I posted Gerald Coles’ predictions about President Obama’s second term. Many commenters responded. This is Coles’ response to those who raised questions:
With respect to the suggestion that the “federal govt. should get out of the classroom entirely,” I think that’s a complicated issue, given, for example, the federal government’s role in ending LEGAL segregation of schools. While issues of curriculum and what should and should not be discussed in the classroom do caution against a national curriculum, there are complications to be considered. For example, do we want “local” control where students can only learn that the world was created 6,000 years ago and global warming is a socialist hoax? I just raise these complications and will leave fuller discussion of them for another day.
Where I think the federal government clearly should be involved is in financial support of schools, teachers & students. Compare, for example, military vs. education spending. I think the Dept. of Ed. budget is about $70 billion, about 2% of the federal budget. In contrast, the military budget is more than a dozen times larger at about $977.5 billion. (For the calculation of true military costs, see David Cay Johnson’s analysis in the current Columbia Journalism Review:
http://www.cjr.org/united_states_project/the_true_cost_of_national_secu.php?page=all
Does the U.S. need nearly anywhere from 700-1,000 (depending on the calculation) military bases ringing the world? Does it need to outspend more than the combined military spending of at least the top dozen or more nations?
Schools deteriorate, teachers are fired, class size increases, neighborhood schools close, teachers spend their own money on classroom materials, while money flows like a rushing river to military corporations and unnecessary wars. With the right national priorities, here there surely is a place for the federal government to contribute to schools and children’s education.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The problem with Coles’ argument is that the federal doesn’t give money to the states without a bunch of control strings attached the those dollars, especially with RTTT.
In my humble constitutional opinion the federal government not only had the authority under the constitution but an obligation to protect the civil rights of Americans. However, the constitution provides no authority to the federal govt to manage, mandate and fund education. We send our tax dollars to Washington only to jump through hoops to try to get a fraction of it back. As far as socialist hoaxes go, is there an epidemic of schools that only allow studenst to learn that the earth was created 6,000 years ago and that global warming is a socialist hoax?. Personally I’d like to take my chances with local control by democratically elected school boards that don’t violate civil rights and cross the hoax bridge if it happens.
I do agree with the military spending being out of control which is very different than defense spending. Again, what gives us the right to invade sovereign nations, set up military bases on their soil, and tell them how to run their governments? Where is that power granted to any branch of govt by the constitution. We probably could fix this lopsided funding by adhering to the constitution more regularily. Let the states keep their tax dollars as opposed to running it through the bureaucratic waste generator. Wage war when it is a just war and declared by the congress and stop the foreign interventionism.
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There is no doubt that military spending is way out of control. The late Chalmers Johnson worked tirelessly to prove that point. And one need only to go to costofwar.com to get an idea of what the trade-offs are with respect to local and national communities with such misguided/self-interested “priorities” in place. But let’s not confuse subject matters here. The truth of the matter is that there’s plenty of money in public education. It just seems to be “leaking” in various ways out of the system, either via a top-heavy administrative micromanaging culture that lavishes itself at the taxpayers’ (and students’) expense; the extraordinary amount of money that goes into paying third-party leeches such as education consultants, testing firms, etc.; or outright thievery. For instance, in Chicago, we have a public school district that has an estimated budget of $1billion a year. Recently, our district’s inspector general provided his yearly report whereas he was quoted by the Chicago Tribune as saying “‘The cases reported this year are especially important because the results show that fraud is being committed by high-level and highly paid CPS administrators and that the lucrative federal and state benefits tied to the forms drives the fraud,’ Sullivan stated in the report.” http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-01-07/news/ct-met-cps-inspector-general-report-20130107_1_largest-food-vendors-cps-food-louise-esaian And one need to dig deep into the sort of shenanigans that are going on in Chicago to get a clear idea that the money is, er, vanishing into thin air, as I pointed out here in this essay: http://www.scribd.com/doc/106337306/THE-CHICAGO-PUBLIC-SCHOOLS-ALLERGIC-TO-ACTIVISM
So the answer isn’t throwing more water into a leaking vase. The solution is to either fix the vase or get a new one altogether. And that sort of work is really the complex issue here that needs to be worked through.
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“Schools deteriorate, teachers are fired, class size increases, neighborhood schools close, teachers spend their own money on classroom materials, while money flows like a rushing river to military corporations and unnecessary wars.”
