Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 10, 1995 TAG: 9509090003
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: G-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOHN E. BERTHOUD
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
In Virginia, the numbers mirror a national story of a tremendous increase in education spending in recent years, with little discernible payoff. During the 1980s, inflation-adjusted per-pupil spending in Virginia rose 61.2 percent and teachers' salaries increased by 32.2 percent. The national average was a real increase of 36.7 percent in per-pupil spending and a 19.7 percent real increase in teachers' salaries. Yet, Virginia SAT scores improved by only 1.4 percent during this time. (The national average was an improvement of 1.1 percent).
Despite the dismal payoff on all this new funding, education spending is projected to skyrocket in Virginia over the coming decade. In 1994, the state spent $6,012 per pupil, far above the national average of $4,172. By 2005, the state is projected to be spending $8,011 per pupil (in 1994 dollars), a real increase of 33.3 percent. Given the record of the past decade, we can't hold out much hope that all this additional spending will bring much of an improvement in educational performance in the state.
Clearly, new educational strategies are needed. We need to stop simply throwing more dollars at our educational systems but instead give closer consideration to innovative reform proposals.
Educational choice is one such idea. Under this concept, children and parents would be allowed to choose among elementary and secondary schools as they now choose among different colleges. Vouchers could be provided to parents to be spent like scholarships, wherever they desire.
Critical to the concept is allowing students to go to either public or private schools. Private schools have always outperformed public schools, and the nationwide average cost for private school is about half of the cost of public education. Still, choice wouldn't mean the end of public schools, only that the competition here, as in any type of market, would force an increase in quality and decrease in cost of our public institutions.
In actuality, school choice is prevalent throughout the nation - but only for the well-to-do. The better-off can send their children to any school they wish, while the poor must suffice with whatever city and town bureaucratics offer up. President Clinton may pay lip service to the educational status quo, but you won't find his daughter in the Washington, D.C., public schools.
Many public-school teachers have naturally resisted the idea of breaking up their monopoly on the provision of this public service. Besides possibly demanding more of teachers professionally, school choice would do little to help their own children, since teacher affluence in recent years has meant that many of their children get sent to private schools anyway. For example, in Milwaukee, in the center of the school-choice movement, one third of public-school teachers send their children to private schools.
Private management of public schools is another idea that has gained a lot of national attention. Considering the average school system in the U.S. spends 25.1 percent of its public budget on nonteaching staff, private management could redirect a lot of resources to where they are most needed: the classroom. In the limited number of places where it has been tried, the results of school privatization have been positive.
Charter schools are another path to improved education. The charter-school concept allows groups of teachers to form together to create their own schools, designed independently of the public-school system. Free from the many rules and regulations of the public schools, charter schools can best implement teachers's ideas about how to maximize student learning.
So with all these good ideas out there, what is holding back progress? In large measure, it is the teachers' unions. The National Education Association and teacher-union organizers have fought long and hard against privatization, charter schools and other reform efforts across the country. Arguments are always framed in terms of children, but union self-interest and maintenance of the current monopoly is often plainly the driving factor.
It is up to the people and elected leaders of Virginia to see through self-interested arguments and strive for public policies that are in the best interest of our future generations. They are our most important resources and they are irreplaceable.
John E. Berthoud is vice president of the Alexis de Toequeville Institution in Arlington.
by CNB