Inkster! Such an awful reputation...

I don't think it's money, either. In high school I once wrote an essay with the thesis that since pouring money into schools did NOT lead to success, that maybe we should try witholding funds from schools that fail. If the school kept failing, get rid of it.

My teacher completely disagreed. (I don't live in Inkster, BTW) Years later I am finally seeing policy in line with my views.

Er--not policy, so much as studies and noises about how maybe we should try holding schools accountable for all the money we dump into them. I don't recall if the decision for the mayor to take over Detroit schools actually netted good results yet, but you gotta figure it can't be worse.

Don't know much about Metro Detroit schools but I am familiar with Metro Grand Rapids schools. Some suburban districts which are politically very right wing spend twice as much per student than is spent in racially diverse Grand Rapids. Our right wing neighbors continuely claim per child spending has nothing to do with student performance. So why don't they insist on cutting per student spending on the own children?
The two most important factors affecting student performance are how well educated the parents are and the total number of students at a particular school. Smart parents have smart kids. The more kids there are in a school building the worse their test scores will be.
Teachers have always claimed that parental involvement is the most important factor in student performance so why not pay parents based on how much their childern learn? A few hundred bucks per student year would probably get a lot more homework done and improve attendance in our poverty pockets significantly.

I place much of the blame on teachers unions and the Education Depts. of the colleges.

A teacher has to practically molest a student on tape to get fired here in Arizona, bad apples never get fired without massive scandal.

And a degree in Education is not much more than a certification that you've swallowed the PC dogma of the academy. Hell, these people can't even figure out how to teach children to read, when phonics has been proven time and again to do the trick very well, and the evil 'word recognition' they are fond of lately is a large part of the trouble.

And now they are going on in some quarters about math being culturally relative!! Madness!!!

So I don't think it's about money either, it's cultural experimentation by unaccountable Education Depts. that's largely to blame.

Faddish neophilia has it's place in cultural and technological evolution, but flitting about to the latest 'new thing' with the curricula is NOT it's place.

Why is it with such a decrepit school system that the U.S. leads the world in worker productivity and technological innovations? How do all those poorly educated soldiers run roughshod over the best troops of Saddam? It's because our right wing masters only want good workers and soldiers who will lack the ability to ask good questions and be politically savvy enough to protect their own economic interests.

I gotta weigh in here. First, I taught in inner-city Camden, N.J. and Philadelphia in a program for returned Peace Corps volunteers -- after two years of teaching in Central Africa. My experience led me to believe (not prove, just believe) a few things about the situation:

There is plenty of blame to go around. Virtually every major and minor constituency of inner-city Philadelphia schools has a lot to answer for. And it starts, not with teachers, but with the community. The problem is there's a break with reality and to address reality is politically impossible. And society has shown that even with the situation "hitting bottom" people will simply turn away. It's been this way for decades, BTW.

The problem in the classroom is discipline. The kids know they can be disrespectful and disruptive and are willing to pay whatever consequences (which are light) for their behavior. These are tough kids. Unless there are strong behaviorial consequences for misbehavior, nothing can be done. Teachers are hamstrung -- yes, there are brilliant and talented teachers who overcome all obstacles, but you don't design an effective system based on that.

The problem with the teachers and administrators is that they are in an impossible situation. And madness breeds madness.

The problem with the school system is it was designed, frankly, for a time when there was massive discrimination against women in other fields, so the best and brightest women had little choice but to become teachers. Those women are now CEOs, surgeons, lawyers and other high-powered fields. The current generation of teachers are not superhumans -- they're just regular working schmoes and the workload is VERY heavy. The system needs to be redesigned to take that into account. Yes, there are plenty of talented folks teaching -- but the system was built on extraordinary quality.

The problem with the community is fathers don't raise their children, the people have children too young, and the parents don't have skills to pass on to their children. The level of illegitimacy has caused a fundamental breakdown of the community. The parents, uneducated, are usually without manners, quick to claim victimhood, and who have few skills to pass on to their children.

The only answer I saw was this... Perhaps a massive voucher program (I mean 100% of dollars per student) that would allow local churches to receive voucher money and run schools that can rebuild the communities. From the community outward, block by block. I have faith that the local pastors and the grandmothers and the remnant are strong enough, given the resources, to pull it off.

At least in Philadelphia, there are churches everywhere and plenty of useful housing stock to put in small schools. You can't tell me at $9k per student that each church couldn't handle 50 to 100 kids, recreating tight-knit communities within the city, where the kids will get individual attention and support from friends and neighbors in the community.

