We Need to Raise the Bar

You may or may not have noticed the lack of Dogwood Girl posts. For good reason: I was being a responsible parent. I have been thinking a lot about the kids' education lately. I have also been doing a lot of research, and realizing that the information out in the ether is really confusing, hard to interpret, and varies massively depending on who is putting it out. After reviewing a number of websites with school achievement information, I did come across one site that seems to present information in a straightforward manner, without any obvious bias, and with the improvement of public education, regardless of political belief, at its core. (Incidentally, much of this site is supported by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Yes, that Bill Gates. Anyone see him on Oprah? It was an eye-opening show.) The site did not actually solve my problem of choosing a school for my children, but at least it gave me some clearcut ways to decipher school data, presented some of the reasons for school failure, and helped me figure out what questions I should be asking about my children's' school.

At first I was worried that my kids would be shortchanged by living in GA, because it was my impression that GA schools were "bottom of the barrel." Well, it turns out they are just about average with the rest of the nation. Unfortunately, the nation's schools seem to be at the bottom of the barrel. Think I'm joking? Listen to this:

• According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United States, the richest country in the world, is ranked 24th in Math.
• According to Gates: "Millions of kids are dropping out. Of minorities, half drop out. Overall it's about a third."

I am a little freaked out and a lot ticked off about education. Our nation's public schools are failing our children. It really concerns me. I mean, if I am paying taxes, and that money goes into these crappy public schools, shouldn't my children get decent schools for the money?
If we are paying taxes for schools, shouldn't we be able to live and work within 20 minutes of our (Todd's) job and still send our children to a decent school? Sure, we could move out to the 'burbs, but:
a) Our quality of life would decrease in a huge way - No more breakfast and coffee as a family, no more meeting Daddy for lunches, and no more Daddy home by 5:30 to play with the kids before dinner. I would for all practical purposes be a single mom.
b) I don't wanna.

It just shouldn't be this hard. In the real marketplace, if you pay for a service and it is not delivered, you can fire that service. You can't "fire" the public schools.

I have been looking at test scores and other indicators (comparing test scores, free/reduced lunches, class size, racial makeup, etc.) and my head is spinning. I have come up with a list of schools that we can afford to live near. And then I go and, just out of curiosity, I looked at the test scores for an area in which I KNEW I would never send my kids to school, and they weren't that much lower!!! WTF??? It really appears that either the tests are too easy, or the reporting on test scores is fudged. Or are the test scores themselves fudged? Ack!

How is a concerned parent supposed to know how to make an informed decision about their child's education?

The more I look at the issue, it seems that School Choice is the best solution. Shouldn't I be able to take the funds allotted for my kids and send them where ever I can afford to get them the best education? And what could I afford? Would the funds allotted my child in public schools actually cover private school tuition? In GA public schools, each child has approximately $7,000 spent on them each year. Why on earth are these schools failing? That is ludicrous! If they are really failing, it sucks that I can't take that amount and use it towards their education in any manner I wish, even if it means putting them in private school. (Of course, private school would come with its own set of problems - a sense of entitlement, possible lack of diversity, etc.)

Turns out many people are in direct opposition to school choice. Why can't we push for more competition in schools, where schools have to vie for my attention based on their results? I mean, if competition works in a free marketplace, why can't it work in education? It appears that the government is running a monopoly on education. I am now looking into why people are so resistant to the idea of creating competition in our school system, to the idea that competition and/or privatization of some kind might drastically improve the schools. It is hard to get a straight answer out of anyone, or find any reference to why the idea hasn't caught on, but here are a few things I can gather:

• Many people just don't give a shit, and expect and trust the government to educate their kids well.
  
• There seems to be a lot of top-heavy administration in education and streamlining our schools and making them more efficient and improving them would mean that people would lose jobs.
  
• Some people truly believe it would undermine public education, and I think yes, it would throw public education inadequacies into such a glaring light that it would become obvious that the schools are failing and things would come to their logical conclusion: The schools would fail. Who would pick up the educational slack? Would the private sector really save the day in a timely manner?
  
• The old separation of church and state argument - God forbid that someone choose to educate their child in a Catholic school. No, if they want to do that, they will still have to pay their taxes to the failing public schools and their beliefs can be paid for on their own dime.
  

I am very frustrated, but in the end, I am sure it will work out fine, and my kids will excel because I am informing myself about education, and because I value reading and education. But what about the poor kids whose parents don't give a crap? And then all those uneducated kids grow up to be dumb voters and then we all get screwed.

I don't think the outlook is good for the majority of kids in our country. It is very disheartening. I do wonder what would happen if all of these failing students were actually required to take responsibility for their education, were held to some standard of behavior and academic achievement. Part of me is an optimist and thinks that if we raised the bar, there would be students who would rise to the occasion. Part of me knows deep down that some of the kids have such dire circumstances and a lack of support at home that they will fail to receive an education no matter what we do to improve the schools. Do I know the solution? Don't I wish. I wish that we could get to the root of the problem, which, in my opinion, is the parents. But how does one wipe out poverty, single parenthood, teenage pregnancy, and adult illiteracy?

What I do know? That lowering the educational bar is not going to help.