters without children in public schools, many of them increasingly restless under heavy and soaring local tax burdens. With house assessments ballooning, the property taxes that support most schools are becoming onerous burdens for many newlyweds, widows, families with children in private or parochial schools, or older couples on fixed pensions. Property tax collections went up an average of 23 percent nationwide between 2000 and 2004, and are now approaching $300 billion -- totaling very close to what Americans spend annually on mortgage interest.
The true costs of suburban education are obscured in many parts of the country by regionalized school systems, which tap a labyrinth of funding sources, including state income taxes, state and local sales taxes, casino gaming licenses, and lottery profits. Nonetheless, clearer connections are beginning to be established in many taxpayers' minds between skyrocketing public school costs and ever steeper real estate levies. Led mostly by activist seniors, dissident taxpayer groups in Maine, Ohio, New Jersey, and Texas have succeeded in getting property-tax reductions on state or local ballots. Politicians in Nevada, Iowa, and Indiana have been forced to establish commissions on tax reduction; and the legislatures in South Carolina and Virginia are considering annual limitations on how much their localities can raise local levies.
In the Northeast in particular, where a long-standing tradition of each town managing its own school system gives local citizens the ability to vote on their school district budgets, a tax rebellion is clearly under way. ln a special report on Connecticut's 169 towns and cities, the state's Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (ACIR) found that rejections of school budgets recently reached a peak "since ACIR started tracking these figures." Less than half of the budgets going to referendum were approved on the first vote.
In what is perhaps the most ominous sign for suburban parents and public educators, the leadership of local taxpayer groups -- historically dismissed as "kooks" and "cranks" -- is becoming more politically sophisticated. Just as the 1980s saw the creation of more than 40 state-oriented think tanks devoted to monitoring and shrinking the costs of government, so today there is a similar growth of county- and town-level groups. It is not a coincidence that the increased rejection rate of local budgets by Connecticut towns was accompanied by a doubling in the number of town taxpayer groups (from 25 to 50), with many employing spreadsheets, attractive Web sites, and well-researched policy papers.
Priced out and dumbed down
At the same time that watchdogs are becoming more effective politically, discontent is also brewing among some parents who in the past would have considered themselves beneficiaries of the public school system. In a 2003 book (written before the explosion in housing prices), Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren studied bankruptcy filings in America and found that the biggest squeeze on middle- and upper-middle-class families came from high mortgage payments and escalating property taxes on homes in towns with desirable public schools. Today, says Warren, "young parents buy houses with just three thoughts in mind: schools, schools, and schools:' The problem is that "in inflation-adjusted dollars, they're paying more than 70 percent more than their parents paid for a house." ln other words, lavish "free" public education is pricing many families out of homes and neighborhoods.
But perhaps the most telling defectors from suburban education are the growing numbers of parents who believe that local schools are failing in their most important obligation -- to provide children (between soccer games and class field trips) with a challenging and academically sound curriculum. University of Missouri political scientist Martin Rochester is one such parent. The low academic expectations at his own children's schools inspired him to conduct a 2003 survey of numerous suburban systems. He found many costly distractions from the basic educational tasks that should be the central work of schooling.
Another critic is Margaret McIntyre, a member of the Wilmette, Illinois school board from 1999 to 2003, who argues that the expensive infrastructure at suburban schools is intellectually counterproductive. "The spending on special programs, technology, and 'enrichments';' she writes, "actually crowds out time for math, reading, writing, geography, and history." She estimates that more than 40 percent of families in Chicago's affluent North Shore suburbs have been forced to pay for tutors and other supplemental instruction.
A recent poll on the subject of public education conducted by the Business Roundtable shows "overwhelming support for standards-based reform among all groups, regardless of race, income, or political party." Similar polls by the non-partisan Public Agenda suggest that many suburbanites are just as concerned about low academic standards in local schools as urban and rural parents are known to be.
