Ken Bernstein is one of the nation’s best education bloggers. He blogs frequently at The Daily Kos. He is wise in the ways of federal policies and politics. He also is a gifted teacher and a great person. One of the great rewards of writing my last book was that I met this great and generous man.
Today, Ken wrote a great article about the new Network for Public Education. He explains more about the founding board members than we did ourselves.
He explains why this new organization is necessary:
“This effort is unlike other efforts. It is explicitly political, because politics is how educational policy is controlled. In that sense even though a number of us have connections with Save Our Schools (which is an ongoing organization) we do not see this as being at cross-purposes.
“I did say “we.” I am a contributing member and intend to help this group in any way I can.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The object of publicly funded education was and still should be to create and maintain an informed electorate with so-called grammar schools. These schools taught (English) grammar and bookkeeping (arithmetic) since these are the skills necessary to make a living and participate in social interactions like government. I would add science since we a technological society. I would also add history since those don’t study it are doomed to repeat it.
The publicly funded schools of today energetically attempt to exceed these essential requirements and, as a result, fail to meet them. We were 23rd in science, 26th in math and 15th in reading in 2009. These rankings dropped to 23rd, 31st and 17th respectively in 2012.
Do we give kudos for science instruction to have remained mediocre? Do we double-down on reading and math instruction? No, we simply pay more and expect a different result. I believe that this is akin to the textbook definition of insanity. Check out this graph:
http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/library/chart-graph/inflation-adjusted-cost-k-12-public-education-and-percent-change-achievement-17-year-olds-1970
The graph shows a cost growth of 200% with flat achievement. Meanwhile, teacher’s pay growth was 11% (see Table 1.1 in the URL below).
Click to access 7319_odden_ch_1.pdf
There is no non-absurd way to explain this except to say that the increased cost is not going to the teachers or the students. We need to reinvent publicly funded education.
Connecticut alone has over 568,000 students in K-12 consuming an average statewide expenditure of more than $14,000 per year, per student. That is nearly $8 billion/year on the table in Connecticut yearly. About $600 billion/year nationally. And it doesn’t include the fact that 10% of all K-12 students attend privately funded schools.
I have a classroom-centered school model for which $5,000/student/year is sufficient.
My model requires a teacher, students, teaching tools (books, computers, etc.), classroom space and utilities (heat/air, electricity, transportation, janitorial, internet, etc.).
My model does not provide food since that sort of program exists elsewhere (food stamps) and should not be duplicated with educational dollars. I am not a fan of the “general fund” model of government finance.
Assume that an average class size of 25 is chosen: one more than the federal recommendation to make the arithmetic easy. This would provide $125,000 in funding per year per classroom: my budget.
Pay the teachers well at $85,000 per year (average): much more than the current average of $60,000 since they will become entrepreneurs running their own “businesses”.
Let’s look at teaching tools (books) first. The range is from $40 for high school English to $120 for high school chemistry. Let’s go for a conservative $100 per text with 5 texts needed per student per academic year. This costs us $6,250 for 25 students with new books for all every other year. I chose high school texts as a benchmark because they cost more than elementary texts. We can also buy 25 new computers for each class for $10,000 every other year ($5,000 per year cost to classroom).
Now let’s look at rent. A classroom for 25 students needs about 16 square feet per student or 400 square feet. At $28.5 per square foot per year (utilities included), this would cost only $11,400 per year and since it is leased, the landlord is responsible for maintenance & upkeep. Leased space avoids the costs of city-owned schools. Of course, the property listed below is in Westport, CT, one of the most expensive markets in the country.
http://www.loopnet.com/Listing/17155033/1-Morningside-Drive-North-Westport-CT/
A monthly bus pass costs $47 in Connecticut. One for each student for 9 months each will cost $10,575 although I’d be shocked if a lower price could not be negotiated. Lets call it $7,000.
We can conservatively have teacher, classroom, utilities, computers and books for $115,000 per year out of $125,000 available.
You might ask: what about guidance counselors, nurses, substitutes, etc.?
Well, if these are spread out cost-wise over say, 100 classrooms, we have $1 million left in our budget for them. These folks’ services are not used by all students every day.
The model needs someone to manage the shared resources (substitutes, nurse, etc.) and also manage enrollment for 100 classrooms of various subject matter: I suggest mandatory English, history, math and science for four days each week. The fifth day would comprise “electives” with the caveat that at least 25 student want the elective each year or the teacher will accept lower compensation. The elective category also includes special needs classes.
This “superintendent” visits each class a couple times per year and can meet with each teacher online as required. We could similarly provide for shared nurses, counselors, computer technicians and a few truant officers to take care of the students who misbehave.
Superintendents would be super-teachers, not bureaucrats. They would be paid at the high end of the scale because they will have earned the respect of their peers by having done what they do at an exceptional level of skill.
As for the teachers, and this is crucial: their word in the classroom is law. No disrespect. No nonsense. All backed up by the parents. Publicly funded school is not day care.
No pensions: publicly funded school employees will use the same social security, medicare, etc. as everyone else. They can get health benefits through a large, nationwide pool of over 3 million or, better yet, self insure to avoid the 30% profit that insurance companies will charge.
Communities can use the (HUGE) savings afforded by my model to get out from under their pension and retirement health care liabilities before returning the difference to taxpayers.
The curriculum shall meet world standards so our kids learn the same stuff as their international counterparts. The results can be easily measured by a standardized exams.
This approach also resolves the theoretical tenure issue since if a teacher does not produce results, the parents who care (and let’s assume that this is a majority) will enroll their children with a different teacher.
This approach should also be agreeable to free market thinkers since this is how a free market should work.
