Yes, school funding matters

Zuckerberg means well. Corey Booker didn't come out of the episode looking very good. He got out of town just in time.

 

No. Plenty of poor kids in the United States succeeded because of good educations and in spite of poor schools. Vietnamese and Cambodian kids in the South out performed their classmates with 2 years of coming to this country. Koreans may have come to this country in the last 20 years with an advantage of being middle class to start, but they still were without language skills. Immigrants survived the tenements of New York, Boston, Philly, Milwaukee, Chicago and became successful, and not just a few token athletes. I know of many Hispanic families, stereotypical, landscape or mechanic fathers, janitorial or menial labor mothers, and their kids graduate from high school and go on to college, even if just community college.

We are talking in generalities. But generally, we are talking about a specific socio-demographic. Yes, it is more difficult for African Americans to assimilate into the greater American culture, and thus their school performance has lagged. But we are now talking about the grandchildren and great grandchildren of those that integrated public schools and they are behind their grandparents in educational performance.

It may be funny that some ignorant blogger thinks that White people should refrain from commenting on Beyoncé, but that cultural separation is the cause of underperformance of Black kids in public schools, where per capita spending is equitable between urban black and urban and suburban White's.

Why is there a disparity in performance between white and black kids who go to the same urban neighborhood schools?

ABout 25-30 years ago a jurisdiction in Maryland went from majority white to majority black. Per capita income rose, even adjusted for inflation. Housing prices went up in large parts of the county. Old unproductive farm land was developed into. Cookie cutter colonials and McMansions. Newly empowered black men and women, educated and employed sought to raise their kids in what essentially was a self created separate but equal middle class suburban environment. Problem. The kids refused to buy in. Problem schools and crime arose from nothing. African Americans were in leadership positions in government and schools and still education tanked. The kids didn't buy in to the American Dream that even their parents bought and prospered in. And if their parents didn't wholly become middle enough of their peers' parents did to set the example. And still it sucks. Worst school scores of any county and higher crime rates of any juridcition (not called Baltimore City). Yet taxpayer spending on police and education was as high as most places in the state. Poorer jurisdictions had better school scores.

 

Having immersed myself in my local school district after having started in a less fortunate district (both in California), I drew the following conclusions:

1. various parts of California spend more $$ per student (more poverty areas) and we spend more per head than in the past but that's not in real dollars (taking into account for inflation), California is spending less and less per child (as opposed to 40 yrs ago);

2. private education foundations are giving a huge advantage to the wealthier school districts (our foundation raises nearly $3M per year as opposed to the past district which raises less than $50k); this translates into better technology, paid school aides to supplement teachers, more diverse curriculum offerings, more science offerings, more comfortable teacher surroundings; and

3. most importantly, there is no substitute for a stable family, parents who encourage and make education a priority and who do not look at school as a time suck/student supervision, but really a learning vehicle.

All that being said, I continue to be appalled at how easily the populace decides to spend more $$ on incarceration than education simply because people throw easy conclusions out like "wasteful spending", inefficient "spending" and "protected tenured teachers" instead of looking at the big picture. Kids don't ignore when parents don't care or invest in the schools.

 

I'm not so sure about that.

Look, my take is that, in the vast majority of instances, schools and schoolteachers do a fine job. Yes, there can be some deadwood and clock-punching among the faculty. Yes, there are those hellholes of schools. But, in the main, our schools work.

The trouble is not the "in the main." Rather it's where, in a sense, the basic rules regarding inputs and outputs don't apply. If you'll allow me to paraphrase you from the first page, in some instances we ask teachers/schools to do the impossible. Not difficult, not challenging ... impossible.

We've all heard that old trope about the "definition of insanity ... doing the same thing over and over, blah, blah." Well, I think the same idea applies when people start arguing over these instances of impossibility. It is folly to think we can take a model that works well in your garden-variety setting and simply spruce that model up with a bit more (even a lot more) funding here and maybe an add-on program there. All you're doing is spending more money on something that's all but guaranteed to fail. Worse, you might be directing resources away from other approaches or influences that might actually help.

 

So should we not try?

 

When there's an actual alternative being presented, then we can choose between them. Until then, I'm completely unimpressed by the hypothetical.

 

I can't divide by zero. Should I keep trying? Would it be wrong for me to suggest that I might be able to get closer to dividing by zero if you increased my salary by 50%?

 

Ok, so say we do it your way. Which kids should we stop trying to help?

 

I don't think I've read a plan that didn't begin with "We need more money!"

 

You can mis-characterize my arguments all you want. I won't play along here.

 

Doctor, it is almost a certainty that these leeches won't help.

Do you have an alternative in mind?

No, I am not at present aware of an alternative. But why does that matter?

Well, we've got to do something.

 

Well, at least since it's not coming from the school reform industry, you can be sure the motivation behind any such plan is completely altruistic.