Lately I have been trying to compare per pupil expenditures in the United States vs. those abroad. On the surface it looks like we are spending enough--ranking in the top three or four nations worldwide.

But if you look at the facts more carefully, things are not as they appear. First, while most nations distribute resources fairly to all students, the United States does not. For example, my local school district receives about 7000 dollars per student from the state; the state average is almost 9000; some districts receive 12,000 and these are not necessarily the poorest.

Another factor that increases educational costs in this country is widespread poverty. It costs more to educate kids that come from broken homes, whose parents are unemployed, who never received a decent education themselves, who may have come from non-English speaking environments. It costs more to educate children who never were admitted to programs like Headstart and lived out their earliest childhoods in rooms barren of any cultural or educational advantages. America is not Japan, a country in which almost all children are Japanese. It is not Singapore, it is not South Korea. It is a land of incredible diversity, both in its people and in its geography. It is not surprising more money may be required to educate children here.

Besides per pupil expenditures, for any fair comparison you should look at facilities. Once again, the United States offers a variety--from the broken schools of ghettos to the college-like academies of the wealthy suburbs. Kids are not dumb. They know that if society values a cultural feature--like a football stadium--then it will invest money to make it succeed. Many of them see no money is invested in their schools--so they draw the obvious conclusion: people do not care about them. That attitude goes far to explain their nonchalance if not downright hatred for school. Jonathon Kozol has explained it all far better than I can.

My conclusion is that education is getting sucker-punched in order to let private interests control things. The end result will be gorgeous schools for the wealthy and run-down snake pits for the rest. Maybe not so different from now, but with one difference--a strong public school system provides hope that, eventually, we will be able to educate ALL students appropriately, giving the greatest resources to those who have the greatest need.

Sioux Rose

Having read this, FIVE motivating principles come to mind that help explain this latest assault on reason:

1. Totalitarian reigns (inverted or otherwise) tend to dislike (to the point of exclusion) true intellectuals. (When they can't burn books outright, they can control the ones that see the light of public school classrooms.)
2. The U.S. public education system is being tasked with producing robots who conform to official standards, don't ask embarrassing questions, and are not to be instructed in the art of critical thinking. In this way, they can mature into useful functionaries in a system devoid of life where chances become remote when it comes to lifting themselves up by their boot straps.
3. The Teachers' Union is one of the last bastions of any such organizing power on the part of labor. We've seen so many other unions busted or paralyzed as jobs were increasingly sent overseas to capitalize on cheap labor markets.
4. Incendiary details contained in the fine print of the "No Child Left Behind" and its latest bogus program adaptation ultimately turn education (and along with it, PRIME real estate property) over to private interests. It's a covert land grab.
5. As students are taught to adhere to authority increasingly, and with real jobs scarce, as others in this forum have pointed out, the climate is being made ripe for an unofficial military draft. (The MIC being one of the few reliable places where jobs can be found.)

Of course the greatest heist here is ultimately seen in the waste of so many ripe, robust young minds. I remember when the United Negro College Fund used the advertising mantra, "A mind is a terrible thing to waste." In a sense, all students of public ed now come under that umbrella!

Obama's stench befouls this issue as well in his appointment of privatizer Arne Duncan.

Classrooms have long since become the dumping ground for the problems in society, and teachers get the blame for a lot of this dysfunction. Between overstressed parents, bad food and television, and an anti-intellectual atmosphere how could teachers who are ever more stressed deal?

http://www.zcommunications.org/diane-ravitch-revised-a-critique-of-contrition-by-david-green

With the publication of The Death and Life of the Great American School System, educational historian and journalist Diane Ravitch has found her way not only onto best-seller lists, but into the good graces of some on the left for her critical account of neoliberal school reform, and her contrition regarding her significant role as a publicist for this three-decade disaster-in-the-making. Interviewers like Amy Goodman and Doug Henwood have featured her articulate and insider accounts of business model-based reform, No Child Left Behind, charter schools, standardized testing, and the insidious role of private foundations (that continue to handsomely support her, including in the writing of this book).

In light of this, several qualifications are in order. For those who have studied the history of educational reform and closely observed such movements during the (at least three decade) neoliberal era from a leftist perspective, there has been no mystery to the nature of this most recent scam, and no surprise as to its beneficiaries (large corporations, the rich) and victims (the poor, minorities). There is something disingenuous at best and opportunistic at worse about Ravitch’s latest political persona. Her fundamental views of capitalism and democracy have not changed. She has developed no coherent historical analysis, and has no insight into how school reform might even modestly contribute to a seriously democratic society. The economic and global neoliberal contexts of the privatization movement are left unmentioned and, in spite of her disillusionment with market-driven reform in schooling, unchallenged.