On April 28, 2001, the New York Times ran a front page story entitled "Parents Hungry for ABCs Lead New School Movement." It profiled Princeton, New Jersey parents who had become "horrified" by the poor quality of local education and founded a no-frills charter school, free from the yoke of district bureaucracy and dedicated to a more demanding academic curriculum. Today, notes Joe Nathan, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for School Change, charter schools are starting to become more common in affluent suburbs.
Mediocrity forever?
Could these political, financial, and academic trends combine to force a broad restructuring of suburban education? They might if there is a bursting of to day's inflated real estate bubble. The ensuing calls for proportional reductions in property taxes would surely increase pressure for a back-to-basics restructuring of public education. Rather than being a problem, such a development might be a good thing, to be welcomed by suburban parents now coping with mediocre public schooling by hiring tutors or sending their children to private or parochial institutions.
Even without impetus from home price distortions, change could come. Certainly the decades-old alliance between opportunistic parents and self-interested local educators is not nearly as sound as it appears. And certainly many of the suburban schools just down the street are much less successful in getting top results than many parents glibly assume. "A lot of suburban Americans are living in a kind of fantasyland" right now, says education expert Chester Finn. In an era of globalization and heightened competition in education and jobs, more sober and realistic assessments of the training being offered by typical neighborhood institutions may become inevitable.
Take a critical mass of disillusioned and financially pressed parents, add in the growing political clout of taxpayers without school-age children, the lax oversight of district budgeting, and a tempestuous real estate market, and public education in America's suburbs could soon experience some jarring and unexpected changes. And you know what? That is long overdue.
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Illinois Loop
http://www.illinoisloop.org/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
A significant and important article appears in the new July/August issue of The American Enterprise:
A Coming Crisis in Suburban Schooling?
by Lewis Andrews
The article is copied in its entirety below. I encourage you to note its observations about the state of suburban education, and where it might be leading. The key themes of the article are:
1) "Bell and whistle bonanza"
"While the vast majority of Americans have historically accepted a common interest in paying for the education of successive generations, today's suburban parents and educators have increasingly abused that sense of obligation. Families are more and more being provided with benefits that go far beyond any traditional notion of required schooling. ... very little of the heavy funding funneled into schools in wealthy commuter districts was spent on improved academic performance. ... Where then does this surplus money go? Much of what passes for a quality education today in America's prosperous suburbs has little to do with academic rigor."
2) "Middle-class racketeering"
"The existence of self-serving relationships between municipal officials and the public employees they supposedly supervise is hardly news. But suburban school boards and administrators are especially gifted in their ability to portray mutual backscratching to the broader taxpaying public as academic idealism. Organized public-school parents have in many places ensured that both Republicans and Democrats produce local candidates who think identically on the 65 to 80 percent of local expenditures that are related to public education. On most school boards and town councils, would-be reformers have little or no influence."
3) "Backlash on property taxes"
"With house assessments ballooning, the property taxes that support most schools are becoming onerous burdens for many newlyweds, widows, families with children in private or parochial schools, or older couples on fixed pensions. Property tax collections went up an average of 23 percent nationwide between 2000 and 2004 ... clearer connections are beginning to be established in many taxpayers' minds between skyrocketing public school costs and ever steeper real estate levies. ... In what is perhaps the most ominous sign for suburban parents and public educators, the leadership of local taxpayer groups -- historically dismissed as 'kooks' and 'cranks' -- is becoming more politically sophisticated."
4) "Priced out and dumbed down"
"Perhaps the most telling defectors from suburban education are the growing numbers of parents who believe that local schools are failing in their most important obligation -- to provide children ... with a challenging and academically sound curriculum. ... Many suburbanites are just as concerned about low academic standards in local schools as urban and rural parents are known to be. On April 28, 2001, the New York Times ran a front page story entitled 'Parents Hungry for ABCs Lead New School Movement.' It profiled Princeton, New Jersey parents who had become 'horrified' by the poor quality of local education and founded a no-frills charter school, free from the yoke of district bureaucracy and dedicated to a more demanding academic curriculum. Today ... charter schools are starting to become more common in affluent suburbs." (This section has a nice mention of our Looper friend Margaret McIntyre, tireless education activist in Wilmette!)
5) "Mediocrity forever?"
