EFFECTIVE EDUCATION

Education is one of the unifying elements of society. It is not unifying because of a strict repetitive mantra, as is common in communist regimes, but instead because it creates a populace that is able to discuss, reason and compromise rather than resort to settlement of disputes by the sword. The foundation must be one of personal self government, but without knowledge to eliminate fears and fallacies, there is no basis for discussion between peoples. How do we achieve this desired result?

Universal education was not the case with our founding fathers. They were largely self-taught in home schools or through tutors or the church. The foundation was the role of the parents to insure that there child received enough education to achieve whatever desired role they wished to guide there child towards. Yet, with the rise of industrialization, came the misnomer “public schools”.

What we are really discussing is Government Schools. These schools have several severe limitations. The first is the removal of the parents from responsibility of raising our children. We have turned over to the government the responsibility for not only the 3 R’s, but also the teaching of civics, responsibility, personal behavior and the host of other character traits that make one a model citizen.

The second disadvantage is the inability to deal with children whose learning styles are outside the normal bell curve. A child who has a learning style that is either accelerated or behind the normal pace of learning is left to fend for himself. Often that child is either bored or struggling with insufficient tools to stay involved with the program.

The third limitation is the inability to tie education to desired outcome. This is clearly understood when you look at the non-correlating nature of expenditure per pupil to test scores. Money, by itself, is not a good predictor of educational success. What is a good predictor is adult, usually parental, expectation. This is why we see children from low, moderate and high income backgrounds excel while children from the same backgrounds also fail. The attention a child receives is more of an indicator of success than teacher certification, dollars spent, hours in class, etc.

Therefore, the first principle needed to improve education in America is that we restore the parents as the primary decision maker in selecting the educational path of our children. The old adage that “there is nothing like a mother’s love” is not only true, but one of the cornerstones of finding those adults that can provide the nurturing, training, discipline and guidance that children need to become successful adults. There are many proposals that could accomplish this goal. The underlying issue however is always the cost burden of education borne by the average parent. We have seen in the past that private schools can provide a quality education for a reasonable price. The Catholic Church has successfully run parochial schools in this country for years and delivered a competitive education at a reasonable cost. The issue is how to give parents the ability to select those alternative educational opportunities in our varied society.

The two principles I believe will solve our dilemma are to first, put the parents in charge and second, return to local control over education. If we go to the store we find dozens of different types of tooth paste. The reason is that we have different needs and desires. Likewise we need to offer as many opportunities as possible to meet the varied and diverse needs of our children. Why offer only one way?

The easiest way to do this is to recognize that the variable cost of teaching a child is usually about 50% of the total cost of educating a child. With that we can do what we have done for years with disabled children, pay others to handle those outside the normal learning environment. Thus, if we offered every parent a voucher equal to 50% of the funding of education and allowed that money to be used at any educational institution, whether public, private or home schooled, we would bring the parent back into the decision making process and allow specialization of the process around the needs of our children.

For the public schools, because they have the other 50% to spend for overhead, we do not penalize the schools if children decide to go elsewhere. However, with competition each principle must decide what educational plan they will offer and attract based on competence of educational experience and not governmental fiat. This degree of competition gives each educator the opportunity to compete based on the services that they can best provide and not get muddled in the “every thing for every body” syndrome.

For private schools the only limitation is that the money not be used for direct religious training. It can still be used for reading, writing, arithmetic, etc. If it was in the form of a voucher then it can be used by parents to pay part or all of the tuition of a private school. For home school parents it could be used to pay for books, tutors or other qualified education materials.

Theses diverse needs start with the recognition that local control will give each parent the input to the public school offerings with a greater voice. One of the unfortunate observations of most southern school systems is that they are county based and therefore too large for parents to have much influence. While most of the northern school systems are city based and thus much more able to have parental involvement. Likewise, I believe the federal government needs to get out of local education so that the states can focus on administering more effective programs.

Ideally I would like to see the smallest population we can maintain and still providing the physical facilities. Hewlett Packard used to have the rule that no factory should be over 250 associates. This because much larger than that and one person cannot remember all of the individual names and thus treat each person as a valuable member of the team. Likewise, we need smaller schools, not larger ones.