Ravitch’s role as a publicist for school reform began with her association with neoconservative union boss and Vietnam War-supporter Albert Shanker in the 1970s, in the wake of his personal war against community schools in New York City run by African-American leaders and parents. When leftist critiques of American public schooling gained some popularity in academia in the 1970s, Ravitch was assigned the role of liberal attack dog by pre-eminent consensus educational historian Lawrence Cremin, resulting in her 1979 book The Revisionists Revised.

The best book of that era, Schooling in Capitalist America by radical economists and neo-Marxists Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, was dismissively caricatured by Ravitch. She re-iterates her judgment in the opening pages of her current book. Bowles and Gintis convincingly argued at that time—and again in a long article in 2001—that public schools and the alleged meritocracy that they promote have served primarily to reproduce class domination, mimic the social relations of the workplace, legitimize class interests, and repress human development.

In the wake of decades of neoliberal public school reforms that starkly differentiate cities from suburbs, as well as economic stagnation for working people and increased inequality, Bowles and Gintis’s observations should by now be uncontroversial, even among the liberal faithful. Yet Ravitch continues to invoke the mantra of the relationship between “democracy” and public schooling without challenging the class-based and ruthlessly competitive conventional wisdom that mocks it. As a promoter of “cultural literacy,” she is an economic illiterate. The notion of "civics" is thus drained of meaning.

In the concluding “Lessons Learned” chapter of Death and Life she asserts “Education is the key to developing human capital. The nature of our education system will influence society far into the future. It will affect not only our economy, but also our civic and cultural life. A democratic society cannot long sustain itself if its citizens are uninformed and indifferent about its history, its government, and the workings of its economy.”

This is hardly the stuff of insight or inspiration, but is consistent with Ravitch’s long-term neoconservative promotion of “cultural literacy” as the basis for a standardized curriculum. Cultural literacy, standardized curricula, centralization, high-stakes testing, “accountability,” and privatization have been integral to neoliberal/neoconservative reform movements since the 1980s. It surprises Ravitch (or so she says), but has not surprised leftist critics that this pseudo-classical and unsubstantial curricular laundry list has been incorporated into the stifling drudgery of teaching to the test, thus trivialized out of critical existence.

After 9/11, Ravitch wrote in the widely-read (by school administrators) magazine Educational Leadership of “Seven Lessons for the Schools”: It’s OK to be patriotic; not all cultures share our regard for equality and human rights; we must now recognize the presence of evil in the world; pluralism and divergence of opinion are valuable; knowledge of U.S. history is important; knowledge of world history and geography is important; and we must teach students to appreciate and defend our democratic institutions.

Ravitch is a consummate insider, and has always lacked serious analytical and visionary skills. Meanwhile, public schools are under coordinated attack in financialized and repressive society as we know it, and as she loves it.

divide and conquer

lets get angry at the teachers instead of the plutocracy

The American people may suffer from amnesia re public education because we lack any sense of history, but what is at the core of educational failure are several trends:

1. A contempt for public institutions and a blindly irrational belief in private institutions to solve the problems largely created by deficits produced by lower taxes for private institutions (corporations) and the wealthy because or this blindly irrational belief.

2. An extraordinary disparity between the poorest and wealthiest in the US has created a crisis for democracy, and our irrational belief that schools can mediate this divide when history shows us that only massive intervention in the "free" market in many arenas--jobs and career training, employment programs, health programs, housing programs, and etc., curb the blight of poverty which many pretend only exists because the poor are ignorant and dirty.

3. The irrational belief in the existence of race and the idea of racial superiority that accompanies it, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, has led our nation to abandon the ideals of the Great Society programs (see #1 above) and the civil rights laws of 45 years ago. The election of 1968 shifted the discussion away from civil rights and towards 'law and order' as the Dixiecrats jumped the political fence to join the Republicans--and have pretty much stayed with Republican racism ever since. This shifted money away from 'soft' government programs (schools) to increase equality toward 'hard' government programs (prisons) which do the opposite. This eerily parallels 19th Century vagrancy laws which allowed for arresting freed slaves unable to support themselves, and reinstitute slavery (the 13th Amendment says slavery is banned 'except in cases of penal servitude')

4. The limits of democracy in a middle class squeeze play.
The standard of living for the average US worker has fallen since 1973, but there has been little real discussion and no real program to address this crisis. This fall in status has led to contempt for authority among the children and grandchildren of those workers from 35 years ago.
Children and parents no longer treat teachers with respect, and mirror the contempt for the public institution that they are most directly involved in. The same applies to government officials, as the Tea Party and typical comments on this page attest.

There is a way out of this crisis. Raise taxes on our wealthiest instead of allowing the eunuchs to continue to overrun the treasury (see "The Last Emperor"). Invest in career programs that allow students to work and study; build new schools across the US; engage in an economics that bases its foundation on utilizing and increasing the potential of human capital.

