Posted on 04/12/2018 9:19:47 AM PDT by Bob Celeste
How To Fix Public Education In 24 Hours Have you ever spent an entire afternoon playing Monopoly with your family? Monopoly always sounds like a great idea when you first pull the box off the shelf and count out the money. But, before long, the game becomes kind of miserable and everyone ends up mad at each other. That shouldn’t come as a surprise.
The game is called Monopoly for a reason.
Teachers work for a monopoly that is controlled by the state. Having a monopoly on a product or service only works for the owner of the monopoly and no one else. Customers must pay whatever price the monopolist demands, employees must work for whatever the monopolist is willing to pay, and the owner has no reason to improve his product as there is no competition. Neither the customer or the employee has a choice and the only ones benefiting are those at the top of the monopoly.
The government education monopoly is even worse as there is motivation by legislators to never actually make the teacher’s happy. Consider our current situation in Oklahoma. Our history includes HB1017 (the largest tax increase ever to fix education), then legalized horse racing, bingo, casinos, lottery, liquor by the drink and this week ball and dice gaming was passed and in every case the reason was to pay the teachers. So, where is the money?
The most important part of education is the classroom. The classroom and the teachers should be funded first. So why aren’t they? Oklahoma has a state minimum wage for teachers, but each district is free to pay their teachers as much as they like. Amazingly, there is always money for countless superintendents, deputy superintendents, press boxes and football stadiums. It’s not a revenue problem, it is a priority and management problem.
For some reason, we never see the Department of Education and Joy Hoffmeister threatening to strike. Apparently, their funds are getting through. The $52 million plus in salaries for the over 500 district superintendents seems to be getting through, as well, as they never threaten to strike.
Why is it teachers are the only group in the state always complaining about wages? Because they work for a monopoly controlled by state.
By the way, what government agency actually works efficiently? DMV? DHS? Social Security is bankrupt? The Affordable Care Act caused my premiums to quadruple! So why do we trust the government to run education efficiently?
There is an easy fix. Free the teachers. Let me share a real example.
In 1980, the minimum wage in the NFL was $30,000 per season. Players worked for a monopoly. They either played for the team that owned their rights for the amount that team was willing to pay or changed careers. In 1982, the USFL was created. There was competition and by 1985 the average salary in the NFL jumped to $212,000 per year. Then in 1987 players became free agents and they could choose to market their services to any team. This year the average salary in the NFL was $2.4 million per year. In 45 years, teacher’s salaries have increased 3x and NFL salaries have increased 80x.
Here is the solution.
Instead of handing $13,240 a student to the State Department of Education and trusting them to manage it (which they obviously aren’t doing well), put that money into an educational savings account controlled by the family (it’s the people’s money anyway) that could only be spent on education
Then let all schools, public and private, compete for the best teachers and compete to earn clients (students) by the quality of their product. If parents want their children to be taught social justice, climate change and transgenderism, they can send their kids to those schools. For parents that prefer quality reading, writing, arithmetic, real science and history, they can send their kids to schools that emphasize those classes. The quality of education will be fixed overnight, and parental control will be returned.
Public schools should excel as they already have the facilities, buses and personnel. The only way they don’t win is if they don’t provide a product the parents want at a price that is competitive.
Teachers will immediately have choices. When a known great teacher is on the free market, he/she might demand $100,000 in the first year. Great teachers will be paid great, good teachers will have a financial incentive to become great and average teachers will be motivated to improve.
If students don’t ride the bus, play sports or if they decide to bring their lunch from home, then they will save money. Any money left in their education account can be rolled over. If a student graduates high school with money left in his/her ESA, they can use it for college or trade school, reducing needs for student loans.
The teachers win. The parents win. The students win. Colleges win. The only ones that lose will be the unions who are constantly stirring seeds of dissatisfaction to justify their existence, educational bureaucrats that will no longer have a reason for existence (Can’t each school district choose its own curriculum and manage its own affairs?) and politicians that won’t be able to use the teachers as a tools for their next big tax increase or pet project to raise revenue – for the teachers.
With the passing of HB1010, the people of Oklahoma are angry, as their will has been ignored. The poor and middle class will be paying more at the pump. The middle class will suffer as they can’t write off their mortgage insurance and the life blood of Oklahoma (energy) will be punished with higher taxes.
The teachers will celebrate for the short term, thinking they’ve won something, but it won’t be long until the legislature figures out a way to diminish pension contributions or some other benefits because we now must fix our prisons, health department and decaying bridges. Within five years the union will have the teachers spitting mad again and ready to walk out on the kids. Where will the legislature turn next? Perhaps they’ll legalize prostitution, so they can tax it. After all, its for the children.
