| The
Obama stimulus proposal is already addressed elsewhere.
Go figure. |
| There
has been a lot of talk about creating good, high-paying jobs around the
country, helping more youth to afford their fast-rising college costs,
supporting academic research programs, and so forth. |
| As
shown by the "go figure" calculations, the federal stimulus plan works
out to perhaps more than $15,000 for every American worker who actually
pays income taxes (regardless of income level), or closer to $7500 for
every American alive between the ages of 15 and 64.
If you consider that many of those in the 15 - 20+
demographic are in school rather than working full-time to support
themselves or a family, and that some married adults choose not to work
while raising their family as a priority, the bottom line is that the
cost is somewhere in between. |
| For
simplicity, let's arbitrarily say that it is around $10,000 for everyone
who actually wants to work, and does enough work to actually pay taxes,
whether or not that tax burden is small or large. Let's ignore the
inconvenient truth that the top 5% of all taxpaying workers still pay
most of the taxes, and seem destined to soon be paying even more under
this new leadership.. |
| We
can all readily agree that education is a high priority in our country.
We need our children to be really well-educated for the future
challenges they will face throughout their lifetimes - especially if
they are ever going to manage to repay all the debt burden that we are
placing on them; but I digress. |
| We
also can all respect the time-honored ideal that education should be
guided at the local level, where there is the most accountability for
results, even though there may be state and federal performance
standards to assure that all children will have an equal opportunity to
get a quality education. |
|
Indeed, this is probably an even higher priority for most parents in
this country than increasing the level of funding for the college
students of others, or for the research programs of their universities.
It is pretty well established that elementary and secondary education is
a public priority, and that the support of higher education is more of a
state or private issue, and an investment by those who choose to pursue
it. |
|
The proposal : $600 Billion Federal
Stimulus for Elementary and Secondary Education |
| For
simplicity, let's write off the $700 billion in TARP spending for
whatever benefit that may have provided, and assume that some part of
the $825 billion Obama stimulus proposal should justifiably go to
something else too. Let's stick to big round numbers, such as
$600 billion for education. |
| In
the new spirit of investing in what actually works, and empowering local
people to achieve the changes they seek in their own communities, let's
give that $600 billion back to all the people who have children from
ages 4 - 18 - with the caveat that it can only be spent on primary and
secondary education. They are on their own to figure out how to
pay for college. There are other programs in place for that
already. |
| How
many children are there in the age 4 - 18 range who should actually be
in school somewhere? Let's assume that it is roughly 60 million
students (20% of the total US population), which is roughly the
total for ages 0 - 14. That works out to
$10,000 per child - regardless of whether or not their parents work
or pay taxes. |
| To
qualify for this $10,000 per child, the parents need only have a child
between the ages of 4 and 18 who is actually enrolled full-time in an
accredited school (public or private), and not failing or dropping out
during the year. Failing or dropping out during the school year
activates the "claw-back" provision for the parent to pay back the money
in full. After all, it shouldn't be public
policy to reward failure in school. Parents must take that
responsibility. |
| This
isn't the same as various "school voucher" proposals, many of which have
been driven at the state level, and applied very inconsistently.
This assumes that it is a federal, national priority to ensure that all
American parents keep their children performing adequately in primary
and secondary school (not failing, at least). Of course, that
risks some "grade inflation" to take pity on the failures so that they
don't lose their funding, but that's really a separate administrative
issue which can be regulated at the local level. |
|
What about existing state and local
school spending on primary and secondary education? |
| This
proposal anticipates that the $10,000 per child go directly to the
control of the parent as a credit from the federal government, except
that it can only be cashed in by the school of their choice - public or
private. It doesn't just go into state or local education budgets
to spread around as they choose. Every child
gets the same level of federal funding support. If the state and
local officials want to direct more state and local resources into
public schools in a particular area, then that is their choice to make.
The parents are in full control of where the $10,000 goes. Where
their children go, the federal money follows. Likewise, as voters
they already have influence over the choices which their state and local
officials may make over any further spending of their taxes on education
costs. |
| State
and local taxpayers might reasonably expect that, if the federal
government is going to relieve their state and local government budgets
of the need to spend $10,000 per child on primary and secondary
education, then they might justifiably expect those officials to lower
their local education tax rates. Once again,
however, that's a matter for local taxpayers to settle with their
elected officials. It is not a federal issue. The federal
objective is just to help assure that all children have equal access to
a quality primary and secondary education at the school of choice by
their parents. |
|
What about public schools losing their
students to private schools? |
| From
a national public policy perspective, it really doesn't matter whether
the kids go to a private or public school. If they go to a private
school, and the state and local education programs provide no support
for private education programs, then the parents have to deal with the
extra costs of making that choice for their children. At least
they have a $10,000 head start toward that cost.
