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Prescription for Our Nation
By Anna Little
January 22–28, 2012 has been designated National School Choice Week, following the success of last year’s first ever such designation. Freedom loving Americans across the USA will dedicate this week to inform and inspire folks on the critical issue of parental choice in education, and its potential to heal many of the maladies tormenting our society.
The education of our children serves as the very foundation upon which our society stands. Our economy, culture and government are entirely dependent upon its performance. Children taught to value liberty, free enterprise, morality, justice and public service are far more likely to develop into responsible and productive citizens than those who are not.
Conservatives have long recognized that our nation is in a precipitous decline from our former greatness. The year 2011 marks the first time in decades that the left has changed its tune, and is now in agreement that our nation is suffering from severe failures. But we are divided as to its cause. The left attributes it to greed on Wall Street. The right points to government run amuck. The left has also failed to offer solutions, other than taxing businesses out of existence. In sharp contrast, those who adhere to our founding values, advocate a holistic approach.
Leading New Jersey State Senators and Assemblymen have sponsored The NJ Parental Rights Program Act (S2914/A4033), to restore the right of parents to choose the education that best meets the needs of their children. The bill is affectionately known as The Bucco Bill for its author Assemblyman Tony Bucco, who takes pride in his association with the tea party movement.
Andrew Bernstein, philosopher, novelist and self described radical for laissez-faire government, compares government-run education with what it was when parents were in charge. “Prior to the mid-19th century, government schools did not exist in America. All schools were private. What was the difference in results? Literacy levels were remarkably high. For example, Thomas Paine’s book, Common Sense, sold 120,000 copies to a free population of 2.4 million, akin to selling 10 million copies today. The sophisticated essays of The Federalist were largely newspaper editorials written for and read by the common man. The McGuffey’s Readers, first published in 1836, contained selections from Shakespeare in its 5th-grade text; this was not the textbook of the elite but of the masses, selling 122 million copies between its publication and 1920.
“In the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in Democracy in America that Americans were the most educated people of history. In the 1990s, Senator Edward Kennedy’s office issued a memo reminding Americans that the literacy rate in Massachusetts never again equaled the level of 98% that it reached prior to the 1850 imposition of government schooling. By contrast, today, after 150 years of mandatory government schooling, one in three 4th-graders score beneath a basic level of proficiency on the reading portion of the National Assessment of Education (NAEP) exams. Forty-five million Americans are largely illiterate. Twenty-one million cannot read at all.”
Richard Vedder, Professor of Economics, Ohio University, reported: “Spending on K-12 schools, adjusting for inflation and enrollment growth, has roughly tripled over the last 50 years, yet there is little solid evidence that today’s students are better prepared for work and citizenship than their grandparents were — and even some evidence that they are less so.”
Milton Friedman, who passed away in 2006, left us a legacy in his 2005 article entitled School Vouchers Turn 50 But the Fight is Just Beginning. “An educational voucher of reasonable size, though less than the current government spending per student, that was available to all students regardless of income or race or religion and that did not prohibit add-ons or impose detailed regulations on start-up service providers would end up helping the poor more than a charity voucher — not instantly, but after a brief period as competition did its work. Just as the breakup of the Ma Bell monopoly led to a revolution in communications, a breakup of the school monopoly would lead to a revolution in schooling.”
Members of the United States Congress, sworn to uphold the U.S. Constitution, need to pass legislation consistent with its purpose – assuring every American the freedom of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Congress can cure our festering maladies holistically, by passing the D.C. Civil Rights Act for Equal Educational Opportunity. Modeled after The Bucco Bill, this proposed legislation would mandate parental choice in education for every child in the District of Columbia and U.S. Army bases, both of which come directly under the jurisdiction of Congress.
Although this plan has been well known among leading educators since Milton Friedman first proposed it in his 1955 article The Role of Government in Education, it has never been debated in Congress, nor in the public arena. Countless millions of taxpayer dollars have been spent to prevent the issue from seeing the light of day. The time has come to challenge those who are holding our nation’s children hostage, in violation of their civil and human rights. A prerequisite to the restoration of government by the people is parental control of education. There is simply no other way to restore our “inalienable right” to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The election of 2012 will determine whether this patient lives or dies. The cure is plain to see. It is now in our hands to administer the prescription.