"Certainly many of the suburban schools just down the street are much less successful in getting top results than many parents glibly assume. 'A lot of suburban Americans are living in a kind of fantasyland' right now, says education expert Chester Finn. ... Public education in America's suburbs could soon experience some jarring and unexpected changes. And you know what? That is long overdue."
Make use of this article in your own local efforts! You are not alone in working for better education options in the suburbs!
The article is part of several articles on education in this July/August issue of American Enterprise (it's available at Border's and other stores with good magazine selections). The cover story on "Education Fairy Tales: Our 'money-starved' schools and other costly myths" also will be of great interest to some of the participants on the Illinois Loop list.
For more on suburban schools, see our roundup page at:
Illinois Loop: The Suburbs
http://www.illinoisloop.org/suburbs.html
-- Kevin Killion'
==========================================
THE AMERICAN ENTERPRISE
July/August 2006
A Coming Crisis in Suburban Schooling?
by Lewis M. Andrews
Lewis M. Andrews is executive director of the Yankee Institute for Public Policy in Hartford, Connecticut
We are all accustomed to the idea that America faces problems in its public education systems. But mostly it's the other guy's school, in the city next door, where we think the troubles center. Suburban schools in neighborhoods with rising home prices -- those are the ones where U.S. education is just fine. Right?
Not exactly. Suburbia is afflicted with its own problems of public school mediocrity. That much is beginning to become apparent to some striving middle-class parents. And there's another threat stalking public education in upscale commuter enclaves that hasn't even begun to sink into the public consciousness: money troubles.
Bell and whistle bonanza
The tax base supporting public education in the suburbs is broad. Those who have no children contribute. So do families who send their children to private schools. Couples who have seen their children graduate and move out are also paying. The beneficiaries, meanwhile, are a much smaller group. Families with children attending public schools can easily net a yearly gain from the community of $10,000-$20,000 in educational services.
While the vast majority of Americans have historically accepted a common interest in paying for the education of successive generations, today's suburban parents and educators have increasingly abused that sense of obligation. Families are more and more being provided with benefits that go far beyond any traditional notion of required schooling. Last year, a researcher at the Yankee Institute for Public Policy at Trinity College completed a study of every school district in Connecticut, a state noted for its affluent suburbs. Using per pupil costs and student scores on mastery tests, he found that very little of the heavy funding funneled into schools in wealthy commuter districts was spent on improved academic performance. "Many affluent towns spend much more.. .for the same educational outcomes," the study concluded.
Where then does this surplus money go? Much of what passes for a quality education today in America's prosperous suburbs has little to do with academic rigor. "Quality" has become a deceptive code word for an ever-expanding menu of non-essential services, hobbies, and recreational activities for school children and their families. These include low-cost forms of day care (both before and after school), expensive and eclectic sports programs, holiday "socials," subsidized recreation camps run out of public school buildings during summers and holidays, and a variety of school-day distractions for students like pottery and ballet lessons, cafeteria pasta bars, media centers with state-of-the-art video technology, glitzy rooms overflowing with shiny electronic equipment, and even costly observatories, stadiums, and galleries.
High schools in commuter enclaves outside of New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and other large cities have curricula as diverse as many small colleges, offering credit for hundreds of nonacademic electives, including courses in jewelry making, computer animation, and television. The burgeoning cost of these services is only partially reflected in the staffing lines of annual school operating budgets. Much of the expense is buried in 20- to 30-year bonding for school additions and renovations. "Back in the 1950s and '60s," explains James Hughes, dean of the Bloustein School of Public Policy at Rutgers University, schools "were so much cheaper. You didn't have the bells and whistles. A lot of high schools now have TV studios, swimming pools, and computer labs. The schools have to be triple-wired and air conditioned."
Persuading taxpayers that high school pupils should have the right to take exotic electives has proven a surprisingly easy sell -- particularly since parent-dominated school boards have crafted mutually advantageous relationships with the educators they are supposed to be regulating. That's how we've ended up with thousands of suburban schools where all students are entitled to study video production or play golf at voter expense.
