Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Tax Spenders Want More Money

Great.

A statewide coalition of nine education organizations is set to launch publicly today a major push to substantially increase state support of education and to fix problems that it says are undermining the quality of schools in Wisconsin.

The coalition includes the politically influential Wisconsin Education Association Council teachers union and comes at a time when both houses of the Legislature have come under Democratic leadership.

[...]

At the convention, John Forrester, director of government relations for the statewide School Administrators Alliance, summed up what the participants agreed on:

“More is better. This is one of the things we all could agree on: More.”

Yes, I’m not shocked that a bunch of tax recipients want more tax money.  It makes their jobs easier when there’s enough money flowing through the system that they don’t actually have to prioritize or make hard choices. 

Of course, it’s not just about the money.  It’s also about trying to kill School Choice again.

• Increasing state payment for Milwaukee’s private school voucher program to 75% of the cost, up from the current level of 63%. At the same time, requiring voucher students to take the state’s standardized tests and teachers to have state certification.

Make no mistake… they want more of your money and they won’t take no for an answer.

(9) Comments
Posted by Owen at 1128 hrs
Politics + Politics - Wisconsin

  1. I disagree that more money = better results. I think that more money can help, but I don’t think that they directly correlate. If they are getting more money for more teachers, and decreasing the sizes of student classrooms, I think that money could be considered useful. But, using the money for almost ANYTHING else, is really a bad idea.

    But, I don’t see a problem forcing private schools to give the same standardized tests, and making the teachers all have the state certification. Why again is having a qualified and educated teacher a bad idea?

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on February 03, 2009 at 1257 hrs


  2. So increasing state payments for school choice is an attempt to kill the program now?  Interesting.

    Also, it’s funny how conservatives always demand accountability of government expenditures, but then when it comes to school choice, they don’t seem to give a rat’s behind whether we collect any data to find out if the program actually, you know, works.  In fact, they usually want to discourage data collection.  Meanwhile, they want audits and accountability for every other program under the sun.  Ah, the smell of hypocrisy on a Tuesday morning…

    I would agree, however, that requiring certification is silly.  What should matter is student achievement and nothing else.

    Posted by Recess Supervisor on February 03, 2009 at 1324 hrs


  3. What do you mean that requiring certs is “silly”??!!? Here is a nice scenario…

    A School hires a person to teach. Person isn’t certified. Said person is a bad “teacher”. Students lose 1 year of learning on everyone else. Congrats, your child is now behind.

    But wait… without standardized testing, how are we to KNOW that they are a bad teacher. Maybe that teacher lasts 2 years before they are found to be a poor teacher.

    Sorry but I want the teacher who my child would be relying on for their education to have some sort of certification by the state. Or at least be working towards that certification.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on February 03, 2009 at 1337 hrs


  4. Demanding accountability of government programs is necessary when fraud and waste are involved as is clearly the case with the child care program.  But for education, I would argue that things are different.

    Public education, by its unionized structure, does not allow for removal of a teacher due to incompetence.  Private educators can be fired for poor performance.  Therefore, what works for one does not necessarily work for the other.

    Standardized tests fall into this same category.  We need standardized tests in public schools because a tenured teacher has no external incentive to be a great teacher.  In privates schools, there is outside incentive to be a great teacher.

    If schools are accredited by the state and the parents of Choice students are happy with their results, good enough for me.  People seem to forget that these private Choice schools also have students attending whose parents pay out of their pockets for them to attend.  They will demand far more from that private school on average than public school parents.

    This isn’t hypocrisy, it is a clear recognition that public and private schools are very different entities.  And thank god for that.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on February 03, 2009 at 1502 hrs


  5. More facts:

    Most private schools do testing too - they just might not use the same one as the public schools.  Our last school used Iowa, our current one uses Stanford.

    Parochial schools (and most of the non-religious schools) are also accredited by the regional authorities like North Central.  They generally also have secondary accredidations from their synods or diocese.

    Teachers in these private schools are generally all products of the teaching programs of their synods as well.  If they aren’t they are required to complete the programs. 

    There have been a few abuses in some “store-front” choice schools that popped up.  But as they are found, they are shut down.  Most choice schools produce results.  Imagine if they shut down funding for every MPS school that is failing.

