School Daze

Perhaps it was our heteronormative suburban upbringing that prevents us from grasping what it is that all these college students here in California are in a uproar over budget cuts to the UC and CS system. After all, our political awakening was Prop. 13 and the threat of being shuttled off to summer school if that ballot measure was defeated. Lobbying out on the school yard on behalf of Howard Jarvis (and of course, our home-owning parents) became a passion.

Anyway, a couple of education-related items:

It is all but impossible to fire even the worst teachers if they’re members of United Teachers Los Angeles and work in the L.A. Unified School District. The union that spends millions on radio and TV ads telling you that more funding is needed “for our students” has forced the cash-strapped district to spend $3.5 million over the last 10 years “trying to fire just seven of the district’s 33,000 teachers for poor classroom performance.” Of those, “only four were fired, during legal struggles that wore on, on average, for five years each. Two of the three others were paid large settlements, and one was reinstated. The average cost of each battle is $500,000.

Read the rest here from Joel Engel which includes an interesting take on the LAUSD and Black History month.



And maybe we should re-think this whole school funding thing. At the very least, could the taxpayers spring for some white-out?



H/T: Instapundit.

How about another Lottery instead?

We’ve been accused (in these very pages) of never meeting a tax cut we didn’t like or thinking there was nothing ill on g#d’s green earth that a good ol’-fashioned tax cut couldn’t solve. An oversimplification to be sure but considering the alternative reflexology as practiced by Democrat state legislators, we’ll wear this broad-brushing proudly.

There was a voluminous comment exchange here on our home-schooling post that drifted from the question of teacher credentials to funding. The issue of funding has now been put on the front burner state-wide as California governor, Arnold Schwarznegger has proposed school-funding cuts in the wake of a huge budget shortfall.

Story here from the San Diego U-T, wastes no time in addressing the giddiness that some lawmakers see in this predicament. From the first paragraph:

“Democratic legislators, who have long wanted to get more money for underfunded California schools, think they have a historic opportunity to push for a tax increase.”

Yep. Its in the air. Can you feel it? And “historic opportunity”? Wow. That term is usually reserved for political movements that push for the franchise to vote or defeating fascism or communism or at the least a Laker 3-peat…. but to raise taxes? Almost makes you feel guilty you aren’t pulling your fair share, doesn’t it?

In the 16th paragraph of the story, it finally addresses some of the “reforms” the Governor and Assembly Republicans would like to see implemented that we would like to see also like gutting, err…. “streamlining bureaucracy, more local control and more accountability”.

We ain’t holding our breath, though. If any of you harbor any delusions that the California Teachers Union (and lest we be wrongly accused, we are referring specifically to the Union apparatchik and not necessarily the rank and file which they represent) hold the welfare of the children in the same regard they do to maintaining and expanding their own power, please watch video here courtesy KT.

Now, where's that paintbrush? We need another coat.

Follow the Money

A vigorously participated comment thread here (thank you, all) on the home-school ruling, inspired us to seek wisdom and knowledge from Pops, BwD’s elder statesman, provider of the chili recipe and all-around sage. The issue of funding started popping up at the end of the thread – Mongo has 3 friends himself that are being laid off as a result of budget cuts in Sacramento and at least two of them were forced to pay for basic school supplies out of their own pocket, an anecdote we here far too often.

B-Daddy suggested that while the classroom may be underfunded, the education system itself (memorialized from here on out as "Big Ed") is not. While overhead is unavoidable in any organization the current funding of 25-person classrooms in California at $275,000/year would certainly suggest that the teachers should not have to be purchasing pencils and papers for their students.

Pops' thoughts on the matter as follows:

My encounter with educational bureaucracy wasn't much of a big deal. After my retirement, subbing sounded like a good way to add a few bucks without jeopardizing my social security. I passed the CBEST (which is another story) and went the district office to sign up. I was told that it would cost me $180 to process my paper work. The whole idea of paying them to get a job really irritated me and I made an about face and walked out. I figured that they must not need math subs very badly.

I would like to weigh in on the idea that our schools are underfunded. It could be that the class rooms are underfunded but that is due to the fact that too large of a percentage of our school funding is being drained off by a bloated bureaucracy which has very little to do with providing a quality classroom experience.

There is a well known economic law that states that the number of administrative positions in an organization will increase over time independent of the useful function of the organization. This was first noted by an economist in the British Admiralty after WWI. The number of ships of line had decreased but the size of the Admiralty office had increased. At one point, there was a flu epidemic and the economist found that he had nothing to do. When he analyzed the situation, he realized that the organization spent its time generating paperwork that had to be reviewed by others creating an endless flow of "work."

My argument that the educational bureaucracy is for the most part useless lies in the fact the private schools operate entirely without an overriding bureaucracy and produce an equal or superior product. I am not familiar enough with our local government schools to know how many useless positions exist inside the schools, but there is a district office, a county office and state bureaucracy dedicated to paper pushing. The state bureaucracy has generated an educational code about four feet high. Somehow the private schools are able to operate without the bureaucracy or the code and therefore educate a child at lower cost.

Our former Secretary of Education, (Bill or Bob) Bennett used the example of the Chicago School system to make his point on needless bureaucracy. In Chicago, the government school system and the Catholic system are of approximately the same size. The government system has a cast of thousands overseeing their system. The entire Catholic system is overseen by a handful of priests and a few secretaries and produces a superior product.
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The state of North Carolina is the only place that I have heard of that has taken the problem seriously. They restructured the state bureaucracy and provided more classroom dollars while cutting the total bill for education.

Thanks, Pops!