Re: In Praise of Throwing Money at Schools

[aburke5054@aol.com]

It's better to have money than not have money.  We get that already.  
But poor children need better schools,   whether or not making them 
better means making them more expensive.  We should be pressing the 
states (and DC) to give them better schools.  What's so hard about 
this?

Art

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Campbell <campbellp@mail.montclair.edu>
To: ARN State <ARN-state@yahoogroups.com>; ARN-L List 
<arn-l@interversity.org>; arn2-strategy <arn2-strategy@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 09:55:20 -0500
Subject: [arn-l] In Praise of Throwing Money at Schools

  Washington D.C.'s schools spend $16,344 per student, but only 12% 
read proficiently. On the surface, the conclusion seems pretty obvious: 
D.C. schools spend a lot but get very little return on their 
investment. Therefore, giving D.C. schools more money won't solve the 
problem.


But let's dig a little deeper. Tuition at St. John's College High 
School, a D.C. district Catholic school that sends almost all its 
graduates to four-year colleges, is $10,520 per year. Look at the 
annual income of the parents who send their kids to D. C. public 
schools and compare that to the parents who send their kids to St. 
John's College High School. What you'll more than likely see is that 
parents who send their kids to D.C. public schools make exponentially 
less money per year than do parents who send their kids to St. John's.


What difference does this make? Well, dig a bit deeper and you'll see 
what I mean. In the case of St. John's parents, there is a strong 
likelihood that both parents graduated from college. In the case of 
D.C. public schools, the majority of parents are single mothers who did 
not go to college. Therefore, there is an automatic assumption in the 
homes of the St. John's students that (a) they are able to go to 
college and (b) they are expected to go to colllege. Not so in the 
homes of the D.C. public students. If anything, parents have to work at 
least twice as hard to not only afford college, but to instill in their 
children the notion that college is both attainable and possible. This 
is NOT to say that D.C. students can't go to college. Of course they 
can, and many do. But it is much, much more difficult to do so.


Further, because they make more money, the St. John's parents are able 
to afford after-school tutoring like piano lessons or dance classes or 
extra help in math. Not so the D.C. public parents. In addition, the 
St. John's parents can afford to send their kids to summer camp. Not so 
the D.C. parents. What difference does this make? A significant body of 
research indicates that whatever achievement gains are made by poor 
minority kids over the course of the academic year, these gains are 
lost over the summer. The end result is that poor minority students 
take one step forward during the school year, but then two steps back 
in the summer. And, because so few poor minority students have access 
to high-quality pre-K instruction, they begin their school lives behind 
their wealthy peers and gradually fall farther and farther behind.


From the data above, it seems that D.C. public spends more per pupil. 
But if you factor in all the after-school tutoring that the St. John's 
kids get, the summer camps, and the priceless influence of being raised 
by two college graduates who EXPECT you to go to college, you'll see 
that the money pales in comparison.


The classic conservative argument on education is, "Throwing more money 
at schools won't help the problem." Maybe not. But if we were to 
allocate funds to provide free, high-quality, after-school tutoring to 
D.C. students and provide funds to allow them to attend fun, enriching 
summer camps, we'd see measurable improvement in learning outcomes. 
Even better, provide the funds for high-quality, developmentally 
appropriate pre-K for these children. And while we're at it, let's 
provide funds for adequate healthcare for these children. Then let's 
see what happens to achievement. Then let's look at the return on our 
investment.


But, because conservatives like John McWhorter, Jay Greene, the Fordham 
Foundation, and the Broad Foundation insist that more money won't solve 
the problem, the likelihood of this happening is slim to none.


Finally, the argument that conservatives make assumes that public 
school instruction is as good as the instruction at private schools. 
This may or may not be the case with some schools in D.C. But teachers 
in D.C. public schools and most other urban school districts have had 
their professional judgement as educators taken away from them and 
replaced by canned curricula such as Success for All and Open Court. 
Teachers in D.C. public schools and most other urban school districts 
teach in overcrowded classrooms, often more than 30 students per class 
and sometimes more than 40 (in the case of California). Teachers in 
D.C. public schools and most other urban school districts must teach 
with outdated or insufficient materials. As a result of these and other 
pressures, half of all teachers leave these schools within five years, 
creating huge gaps in continuity and the ability of these schools to 
adequately educate children.


But in most private and parochial schools, class sizes are much, much 
smaller than public schools. Teachers are given autonomy to run their 
classes as they see fit. They are provided with updated materials and 
have ample resources to educate children. As a result, teachers stay on 
at these schools because these are good places to work.


So the likelihood is that instruction is much worse in D.C. public 
schools as a whole than it is at St. John's. So if instruction really 
is much better at St. John's, can't we assume that students will do 
better? Given the advantages these students already enter school with, 
coupled with better instruction and smaller class sizes, you want to 
tell me that the extra $5,824 that D.C. public school students receive 
is going to compensate?


Don't forget that private and parochial schools like St. John's can 
achieve the kind of results they get because they get to control who 
enters and who does not. Public schools have to take them all: the 
trouble-makers, the drug addicts, the gang members, the jocks, the 
brains, etc., etc. This is what makes them PUBLIC schools.


---
Peter Campbell


=

________________________________________________________________________
Check out AOL.com today. Breaking news, video search, pictures, email 
and IM. All on demand. Always Free.