For such a time as this,
I would love to hear serious comments by folks who understand that our system of public education is a wreck.
Please no NEA propagandist, that is not what this post is for.
How To Fix Public Education In 24 Hours
Reclaiming America For Christ ^ | April 2018 | Paul Blair
Posted on 4/7/2018 7:02:29 PM by alexandriagreen
Instead of handing $13,240 a student to the State Department of Education and trusting them to manage it (which they obviously aren’t doing well), put that money into an educational savings account controlled by the family (it’s the people’s money anyway) that could only be spent on education
Then let all schools, public and private, compete for the best teachers and compete to earn clients (students) by the quality of their product. If parents want their children to be taught social justice, climate change and transgenderism, they can send their kids to those schools. For parents that prefer quality reading, writing, arithmetic, real science and history, they can send their kids to schools that emphasize those classes. The quality of education will be fixed overnight, and parental control will be returned.
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted-p0.vresp.com ...
Teachers and administrators are invested in keeping the system as is.
Outside competition and school choice are the only way to pierce the bubble.
Stopped reading right there. The money will immediately be spent on drugs or bling and not a dime for education.
Sounds like you actually stopped reading before you got through the final seven words of what you pasted.
But plenty of parents will spend the money on education. And their kids will always need the other kids as peons.
In Texas, only 34% of money funded to education goes to teachers’ salaries. The rest goes to administration, new buildings, equipment, etc.
put that money into an educational savings account controlled by the family (it’s the people’s money anyway) that could only be spent on education
Stopped reading right there. The money will immediately be spent on drugs or bling and not a dime for education.
_____________
I don’t think the money would be placed in their hands. They would just have a say on where it goes.
Education was pretty good until Jimmy Carter started the Department of Education and giving out money..
And get rid of the welfare state because if some lazy decides to not get balanced educatin they can always live off the work of those who chose to get a valuable education.
Getting rid of the welfare state will go a long way toward fixing the immigration problem.
You fix it the way you could fix a lot of things in this country. Throw away progressive liberalism and return to the way things were done in the past. I didn’t grow up with this nonsense. For the very few kids that tried to be disruptive- It was not tolerated.
It isn’t merely about inadequate funding for the classroom (NOT bureaucrats in admin or lawyers out to “get” teachers). It is about politicians with no background in education calling the shots as to curriculum, school disciplinary procedures, suspensions, etc. without any input from experienced educators. It is about kids coming to school without adequate socialization, causing highly disruptive behavior and ruining the lesson for all. And it is about not valuing education to enable you to earn a living, because you’re only gonna go on welfare for life or commit crimes to get your money.
Brilliant!
Greetings!
This was enough of a reasoned approach it made me dust off my user ID. I am a former software engineer who made and invested enough money so I can afford to teach *grin. I wanted to give back, and I teach Math and Programming (I’m the tough teacher that all the kids thanks after they come back after their first year of college math).
I’d love to be able to negotiate - there are a lot of stumbling blocks to that in public ed (for example, if I transfer to another district, they will only give credit for up to 5 years of work, despite the fact that I have 12).
My only concern, and I don’t see this mentioned (that’s why I am posting): special needs kids. I co-teach (I work with a special ed teacher who also knows math) to help kids succeed who just need a little more .... Kids on the autism spectrum, mild learning disabilities, etc. In this open bidding model, I’m not sure who is going to line up to service the kids who have significant needs - and I am sure that the many parents simply won’t have the $$$. See, that part of education is treated more like a public utility than a monopoly - every one is guaranteed some form of education (even here in AZ, that’s in the constitution). If that goes away, a lot of Downs, severely disabled won’t have any place to go, or they’ll be back in the basement classrooms like 40 years ago.
So please, sign me up, I’d love to make more than $53K for a BS in Comp Sci, MBA in IT and a MaEd. But I’d have a tough time leaving those kids who’s parents’ contributions to the HSE just isn’t enough.
Post & thread BUMP!
Please no NEA propagandist, that is not what this post is for.
It looks like the only way to get out of the education fiscal disaster will be technology—and it is not technology that makes me comfortable.
Each child has a microchip placed on them—with all the knowledge in the world.
No more schools, no more teachers, no universities—all gone.
That technology is probably less than a generation away—and it would probably be able to work with any kid with any disability.
Thank you, Special needs may be a place for church or homes schools.
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