Of course, besides taxing the rich, we need to also close the 700+ military bases, empty our prisons of many who do not need to be in them (it costs over $50,000 a year to keep an adult prisoner in stir), and close all corporate loopholes.

The main effort in education at this moment needs to be to stop the bleeding.

Rehire 300,000 teachers who are facing layoffs with a stimulus package.

Refuse to allow schools to expel students on the wholesale basis which they now do, just as we refused to allow de jure segregation (we only substituted de facto in its place)-- and call a spade a spade: NCLB, Race to the Top, and the hoohah charter school movements are the grand-brainchildren of the same damn crackers among us who opened private academies in the wake of Brown v. Bd. of Education to turn back the clock to the good old days when we didn't have to sit next to anybody dark.

The profession of teaching in America has traditionally been seen with ambivalence; alternately praised for the valuable social role it provides, as well as being a relatively low paid place where those "losers who can't hack it in the real world" can have a steady job.
It is no surprise that nations with better median educational levels accord teaching with much more respect, and all that comes with it: pay, working conditions, etc. Since the corporate media and their shills despise unions (and teacher's unions are amongst the strongest in the USA), they are a natural target. Especially since their neo-Robber Baron paymasters would love to go back to the situation that education was during "The Gilded Age," make sure they know enough to follow orders and sign their lives away as they toil at starvation level wages.

When did teacher become the enemy? That's easy. When Reagan put William Bennett in charge of education. At that time, any classes that didn't help make sure the student was turned into a money grubbing, selfish little asshole who can't write, read or form a complete thought were immediately terminated. Critical thinking was no longer taught, and that was entirely by design.

I graduated high school in 1976, and consider myself damned lucky to have gotten one of the last decent educations available in this country. Education after Reagan took over became nothing but a wasteland of incomplete information, lies, and twisted bullshit that were designed to create, as Ward Churchill put it, a nation of little Eichmanns. It's function has been to make sure that people don't think, question or figure out what those at the top are doing. And at that, it's been doing just fine.

I have friends in their 30's who still buy that line of BS hook, line, and sinker. The "education system" has done it's job quite well on them. And unfortunately, nothing you say can or will point out reality to them, they are so sure that what they have been taught is the truth. But ask them to explain how the last 30 years of giving tax breaks and cuts to big business has given them a decent job, they suddenly want to stop the discussion entirely. Making them THINK is apparently painful for them. Once again, their "education" did it's job, alright.

Turning education over to those with money is NOT a good idea. Look at how well it's worked for EVERYTHING else we've done that with. EVERYTHING that we've done that with now costs us 30% if not more than it used to, and we aren't getting NEARLY what we USED to back when the big bad gov't ran things. Prisons? Colorado now spends 11 TIMES what it did before privatization. Talk about a savings! Roads? The places where they are privatized the costs are through the roof and the roads suck. Privatization is nothing but SCREWING YOU for what SHOULD be the common good, and should be done by the people (meaning NOT for profit).

Profit screws up every public service it touches. Things that are done quite adequately for a very low cost end up being vehicles for the greedy to make profit off of and do shoddy work. These things are nothing but sweetheart deals for selfish, greedy people to make money off of things that shouldn't BE for profit. The greed ruins EVERYTHING. Children's educations are FAR too important to be left to the whims of the greedy.

We keep thinking that we always get the best deal for the least amount of money. The WalMart approach to life is the problem, not the meager salaries we pay teachers. We SAY we want a decent education for kids, but when it comes right down to it, we refuse to make a REAL investment in what SHOULD be our most important place. The more we nickel and dime things, the worse, NOT the better, they will be. This country has some seriously twisted priorities, and this is probably the biggest one.

Our society stopped giving two hoots about teachers long ago. If you want particular stories about the situation, I recommend the NAPTA website (National Association for the Prevention of Teacher Abuse). Administrators often (though certainly not always) behave like little kids who never grew up, with their egos overshadowing all they do. Directives normally given "from on high" only exacerbate this situation.

I can cite one story that I'm all too familiar with. The principal in question was "promoted" out of the district, to the role of superintendent, then "promoted" to another state, where he eventually received a vote of "no confidence," and left there for parts unknown.

How much damage this clown caused for kids is incalculable, but I know for a fact that because of this one individual, many teachers were shoved in the closet, or thwarted from being the teachers they could have been.

I can also say with certainty that many teachers were snuffed long before this story took place, in spite of them begging their local and national "teachers' association" for help:

http://www.endteacherabuse.info/Geery.html

the problem is so much larger...

the education picture is but a small portion, but one at the front lines, as 'education' highlights one of our current failings as a society...

our education has no relationship with our living world, other than as an abstract for 'jobs'...

this philosophical blindness to our oneness with the planet leaves us without grounding in virtually every aspect of our lives...

in other words, what, of substance, remains to be taught, if this is ignored, and intentionally so?

our species is passing away, and threatening to take much of this world's existing life with it...it is time to confront the fact that we are, despite our 'educations', utterly ignorant...

our ignorance is only matched, if not exceeded, by our industriousness...unfortunately...

the concept of teaching must go, along with the concepts of private property and money...

the concept of parents raising children to live simply, within the world, via their own local resources and mental and physical abilities, must come to be...

