That headline is like saying, “Flash! Water is Wet!”
Yet there are many elected officials who disparage that money matters. They say thatclass size doesn’t matter. They ignore real world problems of staffing schools and teaching kids with widely varying needs.
A new study finds that spending more does matter. When affluent parents spend large sums to send their children to a private school or to live in an expensive neighborhood, they are paying for small classes, well-maintained facilities, and a stable, experienced teaching staff.
We are unwilling to pay the price to provide similar resources to all children, even when we know that it matters.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Diane Finally, a break with the old idea that: “just throwing money at a problem won’t fix it.”
Oh, but IT WILL–if it’s spent well. CBK
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Obviously propaganda. Not a word in the summary about the value of bootstraps or grit.
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I remember cowboy boots with leather loops on the side to help to tug them on. For the life of me, I can’t figure out how they helped in anyone’s social or economic rise in society. I suppose getting your boots on is the first step. As for grit, I have seen too many people who manage to survive through hard work but never get very far. Their efforts may translate into an example for their offspring (or not).
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Any teacher that has taught a class of twenty and a class of thirty clearly understands that class size matters despite the claims of so-called reformers to the contrary. What is also true is that money alone will not erase educational gaps. What we do with money is significant. We also know that integration is effective in reducing academic gaps between the middle class and the poor. It is is a cost effective way to improve outcomes for poor students. We need to vote for those that believe in public schools. Privatization has been a wasteful, destructive distraction.
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Try a class of 40 sometime. I would give my life just to teach classes of 30.
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Beginning this year, ESSA requires per student expenditures to be reported at the school and district levels and also attached to outcome measures, including test scores, graduation rates and so forth, disaggregated for subgroups. The aim is stack rank and shame schools and districts for not getting the most bang for the buck, and coincidently to make the case for greater efficiciencies in education.
States are grappling with the problem of allocating costs that have been line items or distributed across schools such as transportation, central administration, one teacher with a job assignment in multiple schools and so forth.
Later today I hope to be able to cite the section of ESSA that put this version of accountability into a requirement and how the so-called “fiscal transparency” mandate might have migrated there from proponents who want not just “data” but data to support claims that education costs should be unbundled and offered as tiers of services, while outsourcing to other community agencies and on- line services what the bean-counters regard as frills, luxuries, beyond basics and/or what state laws may require. The calculations will also be of use in marketing vouncher and like programs.
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These billionaires and corporations continue to insert themselves into policy. They do not want to pay for equitable education for other people’s children. Everyone already knows that the cheapest form of instruction is tech. Tons of tech companies are salivating over the prospect of scooping up oodles of public money in the form of “outsourcing” functions of public schools. The big problem, of course, is that the results have been dismal. There is not a shred of legitimate evidence that indicates that moving public money to untrained private entities has value for students..The only evidence we know is that this privatization would benefit the interests of the 1
%.
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It depends. Spending more on Common Core professional development won’t improve achievement because Common Core is fundamentally flawed. Spending more on technology won’t help either. These are the “go to” options when administration has extra money to spend.
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Good points. Same for spending on tests.
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What seems to get lost in this discussion is the importance of first determining why a student or group of students has failed to achieve at an “expected” level.
Did they fail math, reading, or writing because . . .
No Chromebooks?
Run down facilities?
Chronic absenteeism?
Social distraction?
Boredom?
Apathy?
Laziness”
Poorly constructed tests?
Arbitrarily high cut scores?
Overcrowded, high needs classes?
Unqualified teachers?
Lazy teachers?
Teacher unions?
Knowledge and skill deficits?
Narrowed curriculum?
Cognitive disabilities?
Tests that don’t count?
Bad standards?
Unsupportive parent(s)?
Stress, anxiety, trauma?
Ineffective teaching methods?
Low expectations?
School schedule?
Food insecurity?
Chronic exhaustion?
And let’s not forget that the there are thousands upon thousands of public schools where students achieve at very high levels – and that these schools already provide the blueprint for academic success.
And better yet, the behaviors of successful students can be readily described for almost any student who wishes to match their success: daily attendance, structured work habits/routines, and serious efforts.
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THIS is hitting the nail on the head: spending more in the wrong places only makes things worse
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Ponderosa,
I am in the midst of preparing a lesson on philosophers Hobbes and Locke, on the “concept” of the social contract, and I realize that you were right all along. Knowledge, not skill, is what needs to be taught. Sorry I ever disagreed with you about that.
