Re: [arn-l] More on "100% Solution" - Weighted Student Funding

[Peter Farruggio <pfarr@cal.berkeley.edu>]

Of course, the one big thing these marketplace mavens and crony 
capitalists refuse to raise in their hypocritical "poor kids need 
more funding" rhetoric is the issue of the universal UNDERFUNDING 
(tax cuts) of public schools during the past twenty five years, or 
more.  Notice that they are arguing for a weighted formula for 
distributing the current, pitifully inadequate amount of money 
allocated for public schools across the country.  It's like they're 
saying to reshuffle a stacked deck.  A few years ago, the CTA 
(teachers' union) estimated it would cost about $13 billion just to 
catch up on deferred school construction in California because no new 
schools had been built, except for those in new housing developments, 
since the Reagan-era "taxpayers' revolution"  Most working class kids 
must attend 1950s-1970s era decrepit schools, and I'll bet it's 
similar in urban centers all over the US.  And that's just talking 
about school buildings, not the whole infrastructure.

Now, many wealthier areas voluntarily raise local taxes to pay for 
their nice public schools; but i doubt that these corporate 
standardistas would advocate the appropriation of these funds to 
spend on lower income kids.

To get an idea of how regressive and unfair the US tax system is go 
to Citizens for Tax justice

http://www.ctj.org/

Tax the Rich!

Pete Farruggio





At 12:15 PM 6/28/2006, you wrote:
> The authors of the so-called "100% Solution" ask, "How should
> different student characteristics be weighted?" They ask this in
> response to their proposal that "hard-to-educate" (sic) children
> receive more funds. But how do you determine how much each child
> gets? The authors admit, "WSF (weighted student funding) cannot work
> if there is not an accurate picture of the student population of
> every school. With more money flowing to students with greater needs,
> there will be great temptation for schools to exaggerate their
> students' disadvantages. To ensure a fair process, the school should
> not have responsibility for classifying students."
>
> As one way to crack this inherently corrupted nut, the authors sing
> the praises of the marketplace:
>
> ---snip--
>
> One approach is to set weights over time based on the "marketplace"
> for students that are weighted. In a comprehensive WSF system such as
> we propose, weights can (and should) be established such that 
> hard-to- educate children become desirable for schools to enroll. 
> Knowing that
> student performance standards must be reached, principals should find
> the weight for an at-risk child sufficient to make that child an
> asset to the school. Principals should seek out the children who
> bring with them weights that are at least sufficient to enable the
> school to meet achievement standards. Just as the free market sets
> prices for goods and services, the market for hard-to-educate
> children can determine their weighting. Principals and schools should
> seek to enroll hard-to-educate children because they know that with
> the money accompanying the child they can show improvement trends and
> reach performance levels. If this doesn't happen, the district or
> state should adjust weights until it does.
>
> --snip--
>
> So let me get this straight: under this proposal, principals will go
> out of their ways to find the most challenging "hard-to-educate
> children" because these children will bring more dollars with them.
>
> But wait a minute: these extra dollars are supposed to be used to
> educate these so-called "hard-to-educate children." If that's the
> case, then it's a wash. In other words, there would be no incentive
> whatsoever to enroll these children. It would take more money to
> educate them. The principals would get more money to educate them.
> The principals would spend the extra money on educating them.
>
> Or not.
>
> It would most definitely be an incentive for principals to enroll
> these children if they got the extra money to educate them and then
> spend the extra funds on whatever they chose: a new football field, a
> new air-conditioned teachers' lounge, a new set of textbooks from
> McGraw-Hill.
>
> Ironically, in pointing out the possibility of corruption within the
> system, the authors have provided a new channel for corruption in a
> plan ostensibly designed to prevent it.
>
> A disproportionate percentage of these "hard-to-educate children" are
> black. A call to the marketplace to cure what ails them calls to mind
> a different kind of marketplace at a different time. But this
> marketplace was also designed to cure what ailed them. In both eras,
> their fates lay in the hands of the highest bidders.
>
> ---
> Peter Campbell------------------------------------------------