If state and local programs were to follow a similar
policy, given the typical levels of public education costs relative to
private education costs, then states could probably afford to give the
parents more, because much of it would inevitably flow back into good
public schools by the choice of those parents. They would just be
more free to choose other options, without paying twice as taxpayers -
once for the education they want, and once for the education program
they wouldn't want for their own children. |
|
Wouldn't that risk an exodus of children from public to private schools,
so that only the poor students would be left behind in failing schools? |
|
Absolutely not. First, there aren't enough accredited private
schools to go around. There's not enough capacity, at any
price level. The public schools have had a virtual monopoly on
elementary and secondary education for so long that parents would have
relatively few choices. They might have a choice between a few
different schools in their vicinity, but mostly they would be public
schools. The parents would be making the choice
about where to go - not by school board district officials dictating
which schools they are allowed to use. That would be
discriminatory "red-lining" of school districts to keep some kids out.
There would have to be equal opportunity admission standards.
Parents might also face some extra transportation
costs and hassles for themselves if they chose a school outside of their
local district, but that would be the choice of those parents to make.
They wouldn't a right to free bus services for any public school of
their choice. Parents who actually make use of school bus services
should likewise be the ones who bear the cost of that service, although
this would be a decision for the local voters and school district
officials to make as they contract such services.
The point is that the education budget should go to
education, not transportation. The transportation of children to
and from school is a separate issue for all parents and voters to sort
out as a local priority. |
|
Wouldn't enrollment at some schools drop, while others attract too many
applicants? |
|
Welcome to the competitive world of informed parents as free consumers,
entrusted with the responsibility to make their own choices as adults
about the successful education of their children - including having to
pay a very substantial price for failure. As a national policy,
failure is not an option. The parent has a serious responsibility
- and financial incentive - to ensure that the child does not fail.
The schools which lose students would have a clear
market signal to improve. They might also wind up with smaller
class sizes to make it somewhat easier to improve. The state and
local school districts could recognize the need to make investment in
improvement at those schools, and take responsibility for doing
something about it.
The taxpayers could hold local officials
accountable for failed schools in their communities. They
would not be assured of funding regardless of performance, nor be
rewarded indefinitely with more funding because of poor performance.
The local investments in improvements should be
expected to result in competitive schools, or else those teachers and
administrators should be replaced with others who will work with their
local parents to turn those schools around. They can't just remain
in denial about the problems, or act as though they are the helpless
victims of an unjust system of state education spending. |
|
Wouldn't education costs go up? Maybe - if state and local
education budgets didn't decline somewhat to offset the net federal
benefits which they would be receiving from those parents who actually
chose to leave their children in public schools (even if just for lack
of private alternatives). If the school
districts kept spending as much money as before, even if many children
were switching to private schools to the limited extend that capacity
constraints allow, then the result would actually be better funding for
the public schools. They might actually have the extra resources
and smaller class sizes they need to be more competitive with the
private schools.
If they gave taxpayers a break because of the federal
funding, then the net effect is that taxpayers would be paying more at
the federal level for education, but less at the state and local level.
It would be funded largely as a national priority at the federal level,
but with significant local resources, and parent control. |
|
The public schools might also have less of a problem with students
who don't want to be there, or whose parents care little about what they
do in school. They would be there by choice, not just by
obligation, and failure would have a very substantial cost to their
parents. It would be like getting a $10,000 fine for each child
failing or dropping out of school. That might actually be a useful
incentive for both parent and child - and thus give the teachers far
more leverage to deal with problem situations. |
|
Wouldn't this do nothing for the objective of "creating and saving
jobs"? On the contrary, it would be an
investment in the children, and their potential to someday pay off all
the trillions of dollars in government debt. There would be many
good jobs created to education, because there would probably soon be
more private schools in places where parents are not happy with the
quality of education which their children are receiving today.
That would prod the failing schools to become more competitive, while
relieving them of overcrowded classes and tight state and local
education budgets.
The federal "stimulus" into primary and secondary
schools might actually create the better-paying teacher jobs which have
been talked about as a need for so long - except that parents would be
in control of that additional spending. The federal funding
wouldn't cover it all - so the state and local public education programs
would still have to compete to get enough students and state and local
tax funding. It wouldn't just be a free windfall for all of the
public school districts to spread around.
It would reassert our focus on elementary and
secondary education as a national priority - instead of pouring more
money into colleges and universities for inflated costs and research
programs. Those can compete for funding in other ways. We
need to improve the education as children as a top priority. The
adults (over 18) and their parents can take responsibility for their own
higher education, including the many existing programs for their
benefit. They don't need a stimulus. Basic education does.
We are not adequately teaching our children to become
the responsible working adults of tomorrow. |
