Stupid Educators in America

Some nasty things are going on in America's public schools and it's about time we face up to it. Kids at New York's Abraham Lincoln High School said their teachers are so dull students fall asleep in class. One student said, "You see kids all the time walking in the school smoking weed, you know. It's a normal thing here."

At Woodrow Wilson High, one of the best schools in America, one teacher didn't have control over the kids, another videotaped a boy dancing wildly with his shirt off, in front of his teacher.
A Gallup Poll survey showed 76 percent of Americans were completely or somewhat satisfied with their kids' public school. Education reformers have a message for these parents: If you only knew.

Many education professionals say Americans don't know that their public schools, on the whole, just aren't that good. Because without competition, parents don't know what their kids might have had, and while many people say, "We need to spend more money on our schools," there actually isn't a link between spending and student achievement. Jay Greene, author of "Education Myths," points out that "If money were the solution, the problem would already be solved … We've doubled per pupil spending, adjusting for inflation, over the last 30 years, and yet schools aren't better." He's absolutely right. National graduation rates and achievement scores are flat, while spending on education has increased more than 100 percent since 1971. More money hasn't helped American kids.

Schools do not need more money, people! Regardless of how much they scream, or how many threats they hurl at you, more money will not help your children.
Ben Chavis is a former public school principal who now runs an alternative charter school in Oakland, Calif., and spends thousands of dollars less per student than the surrounding public schools. He laughs at the public schools' complaints about money. "That is the biggest lie in America. They waste money," he said.

How do U.S. students perform compared with their European counterparts?
Belgian kids cleaned the American kids' clocks, and called them "stupid." We didn't pick smart kids to test in Europe and dumb kids in the United States. The American students attend an above-average school in New Jersey, and New Jersey's kids have test scores that are above average for America.

Lov Patel, the boy who got the highest score among the American students, told me, "I'm shocked, because it just shows how advanced they are compared to us." The Belgian students didn't perform better because they're smarter than American students. They performed better because their schools are better.

American schools don't teach as well as schools in other countries because they are government monopolies, and monopolies don't have much incentive to compete. In Belgium, by contrast, the money is attached to the kids — it's a kind of voucher system. Government funds education — at many different kinds of schools — but if a school can't attract students, it goes out of business.
Belgian school principal Kaat Vandensavel said she works hard to impress parents. She said, "If we don't offer parents what they want for their child, they won't come to our school." She constantly improves the teaching, saying, "You can't afford 10 teachers out of 160 that don't do their work, because the parents will know, and won't come to you again."
Statistics show that the longer kids stay in American schools, the worse they do in international competition. They do worse than kids from poorer countries that spend much less money on education, ranking behind not only Belgium but also Poland, the Czech Republic and South Korea. This should come as no surprise if you remember that public education in the United States is a government monopoly. Don't like your public school? Too bad. The school is terrible? So what. Your taxes fund that school regardless of whether it's good or bad. That's why government monopolies routinely fail their citizens. Union-dominated monopolies are even worse.

Across the nation, it's virtually impossible to fire a bad teacher. Said one school executive, "We tolerate teacher mediocrity, because people get paid the same, whether they're outstanding, average or way below average." The executive also stated – "he employs dozens of teachers who he's afraid to let near the kids," so he has them sit in what are called rubber rooms. This year he will spend $20 million dollars to warehouse teachers in five rubber rooms. It's an alternative to firing them.

Many people say education tax vouchers are a terrible idea, that they'll drain money from public schools and give it to private ones. In fact, a Florida court ruled against vouchers after teacher Ruth Holmes Cameron and union sponsored advocacy groups brought a suit to block the program. She argued that, "To say that competition is going to improve education? It's just not gonna work. You know competition is not for children. It's not for human beings. It's not for public education. It never has been, it never will be," Holmes said.

Now, ask yourself these very simple questions - Would you keep going back to a restaurant that served you a bad meal? Or a hair stylist that gave you a bad haircut? Or a Cell Phone provider that dropped 30% of your calls? What if the government assigned you to "your" grocery store. The store wouldn't have to compete for your business, and it would soon sell spoiled milk or stock only high profit items. Real estate agencies would sell houses advertising "neighborhood with a good grocery store." That's insane, and yet that's what America does with public schools.
Chavous, who has worked to get more school choice in Washington, D.C., said, "Choice to me is the only way. I believe that we can force the system from an external vantage point to change itself. It will never change itself from within. … Unless there is some competition infused in the equation, unless that occurs, then they know they have a captive monopoly that they can continue to dominate." Competition inspires people to do what we didn't think we could do.

If people got to choose their kids' school, education options would be endless. There could soon be technology schools, science schools, virtual schools where you learn at home on your computer, sports schools, music schools, schools that go all year, schools with uniforms, schools that open early and keep kids later, and, who knows what else. If there were competition, all kinds of new ideas would bloom. http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/story?id=1500338

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