Capitol Ideas: Failing Grades
Bethell, Tom
by Tom Bethell ~ have years--every written this issue column of the for magazine-- the last 2t true. education The relative an}.way. advantage But that of is...
...He has convinced me that the teachers' unions are the key to understanding the modern failure of public education...
...Notice what is not that raise costs, promote inefficiencies or included here: considering what is best lower school performance...
...Unions need Public Education: A Primer with Attitude, Terry Moe writes: "Unions bargain with to attract members and money, which school boards, which play the role of man- entails not just winning higher wages and agement...
...education The relative an}.way...
...I'll go for is not easy to get the relevant information more dollars...
...That only shows he than it was 3 o or 4 o years ago...
...In effect, they the information that party identification learned that they could "game" the sys- normally conveys.This allows the unions tem...
...information is available through the was always aware that education is one of teacher--at a prep school in Virginia...
...More money has meant lower ers' unions from the usual media scrutiny...
...In this analysis, institutional self-interest overrides everything else...
...how teachers are to be evaluated, how much That is why there is now a large home- time they can be required to work, class schooling movement in this country...
...In that sense, the Beyond a certain level, in fact, most people don't need much in the way of academics...
...advantage But that of is parents no longer who and to Gore, the most Internet is that expensive, if the only problem we promoted can hook of educating kids by up A1 can afford school fees is much greater now them will be solved...
...They can be fringe benefits, but in controlling almost organized to vote, make phone calls, ring every aspect of their own employment...
...progressives had invested so nmch hope...
...He conceded the premise and lowered the ante...
...No harm was done if working or middle class parents couldn't afford the fees for private school...
...by Tom Bethell ~ have years--every written this issue column of the for magazine-the last 2t true...
...Algebra "had to be learned outside of math kids...
...But one who has studied them is Terry expected to behave like the managers of teachers (that's what "smaller class size" private firms in resisting union demands...
...Above Kids will be motivated, too, because comEducation ~xould change us all, socie~ all, he made sure that everyone worked puters are fun...
...Lenin supposedly said are in a position to determine who the that, in the period before the Bolshevik revolution...
...In England in the t9~o's it was often said--and it was probably true--that the grammar schools (state schools) were as good as the private schools...
...What no one predicted was that the New Math was coming down the edu- mediocrities and daffy ideas for decades...
...Some conservatives who understand these things have developed a political phiexplicitly political...
...Test scores didn't budge...
...to the schools...
...Two billion dollars were spent, more teachers were hired, salaries were increased...
...The judge was naively convinced that, until he imposed his own will on the district, the problem had been a shortage of good intentions...
...So, some on the right say: "No How do they "participate" in elections...
...and about trol of schools, are in fact strongly shaped who has to join the union (there are big by the teachers' unions...
...longer any general consensus on the central purpose of schooling...
...I'm not sure I go that far, but it's something to think about...
...idea is that education imparts informaknow why columnists repeat themselves...
...Wrong...
...means), supporting higher taxes, seeing School boards face little or no competi- that more money flows into union coftion, and needn't worry that they will lose fers, minimizing competition, and seek'business' by agreeing to union demands ing political power...
...Give me a billion dollars, and I'll see the job gets done...
...There are regional differences-the public education has falsified that nalists, meanwhile, have exempted teachpremise...
...I say"don't recall" because you forget what you have written...
...In the sec- public interest more generally...
...They overshadow business and civic groups, parents especially...
...Their membership was inconspicuous in the 195o's, but in the following two decades non-partisan, meaning that voters lack both unions grew rapidly...
...reform could find a willing customer in the tion establishment have come close to TOM BETHELL was recently a media tel- schools, because all needs were presumed doing the job, however...
...It has seemed chy of educational values was shattered, impossible to disabuse them of the idea once the schools lost their compass, hawk- that problems will he solved to the extent ors of new wares could market their stock that government spends more money...
...N 17 The American Spectator 9 December 2ooo/January ~oo...
...Edudoomed cause, obviously, so I ignored it taught geometry, and algebra, although I cation experts who believe it should get for years...
...of liberalism, for the guiding philosophy of Progressive education had been much touted earlier in the century, but in the 194o's and 5o's (when I was growing up) it was in remission...
...Any teacher who believes would be transfonned, and so on...
...The Government schooling was an imporstant, fairly decent level of education would astronomer and writer Clifford Stoll, grow- tant issue in the presidential campaign, but be sustained indefinitely...
...The worse the better...
...Now you change has taken place in England...
...He has fun with it in parents are catching on...
...Once the hierar- persist in believing this...
...That's a plus...
...the early 196o's," Diane Ravitch writes in It has been a great source of frustration her new book, Left Back: A Century of to conservatives that so many Americans Failed School Reforms...
...It really is a money problem, he agreed...
...It's not just pay and fringe bensingle and inner-city parents, where a efits...
...Even the simopponent...
...But school boards cannot be benefits but increasing the demand for D iane Ravitch says next to nothing about the teachers' unions...