A note to President Obama, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, and political leaders in both major parties who keep insisting that K-12 teachers should be held accountable for student scores on standardized tests:

You did not insist on accountability from Wall Street, the nation's bankers, polluting oil companies, insurance companies, businesses that move off shore to avoid taxes, politicians who pass legislation favorable to big corporations and then resign to become their lobbyists, and countless others whose greed and blatant corruption have driven this nation into a morass of ethical and economic chaos.

However, when teachers--some of the few people in our country who are not governed solely by greed and who often give freely of their time and tap into their paltry salaries to pay for teaching supplies and lunches for poor children--cannot overcome language barriers, parental indifference, budget cuts, undernourished students, drug dependency, disciplinary problems, learning difficulties, and all the other factors that negatively affect student learning, you insist that they be held accountable for things they cannot control.

Such is the topsy turvey world of American values. Teachers are the enemy because they are some of the few people who are trying to make a positive difference in the lives of young people.

That makes them the enemy!

"The cover story in Sunday's NYT Magazine depicts a circle of national reformers who have vilified the union and see collective bargaining as the enemy." I read that article during lunch today--I could barely eat. The corporate raiders have their eyes on public school monies. I'm glad I teach in a subject area (Spanish) that Missouri doesn't have the money to monitor. And that I have only five years to retirement--75% of highest three years of salary guaranteed. Race to the Top (of a pile of pure bull shiit) is worse than NCLB and I didn't think it could get any worse.

"It has got to stink being a teacher these days, especially one in an underperforming urban district [or rural poverty district like mine]." I'm currently involved in writing the curriculum. They pay us a stipend. I figured out that to do what the district wants (which is what the state is demanding due to Race to the Height of Insanity (Top) will net me about $8.00 an hour. It's going to take a minimum of a couple of hundred hours to complete curriculum for the four levels of foreign language we offer. All for show for the state ed dept for our "school review" process. No teacher will ever use it as it is way too cumbersome of a document.

Gotta go as here come the students back from lunch.

OYE

My political take on the country is that education is like healthcare: powerful forces on the right want it fully privatized, with the only gov't mandate being a mandate on the customer to pay for it. These rightwing forces are very powerful: they own our government via wealthy and corporate backers, and they even own a significant fraction of the publics sympathies via the propagandizing of Faux News and rightwing radio, and right leaning pulpits across America that decry the 'secular humanists'.

As with healthcare, I believe we on the left are going to lose this fight. The alternative is to hollow out an option for those of us who want it, a public option. Remember that the public option is NOT socialist, per se. In both healthcare insurance and education, it speaks to a level of commitment on both the provider and the customer: that it is constant and lifelong. It cannot be easily entered into, or exited. And that lifelong commitment requires that laws be passed requiring it.

People that want privatized education want to 'fast food' their kids education. With them it'll be 'flavor of the month' with their kids rolling into one school after another as the parents substitute rage at the current school with active engagement. People that want public education want a constant level of commitment on both sides, which requires above all, trust. (Privatized systems absolutely hate the word 'trust', finding it socialist. The words they prefer is 'caveat emptor': buyer beware).

I believe we on the left need to push for the 'public option' for ourselves, and let the right go where they are going to go. If we are insistent enough on it, we can go public (ie single payer) just for our own families. But, doing so requires a lifelong commitment to a healthcare or education provider: trust, on both sides.

However, if you want to end all this rightwing push permanently, you have to separate congress from corporate campaign cash. fixcongressfirst.org will return our government to the people. Until we do that, all we are fighting is a losing battle against incredibly powerful corporations that think of people like they think of gasoline, or electricity. An input, nothing more. Significantly, they have no interest in educating children, and may have a substantial interest in their mis-education, based on what I've seen among Engineers in this country.

I think if you ask a teacher what happened they won't blame government, policians or even the school administration.

They will point to a significant attitude shift in parents.

When did children all become angels? No one lies, or can be more selfish or devious than a child.

And yet, every parent thinks it is their DUTY to 'support' their child regardless.

This was less so in the past. The days when a parent would take a teacher aside and say "Listen, this kid is trouble, if he get's too bad you just call me and I will come get him!" are well over.

The day teachers became the enemy was the day the skill of parenting was lost.

This was about the same time that two parents went from having two incomes if they WANTED, to having two incomes so that they could own a home (or just pay the rent) and pay for college.