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No worries.
Gradually we’ll all come to understand the profound insight of E.D. Hirsch: knowledge is essential and because we’re not born with it, teachers must teach it. Sadly the teachers of America are engaged in a fool’s errand: trying to teach thinking skills that are precisely the things that do not need to be taught–they’re innate! Meanwhile we’re neglecting the long and slow and critical job of imparting knowledge of the world we live in.
For the past year I’ve been spending my weekends proselytizing for Democrats in Walmart parking lots and seeing the appalling results of our anti-knowledge curriculum. People don’t know what Congress is, that the minority party is impotent in Congress, what Democrats and Republicans stand for, that elections usually happen in November, etc. So many people I speak to say, “I don’t do politics. I never vote” and by talking to them I’ve come to realize most of them are really saying “I don’t understand politics; I’m confused and intimidated by it.” Our schools, pretentiously declaring they’re teaching “critical thinking skills” while actually teaching nothing, have failed these people
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But Bill Gates says bigger classes are better!
And President Trump says schools are flush with cash!
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Bill Gates says a lot of things that are total hogwash. He is not an academic or educator. He is an entrepreneurial profiteer with too much money and an agenda based on bias and false assumptions. He is also a hypocrite that sends his own children the Lakeside School with small project based classes while he supports large classes, lots of technology and endless testing and data mining for other people’s children.
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Does ESSA’s new Per Pupil Expenditure (PPE) reporting requirement apply to charters. too? There is a gross disparity between PPE for charters and public schools.
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That’s true.
Of course, the advantage for charters — which every so-called “good” one takes advantage of — is that if they decide a student costs more per pupil then they want to spend, then out he goes! They have full freedom to target and harass a 5 and 6 year old and humiliate them into feeling so terrible about themselves that their parents eventually pull them.
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I think not, based on the following: SEA = State Education Agency, LEA = Local Education Agency
“Each SEA must include on its State report card the following information for each public charter school, organized by the respective authorized public chartering agency, in the State:
• A comparison between the percentage of students in each subgroup defined in section 1111(c)(2) of the ESEA for each charter school authorized by such agency and such percentage for the LEA or LEAs from which the charter school draws a significant portion of its students, or the geographic community within the LEA in which the charter school is located, as determined by the State; and
• A comparison between the academic achievement under 34 C.F.R. § 200.30(b)(2)(i)(A) for students in each charter school authorized by such agency and the academic achievement for students in the LEA or LEAs from which the charter school draws a significant portion of its students, or the geographic community within the LEA in which the charter school is located, as determined by the State. (34 C.F.R. § 200.30(a)(2)(ii)).
States have flexibility to determine the appropriate comparison group, which may include the LEA or LEAs from which the charter school draws a significant portion of its students, or a more specific, State-determined geographic community within an LEA. To ensure an appropriate comparison, the Department encourages States to consult with the charter school community, including authorized public chartering agencies.
Click to access essastatereportcard.pdf
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“In a Washington Post op-ed and speech yesterday to the National Governors’ Association, Bill Gates floated the idea of dealing with state education budget cuts by increasing the class sizes of the most effective teachers”
“(In a 2008 survey funded by the Gates Foundation, 83 percent of teachers said they would be happy to teach more students for more pay.)”
http://www.danagoldstein.com/2011/03/on-bill-gates-class-size-and-american-parents.html
Bill Gates attended an exclusive, expensive K-12 private school and his children went to the same school.
The average class size is 17 students
https://www.privateschoolreview.com/lakeside-school-profile/98125
Why doesn’t Bill Gates pressure Lakeside School to increase its class sizes to 45 or more and demand that Lakeside School lower its annual tuition cost of more than $33k down the the average for public schools in the US that’s less than $12k a year.
“Total expenditures for public elementary and secondary schools in the United States in 2013–14 amounted to $634 billion, or $12,509 per public school student enrolled in the fall (in constant 2015–16 dollars). Total expenditures included $11,222 per student in current expenditures, which includes salaries, employee benefits, purchased services, and supplies.”
https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=66
Gates shouldn’t feel bad since he is not alone in what he thinks. There are many people that have no compassion, empathy, and are as ignorant as a rock (no insult to rocks was intended).
