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Jewish World Review /Feb. 5, 1999 /19 Shevat, 5759
Walter Williams
More money, better education?
(JWR) ----(http://www.jewishworldreview.com)
PRESIDENT CLINTON IS TRAIPSING up and down the land, calling for more money
for education. This time, it's money to hire 100,000 additional teachers in
order to reduce class size and hopefully improve public education.
A just-released report by the American Legislative Exchange Council,
"Report Card on American Education," suggests that taxpayers, parents and
students are about to be had again.
Let's examine the education establishment's more-money, better-education
sham. New Jersey ranks No. 1 in the nation in terms of expenditures per
student ($10,900). Washington, D.C., is a close second at $10,300. If
educationists are right, New Jersey and Washington should have the highest
level of student achievement in the land.
Think again. New Jersey ranks 29th in student achievement. As for
Washington, the only thing preventing it from being dead last in student
achievement is Mississippi.
Minnesota ranks first in the nation in terms of student achievement, and
Iowa ranks second. If we accepted the more-money-better education sham, we'd
think Minnesota and Iowa are really up there in per-student expenditures.
Think again. Minnesota ranks 27th in expenditure per student ($6,300), and
Iowa ranks a lowly 30th ($6,000). There is no relation between expenditures
and student performance.
You say: "Williams, you're forgetting about reducing the number of students
per teacher. That's what our president has discovered is the linchpin of
higher quality education."
Let's look at that. New Jersey has a teacher/student ratio of 14 students
per teacher, ranking second in the nation. Guess which jurisdiction has the
smallest teacher/student ratio in the nation. If you said, "It's the
nation's capital," go to the head of the class. Washington's teacher/student
ratio is 13.7.
A low teacher/student ratio hasn't prevented Washington's students from
being just about the nation's dumbest. Japan, whose students run circles
around ours, has teacher/student ratios almost double ours.
You say: "But Williams, you're forgetting something else: teacher salaries.
The more we pay teachers, the higher the quality of education." Let's look
at that.
New Jersey's average teacher salary is $51,000, the nation's fifth-highest.
Washington teachers earn $41,000, making them the 16th-highest paid
teachers. On the other hand, Minnesota teachers get $38,000, ranked 22nd,
and poor Iowa teachers only get $34,000, ranking 34th. With an average
salary of $54,000, Massachusetts teacher salaries rank No. 1, while its
student achievement ranks 14th.
Nothing the education establishment has called for over the years has or
will improve American education. More money and more teachers are nothing
more than self-serving strategies to enhance the wealth and power of the
education establishment. Solutions to our sorry state of education lie in
changing the way education is delivered.
The increasing number of charter schools is one alternative. There are
1,129 charter schools operating in 26 states and Washington, D.C., and more
are in the works. Their typically higher-than-average scores show that
student achievement has little to do with expenditures per student, class
size and the number of teachers hired. That fact has been amply demonstrated
by private black-owned schools that accommodate poor and moderate-income
black students.
Schools such as Marva Collins Preparatory Schools in Cincinnati, Chicago,
Milwaukee and Kenosha, Wis.; Ivy Leaf School in Philadelphia; and Marcus
Garvey School in Los Angeles can boast that nearly all of their students
score at grade level and above, and at a cost less than half that of public
schools.
The education establishment fights tooth and nail to keep its monopoly and
avoid accountability. We shouldn't allow its agenda to destroy another
generation of American
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