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Anna Little, who served as mayor of Highlands, New Jersey from 2008 through 2010, and previously on the Monmouth County Board of Chosen freeholders, is the New Jersey coordinator for TEA for Education, a national organization promoted parental choice for every child. She is considering a run for United States Senator for the seat now held by Robert Menendez. annalittle@mac.com
“Consider me the lobbyist for the students.”
Governor Andrew Cuomo (January 5, 2012)
By Bruce Gardner
If you were not carefully following the news in New York State you may have missed Governor Andrew Cuomo “taking a second job.” You may have also missed his having said, “I learned my most important lesson in my first year as Governor in the area of public education. I learned that everyone in public education has his or her own lobbyist. Superintendents have lobbyists. Principals have lobbyists. Teachers have lobbyists. School boards have lobbyists. Maintenance personnel have lobbyists. Bus drivers have lobbyists. The only group without a lobbyist? The students.
The Governor went on to describe what he plans to accomplish as the lobbyist for the children. “I will wage a campaign to put students first, and to remind us that the purpose of public education is to help children grow, not to grow the public education bureaucracy. Today, we are driven by the business of public education more than the achievement in public education. Maybe that’s why we spend more money than any other state but are 38th in graduation rates. We have to change the paradigm. We need major reform in two areas: Teacher accountability and student achievement. We need a meaningful teacher evaluation system. The legislation enacted in 2010 to qualify for Race to the Top didn’t work. We must make our schools accountable for the results they achieve and the dollars they spend. We cannot fail in our mission to reform public education, because we simply cannot fail our children. I will appoint a bipartisan education commission to work with the Legislature to recommend reforms in these key areas.”
Accountability and achievement are of course interdependent. They also address the crux of the problem: To whom is the educational establishment accountable? Surely not the parents.
The late, great economist and teacher Milton Friedman expressed it in simple terms. “In most industries, consumers are free to buy the product from anyone who offers it for sale, at a price mutually agreed on. In the process, consumers determine how much is produced and by whom and producers have an incentive to satisfy their customers. These competitive private industries are organized from the bottom up. They have been responsible for truly remarkable economic growth, improvements in products and increased efficiency in production.”
As far back as 1955, Milton Friedman proffered the ways and means of restructuring the system to make it consistent with free enterprise. Following half a century of dedicated effort on behalf of school choice, he summarized it in his 2005 article, School Vouchers at 50 But the fight is Just Beginning. “The prescription is clear. Change the organization of elementary and secondary schooling from top-down to bottom-up. Convert to a system in which parents choose the schools their children attend—or, more broadly, the educational services their children receive, whether in a brick-and-mortar school or on DVDs or over the Internet or whatever alternative the ingenuity of man can conceive. Parents would pay for educational services with whatever subsidy they receive from the government plus whatever sum they want to add out of their own resources. Producers would be free to enter or leave the industry and would compete to attract students. As in other industries, such a competitive free market would lead to improvements in quality and reductions in cost.”
New York State can transform the system and provide every child in the State with equal opportunity for a quality education by directing the State portion of funding towards an educational voucher available to every K-12 student in the state. This can be accomplished by taking a cue from New Jersey State Legislators, and combine two bills now in the New Jersey State Legislature, the NJ Parental Rights Program Act (S2914/A4033) and the Fair School Funding Act (S2924). Together, these bills would provide for a voucher system based on the Friedman plan.
This would be accomplished by equitably apportioning New York State’s portion of the educational cost among all K-12 students in the State, as a voucher redeemable at any approved public or private school. Based on 2010-11 figures, this would allow for a $7,400 voucher. Public schools would still retain the balance now raised from other sources, which in 2010-11 averaged $12,769, for a total of $20,222 per public school child.
This would more than address the crisis. As predicted by Friedman, “An educational voucher of reasonable size, though less than the current government spending per student, that was available to all students regardless of income or race or religion and that did not prohibit add-ons or impose detailed regulations on start-up service providers would end up helping the poor more than a charity voucher — not instantly, but after a brief period as competition did its work. Just as the breakup of the Ma Bell monopoly led to a revolution in communications, a breakup of the school monopoly would lead to a revolution in schooling.”
Undoubtedly, once this sound plan is understood by educators and the general public, it would have wide support. Needless to say, improved education at greatly reduced costs will bring boundless blessing throughout society. If you agree, you can help actualize this plan by sharing your views with New York’s Education Commission on School Reform.