Middle-class racketeering
Margaret Tannenbaum, professor of education at New Jersey's Rowan University and formerly on the school board in her home town, notes that the resulting quid pro quos are never publicly stated, but always clearly understood. In most cases, she explains, parent board members know that being "supportive of the schools" is code for accommodating generous salary and benefit increases for unionized teachers and schools administrators. In return, even the most superfluous perks for suburban schoolchildren -- like academic credit for district-subsidized trips abroad -- are deemed "educational" by local school officials.
The existence of self-serving relationships between municipal officials and the public employees they supposedly supervise is hardly news. But suburban school boards and administrators are especially gifted in their ability to portray mutual backscratching to the broader taxpaying public as academic idealism. Organized public-school parents have in many places ensured that both Republicans and Democrats produce local candidates who think identically on the 65 to 80 percent of local expenditures that are related to public education. On most school boards and town councils, would-be reformers have little or no influence.
For their part, educators have developed a language which makes the self-serving policies of parents and teachers appear pedagogically sound. More financially efficient alternatives are characterized as "too risky" or "cold-hearted." Costly requirements like smaller class sizes, which create a need for more teachers and administrators, are consistently praised for the "personal attention" and "individualized instruction" they supposedly offer students. Such glowing phrases are rarely used to describe Internet-based courses, however, though they too can provide truly individualized instruction, without the need to hire more educators.
Biased language is supplemented with selective statistics. Washington Post education writer Jay Matthew has noted how suburban principals brag about the large number of advanced placement (AP) courses their schools offer, conveniently ignoring the fact that only a fraction of the students who take them actually earn college credit by passing an objective test. Suburban administrators similarly boast about the high percentage of seniors that go on to college. Few care to find out how many of their graduates drop out of college, or are required to take remedial courses in math, reading, and writing.
The successful partnership between suburban parents and professional educators is facilitated by Americas continuing tolerance for a blatant conflict of interest, whereby a school board member is permitted to vote on an issue that can directly affect his own family. It is not an exaggeration to say that public schooling in many suburbs is a form of upper-middle-class racketeering. Under the banner of "advancing learning;' parents of district children and their public-sector allies collaborate to serve their own narrow interests, at the expense of the broader taxpaying community.
Backlash on property taxes
One need only observe the swarms of angry parents who descend on local politicians whenever the school athletic budget is threatened, or see the care school boards take not to offend the inevitable union monitor at their meetings, to conclude that the vested interests currently driving suburban education are firmly in control. Yet history shows that recipients of public subsidies inevitably court opposition from those who pay the bills. And suburban public schools are beginning to come under fire.
Those with the most obvious reason to be critical are voters without children in public schools, many of them increasingly restless under heavy and soaring local tax burdens. With house assessments ballooning, the property taxes that support most schools are becoming onerous burdens for many newlyweds, widows, families with children in private or parochial schools, or older couples on fixed pensions. Property tax collections went up an average of 23 percent nationwide between 2000 and 2004, and are now approaching $300 billion -- totaling very close to what Americans spend annually on mortgage interest.
The true costs of suburban education are obscured in many parts of the country by regionalized school systems, which tap a labyrinth of funding sources, including state income taxes, state and local sales taxes, casino gaming licenses, and lottery profits. Nonetheless, clearer connections are beginning to be established in many taxpayers' minds between skyrocketing public school costs and ever steeper real estate levies. Led mostly by activist seniors, dissident taxpayer groups in Maine, Ohio, New Jersey, and Texas have succeeded in getting property-tax reductions on state or local ballots. Politicians in Nevada, Iowa, and Indiana have been forced to establish commissions on tax reduction; and the legislatures in South Carolina and Virginia are considering annual limitations on how much their localities can raise local levies.
In the Northeast in particular, where a long-standing tradition of each town managing its own school system gives local citizens the ability to vote on their school district budgets, a tax rebellion is clearly under way. ln a special report on Connecticut's 169 towns and cities, the state's Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (ACIR) found that rejections of school budgets recently reached a peak "since ACIR started tracking these figures." Less than half of the budgets going to referendum were approved on the first vote.