LikeLike
Science instruction? Did you watch Dan Rather’s show on STEM graduates who can’t find jobs? You are clueless. This country produces tons of well educated people. Also, what was the drop-out rate during your description of the “magical” time of education in the past? People didn’t need a high school diploma to make it in America. My state did research and found that a 401k system would be more expensive than the current pension system. Your description is very unrealistic.
LikeLike
So much for civility Dee Dee.
My discussion here is related to the cost of publicly funded education, not the number of well educated people in the US.
I don’t recall mentioning a “magical” time of anything. Additionally, we are talking K-12, not 401k. I do have a blog post on pensions too but this is not the forum for that discussion.
As for science instruction as part of a public education, are you saying that it’s not a good idea to teach it? If so, I suggest that it is you who is the clueless one, not me.
LikeLike
Wow!
First – I am one of those bureaucrat superintendents. I also haven’t taken a raise in four years and quite frankly I was and am a super teacher – a heckuva a lot better teacher than bureaucrat – even though as a bureaucrat, I have to figure out how to cut $5 million out of our budget although I can’t touch the $9,000 per student bus ride that I must provide to four of our New York students to go to school in – wait for it – Connecticut.
You make it all sound so simple. And, it was – – back in the 1950s which is exactly what you described. 1 principal teacher, 1 teacher with 25 kids, basic subjects, no library, no counselor, music once a week. And, I had classmates who ended up at Harvard and Berkeley (and many of us at the good old state university).
1950. Before Brown v. Board of Education. Before PL-94-142. Before Title IX. Before Plyler v. Doe. Before poverty was ignored and two parents had to work. AND – before we not only opened school house doors, unlike our international colleagues (why are they always competitors?) we expect every single one of these kids to go to college or be highly successful.
The 1950s & 60s & 70s – before teachers made anywhere close to send their own kids to college unless they worked one addition job during the school year and another all summer. And their prorated salaries (you know the “only teach 10 months” argument) still came no where close to any other professional graduating in any other field.
So, where does your $5,000 per year cover the fully included child on the autism spectrum? Does your $5,000 educate the other $50,000 per year children who are learning survival job skills or must have a full time aide to make it through the day – and learning? And, you failed to mention teaching English to any of these children. I guess all of yours would be born in Westport, too. So that 25 in every room works just fine.
Can schools be more efficient – modernize contracts – press cities and towns to accept responsibility for services we provide – fight harder in Albany for pension reform – just do a better job – and more? Of course. But our kids are getting into those colleges – and hundreds more – and the military – and jobs where once they never would have been considered or capable – and they are successful
And, fortunately we’ll have a Network for Public Education to try to make a dent in the corporate billions and profiteers who want schools to look just like the one you described.
LikeLike
Wow is right!
The 50’s? Spare me, please.The graph I showed starts in 1970. Costs have tripled and results are unchanged.
Handicapped, immigrant, all fine. I said: “I suggest mandatory English, history, math and science for four days each week. The fifth day would comprise “electives” with the caveat that at least 25 student want the elective each year or the teacher will accept lower compensation. The elective category also includes special needs classes.”
None of these laws has a time frame. If it takes an immigrant child a few extra years to master English, so be it. Same for handicapped. Heck, I remember a 16 year old with a mustache in 6th grade when I was a kid; he was neither an immigrant nor handicapped.
Title IX is not really related to education, it’s equal funding for girls/women in athletics. Given the expected lifetime ROI on athletics, this would not be a big concern to me as an educator: faced with a tight budget, athletics would be first on my cut list. I’ll bet your $5 million shortfall is looking there right now.
International standing matters because we have a global economy. Business won’t invest in stupid people. You should know that. Everything government does should promote commerce.
I went to public school in the 60’s and 70’s in Stamford, CT. My first year in college was tough because, even though I took college-prep classes and did well (B average), I was under-educated compared to my peers from around the country.
I used the Westport real estate listing because it was stupidly expensive. Much cheaper where I live in Shelton (and most other places)
I rode my bicycle to school for three years and walked for two years. The $9,000 bus ride from NY to CT illustrates the kind of waste I’m protesting.
My plan pays teachers more, not less. I aim to pay less for bureaucrats who allow the foolishness to continue to get worse. It sounds like that includes you. Sorry.
Publicly financed schools can teach special needs kids. How many are there? 1%? 5%? Come on, don’t try to jack up the cost based on the Gaussian endpoints. Of course, these days, the is inflation on that measurement with so many parents choosing to medicate their kids instead of parenting them.
I would not only have English taught, it would be mandatory and non-English speakers would not receive special treatment. Before you even think ‘racist’,this is about money and personal responsibility. We can’t provide taxpayer-funded schools efficiently in more than one language; it’s as simple as that.
I’ve long said that if you swap the students in the best and worst schools, the performance will follow the students and their parents. My sister teaches in RI and she has long bemoaned the fact that if parents were more interested, their kids would do better. I suspect you know this too.
I don’t advocate charter, magnet or private schools. I advocate taxpayers who are paying more and more for the same old same old.
I have no kids. That said, I’m willing to pay to educate the children of my neighbors because America only works with an educated electorate. That said, I am less willing in giving a blank check to a system that has lost sight of the goal.
The costs are simply unsustainable. I pay $7,000 for tax on my home and that funds education and my city. If I had two kids in school, it would cost $24,000 just for them and city services be damned. It’s much worse closer to Manhattan.
I’m an engineer. We often say it is simple if you understand the requirements and nearly impossible if you don’t. We also say RTFS.
LikeLike
Do you mind if I quote a few of your articles as long
as I provide credit and sources back to your blog? My website is in the very same
area of interest as yours and my visitors would certainly benefit from
some of the information you present here. Please let me know if this okay with you.
Many thanks!
LikeLike
Darrell,
Feel free to quote the blog as long as you give credit.
LikeLike
Same here!
LikeLike