{"id":2336,"date":"2019-08-05T19:44:38","date_gmt":"2019-08-05T19:44:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/?p=2336"},"modified":"2024-10-15T22:02:10","modified_gmt":"2024-10-15T22:02:10","slug":"real-solutions-not-cash-infusions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/2019\/08\/05\/real-solutions-not-cash-infusions\/","title":{"rendered":"Real Solutions, Not Cash Infusions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As Max C. Eden aptly states (National Review<\/em>, July 30, 2019) when it comes to education, \u201cmoney\nmatters, but not if it\u2019s simply tossed into a dysfunctional district.\u201d He cites\na recent Johns Hopkins University study regarding the dreary conditions of\npublic schools in Providence, R.I, despite the fact that Providence spends\n$17,192 per pupil every year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spending has increased significantly for the American public\neducation system\u2014to almost three times more per child, in inflation-adjusted\ndollars, than in 1970. Eden also points out that \u201cAlthough education spending\ntook a hit during the Great Recession, it has been climbing steadily over the\npast five years and is at an all-time high in most states.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Switching to teacher pay (which Democratic presidential\ncandidates consistently claim is simply not enough), Eden points out \u201ctransferring\nfrom the private sector into teaching is associated with an 8 percent salary\nincrease[!], while leaving teaching for the private sector is associated with a\n3 percent salary decrease.\u201d Yet private schools continue to out-perform their\npublic counterparts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the issue here is not necessarily that teachers are\nunderpaid, but that we hire too many non-teachers. As just one example, Don\nNielsen, author of Every School<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>notes that \u201cin the New York City Public School system\u2026the school\nsystem employs more administrators than the entire nation of France and, at the\nstate level the State of New York education department has more education\nadministrators than all the nations in Western Europe combined.\u201d To put it in\nnumbers, the New York City Public School system, with 1,000,000 students, has a\ncentral office staff of 6,000. The Archdiocese of New York, which operates\nhundreds of Catholic schools and serves over 200,000 students, has 35. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eden backs the claim that excessive non-teaching staff\ncauses a \u201clegitimate gripe\u201d for teachers. He makes the remarkable observation regarding\nthe impact of the rise in non-teaching staff: \u201cif the share of non-teachers to\nstudents had stayed constant from 1992 to 2014, the money saved could have\nprovided every American teacher with an additional $11,128 in compensation.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eden ends with a well-aimed criticism of politicians: \u201c[they]\nare taking the easy way out by speaking only of spending. For the sake of\nAmerica\u2019s students, it\u2019s time to turn our attention to devising policy\nsolutions, not further cash infusions.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Nielsen summarizes, in school funding \u201cwe have witnessed\nthat investing more money into a failed system will simply produce a more\nexpensive failed system.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The American Center for Transforming Education<\/em><\/a>continues to fight alongside of advocates of reform, such as Eden. We need real and significant policy changes to recreate public education as we know it. These policy changes are laid out in Every School<\/em><\/a> (for a brief overview of our approach, click here<\/a>). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Max C. Eden aptly states (National Review, July 30, 2019) when it comes to education, \u201cmoney matters, but not if it\u2019s simply tossed into a dysfunctional district.\u201d He cites a recent Johns Hopkins University study regarding the dreary conditions of public schools in Providence, R.I, despite the fact that Providence spends $17,192 per pupil every year. Spending has increased significantly for the American public education system\u2014to almost three times more per child, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than in 1970. Eden also points out that \u201cAlthough education spending took a hit during the Great Recession, it has been climbing steadily over the past five years and is at an all-time high in most states.\u201d Switching to teacher pay (which Democratic presidential Read More ›<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":343,"featured_media":2337,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1062],"class_list":["post-2336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education-policy"],"acf":[],"author_names":["Bailey Takacs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/343"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2336"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2336"}],"wp:action-assign-author":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post\/2336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}