Great question & answer between State Impact’s Kyle Stokes and Matt Tully entitled, appropriately enough, Q&A with Matthew Tully: How ‘Apathy’ Is Hurting Poor, ‘Failing’ Schools. Tully did a series where he embedded at Manual High School; Stokes asks him about his experience there and what he thinks schools need to succeed.
Tully doesn’t pretend to have all the answers, but suggests that the school district is creating more problems for well-intentioned principals than it solves; that there is a great deal of apathy in the system; and that it’s going to take some hard, hard work to get energy back into these places and raised expectations.
One of my fears is that, too often, (and I want to be clear that I’m not lumping Tully into this group), the “solution” for failing schools seems to be some variation of spending less of rich people’s money on poor people. Once that piece of the “solution” is in place, the rest will presumably be put on the back burner.
A large part of public education failure rests squarely on the overall moral degradation of our nation; which includes a reduced work ethic and the destruction of the family unit. Education presumes a couple things: 1. The person being “educated” has a desire to learn and 2. The person being “educated” has the ability to learn. A cohesive family unit provides much of the necessary support for a child to have the desire and ability to learn. Remove the God-designed family structure and the likelihood of producing hard-working and moral kids is reduced. Who’s to blame for poor education? 1. Government policies that are destructive to Christian principles and the families, and 2. Homes without a mother and father.
One of my fears is that, too often, (and I want to be clear that I’m not lumping Tully into this group), the “solution” for failing schools seems to be some variation of spending less of rich people’s money on poor people.
They’re printing the state report cards for our local schools in the paper. The thing that I’ve noticed is that graduation rates are inversely proportional to what the per-pupil spending rate. For example, East Chicago spends $15k per student, and has a 50% graduation rate. Hobart spends $9k per student, and has a 80% graduation rate. And Hobart is not a “rich” district, just a lower middle class one.
So… yeah, maybe we should consider reforms that result in less spending. More spending does not equal better results.
I think your point is an excellent one and anyone with intellectual honesty could not support spending more on education; especially based on the results you’ve cited. The statistics about per pupil spending and education rates also furthers my argument that you can spend billions on trying to educate, and if the students don’t have the ability or desire to learn, it’s wasted money.
Because obviously, it can’t be that the results in, say, East Chicago would be even worse than they already are with even less spending.
And this isn’t to say that spending more money isn’t the only solution, of course. But just because one place spends more money yet achieves poorer results than some other place certainly doesn’t mean that spending should be cut. More money may not equal better results absolutely, but it can certainly equal better results all else being equal. There are more variables in play than just money, no doubt. But when you say “well, they spend more money here but achieve poorer results, so obviously spending more money doesn’t help” you totally ignore the possibility that maybe those other variables outweigh the positive impacts of the extra money, such that if spending were less the results might be even worse than they already are, and increases in spending (along with other changes, of course) might make things still better.
Your argument is disingenuous and intellectually dishonest.
But, it sure does get you to a place where you can feel morally superior while keeping more of your money while spending less of it on those morally inferior people; with a side of righteous indignation for the money you still have to spend on those people.
It’s logically questionable, but emotionally delicious.
You can spin it as “righteous indignation”. But the fact is that East Chicago folks have a lot of pathologies that schools are not going to be able to address. You’re throwing good money after bad.
And East Chicago is better than some schools. They have wonderful facilities, their high school and middle school is very nice. That’s where some of the per pupil cost comes from. But, ultimately, that has little effect on results. They have very high teacher salaries for the area. That has no effect on results.
Your argument is disingenuous and intellectually dishonest.
No it isn’t. If it is disingenuous, let me ask you this: how much is enough? If we spend more, and don’t get better results, the answer is always to spend even more. Is there some level of spending that will cause better results?
Or is it the case that the spending is actually part of the problem? For example, those high union salaries in East Chicago support… the union (duh), which supports stupid work rules and other nonsense that is counterproductive to learning.
Administrative overhead ofter goes to support stupid government regulations rather than learning.
Too many times, more spending per pupil only results in more overhead and administration costs (as decided by self-same administrators). The spending isn’t really on the students…
Too many times, more spending per pupil only results in more overhead and administration costs
They have those kinds of statistics in the school report cards. They report the percentage of each dollar that goes to direct instruction, administration, and “non-operating expenses”.