    The “failure of accountibility” is just the WEAC boogeyman to describe choice as evil and to cover up their own failures.  The biggest problem they have is that they are losing control of the system and the kids and they are striving to get it back.  Unfortunately - the D’s in the People’s Republic will give that power back to them for some juicy campaign contributions.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on February 03, 2009 at 1658 hrs


  6. @JonnyV: Most people who teach economics to, say, an 18-year-old college freshman can’t teach economics to, say, an 18-year-old high school senior.  Maybe we should make college professors take pointless classes in matters wholly unrelated to the content they teach in order to put them in front of your kids then, too.  Or does something magically change between high school and college? 

    I don’t really care if an educator has taken a bunch of BS classes in things that only the education establishment could love.  I’m not saying that teaching isn’t difficult.  I’m saying that the skills one needs to be a good teacher are hardly imparted exclusively in an education major.

    @TI: Teachers can certainly be fired for incompetence or a number of other reasons related to performance.  I saw it happen on more than one occasion in my own school district while I was a student.  That the union prevents it is the biggest myth out there.  The job of the union is to make certain that the teacher is terminated for cause - to ensure that the principal has in fact dotted the t’s and crossed the i’s.  Perhaps folkbum or someone with more experience in these labor matters would care to add details.

    And please, let’s not pretend that private school teachers are somehow better or more competitive than their public school counterparts.  They’re basically equal in terms of aptitude.  Fact is that a lot of those private school jobs end up going to people who can’t land a better-paying gig in a public school, and given the opportunity to take a higher salary in a similar position at a public school, many of those private school teachers will take it without blinking an eye.

    Bottom line is, if you’re spending government money, I want to know what you’re spending it on and what results you’re getting.  And I think the overwhelming majority of people are with me on that.  As long as the tests allow us to compare one cohort (choice kids) to another cohort (public school kids), I don’t care what tests you use.  But I’ll be damned if we should be handing taxpayer dollars over to a school accredited solely by a religious organization without any kind of periodic oversight of student performance that meets *our* standards, not theirs.  If they don’t like the conditions, they can simply refuse the student and the money attached to him.  Nobody’s making any private or parochial school take these kids.

    Posted by Recess Supervisor on February 03, 2009 at 1806 hrs


  7. B ack in 1974 I was working on issues for Bill Dyke in his gubernatorial campaign. I and others recomended to Bill that the Milwaukee schools be split up as they were going into the tank and failing to teach kids.
      When I reviewed the test scores for the kids, they actully went down in regards to the national figures every year they were in MPS.  In other words the longer that they stayed in the system the dumber they got in comparisons to national averages, especially in math, science and reading.  They probably did quite well in sex education.  Liberals are able to teach that subject quite well.
        During that period of time from 1974 to present day the teachers have acquired salary raises above inflation, benefits that far outstripped everyone elses along with two pension programs.  The kids got zilch, they continue to go down hill in accomplishments.
      With that history why would anyone keep sending kids to those schools.  I do not understand why why the parents tolerate this?  I know from working with minorities on a daily basis that they love their kids.  Why don’t they rise up in rebellion?
      Anything that came along that held the possiblity of raising these lousy results was worth trying.
      If all of a suddent MPS would come along and make gigantic strides I would happily support more for those schools,
      It’s not going to Happen!!!!

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on February 03, 2009 at 1856 hrs


  8. @Recess Supervisor: I see your point, I wasn’t perfectly clear but my reference was directed more towards a younger crowd. What about classrooms for kids in grades K-6, where the teacher is basically responsible for English, Science, Math, History, and every other subject?

    I have less of an issue with teachers that teach on specific subjects to older students. But I would personally feel that the earlier grade teachers SHOULD have some sort of accreditation.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on February 03, 2009 at 2047 hrs


  9. But I’ll be damned if we should be handing taxpayer dollars over to a school accredited solely by a religious organization without any kind of periodic oversight of student performance that meets *our* standards, not theirs.  If they don’t like the conditions, they can simply refuse the student and the money attached to him.  Nobody’s making any private or parochial school take these kids

    Precisely the reason that several ‘prestige’ SE Wis area schools will NEVER take Choice dollars.  All their HS grads are admitted to college(s) (and all their grade-school grads are admitted to high schools.)  So “performance” of the school is not an issue, even though the faculty lacks the “certification” of WEAC…

    Posted by dad29 on February 03, 2009 at 2056 hrs


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