Posted on 01/21/2006 10:01:30 PM PST by Coleus
Education increasingly determines the outcome of economic competition, on both the individual and collective levels. Yet educational competition is lacking in the United States, where many schools remain mired in a pattern of academic failure that puts our nation - and our children - in long-term economic peril.
The school choice movement aims to provide that competitive spark through charter schools, tax credits and vouchers. Like any initiative that takes on an entrenched bureaucracy, it has met intense resistance and experienced setbacks, including the recent Florida Supreme Court ruling scrapping that state's voucher program. That opinion, it should be noted, dealt specifically with the wording of that state's constitution and by no means rules out vouchers in all states.
ABC's "20/20" addressed this critical issue last week with a full-hour program bluntly titled "Stupid in America: How We Cheat Our Kids." Host John Stossel reported from several sites across the nation, including South Carolina, telling viewers of Gov. Mark Sanford's attempts to expand school choice and competition through tax credits. He also told viewers those attempts have been unsuccessful so far, in part because "PTAs even sent kids home with a letter saying, 'Contact your legislator. How can we spend state money on something that hasn't been proven?' "
But what has been virtually proven at some schools in our state is the apparent inevitability of low standards, low expectations and low test scores. Mr. Stossel, hailing the indisputable benefits of competition in business, argued that public education's status quo is overdue for market-driven improvements: "When monopolies rule, there is little choice, and little gets done."
And while it's unfair to blame public schools for every failing student, the "20/20" focus on an 18-year-old South Carolinian strongly supported the choice case. Mr. Stossel reported that the youngster, despite his mother's repeated efforts and supposedly expert attention from public-school officials, "was still struggling to read a single sentence in a first-grade level book when I met him. Although his public schools had spent nearly $100,000 on him over 12 years, he still couldn't read." Then "20/20" sent him to a private learning center, where his reading level went up two grade levels after only 72 hours of instruction.
Mr. Stossel also refuted familiar education-establishment calls for more school spending, citing the doubling of U.S. per-pupil outlays (adjusted for inflation) over the last three decades. He also pointed out the sharp contrast between our "government monopoly" and the highly successful schools of Belgium, where "the money is attached to the kids." And in Belgium, "if a school can't attract students, it goes out of business."
Harvard economist Caroline Hoxby told Mr. Stossel: "That's normal in Western Europe. If schools don't perform well, a parent would never be trapped in that school in the same way you could be trapped in the U.S."
And if our schools don't start performing better, many of our children will continue to be trapped in educational futility that threatens their futures.
Stupid in America -- Why your kids are probably dumber than Belgians
WHO DOESN'T CARE? [re: "Stupid in America: How We Are Cheating Our Kids" on ABC-TV tonight]
So it goes ... as the outsourcing of jobs continues apace.
There's alot of that last sentence for a lot of people. Competition around here means loading up some schools with regulations while others don't have much at all.
Good article. Thanks for posting.
Another glaring example of why socialism doesn't work.
Competition will always give you the best product at the lowest possible cost.
Ping!
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