More Woe-Is-Me from our Public Schools

…of Nikitas3.com

The New York Times reported on August 27 in an article titled With Turnover High, Schools Fight for Teachers, that public schools are facing yet another crisis, this one over staffing. The article describes what was called a “conspiracy of dysfunction” by Tim Daly, president of the New Teacher Project which helps underperforming and poor urban school districts with their staffing problems. “Most of the urban districts have no coherent hiring strategy” he said.

According to the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, public schools are wasting $7 billion a year on recruiting, hiring and training new teachers. “The problem is that our schools are like a bucket with holes in the bottom,” said NCTAF president Thomas Carroll.

The grim statistic is that nationwide one-third of all new public-school teachers leave the profession after only 3 years’ service, and one-half leave after 5 years.

And if you’re wondering why, you can hit the snooze alarm again. For the rest of us, the answer is easy: While there are some good people in public education, the “big picture” is that the entire system is another unionized bureaucracy that resists any modernization, change or challenge to its power. And when they are government unions without direct accountability to the taxpayer, the situation becomes appropriately critical.

Imagine workers walking off the job at the rate of one-third or one-half in the private sector. It does not happen very often. Companies with that poor a record usually go out of business because people won’t work for them. Yet no matter how desperate the situation, the war cry on the left is always the same: “Sustain the Bureaucracy!” And the more urban and liberal the district, the more radical the curriculum, union rules and bureaucratic control.

In an election period when virtually every Democrat is demanding a government takeover of the health-care system, no Republican is demanding reform or privatization in education. Why this cowardice?

Because the Republican party has lost its spine, that’s why. Most Americans would welcome such a challenge.

Private business in America is a huge, juicy target for all the usual leftist pressure groups — consumer activists, trial lawyers, media investigators, congressional inquiries etc. At the same time, the public schools are immune because they are closed systems. Try getting reform out of your local school board and you’ll discover the truth. The “open” nature of the “public” schools is a huge myth while many of these schools are descending into more and more chaos every year. They could use guidance, but they won’t take it.

But then again, this is socialism we are talking about. Damn the consumer! Full steam ahead!

The main reason schools are having trouble finding teachers in the first place is not the usual canard of “low prestige” or “inadequate pay”. The reason is that most people know exactly what they are in for these days when they become a cog in a government labor bureaucracy. You are nothing and you have no power, while individuality, ambition and dissent are taboo. Teachers are intimidated into silence. On the other end of the spectrum, the sweetheart deals that the teacher unions make with every town they supply, including early retirement and generous benefit and pension plans, have caused the system to spin out of control.

Giuliani managed to institute some reforms in New York City, and his successor Bloomberg has continued the trend. But ultimately, the system is corrupt from within while you hear all the usual arguments about how people are avoiding the system for better pay in the private sector. But that is a misdirection. For the number of hours that public school teachers work every year — many fewer than most workers in America — they are more than adequately compensated. Teachers here in Massachusetts and many, many other places make more than the average private-sector pay.

It’s not the salary, or Bush, or ExxonMobil, or global warming or the Iraq war that is causing these woes. It’s this: “Public” is what it says it is; the public is accounted for. But in today’s “government” schools, the public has no say, along with anyone else outside the bureaucracy and the unions. Federal legislation like No Child Left Behind is a last resort to try and get the schools to do what they are supposed to be doing anyway.

If we want to change the status quo, we need to open up education in America. At least half of all students should be entered, with voucher payments from local governments, into charter, private or religious schools in order to balance out the public system and make it more accountable through competition.

But this is unlikely to happen at this time. Government schools are just another word for unaccountable government power. And that power needs to be challenged forthwith.