Tackling Public Education

First on my blog post, let's tackle public education. The last three Supreme Court Justices never attended public K-12 schools. Roberts attended Notre Dame K-12, Sotomayor attended Catholic schools, including exclusive Cardinal Spellman High School in NYC. Kagan attended exclusive Hunter College K-12. A growing number in DC have parents who paid for private K-12 somewhere along the way including Presidents Obama, George W Bush, Clinton and Vice President Al Gore.

So what can we do about this? What can we do with local low graduation rates, grade inflation and schools where 'lockdowns,' a prison term, are commonplace?

Over the years, layers have been added (many layers passed to correct previously passed laws) between teachers and parents. Funding for school districts now is fragmented across many taxing authorities including the federal government. Mandates frustrate teachers who find little ability to make individual decisions about their classes. Districts spend our tax dollars on lawsuits against other taxing authorities for more funds and pay grant writers with our tax dollars to obtain grants from other taxing authorities. The lines are very blurred. School budgets are full of mandated spending untouchable by the district boards.

So... how can we fix it? I'm so far off the reservation now, having attended hearing after hearing only to see the 'suits' who benefit from the current system work behind the scenes to thwart change, that I'm ready to start over rather than add more layers.

Unicameral bill:

1. End all tax funding of public K-12.
2. During a five year transition period, current principals of neighborhood schools required by law to hold elections for a board of parents as advisers with the power to hire and fire staff. After 5 years, the school is run like any other non-profit independent business. Far from seeing a mass exodus from these schools, history shows most parents are happy with their schools. Its the cost that is out of line.
3. Mandate all minors be presented annually for age appropriate testing by State, such as motor/cognitive skills for infants and California Achievement test for K-12. Disabilities are identified early. For the other children, lack of gains during year places parents under social services monitoring. Parents not educating their children are guilty of neglect/abuse.
4. Tuition is a matter between the parents and the school. In private schools everyone teaches including the head master. K-12 principals will learn early that maintaining their student body requires belt tightening. Parents writing checks are more apt to shop around.
5. Eliminate all state monitoring of teachers (other than abuse) including teaching certificates. Either the child makes gains or not; no certificate is a guarantee of success in the classroom.
6. Based on income, a program similar to 'food stamps' is created based on the average tuition paid in the family's county . 'Education stamps' for tuition are graduated on parental income. Again, parents found not to be educating their children, risk losing them to Social Services.

Well, what do you think? I need feedback.

The neighborhood parent who is homeschooling now may accept tuition for other children to attend which defrays the family's loss of income. Again, without annual advancement, parents risk charges of neglect. No one wants children hidden in the attic. Today there is no check on individual children's annual gain in public schools-probably for a reason.

The immediate impact includes:

• a massive drop in property taxes saving many home mortgages.
• a falling away of all special interest groups who today live off our public education system although they spend no time in classrooms.
• Foundations like Bill and Melinda Gates still find the success stories and donate as they are today with Cristo Rey in So. Omaha. No laws forbid previously publicly funded schools from making any change that works for their students, like the 4 day classes at Cristo Rey.
• There is no public funding so, as with food stamps, the religion of the business owner is of no consequence with education stamps.

As with Bell Telephone's monopoly, once broken, new innovations in education will emerge that we cannot imagine in our wildest dreams. Did we imagine cell phones when a princess extension phone cost a monthly fee?

What about problem kids? In a free market, we don't know what new ideas will be created. A sandhill's rancher may open a school 20 miles from the nearest town and along with teaching the 3Rs, also teach the responsibility (and satisfaction) of caring for animals who depend on them.

We cannot predict the future of innovation that could result in a truly free market of K-12. Those who plan cities or industries, like the USSR, end up with rot, decay and unemployed citizens. As Reagan said: "Our system freed the individual genius of man. We allocate resources not by government decision but by the millions of decisions customers make when they go into the market place. If something seems too high-priced, we buy something else. So resources are steered toward those things people want most at the price they are willing to pay."

Okay.. shoot away.