Almost anything else seems like half-measures.

Yes, there would need to be local school boards (it's tax money after all) to protect against local abuses.

FWIW.

Tom:
The two most important factors affecting student performance are how well educated the parents are and the total number of students at a particular school.
# 1- if true, how did student performance ever improve? By this logic, student performance could never improve, and children could never exceed their parents' education levels.

#2- I would like to see some hard evidence of this statement.

"Why is it with such a decrepit school system that the U.S. leads the world in worker productivity and technological innovations?"

I suggest because poor student performance is based on the AVERAGE of all students. There are many schools in the US turning out highly educated and capable students.

"How do all those poorly educated soldiers run roughshod over the best troops of Saddam?"

FYI, the days of infantry troops being considered "cannon fodder" went out with the draft, if not earlier. Those "poorly-educated soldiers" you speak of so disparagingly actually have earned advanced degrees in the most difficult of ALL fields: how to stay alive while making some other bastard die for his country (hat tip to George Patton)

Amen to Bill in Philly. The comments I made previously were a sarcastic bite at right wing public school bashers who want to lead America back to the 19th century. I can't recall when in the past several years I read those reports about school size and SAT scores but what stood out in the report was that rural Utah schools led the nation in spite of relatively poor funding. It showed schools with less than 300 students outperformed the mega-suburban schools with 2000 or more students despite more than double per student funding.
The only time in our history when one generation out performed their parents was post WW2 GI bill veterans hit the books. By the time Vietnam vets got a chance the educational benefits were much less. Of course there are exceptions but on average the Vietnam vets who earned degrees were sons of WW2 vets with degrees.

>>Why is it with such a decrepit school system that the U.S. leads the world in worker productivity and technological innovations? How do all those poorly educated soldiers run roughshod over the best troops of Saddam? It's because our right wing masters only want good workers and soldiers who will lack the ability to ask good questions and be politically savvy enough to protect their own economic interests.

====================================

Tom,

Do you see this as part of the New World Order?

7Why does nobody else mention the abolishment of the Department of Education (DOE)? How can their micromanaging improve anything? I personally believe we can very easily live without it. The DOE dictates expensive programming at public schools for things unrelated to education. We can save taxpayers so many dollars over the years by round filing this useless government department.

I wish to mention another side note that is a bugbear of mine. Public education as practiced in America today is about jobs; it is not about the kids. A recently published book “The Worm in the Apple” illustrates this. I can easily illustrate this with one example from our worst public education system in Michigan, Detroit.

In mid-December, 2002 Detroit's channel 7 Action News ferret visited a grade school whose name I do not remember. The first scene showed the newsman asking the principal “Where are the computers?” She replied, “Go ask media services.” The newsman repeated his request, “You are the principal you should know. Where are the computers?” Again the principal repeated in a more irritated tone, “Go ask media services.” Finally, the channel 7 newsman asked this principal one more time, “Where are the computers?” The principal answered more irritated than ever, “Go ask media services!”

The next scene was taken in the grade school offices when this same newsman asked a woman at a computer less desk, “Where is your computer?” The woman looked like Starvin’ Marvin when walking rapidly away from the television camera.

The final scene showed the channel 7 Action News ferret back on the steps of the grade school. He stated this grade school purchased 674 pieces of computer equipment. Only 16 of those 674 pieces of computer equipment were actually in the classroom! That is 2.37% of the total computer equipment Detroit taxpayers purchased for this one school. The rest of the computer equipment went home with JANITORS, office staff, and teachers. The school staff received over 97.62% off all the computer equipment intended for the children.

This is proof positive that public education is about jobs; it’s not about the kids.

kevin bremer:

That story is stunning- why do you think it didn't get national exposure?

A:- Because it doesn't fit with what Democrats "feel" is right.

"My mind is made up! Don't confuse me with facts!!
-unknown Democrat

"Could it be that the story didn't get national attention because most of the country doesn't give a damn about how poor children are neglected by the right wing owners of mass media. The media's place is in telling us about the murder of an affluent white woman in California. The more poorly educated children we have now means the more poorly paid workers available in the future. The people of Grosse Pointe don't want their children to have to compete with blacks and hispanics for the high paying management positions in the auto industry.
As a life long resident of West Michigan I believe it will take many years for Detroit to heal abcess of corruption that Coleman Young and his cronies let fester for decades. Besides 674 pieces of computer equipment is only 1 piece for about every 100 students in Detroit.

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I enjoyed reading this thoughtful article. Great work.

Interesting, well researched and informative, but I'm not sure I totally agree