Educational Bankruptcy
U.S. education is well below the level of excellence Americans demand in their other industries. Most of us don’t even see education as an industry. We don’t see students as customers or teachers as employees. Unfortunately, many parents see public schools as free child care and neglect their obligation to their children’s education. Most students do not pay for their education, their parents do. That’s one reason for a less business oriented setting, e.g. when a teacher ends a class early or cancels it completely the students are usually happy because they’re not paying for it. That problem is intrinsic to the education industry. Young people cannot afford an education and that’s when they need it, so their parents pay. There is another middle-man in the education industry, the state.
Some time long ago the government got into the education business too. Now most American children go to government schools paid for by property taxes of the local area regardless if the tax payers have children attending the school. The parents of the area in effect get a subsidy for government education but at a cost, the quality of their children’s education. You get what you pay for, and pay for, and pay for. Spending has never been higher for U.S. education. “Nearly $373 billion of revenues were raised to fund public education for grades pre-kindergarten through 12 in school year 1999–2000. An average of $6,911 was spent on each student—an increase from $6,508 in school year 1998–99 (in unadjusted dollars),” (policyalmanac.org). That increase wasn’t made to fund the system because of a growing student population; the increase was made per student with the idea the more we spend the better the education. “Unfortunately, there is ample evidence that simply spending more money on education will not improve student achievement,” (policyalmanac.org). If the public school system was a private business it would have gone bankrupt long ago, yet the government invests more and more each year.
And the more we pay the less we get. Compared to other industrialized nations and past U.S. education levels, current levels have been low and for a long time. “For example, long-term trend data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for 9-year-olds show that reading and math achievement has been nearly flat over the past decade. Results from the 2000 NAEP reading assessment confirmed that the reading skills of the Nation's 4th graders have remained unchanged for 8 years, with 37 percent of those tested scoring below Basic,” (policyalmanac.org). Community colleges like our own, are adding remedial courses to the catalog to teach things that should have been covered in high-school and even middle-school. Elementary algebra, for example I took in 8th grade, is offered at STLCC.
School choice, the ability of parents to choose schools and schools to choose students, is improving with charter schools and vouchers, but does not go far enough. For most parents to choose their child’s school they have to pick a school district to live in and poor parents that need low rents to get by are forced into the worst school districts. It’s not enough to accept the status quo and the slow pace of educational reform. The No Child Left Behind Act is designed to make schools accountable for federal funds, again a good idea in the right direction that does not go far enough. Government schools get the majority of their funding from local property taxes. To make schools really accountable, all of their funding should be accountable to the quality of education provided, not just the sliver provided by the feds.
My solution is an American educational revolution to privatize education and create incentives to the private sector in the education industry. The state, from a moral perspective should not force taxpayers to pay for education. The person receiving the education, or their parents, should pay the provider. Not one taxpayer’s dollar should be spent on education, including college scholarships. The U.S. Department of Education should be dissolved. All government schools should be shut down and sold to private schools at cheap prices to encourage investment. These schools’ union contracts should also disappear with the government money giving the U.S. educational system a clean slate. Tax cuts should be given to the U.S. education industry to encourage entrepreneurs to invest. How much does this revolution cost? Actually it should save money, so in effect, we will pay less and get more. Property taxes everywhere would fall; parents would pay more, but for society as a whole, privatization will cost less. In fact there is money to be made for those that can get into the freed industry.
Our politicians will say that education is a benefit for all our citizens, a necessity, or that it prevents crime (build more schools not more prisons), so we as a society must provide an education to all. Our society should provide education for all, privately. Education is a necessity in today’s competitive world. Jobs, healthcare, pensions, food, transportation, clothing, and shelter are necessities too; should the government provide them as it does education? It’s true an educated person isn’t as likely to be a criminal, but that doesn’t mean government schools are preventing crime or that it is essential that the government schools do the educating. The government isn’t delivering on its promise to give an education. How does someone that drops out of school, or scores low on tests get an education? When do we say enough is enough and abandon this farce?