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How is it that the US has some of the crappiest journalists? They never bother to ask Bill Gates why the leaders of the private school his children attended insisted that the cost of their eduction was over $30,000/year and then asked for donations in addition? Why don’t reporters ever bother to ask Gates why he had his children taught in a school run by people who Gates himself keeps insisting is a lying fraud claiming that they aren’t lining their own pockets with the money that they claim it costs but Gates says that it does not?
There is a disconnect here that Gates should be challenged on. If he thinks that the leaders of his own child’s school are lying frauds stealing his and other rich folks money, then Gates should be forced to go on the record to state that.
Most likely if a journalist asked Gates “since your own child’s private school costs over $30,000/year, does that mean that the school’s administrators have been lying to you about what it costs to educate your children?” Gates would hem and haw and explain that privileged children need more than poor kids do.
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“How is it that the US has some of the crappiest journalists?”
The Golden Age of Journalism ended decades ago when corporations and billionaires started to buy up most of the media.
Today 90 percent of the media is owned by six huge corporations controlled by six, ivy league educated old, rich, mostly conservative white guys and their greedy, profit loving/worshiping share holders and corporate boards.
Reporters and editors that work for those six huge media corporations do what they are expected to do if they want to keep their jobs and the perceived status that comes with the title.
“What do you do for a living?”
“I’m a reporter for the LA Times.” And he or she feels smug and proud to let someone know how important they are.
This piece in The Guardian focuses on that fact. What happened? The internet with its trolls and sites like Facebook happened.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jan/01/we-always-need-journalism-but-change-never-stops
The Golden Age of Journalism
“Let’s admit that the sins of the Internet are legion and well-known: the massive programs of government surveillance it enables; the corporate surveillance it ensures; the loss of privacy it encourages; the flamers and trolls it births; the conspiracy theorists, angry men, and strange characters to whom it gives a seemingly endless moment in the sun; and the way, among other things, it tends to sort like and like together in a self-reinforcing loop of opinion. Yes, yes, it’s all true, all unnerving, all terrible.”
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-engelhardt/the-golden-age-of-journalism_b_4637068.html
I think I can pin a starting date for the beginning of the end of the Golden Age of Journalism. It happened the day Reagan god rid of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, but the Fairness Doctrine only applied to broadcast journalism … not print and certainly not cable and the internet that was yet to explode during the Bill Clinton administration.
Since the internet and cable, newspapers have declined in their influence and penetration into American households. Online streaming makes it possible to watch everything from live news and sports to classic movies to modern TV favorites on their own time, and on any device they choose.
And the Internet seems to have no rules, no truth gatekeepers like those newspapers and TV news rooms had but can’t afford anymore because of budget cuts.
In 1983, 90% of US media was controlled by 50 companies; today, 90% is controlled by just 6 companies.
That is the short answer for your question.
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Hedge funds have been buying newspapers and slashing journalists.
Cost cutting is their game.
Profits. Bottom line.
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Those who do not teach, have no clue. Gates needs to GET a LIFE and just GO AWAY for good.
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Unfortunately, the only way to get rid of Bill Gates is to send him to another planet orbiting another star about a 1,000 light years from here.
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Just throwing money at it won’t fix it was code/excuse for starve and privatize.
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Throwing money at schools works if it is well spent in things like reducing class size, providing a nurse, raising tea hers’ salaries.
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Who’da thunk it?
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Diane, you state “We are unwilling to pay the price to provide similar resources to all children, even when we know that it matters”
Let me add to that that we not only know it matters, but that we, as a nation and society, can very, very well afford to fund public education far more. It is not a question of money; it is a question of redistribution of wealth, careful monitoring of spending and improvement projects, expectations made for those implementing improvements, and the political will to do so.
It is morally reprehensible that such a wealthy nation is so stingy when it comes to fair taxation and the spending of taxes for the public commons. We do this so poorly and immorally, save for our military spending, and even there, much of it gets wasted.
There are too many societies where such taxation and spending work well and create more equity and far less class divide: France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Holland, Denmark, Australia, Japan, and Canada, just to name a few.
Our children and families serve a superb education and learning environment always. It is a civil, birth, and human right, not a commodity or luxury.
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” . . . . . deserve a superb education and . . . . . “
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I remember the inner city kids & families re: the school lotteries. When I saw what was happening, I thought, “Boy, have you all been fooled.”
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