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Bruce Gardner serves as president of TEA for Education, dedicated to parental choice in education for every child in America. He can be reached at bruce@teaforeducation.com
Sources:
http://www.slideshare.net/MarcellusDN/2012-new-york-state-of-the-state-address-andrew-cuomo
http://www.p12.nysed.gov/irs/statistics/public/
New York State spent a total of $57,600,000,000 for 2,694,000 K-12 students, or $21,381 per student.
The State's portion of this is $23,200,000,000, or $8,612 per public school child.
To convert to a voucher system for every K-12 student (3,113,000) the amount would be $7,453.
This voucher, together with the $12,769 coming from non-state sources totals $20,222.
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SCHOOL CHOICE MADE EASY
By Keith Benson
1966 Martin Luther King said, “Better to shed blood from a blow to the head… than to have children by the thousands grow up reading at a fifth-grade reading level.”
Today, too many urban public-school children are growing up reading at the same 5th-grade level Dr. King warned us about over 50 years ago.
Dr. King’s talk of shedding blood was dramatization to illustrate the drastic measures that must be employed to stop, or prevent this nightmarish scenario from ever happening in our beloved nation.
School Choice, at its essence, is simply employing “whatever works” for the child.
I set up the first Camden City Campaign headquarters for Barak Obama in 2007, with my own money, when most of New Jersey, African Americans included, was supporting Hillary Clinton. My politics run far left of center. I won New Jersey State NAACP’s highest honor for my work with at-risk urban children – the “Gold Medal.”
My son is, as my mother was, a public school teacher. I have no ax to grind with teachers.
My purpose is to save the lives of desperate dying children who cannot save themselves.
As a history major I am acutely aware of the massive resistance abolitionists faced at the very idea that slavery should be abolished. In many ways this school choice “controversy” is the same argument. Abolition was “Life Choice.” We have narrowed it down to “School Choice.” The effects however, are the same.
It is axiomatic. Education is key to a productive life. The absence of a “thorough and efficient” education is tantamount to a death sentence.
There are few PhD’s in prison. Master’s degrees are also underrepresented in prison.
The educational and criminal justice systems account for almost 50% of the New Jersey State budget. Yet our urban public schools are producing more products for the “Prison Industrial Complex” than we are for college.
We can do better than that. And we must do better than that, right now.
But slavery and the money it generated produced blind spots, disallowing otherwise decent people from seeing the obvious suffering and moral depravity of the perverse system they so ardently supported. That same blind spot bedevils many opponents of school choice today. The money generated by the status quo prevents many people, who would normally know better, from seeing the obvious.
Emancipation was choice for the body – free from the oppression of forced participation in unproductive labor. School Choice is choice for the mind – free from the oppression of forced participation in unproductive schools. The effects are the same.
To those who cry this is no time to decrease educational funding – I agree. However, the goal should be to empower the parents to designate where that robust funding should go. That is school choice, made easy.
Here is my response to frequently asked questions:
Does School Choice take money from public schools?
TRUTH: The Abbott Districts have received DOUBLE the money per/student over the past 30 years. Yet, results have not changed. Money is NOT the issue. If money were the issue, results would be quite different from pre-Abbott. School Choice allows families to get an education.
Isn’t There a Separation of Church and State Issue?
TRUTH: There is NO church and state issue with school choice whatsoever. If there is an issue at all, it would be that the state demands and supports a “Secular” belief system, to the exclusion of all other belief systems. Secularism is a belief system, like Christianity, Islam, Judaism or any other. So the state may one day have to show cause as to how it justifies supporting “secularism.” Moreover, most people with college degrees receive Pell Grants. Pell Grants can be used at Notre Dame – a Catholic College, or Rutgers, a public one. Because the state does NOT dictate where one must attend, there is absolutely NO church/state issue.
Is It True Charter and Alternative Schools Perform no Better?
TRUTH: All things being equal, if we are getting the same 10 pounds of fish, there’s a fiduciary responsibility incumbent upon our elected officials to get it at $10 a pound as opposed to $100 a pound, using public dollars. Moreover, if there is no difference, why are the parents of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program fighting to keep their scholarships in place? IN fact, there are huge differences, at dramatically less cost. And this conversation would be moot if urban public schools were accomplishing what they are so well paid to do.
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Keith Benson is a community activist in Camden, New Jersey; Gold Medal Award winner for his work with troubled youth; vice-president, Camden County East NAACP.
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