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More About: Education: Government SchoolsGovernment Education (no thanks)
Below is an exchange I recently had with a parent who took exception to a
blurb of mine in the Arizona Republic about public education. Her comments
(noted with blue vertical lines) are almost identical to scores of emails I've
received over the years in response to my editorials and research on public
education. It's not that she and others disagree with me that is so
discouraging. Nor is it discouraging because I believe that my views
are correct and the only legitimate views. They're certainly not. What is so
discouraging is their group-think and the superficiality of their
counter-arguments.
As backdrop, my blurb was against a bond override for the local school
district. I said that most of the proponents seemed to be wealthy parents who
could afford to pay the cost of their children's education without mooching off
of childless taxpayers and parents who homeschool their children or send them to
private schools.
I've x'd out the person's name below.
In a message dated 10/24/2009 11:29:33 AM US Mountain Standard Time,
cindyxxx@cox.net writes:
Dear Mr. Cantoni,I am writting regarding your comments in the Arizona Repulic on Saturday, October 24th (today). Just a couple of quick questions, were you educated in a public school and do you realize that not all of Scottsdale is "wealthy"?
Dear Ms. xxxx:
I trust that you will give me the same courtesy I'm giving you and that
you will respond to my comments below.
To answer your questions: Yes, I realize that not all of Scottsdale is
wealthy, but in my daily walking and cycling through much of the city, I've
noticed that most of the signs supporting the override can be found in front of
expensive homes.
No, I did not attend public schools. I went to Catholic primary and
secondary schools and then six years of Catholic college. My son also attended
parochial schools. The same with my working-class parents, both of whom
attended parochial grade schools and high schools that would be considered
college prep schools today on par with Brophy Prep. Their poor immigrant
parents (my grandparents) could afford Catholic tuition at the time on a
waiter's pay and a barkeep's pay because taxes were a third of today's
confiscatory levels, due in part to public school taxes being much lower.
Higher taxes are one of the reasons that so few working-class and poor
parents can now afford both private tuition and public school taxes. It's also
part of the reason why Catholic schools have had to close in inner cities, thus
leaving blacks and Hispanics in those cities trapped in lousy public schools,
where the dropout rate is nearly 50% and where crime and drugs are
rampant.
The original goal of compulsory public education was universal education. With those dropout rates, and with a national graduation rate of only 70%,
compulsory public ed has been a failure, as measured by the original goal. I
believe that the reason for this is that a quality public education has become
an entitlement for mostly middle- and upper-class whites in suburbia.
The latest book I've read on education supports that belief: The
Street Stops Here. I encourage you to read it. It's about a Catholic high
school in the Bronx. The school is the last hope for the students' parents, who
know that if their kids fail to make the grade at the school, the'll end up at a
public school and have bleak futures.
I'm very versed in the history and facts of public education, and at one
time was active in public education reform, until I realized that public
education is a political system first, and an education system, second. As
such, it will always operate as a political system; that is, inefficiently,
irrationally, and beholden to special interests, especially teacher
unions.
A case in point: Nationally, productivity has fallen by over 70% in public
schools over the last 40 years, as measured by stagnant test scores and
skyrocketing per-pupil spending in inflation-adjusted dollars.
A related note: Years ago for one of my Arizona Republic columns, I
researched how the overhead compared at the Scottsdale Unified School District
to the Phoenix Diocese school system. This is from memory, so the numbers might
not be totally accurate, but SUSD had something like one administrator at HQ for
every 400 students. The Diocese, on the other hand, had one for every 4,000
students. Other researchers have found similar disparities between public and
parochial systems in other cities.
The K-3 overrides are essential for our children, especially those in lower income areas, if they are to get a head start in life.
As you can tell by my preceding comments, I disagree that more public ed
spending will help lower-income children.
What would help is to end the government education monopoly and make public
schools compete with private ones, as in Europe, where most of the leading
countries in education don't discriminate against private schools in funding. Yeah, I know the constitutional problems with that here and the history of
the anti-Catholic Blaine amendments, but there are no legitimate constitutional
prohibitions against giving at least education tax refunds or credits to parents
who send their kids to private schools.
Besides, the current system of funding public education violates parents'
freedom of religion. It does this indirectly, by making parents who want their
kids taught in religious schools to pay twice for education, once in public
school taxes and once in private tuition. As I've said, most can't afford to
pay twice, so the system is a de facto infringement of freedom of religion. To
draw an analogy, it would be akin to the government forcing parents to
contribute huge sums of money to a Church of the United States and then saying
that they are free to also support the church of their choice.
Can you imagine a class of 35 1st graders and 1 teacher? How can this one teacher possibly devote any individual attention to each child making sure they learn how to read and write.
I can't only imagine it, but I've experienced it firsthand. That was the
class size of my parents' classes, my classes, and my son's classes. There are
even larger classes in countries that far surpass the U.S. in education. Granted, discipline and family problems have permeated American schools, due, I
belive, to misguided and wrongheaded government policies for the last 45
years. It's a case of hope trumping experience to expect the same government
that caused classroom problems and learning difficulties to fix the
problems.
Have you ever visited Tavan Elementary in South Scottsdale?
No. Have you ever visted a Catholic elementary school in a poor
neighborhood?