In what is perhaps the most ominous sign for suburban parents and public educators, the leadership of local taxpayer groups -- historically dismissed as "kooks" and "cranks" -- is becoming more politically sophisticated. Just as the 1980s saw the creation of more than 40 state-oriented think tanks devoted to monitoring and shrinking the costs of government, so today there is a similar growth of county- and town-level groups. It is not a coincidence that the increased rejection rate of local budgets by Connecticut towns was accompanied by a doubling in the number of town taxpayer groups (from 25 to 50), with many employing spreadsheets, attractive Web sites, and well-researched policy papers.
Priced out and dumbed down
At the same time that watchdogs are becoming more effective politically, discontent is also brewing among some parents who in the past would have considered themselves beneficiaries of the public school system. In a 2003 book (written before the explosion in housing prices), Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren studied bankruptcy filings in America and found that the biggest squeeze on middle- and upper-middle-class families came from high mortgage payments and escalating property taxes on homes in towns with desirable public schools. Today, says Warren, "young parents buy houses with just three thoughts in mind: schools, schools, and schools:' The problem is that "in inflation-adjusted dollars, they're paying more than 70 percent more than their parents paid for a house." ln other words, lavish "free" public education is pricing many families out of homes and neighborhoods.
But perhaps the most telling defectors from suburban education are the growing numbers of parents who believe that local schools are failing in their most important obligation -- to provide children (between soccer games and class field trips) with a challenging and academically sound curriculum. University of Missouri political scientist Martin Rochester is one such parent. The low academic expectations at his own children's schools inspired him to conduct a 2003 survey of numerous suburban systems. He found many costly distractions from the basic educational tasks that should be the central work of schooling.
Another critic is Margaret McIntyre, a member of the Wilmette, Illinois school board from 1999 to 2003, who argues that the expensive infrastructure at suburban schools is intellectually counterproductive. "The spending on special programs, technology, and 'enrichments';' she writes, "actually crowds out time for math, reading, writing, geography, and history." She estimates that more than 40 percent of families in Chicago's affluent North Shore suburbs have been forced to pay for tutors and other supplemental instruction.
A recent poll on the subject of public education conducted by the Business Roundtable shows "overwhelming support for standards-based reform among all groups, regardless of race, income, or political party." Similar polls by the non-partisan Public Agenda suggest that many suburbanites are just as concerned about low academic standards in local schools as urban and rural parents are known to be.
On April 28, 2001, the New York Times ran a front page story entitled "Parents Hungry for ABCs Lead New School Movement." It profiled Princeton, New Jersey parents who had become "horrified" by the poor quality of local education and founded a no-frills charter school, free from the yoke of district bureaucracy and dedicated to a more demanding academic curriculum. Today, notes Joe Nathan, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for School Change, charter schools are starting to become more common in affluent suburbs.
Mediocrity forever?
Could these political, financial, and academic trends combine to force a broad restructuring of suburban education? They might if there is a bursting of to day's inflated real estate bubble. The ensuing calls for proportional reductions in property taxes would surely increase pressure for a back-to-basics restructuring of public education. Rather than being a problem, such a development might be a good thing, to be welcomed by suburban parents now coping with mediocre public schooling by hiring tutors or sending their children to private or parochial institutions.
Even without impetus from home price distortions, change could come. Certainly the decades-old alliance between opportunistic parents and self-interested local educators is not nearly as sound as it appears. And certainly many of the suburban schools just down the street are much less successful in getting top results than many parents glibly assume. "A lot of suburban Americans are living in a kind of fantasyland" right now, says education expert Chester Finn. In an era of globalization and heightened competition in education and jobs, more sober and realistic assessments of the training being offered by typical neighborhood institutions may become inevitable.
Take a critical mass of disillusioned and financially pressed parents, add in the growing political clout of taxpayers without school-age children, the lax oversight of district budgeting, and a tempestuous real estate market, and public education in America's suburbs could soon experience some jarring and unexpected changes. And you know what? That is long overdue.
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Illinois Loop
http://www.illinoisloop.org/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
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