Oh no, what about the poor parents that can’t afford those expensive private schools? Right now private schools are more expensive for parents because most parents can’t get vouchers and in effect have to pay twice for their child’s education. Another reason private schools are expensive is that they offer better educations than public schools, so naturally they charge more and parents that can afford it will pay. If our government schools weren’t holding the majority of our nation’s students hostage, cheaper private schools would spring up to serve the lower-income parents.
Are poor parents’ children getting good educations in government schools? Because school funding largely comes from local tax payers in poor areas public schools have very little funding and produce some of the worst schools in the nation. In many inner city government schools, a kind of de facto economic segregation exists. It would be better to shut down these failing schools to free the captive students. Or at least give welfare in a more practical way via school stamps to subsidize poor parents’ education costs. In the grocery industry, the government offers food stamps, not government run markets that waste lots of money and offer low-grade products. What about the good public schools in areas with good funding? Money is getting wasted, education is getting subsidized by local taxpayers, the cost of the education is overpriced (because local taxes are too high), and often the government raises taxes in the name of funding education, only to spend the funding on non-education related government priorities.
A bi-product of privatizing the American education system would be a solution to all those cultural and social issues causing so much disagreement today. School prayer, evolution vs. intelligent design, under god in the pledge of allegiance, school dress codes, and many other issues wouldn’t need to be handled by the school boards. Parents could take their children out of schools they don’t approve of, and schools could expel students. Does that mean that students could get kicked out of school for arbitrary reasons, or not accepted on bases of race? Maybe, but then that school would be swiftly sued for racial discrimination, and you wouldn’t want to send your child to a school like that anyway. But that wouldn’t happen, racism and other forms of discrimination give into greed. Post Civil War southern businesses didn’t segregate themselves; the state had to regulate them to prevent them from serving blacks.
Bankruptcy for a business that can’t make a profit is part of the natural economic cycle. Think of the economy as a rainforest; trees are industries, sunlight and water are investors and sales, and the fruit is the product the education that the student receives. If we cut down the huge government education tree that takes in more and more resources from the rainforest and produces low grade fruit, other trees can grow in its place that are more efficient, produce more better fruit and take in fewer resources. The Government adventure into education hasn’t kept its promise and U.S. education isn’t competitive with the rest of the world and wastes a great deal of money. More government programs, regulations, or laws aren’t the solution to this problem; government is the problem.
Work Cited
Johnson, Frank “Revenues and Expenditures for Public Elementary and Secondary Education: School Year 1999–2000" U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. May 16, 2002 Dec. 11, 2005.
Some time long ago the government got into the education business too. Now most American children go to government schools paid for by property taxes of the local area regardless if the tax payers have children attending the school. The parents of the area in effect get a subsidy for government education but at a cost, the quality of their children’s education. You get what you pay for, and pay for, and pay for. Spending has never been higher for U.S. education. “Nearly $373 billion of revenues were raised to fund public education for grades pre-kindergarten through 12 in school year 1999–2000. An average of $6,911 was spent on each student—an increase from $6,508 in school year 1998–99 (in unadjusted dollars),” (policyalmanac.org). That increase wasn’t made to fund the system because of a growing student population; the increase was made per student with the idea the more we spend the better the education. “Unfortunately, there is ample evidence that simply spending more money on education will not improve student achievement,” (policyalmanac.org). If the public school system was a private business it would have gone bankrupt long ago, yet the government invests more and more each year.
And the more we pay the less we get. Compared to other industrialized nations and past U.S. education levels, current levels have been low and for a long time. “For example, long-term trend data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for 9-year-olds show that reading and math achievement has been nearly flat over the past decade. Results from the 2000 NAEP reading assessment confirmed that the reading skills of the Nation's 4th graders have remained unchanged for 8 years, with 37 percent of those tested scoring below Basic,” (policyalmanac.org). Community colleges like our own, are adding remedial courses to the catalog to teach things that should have been covered in high-school and even middle-school. Elementary algebra, for example I took in 8th grade, is offered at STLCC.
School choice, the ability of parents to choose schools and schools to choose students, is improving with charter schools and vouchers, but does not go far enough. For most parents to choose their child’s school they have to pick a school district to live in and poor parents that need low rents to get by are forced into the worst school districts. It’s not enough to accept the status quo and the slow pace of educational reform. The No Child Left Behind Act is designed to make schools accountable for federal funds, again a good idea in the right direction that does not go far enough. Government schools get the majority of their funding from local property taxes. To make schools really accountable, all of their funding should be accountable to the quality of education provided, not just the sliver provided by the feds.