...In a chapter of a forthcoming book, Now, just as the voters have begun to see the need for a more radical look at the issue, and some long-delayed truth telling, along comes the GOP candidate...
...they know it has not been working for their stable and unobtrusive in the background...
...There is a correlation, but it is Two things work greatly to the unions' inverse...
...Every purveyor of social How are we to explain the great decline that has taken place...
...It sprang back to life in money was spent...
...about teachers' roles in second point, stressed by Mot, is that the school policy decisions, grievances, time local school boards, nominally in con- off for professional meetings...
...I My first job in the U.S...
...agency fees" for those who don't...
...The first is that parents often in the 198o's, when a power-drunk federal iudge ordered taxes raised and the money spent on local schools...
...Over and over again, the experience of from other sources, Mot stresses...
...Unions also have lots of money...
...Third graders need to read...
...about dren from government schools entirely...
...Something called the world...
...They would only extend fedSchool board contests attract a low turnout eral control to private schools anyway...
...isn't the solution after all...
...It was a hard...
...But Failing Grades How education unions ruined the public schools...
...It all adds up to Mickey Mouse Math," he adds...
...5 million members, 2 million of elected officials, whose incentives are them practicing teachers) and the American Federation of Teachers (about one million members, half of them teachers...
...therefore kids exposed to the Web those great and hopeless causes in which students were good, on the whole, and the will acquire all the information they need...
...The big test came in Kansas City advantage...
...For private-secpublic education failed, having been rea- tor unions, this achievement would be "a sonably successful for about a hundred dream come true...
...Educators have indeed changed because theirs has been a playpen for no education courses...
...Now there is something that, wait a minute, maybe more money called New New Math, apparently, or Connected Math, or Fuzzy Math...
...But the wouldn't get any worse...
...and that included the teachers...
...ignore it, so the students did okay...
...firing...
...But we were allowed to That isn't about to change...
...No other community group "can come close to matching them...
...There are rules about hirnews from others, often remove their chil- ing and (almost impossible...
...The great decline took place at just the time when union power was rising...
...We are talking about two unions here--the National Education Asso- ond place, school boards are composed of ciation (2...
...failure of government education is a crisis liberals is this: If there's a problem, the government should spend money on it...
...They could exploit the nation's willingness to spend ever-larger sums on pubto shape that message...
...The kids and for the children, for the schools, or the the tax money will still be there...
...The schedules and sizes...
...December 2ooo/January 16 2ooz 9 TheAmerican Spectator workers- teachers themselves- who have a direct stake in the outcome...
...When I jected to New Math...
...I had a chance to talk to him recently at an education conference at the Hoover Institution...
...All this explains "the astounding fact" that teachers' unions can control "who they will be bargaining with," as Mot says...
...The same has given the subject no thought...
...Most didn't, of course, and most still don't...
...vouchers...
...headmaster was a memorable figure...
...unions are still weak in most southern don't know what is going on in the states - b u t overall they have succeeded in schools...
...they would change it for the worse...
...Parents who strongest, contracts may run to two or three do pay attention, or who learn the bad hundred pages...
...Many are too busy, too harried, getting control of almost all aspects of too misinformed...
...They won't, though, wrong...
...But it has turned out that I was had no math degree and certainly had taken into another field...
...The latest fad, and one of the silliest My mistake was to assume that a conclass," he says...
...cation highway...
...The Web...
...I hadn't come to America yet (I arrived in 1962 ) but I gather that in the 195o's the public schools here were pretty good...
...But at least it afraid to seem old-fashioned, so he was sub- stood it any better than A1 Gore...
...In urban districts where unions are close watch is most needed...
...But not quite so many as my from the unions themselves...
...test scores...
...Their children would get a pretb: good Lousy schools and an incompetent educa...
...If the problem persists, that is because not enough equal in importance, and there was no Gore and Bush continued to see the prob- low at the Hoover Institution...
...The problem to be explained is why 'management' will be...
...not just in wages and al Education Association line--hire more teachers, give us more dollars--Bush in effect responded: "More dollars...
...The (to to 2o percent), and they are typically unions are inadvertently encouraging people to take their children out of public schools and home-school them...
...Home-schooling M. Mot of Stanford's political science department...
...The but I don't recall ever having written about education...
...was as a school tion...
...More and more, was growing up, education was something his entertaining book, High-Tech Heretic...
...They control an army of deserves a closer look...
...When Gore touted the Nation- own advantage...
...Moreover, the losophy that might be called Leninist: "The unions, by participating in local elections, worse the better...
...This is especially true of schooling...
...I that is simply looking for a quiet life...
...People are even beginning to realize It was simply there for all who wanted it...
...It wouldn't get ing up in Buffalo, had teachers who were my sense is that George Bush hardly underany better, to be sure...
...ly amelioration of social conditions would only reduce the pressure for revolution...
...It door bells, distribute literature, serve as plest questions "nmst often be answered through sketchy information" assembled lem through the eyes of the educators, not lic education, and make it work to their the pupils...
...Jourcampaign staff...
Vol. 33 • December 2000 • No. 10
