3 May 2008
Examining a "Nation at Risk'
By Edwin J. Feulner

It's all too easy for lawmakers to throw cash at a problem. After all, they're spending somebody else's money. Take the way they've handled (or, rather, mishandled) education policy.

Twenty-five years ago, the National Commission on Excellent Education released a brutally honest study detailing the failings in our school system: "If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war."

In response, all levels of government declared war the way they usually do: by increasing spending.

This year, American taxpayers will spend more than $9,200 on the average public-school student. That's a real increase of 69 percent over the per pupil expenditure in 1980. The total bill for a student who remains through high school will be almost $100,000.

This spending would be worthwhile if it gave us the results we need to compete globally. But it hasn't been doing so. American students still score poorly compared to students from other countries, especially in math and science. The National Assessment of Educational Progress shows 18 percent of fourth-graders and 29 percent of eighth-graders scored "below basic" in mathematics last year.

And far too many students drop out. At least 1 in 4 quits high school. Among minority children, the picture is even bleaker. In 2002, only 56 percent of black and 52 percent of Hispanic students graduated, compared to 78 percent of white students.

The Census Bureau has found that a full-time employee with a college degree will earn more than $2 million over a lifetime. One with only a high-school diploma will earn half as much, while a dropout, obviously, will earn even less. More ominously, an independent study found dropouts die an average of nine years sooner than graduates.

Our educational system is a national problem " but one that calls for local solutions. One approach is to provide school choice.

The District of Columbia and 13 states have choice programs, and as many as 150,000 children will use publicly funded scholarships to attend private school this year. Research shows the programs are helping students.

They're popular, too. School choice gets parents involved, and parents are happier with their children's education when they can choose their schools. Researchers also have found students who have moved to private schools get better grades.

And because the cost of a private school scholarship is almost always less than what states invest per student in public schools, the school the student leaves has more money to spend on its remaining pupils, who end up in smaller classes. That, plus the competition for students, has driven many local schools to improve.

Accountability matters as well. Consider Florida, where lawmakers created an innovative testing model to make sure students were learning, and also to help students escape failing schools. The results are in: Florida's public-school students have demonstrated significant improvement on federal reading and math exams compared to students nationally.

We also know what doesn't work: Federal mandates such as No Child Left Behind. That law required states to test students, but it ends up giving states an incentive to "dumb down" their tests to maintain federal funding.

A 2006 study by University of California researchers found the gap between state and federal proficiency scores had increased in 10 of 12 states examined since NCLB was enacted. It's better to simply let states provide the funding and hold themselves accountable.

The District of Columbia and 13 states are demonstrating the value of our federal system, where we experiment at the state level and then pick the best for our nation.

We have big problems in our education system. But we'll solve them from the bottom up, not the top down.

It's time to slash the regulation and start creating the educational system our students deserve.

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What we have in Kentucky is a failure by the educrats who are wasting money and not teaching the kids.

A study by Education Week graded KY education with a "C".

http://www.edweek.or...x.html

Chance for success C
K-12 achievement D+
Standards, assessments, and accountability B+
Transitions and alignment C
The teaching profession B-
School finance C

"The new governor ran on the platform to improve our schools, then proposes a slash-and-burn budget. The he left the House and Senate to work out the details, now look where we are at. Is it too hard for Kentucky to actually elect a leader for Governor?"

It is diffucult to elect leaders for our state when all the elected officials want is to be able to get their district a new arena, a road named afer them or an increase in their bank account.

Sometimes I feel like Frankfort takes it on the chin time and time again whenever the budget gets cut. Who is it that ends up paying the price for these cuts in the budget? The kids, the poor and the elderly. But, the legislators got their raise, didn't they? Everybody else got budget cuts and they got a raise. Go figure!

I e-mailed the superintendent when the school wasted money to send the kids to see President Clinton speak. I told them they should have bussed the kids up to the capital instead to protest the proposed budget cuts. She seemed confident in her reply that the cigarette tax would pass and all would be just fine.
Rule number one: never trust a politician to do what they say. The new governor ran on the platform to improve our schools, then proposes a slash-and-burn budget. The he left the House and Senate to work out the details, now look where we are at. Is it too hard for Kentucky to actually elect a leader for Governor? I feel sorry for the students, they have done nothing wrong and surely don't deserve these cuts to programs which affect them.

The county system COULD charge for the second session of full-day kindergarten, which they currently don't. There are other counties which do this. Kindergarten really shouldn't be a free babysitting service provided by the tax payers.