My solution is an American educational revolution to privatize education and create incentives to the private sector in the education industry. The state, from a moral perspective should not force taxpayers to pay for education. The person receiving the education, or their parents, should pay the provider. Not one taxpayer’s dollar should be spent on education, including college scholarships. The U.S. Department of Education should be dissolved. All government schools should be shut down and sold to private schools at cheap prices to encourage investment. These schools’ union contracts should also disappear with the government money giving the U.S. educational system a clean slate. Tax cuts should be given to the U.S. education industry to encourage entrepreneurs to invest. How much does this revolution cost? Actually it should save money, so in effect, we will pay less and get more. Property taxes everywhere would fall; parents would pay more, but for society as a whole, privatization will cost less. In fact there is money to be made for those that can get into the freed industry.
Our politicians will say that education is a benefit for all our citizens, a necessity, or that it prevents crime (build more schools not more prisons), so we as a society must provide an education to all. Our society should provide education for all, privately. Education is a necessity in today’s competitive world. Jobs, healthcare, pensions, food, transportation, clothing, and shelter are necessities too; should the government provide them as it does education? It’s true an educated person isn’t as likely to be a criminal, but that doesn’t mean government schools are preventing crime or that it is essential that the government schools do the educating. The government isn’t delivering on its promise to give an education. How does someone that drops out of school, or scores low on tests get an education? When do we say enough is enough and abandon this farce?
Oh no, what about the poor parents that can’t afford those expensive private schools? Right now private schools are more expensive for parents because most parents can’t get vouchers and in effect have to pay twice for their child’s education. Another reason private schools are expensive is that they offer better educations than public schools, so naturally they charge more and parents that can afford it will pay. If our government schools weren’t holding the majority of our nation’s students hostage, cheaper private schools would spring up to serve the lower-income parents.
Are poor parents’ children getting good educations in government schools? Because school funding largely comes from local tax payers in poor areas public schools have very little funding and produce some of the worst schools in the nation. In many inner city government schools, a kind of de facto economic segregation exists. It would be better to shut down these failing schools to free the captive students. Or at least give welfare in a more practical way via school stamps to subsidize poor parents’ education costs. In the grocery industry, the government offers food stamps, not government run markets that waste lots of money and offer low-grade products. What about the good public schools in areas with good funding? Money is getting wasted, education is getting subsidized by local taxpayers, the cost of the education is overpriced (because local taxes are too high), and often the government raises taxes in the name of funding education, only to spend the funding on non-education related government priorities.
A bi-product of privatizing the American education system would be a solution to all those cultural and social issues causing so much disagreement today. School prayer, evolution vs. intelligent design, under god in the pledge of allegiance, school dress codes, and many other issues wouldn’t need to be handled by the school boards. Parents could take their children out of schools they don’t approve of, and schools could expel students. Does that mean that students could get kicked out of school for arbitrary reasons, or not accepted on bases of race? Maybe, but then that school would be swiftly sued for racial discrimination, and you wouldn’t want to send your child to a school like that anyway. But that wouldn’t happen, racism and other forms of discrimination give into greed. Post Civil War southern businesses didn’t segregate themselves; the state had to regulate them to prevent them from serving blacks.
Bankruptcy for a business that can’t make a profit is part of the natural economic cycle. Think of the economy as a rainforest; trees are industries, sunlight and water are investors and sales, and the fruit is the product the education that the student receives. If we cut down the huge government education tree that takes in more and more resources from the rainforest and produces low grade fruit, other trees can grow in its place that are more efficient, produce more better fruit and take in fewer resources. The Government adventure into education hasn’t kept its promise and U.S. education isn’t competitive with the rest of the world and wastes a great deal of money. More government programs, regulations, or laws aren’t the solution to this problem; government is the problem.
Work Cited
Johnson, Frank “Revenues and Expenditures for Public Elementary and Secondary Education: School Year 1999–2000" U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. May 16, 2002 Dec. 11, 2005.
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