I have to say, I am very please with the amount of data that Indiana forces schools to report. A statistically oriented person could do a lot with the data.
I’ve read of, but cannot find, a study finding that student performance on standardized tests was more closely correlated to how close your state capital is to Canada than it is to how much you spend per pupil.
So, obviously, we must move the state capital to Lake County.
For the children.
I lived in Minnesota for several years. It is considered to have one of the most successful public education systesm in the nation, both K-12 and secondary. When I lived there in the early 2000’s the funding forumula was the same level for all K-12 students, adjusted only for cost differentials between communities. I do not know if the forumula has changed.
No god designed my family structure, jedna, and we’re getting a great education at a public school. I do absolutely agree with you that students need a supportive home environment to be prepped to learn, but can you come up with a way of encouraging that outcome without resorting to using your religion or anyone else’s? I’d say if you can’t then you’re not using “intellectual honesty”.
If God designed a family structure, historically, you’d have to conclude that the structure is tribal in nature. Nuclear families under the umbrella of a nation-state is a pretty novel development compared to how humans have lived for the couple million years of their existence.
but can you come up with a way of encouraging that outcome without resorting to using your religion or anyone else’s?
Have you seen Charles Murray’s new book? The “elite” has changed very little, socioeconomically speaking, since the 1950s. They still get married before having kids, stay married, work hard, get educated, and, yes, go to church.
The big difference is in the low end of the socioeconomic scale, where marriage, work, educational achievement, and, yes, churchgoing, are in steep decline.
So I guess I question why we should expect that “encouraging a supportive home environment” should necessarily be achieved without resorting to religion.
The funny thing about going to church is that the stuff that they preach is least needed by the people in the pews, and most needed by the folks who missed it while sleeping off the hangover from the night before.
Murray’s book just restates the obvious,. As the economic instutions that supported the emergence of a strong middle class in the 1950s and 1960s, the midde class begins the poorer working class and the elite maintain their favorable educational, job and social connections, connections critical in the new barbell economy.
Murray merely rewarmed the hash from the Bell Curve where he sublimated blacks and latinos to the serf class. They have been getting the economic short-end a lot longer that the formerly middle class and the newly-poor have.
Say hi to all the Bobos in Belmont for me. I could be living there with my education, income and wealth, but my orifices tend to pucker around so much piety, self-righteouness and sanctimonius claims to entitlement.
I don’t think so. I think that the causality runs the other way, that the perverse behaviors of the poor are what keep them poor, and that is what Murray is saying as well.
As for “piety, self-righteouness and sanctimonius claims to entitlement”, we need more of it. We live in a country where people who graduate high school, get married before they have kids, stay married, and work have an extremely low poverty rate. We live in a country where the poor consist of people who don’t work, who have kids out of wedlock, who have multiple divorces, and who have not even graduated from high school.
We need more sanctimony, not less. Our “Thou Shalt Not Judge” society doesn’t work.
Doug,
You are correct. I went to a classic liberal arts college and had to take a couple anthropology classes. The current patriacrchial nuclear family is just a blink of an eye in human history. And with many women in the workforce and making their way sin the world, it may go the way of the defined-benefit pension plan. (I don’t know where that analogy came from., but it sounds good.)
I like it! No one really remembers a dodo any more, but some of our elders may have a dim recollection of the defined-benefit pension plan.
All groups need to share the blame for failing students: Administrators, teachers, parents, community leaders and politicians.
My suggestion, although small, is that those people who are successful
should volunteer to participate in local Big Brother Big Sister and other mentoring programs. Unfortunately, the person who is too often selected by the school system to be the “coordinator” for these type of voluntary programs, expects to draw a decent salary.
Digger Phelps, when it is outside of ESPN basketball season, has been one of the biggest (unpaid) cheerleaders for establishing mentoring programs with South Bend schools. People like him should be
commended.
A couple of observations –that will be jumped on no doubt: a) The bell curve is reality and unrealistic outcomes, no matter how many mandates political types make, will not change that. Have you checked what is expected of first graders–this is taken from a mid year first grade test (they are expected to read and answer questions) “Some kinds of scientists set up labs by the deep sea. They check reefs and seals and fish in the sea.—-“. It is no longer “See Jane run” type of material. b) people can have goals, morals, and self discipline without getting in within the framework of any religious setting and they can teach and seek to instill those values within their children as well as the “every time the church doors are open you are to be there” type.