I think you meant to say “Schools deteriorate, teachers are fired, class size increases, neighborhood schools close, teachers spend their own money on classroom materials, while money flows like a rushing river to hedge fund managers, real estate moguls, third party investors, convicted felons, online school scams, and unaccountable foundation, due to RttT.”
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jcgrimj,
Of course I agree with your description of the corrupt recipients of much education funding, however that was NOT what I meant to say (i.e., what you said was not what I meant to say).
I was responding to one reader’s suggestion that the “federal govt. should get out of the classroom entirely.” As you can see from my initial reply and my newest reply to reader “Jim,” I don’t think the federal govt. should. However, and of course, once we engage the issue of the moving military spending into social/educational spending, then the matter of where the funding should go would have to include your criticism, i.e., the funding surely should not go to these vipers.
Gerry
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Jim,
You ask, “is there an epidemic of schools that only allow students to learn that the earth was created 6,000 years ago and that global warming is a socialist hoax?” The answer is a clear “yes.”
For example, a January, 2011 paper published in SCIENCE magazine was titled, “Defeating Creationism in the Courtroom, But Not in the Classroom.”
Click to access %25C3%25A9volution-pas-enseign%25C3%25A9e-usa.pdf
Based on the National Survey of High School Biology teachers, the authors estimate that only 28% of all biology teachers consistently teach evolutionary biology, while 13% explicitly teach creationism or intelligent design.
Almost as bad as the latter teaching, the researchers underscored that the remaining 60% of teachers “may play a far more important role in hindering scientific literacy in the United States than the smaller number of explicit creationists” because they teach evolution as if it were a controversial theory (creationism on one side, evolution on the other). By doing so, the researchers concluded, the teachers “undermine the legitimacy of findings that are well established by the combination of peer review and replication. These teachers fail to explain the nature of scientific inquiry, undermine the authority of established experts, and legitimize creationist arguments.”
I’d call this an epidemic of miseducation, wouldn’t you?
As for the question of whether obstruction to Instruction about global warming is also at an epidemic level, reports across the country provide an answer: See, e.g.,
Darwin Foes Add Warming to Targets
or
Dissuading Teachers from Teaching Science: Global warming deniers creating K-12 curriculum
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/16/1065415/-Dissuading-Teachers-from-Teaching-Science-Global-warming-deniers-creating-K-12-curriculum#
Again, an epidemic of miseducation? Yes.
With respect to funding, there is, of course, the fundamental problem that funding schools primarily through local funding creates major social class and education inequities.
Beyond that, whatever the source of funding — federal, state, local — there are going to be struggles over how that public funding is used. Let’s take on that struggle. As citizens, have every right to demand the drastic transfer of federal spending from military to social & educational use in ways that promote informed, caring, critical learning. It’s a necessary, worthy struggle.
In the early 1990s, the term “peace dividend” became a popular slogan (promoted in the U.S. by Pres. G.H.W. Bush) that supposedly described the social-economic benefit of reducing military spending following the end of the Cold War. That benefit was supposed to drastically reduce social ills and uplift the nation. That never happened, of course, but the idea, despite its propaganda use, remains alive for many of us. Let’s fight to drastically reduce military spending and use what’s saved for social spending, especially for children and schools. Isaiah’s charge that we”turn swords into plowshares” lives on and shouldn’t be a vision we walk away from.
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Gerald Coles, what you describe–the number of schools that do not teach evolution–makes the case for teacher tenure and academic freedom. Without it, we will lose science in the schools. All those new STEM teachers but no mention of evolution.
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In at least one district a veteran tenured teacher had to be fired to bring evolution to the students in his class.
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Mr. Coles, a lot to reply to here. First i am responding from my phone so plz excuse typos and lack of caps. Sounds like we are on the same page as far as military spending and role of u.s. As far as the global warming issue goes, your sourse might be just a bit biased, ny times and dailykos. When i get a chance i will read the articles and investigate further. Thank you for links.
As far as creationism teaching goes, 13 & 28% sounds like the bell curve is scewed in the right direction. The other 60%teaching as controversial? Isnt it? Otherwise, why all the posts? However, lets assume for the moment that the federal govts role is to control this and the common core mandates everything the scientists want and prohibits everything they dont want. Lets say a highly environmentalist perhaps athiest or agnostic teacher gets a job in a deeply religeous community say in utah or the bible belt or a devout catholic neighborhood. How will we measure the effectiveness of that teacher based on student test scores about global warming and creationism not being scientific? Most likely his or her 3 week unit of study will fall short of a lifetime of religious indoctrination, would it not be the govts job to hold that teacher accountable and get a more effective teacher instead? Better yet, maybe a state or federally mandated graduation requirement for students to swear off creationism and pledge to go green and embrace the fight against global warming. Maybe even provide federal funds to pay effective teachers merit pay based on the teachers performance.