These children need all the help they can get and this is such a critical year. If these children do not learn these essential tools how will they ever succeed?
A better question: Why aren't they learning? I posit that a lack of money
isn't the answer and that more money isn't a silver bullet.
Our children are our future and Arizona ranks 49th in the nation as far as educational funding. This is a pretty sobering statistic.
The ranking is a canard that I deconstructed years ago. But if it were
true, it would turn your argument on its head. It would do so because Arizona
ranks much higher than 49th in education results, when the results are adjusted
for race and income, thus showing a disconnect between spending and
results.
In addition, if this override fails, in addition to affecting our children, it will affect property values and businesses in Scottsdale.
Property taxes that go to public education are a double-edged sword. The
edge that you overlook is that such funding has led to segregated neighborhoods,
with the wealthiest taxpayers buying the largest homes and getting the better
schools. Funding equalization hasn't solved this problem and won't solve
it.
The override is not just for the wealthy, it is for all of the children in Scottsdale. For you to suggest that tax payers should not help fund education is crazy. Should taxpayers not fund roads, not everyone who is eligible has a drivers license or owns a car. Should taxpayers not fund help fund hospitals, not everyone uses them or needs them. Why would you take a good education away from a child, these kids will be running our country some day.
I'm not crazy. Nor do I speak in platitudes. What I said in my Ariz.
Republic blurb was that parents who can afford to pay the cost of
their children's education should do so out of their own pockets and that
everyone should subsidize the education of poor children. I also said that
well-off parents are mooching off childless citizens and parents who homeschool
their children or send them to private schools.
In fact, roads are close to my principle of a fee-based system based on
usage. Much of their cost is paid through gas taxes and license fees. I
believe all of the cost should be paid that way.
You began your email with personal questions for me. Now let me ask you a
personal question: Do you have children in public school?
If the answer is yes, you won't like what I'm going to say next -- namely,
that my wife and I have contributed much, much, much more than you to public
education. Over our adult lives we will pay approximately $190,000 in public
education taxes and not receive one cent in direct benefits in return. If you
have two children in public schools, and if you pay about the same as us in
school taxes, you will pay $190,000 over your adult life; but instead of
receiving zero in direct benefits, you will receive $240,000 in direct
benefits. Or to look at it another way, you will have taken money from my wife
and me that could have gone to poor children.
Frankly, I'd feel a lot better about public education if all of our
$190,000 went to poor children and not to parents who are not poor. After all,
supporting the poor is a precept of the Catholic Church. That's why our son
went on missions to Mexico where he worked during spring breaks at a Catholic
orphanage. It's also why he and his parents adopted an orphan financially at
the orphanage until he finished high school. No offense, but if you're not
poor, I don't feel good about supporting you.
Thank you for reading this,Cindy xxxx
You're welcome. I look forward to your response to my comments. In your
response, please address my points and don't speak in platitudes. Thank
you.
Regards,
Craig J. Cantoni
Craig J. Cantoni
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2 Comments in Response to Government Education (no thanks)
"The original goal of compulsory public education was universal education."
No. It's worse than that. The original (explicit) goal of compulsory attendance statutes was religious indoctrination. Search " 'That Old Deceiver Satan' Act". The stated purpose of the first compulsory attendance statute in British North America was not that children were not learning a trade, and not that children were not learning to read and compute, but that parents were not indoctrinating their children into the State religion. Later, when waves of Catholic immigrants to the post-Revolutionary US provoked an allergic reaction in the resident Protestant majority, legislatures switched from subsidizing church-operatd schools of the parents' choice to government-operated schools. The US "public" school system originated in anti-Catholic bigotry.
Wonderful column. We don't need taxes (stolen money) to fund any schools. Stolen money seems to corrupt and destroy everything it touches.
Have you read Gatto's new book? "Weapons of Mass Instruction".
If we could wake enough people up about the Poison Drops report and
the Pygmalion effect maybe we could end this evil nightmare.
The bureaucrats in the gov't schools very carefully brainwash most of
the "bad kids" to be bad. I watched it in MN, CO, AZ and NM.
My family and I went through hell in those schools.
You might read Poison Drops:
The report (Poison Drops) to the senate in 1885, said that gov't
school states had higher rates of crime, pauperism, mental illness,
and suicide than private school states, and the longer they had gov't
schools the higher the rates were
I see poison drops is back online:
at:http://books.google.com/ books?hl=en&id=A0VDAAAAIAAJ& dq=%22poison+drops%22& printsec=frontcover&source= web&ots=OtAI59EnXg&sig= fCcgYZYARFptb-grvpzadsvRVBI# PPA2,M1
Critics of the public schools, particularly in urban ghettos, have
long argued that many children fail to learn simply because their
teachers do not expect them to. That proposition is effectively
documented in a new book called Pygmalion in the Classroom (Holt,
Rinehart & Winston; $4.95). The book tells of an ingenious experiment
involving several teachers at a South San Francisco grade school who
were deceived into believing that certain of their students had been
spotted as "late bloomers." Eight months later, the children's
academic abilities showed dramatic improvement.
Friday, Sep. 20, 1968
http://www.time.com/time/ printout/0,8816,838752,00. html#