There’s a lot to be said for "thinking outside the
box."
Especially when you consider the political credentials and
agenda of those who have spent the better part of their lives building that
box.
Just how much of the information that we’ve been spoon fed
by the mainstream media is less than factual, we may never know. But a
recent study just published in Insight Magazine by the American Legislative
Exchange Council (or ALEC) should give many of us cause to pause.
Most of us who would describe ourselves as Christians or
conservatives have already seen through the lie that public education would
dramatically improve if only we would throw more money at the problem. The
liberals in Congress who act as business agents for the National Education
Association raise the issue of raises as their biennial battle cry. Whenever
election time rolls around, they make sure their supporters in the classroom
know they’re willing to reload their fiscal scatter guns at the public
trough and fire a few greenbacks at the wall of ignorance in America, hoping
that a few might stick.
We’ve seen studies in the past that parochial and private
schoolteachers have produced superior results with fewer resources. So,
dollars alone can’t be the answer.
The new, bipartisan, ALEC study supports that conclusion.
Despite a 22.8 percent increase in federal spending on
public education over the past two decades adjusted for inflation, we find
that fewer than half of all U.S. eighth graders are proficient in reading.
When it comes to math, the numbers are even less encouraging.
Here’s where the story takes an interesting turn…the
point where our paradigms will be challenged and faulty assumptions should
be corrected. I, for one, have never bothered to question whether more
teachers or smaller class sizes would automatically improve the quality of
public education. When you repeat the lie often enough, it’s simply
accepted as truth.
Does smaller class size correlate with higher student
achievement? That sacred cow of the liberal education establishment was
butchered by the ALEC report, which found no connection between the two.
Andrew T. LeFevre, one of the authors of the report and
director of ALEC’s Education Task Force told Insight, "The
debate we’ve been having for the last 25 years has focused on dollars,
class size or more teachers. These are easy for legislators and media to
grasp and report.’ He says the "education establishment is stuck on
the same themes to the exclusion of whether these issues correlate with
student achievement."
Le Fevre continued, "We need to move the debate from
paying teachers more money to coming up with a way to pay teachers who do a
good job more money…and we need a system to find those teachers."
There you have it. The answer is not to be found in pay
raises for teachers but merit raises for good teachers. Such a simple
concept. So long ignored.
Why, then, can’t the Bush Administration read the writing
on the wall? Why is this champion of "conservative" values willing
to throw $2.5 billion of our tax dollars down the failed old rat hole? The
Bush budget for the next fiscal year would increase federal education
spending by yet another 5.9 percent.
When questioned about whether the ALEC report was considered
when determining the 2002 education budget, the White House chose not to
respond.
Looks to me like a classic case of "same old, same
old." When it comes to the political curs that run things in
Washington, it appears to be true.
"You can’t teach an old dog new tricks."