This will be a part II of an education post. In the last post, I offered the first part of my presentation, on homeschooling, but making the point that,
when you look at the entire 6000 years of the history of education,
homeschooling is what has been traditional—because it works. And the public
school experiment, using a factory model, has only been underway for about a
century. And it’s a failing experiment.
On Saturday we had a presentation on the structure of
education first. The presenter, Colleen Vera, a retired teacher, has spent
years as a watchdog on school issues. One of her specialties is the HarrisCounty Department of Education (which we agree should not exist), and we count on her to attend their meetings,
let us know what’s going on, and let us know when we need to take action.
She provided us with this flow chart of the parts of
government that make decisions over education. Down at the bottom, with the
least influence, are teachers in the classroom and their students.
 |
| The summary flowchart of Texas government in education, from Colleen Vera's presentation at Cypress Texas Tea Party, November 23, 2019 |
One fascinating example was her seating chart. Teachers have
requirements for seating children based on various rules placed on them. Well
under half of the seats are for regular kids. GT (gifted and talented) are used
to help the teacher, not the GT student. They’re seated next to the struggling
to help them out. Which means the gifted students are placed with the slowest, holding them back, rather than challenging them to move ahead at a rate suited
for them.
 |
| assigned seating chart based on government requirements from Colleen Vera's presentation at Cypress Texas Tea Party, November 23, 2019 |
Note that in middle and high schools, this seating chart is
set up for one period; the teacher has to sort through the students like this
for every hour of the day. Why? To avoid lawsuits. Not to get better
educational outcomes.
As Colleen went through the history of educational initiatives
that—as she pointed out before I had a chance—the federal government was not
empowered to do by the Constitution, I’m reminded that the federal Department
of Education was non-existent until 1979. I went through my entire public
school experience without any federal oversight. Somehow we muddled through
better than we’ve done since its inception.
 |
| SAT scores under Department of Education, begun 1979 from Colleen Vera's presentation at Cypress Texas Tea Party, November 23, 2019 |
Colleen offered this chart, showing average SAT scores over
the years. The * in 1996 indicates the year they changed the way they scored—in
other words, in order to cover the data that showed results were going steadily
downward, they cheated. So you can’t measure apples to apples.
Still, there’s a downturn from the beginning of the
Department of Education until 1996. And, depending on your state, nothing
better than mixed improvement or standing still since 1996.
Why did they institute a federal Department of Education in
the first place? Because there was a crisis in education. At first that excuse
was for “national defense and social responsibility.” That’s kind of a stretch—past
the point of elasticity—of the actual Constitution. But now it’s worse. The new
excuse is, “to fix society’s ills.”
She ended her presentation with some suggestions of actions
we citizens can take—along with the warning that you can’t single-handedly do
it all, so you might want to figure out where your interests lie and focus there. So,
here are the actions:
·
Volunteer in public schools (VIPs)
·
Join PTA/PTO
·
Volunteer for Texas Book Review
·
Apply to be on local committees (school growth,
bonds, etc.)
·
Apply to local councils (ex: School Health
Advisory Council)
·
Start local conservative education PAC
·
Educate yourself on ONE specific area of
concern:
o Research
o Advocate
local school board
o Advocate
State Board of Education
o Advocate
Texas Legislature
o Advocate
Congress
·
Become a Watch Dog
As citizens, we’re in a difficult place. We know the public
schools are failing in their mission. We know the federal government has no
business involved in education at all. But we’re up against a monopoly. You can’t
get out of paying your tax dollars for public schools—even if they do not serve
your children, and in fact you have to pay elsewhere for their actual
education.
It’s like Canadian health care. You get what you get under
the national system. Or you make financial sacrifices to come to America for
care.
We can go to private schools and homeschools—if we’re
desperate enough and have the resources over and above what we pay toward
schools with our taxes. Education is, by the way, 35% of the Texas budget for 2020.
So the question comes up—and isn’t often answered the way I
would prefer—do we leave it alone and let the schools fail, or do we work
tirelessly to change any little bit we can affect?
Maybe the answer is, first of all, meet our own children’s
needs; then work to have education money spent more wisely. And, if there’s
energy left, create a revolution toward free market + philanthrophy solutions.
That isn’t as outlandish as you might think. There’s a
portion of my presentation where I compared costs. I toted up what I estimated
that we spent. I’m sure I missed some things, but I got most of it. This was
our cost breakdown for 3 students for 10 years (only our youngest was homeschooled for the full 10 years):
• Elementary Math: $350
• Secondary Math through Algebra 2 $450
• History and general: about $300
• Lonestar tuition: maybe $1000?
• Kaplan ACT prep (used for progress
evaluation): $35
• Museum memberships: $80/year, 7 years
= $600
• THSC and homeschool group
memberships: $600?
• Driving to homeschool
events/activities: unknown
• Books: Who knows? We’d have bought
them anyway.
• Loss of income: unknown and
unimportant
• Estimated total for 10 years, entire family: $3,335
• Average per year: $333.50
Compare that to the average cost for the State of Texas to
educate a child. Stats weren’t all consistent. According to the NEA, Texas
spent $10,456 per student for the 2017-18 school year—about $2,300 below the
national average. The Census Bureau puts the cost at $8,861 per student per
year—still $2,531 under the national average.
The contrast is significant. My results are anecdotal, but it worked out for us. A
sacrifice we were willing to make.
It’s actually getting cheaper.
For example, the $350 elementary math we used, CSMP. Our
boys had used it in the gifted magnet school they attended before we moved to
Texas, so when I started homeschooling, I called up those teachers and got the
information to get it. I got a teacher’s edition, which you only need one of
per classroom. There’s also a set of consumable booklets for each student, of
which I just got one. We’d been told that program was only used for gifted
students, because it was so expensive. But you buy the teacher’s book one time
per decade or so (math doesn’t really change). So you’re only buying the
consumables. And maybe there’s a better way. But it didn't seem to me that costly per student.
Anyway, that whole thing, 3rd grade through 5th grade, cost me $350 in 2000. It’s now free online. The
distributor decided not to continue printing and selling the program, so some
enterprising parent asked permission to post everything online and combined with Buffalo State to preserve it. It’s
all there now, for free—all years, not just those I had needed.
I compiled a list some years ago on free and very low cost online learning,
which I’ve added to a bit here. I’m sure there are many opportunities I’m missing.
You could easily accomplish a high school and possibly college education online,
where the only thing you’re not getting is the social experience and the debt—oh,
and the diploma. So, if we let go of the diploma and other locked doors into the middle and upper class, we’d have much cheaper—and often better by every
measure—advanced education. Here’s the list:
One thing the free market does really well is bring more and
better products and services at lower prices. In technology there’s a formula,
called Moore’s Law, relevant mainly to transistor size and power, for how technology keeps getting better and cheaper. There’s something like that going on with
information. It’s getting more widely available at less cost.
In short, when we’re dealing with the public school system,
we need to stand firm on the knowledge that the system is not indispensable.
There are alternatives. And when we truly want good educational outcomes for
our children, we’ll do what it takes to use those alternatives.
The more we go to the alternatives, the more the
market will follow with even better—and less expensive—solutions.
We'll be doing another Tea Party meeting on education next month, hearing from a couple of conservative members of the State Board of Education. I expect we'll learn even more.
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