I can understand that this sounds absurd which is why dianes concise point of teacher tenure and protecting academic freedom promises far more success in educating. Be that as it may, regardless of any of what i have typed, the federal govt has no constitutional authority to control education. Thoreau worded it nicely in civil disobedience “It (govt) does not educate.”
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No sir, evolution is not a scientific controversy.
It may be a political controversy or a religious controversy, but it is most certainly NOT a scientific controversy.
BTW, most Catholics have no problem with the scientific theory of evolution and it is thoroughly taught at the best, most exclusive Catholic schools in the city.
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This is in response to Ang…Ang, please understand that, as mentioned at the beginning of my post, I did metnion that I was typing from my phone. Keeping that in mind, I did not mean to imply that Catholics per se or mormons or souther baptists believe one way ore the other about evolution. Perhaps I should have used more general terms like Religion A. In any case, I agree with you that most of the scientific community probably doesn’t view the issue as controversial. My point is exactly what you bring up that it is perhaps controversial in some religions. What constitutional authority does the govt have to impose or prohibit either view? How will the federal govt ensure teacher effectiveness in convincing students their religious views are trumped by science?
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I think we are all a little nervous as to how the federal role would be defined given that they have been an incredibly destructive force in recent years. How much more federal largesse can we stand before there are no more public schools?
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jim,
If you really think that evolution vs. creationism is a legitimate scientific “controversy,” we really don’t have a starting point for any kind of serious discussion about school curriculum.
So too for “opinion” about facts, such as evolution, being o.k. if they reflect a bell curve. E.g., there’d be something o.k. about 13% of teachers teaching that the U.S. was involved in WW II,, 28% teaching that it was not, and 60% teaching that whether or not it was involved is “controversial.”
As for funding, the issue is, how will a nation’s wealth and resources be derived and allocated? For starters (& to repeat a point I made in my previous reply), relying solely on local funding to support schools would create unbridgeable inequities for students, teachers and schools.
Certainly, as I wrote in my last reply, there are good reasons to object to and reject the federal mandates attached to federal money. But, again, the issue remains, how will national resources be used? That’s a political/educational struggle to be fought. Having a wholesale cynicism about “federal funding” simply serves corporate rule and the 1%, who already rob the nation of sufficient funding for social purposes, education among them. (For more on this, see my writings on the origin & impact of NCLB.)
I don’t think there’s anyone who has spent more time both as an educational writer and activist attacking federal education policies, but that’s because I believe the policies should be changed, not because I have a Ron Paul/Grover Norquest view of federal funding of public needs (i.e., shrink the federal government down to the size where we can drown it in a bathtub). Again, that blanket anti-federal government view simply plays for the 1%.
As for Diane’s observation about the essential need of teacher tenure and academic freedom, of course I’m 100% in agreement with that.
Gerry
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Gerry, my point isn’t the issue of creationism vs. evolution…i’m probably on your side with that as well. My issue is with the federal govt overstepping its constitutional authority.
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So, I think that we seem to be on the same page on quite a few things here such as the disproportionate spending on military vs. education, the need for the study of science, teacher tenure, academic freedom, federal mandates with strings attached. However, where we part differences seems to be whether or not federal involvement can bring about some sort of change more expediently or in a more equitable way. After 11 years of NCLB I think we might agree that the positive change we were hoping for has fallen short.
I’m not sure that the historical view of the U.S. involvment in WWII vs. not having been involved vs. it being a controversy is a fair analogy. I think a better one would be bounding the power of the federal govt by the constitution vs. being anti-federal govt simply plays for the 1% vs. it’s controversial.
I’m not as familiar with Nordquist, but conerning Ron Paul I would have to respectfully reject that his view is an anti-federal govt view as opposed to a limited, constitutional federal govt view. If the states, the people, and the nation think that the appropriate role of the federal govt is to fund education, then there is a way to grant it the authority to do so just as the govt was granted the power to tax income, create the federal reserve, allow the direct election of senators, etc.
Gerry, thank you for engaging in the dialogue. I look forward to viewing more of your work and reading some of the links you’ve provided. I’m confident that the experience will expand my view and understanding. Thank you for being a part of the national education debate. My 6 year old will benefit.
Jim
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