Education spending...yada, yada, yada
David Hampton at the Clarion Ledger says that Barbour did a "Clinton" on the Democrats by agreeing to fund the "Adequate Funding" bill of yesteryear.Yawn.
The real question is, does more funding for education work. No.
My perspective has always been - giving more money to a broken system gives you a bigger broken system. Something is not working. Fix it, and then come back for money. Until then, Barbour pulling a "Clinton" is the best will be able to do?
Labels: Mississippi education
posted by Matt Friedeman at
5:03 PM
5 Comments:
Does your philosophy apply to the 5 Billion(yes with a 'B') that we are spending on the broken system in Iraq? Educating kids is not something that can be put on pause until everything is fixed. I will be the first to say that something needs to be done, but why should we really listen to people that have never wanted public education funding? And I dont really think you ever will want public education funded. My father is on the state board of education but I dont claim to speak for him or even know his views on the matter. I will just say that the public school system has a daunting task and is likened to trying to fix a car while it is on the expressway. What public schools are asked to do today is far different than what there were asked to do when you were a kid. There are vast areas for improvement, but all people get from your side is the same old notes. Its hard to know whether you really want to fix the problem or if you just want to attack other people's ideas. I think you may be too stubborn to admit that you really may not know enough about public school problems to weigh in with objective solutions. I find it increasingly difficult to see the rationale of people that favor spending 5 Billion(yes with a 'B') in Iraq and not recognizing whether public schools are fixed or broken that they require increasing amounts of money to operate. If you truly have some solutions, lay them out and maybe they will get to the right people. I hope you are not offended by my directness or challenge to your position.
You can solve the education mess by throwing money at it. You can also put out a fire by throwing gasoline at it.
The war on terror is a seperate issue. Yes, it cost the "B" word. Yes, I wish there was a cheeper way to deal with it but other than surrender to islamic radicals what does adeney think we should do?
Cliff, I would suspect that we differ ideologically on things, but I would like to hope that we both want America to succeed. I think we just differ on how to do that. I wont get too deep into Iraq in this post because it was originally about education.
I think America has to stop looking for short term solutions to long term problems. Take Saddam for example, he deserved to be hung 10 times over. But a student of history knows that he was our ally when he gassed the Kurds. In fact, Iran went to the UN to ask for sanctions against him and the Reagan Administration stepped in on his behalf. But we turn around in 2007 and have a totally different take on his actions then. We have to do a better job of dealing with situations instead of creating more. As bad as Saddam was and for all the great things we have done there, reasonable people can argue that Iraq is in worse shape. I personally would have rather dealt with the enemy that we knew than the ones we dont know now. I just think it was a bad decision and feel like Saddam could easily be managed. Whereas now, we have a situation where the outcome is uncertain and that we can not manage. Saddam basically was a counterbalance to Iran. I'm sure I am not a coward, I just think it would have served us all to evaulate the situation in Iraq in more detail than we did. Because like Colin Powell said, "When u break it, its yours".
No, you cannot solve education's problems with money! Back in the late 80's I was in an educational conference and heard John Rosemond speak. He gave the most sensible description of problems with education in our country and the most revealing answer to the problem. As a person who has been involved in education from three perspectives... a student, a teacher, and a parent... I fully agree with his assessment. He said the greatest problem with our schools is that parents are not teaching children the 3 R's before they start to school. The 3 R's of which he spoke are Respect , Responsibility , and Resourcefulness . His explanation of these 3 R's was excellent. I wish I had a copy of that speech today. He just confirmed what I have witnessed in my lifetime. I saw a cartoon years ago that illustrated this so well. It had two frames. In the first frame a father was looking at his son's report card, which contained an F. The father was explaining to the child that he was going to be punished for his laziness and lack of diligence in his school work. The second frame was 20 years later. The father was looking at his son's report card, which contained an F. The father was cursing the teachers, saying, “I am going down to that school and give those teachers a piece of my mind. What were they doing down there... how dare they give my child an F. That teacher doesn't know how to teach anyway and should be fired. Just don’t worry about it son, I will take care of this.”
Money is not going to solve this problem.
Matt, go to www.rosemond.com. I think you will appreciate many of the things he has on his website.
Just like in Iraq, money is not the solution, but it is a neccessity. Schools can't close down because parents have abandoned their responsibilities. It just becomes that much more difficult for schools to do what their original task was, which is to teach children. Schools are not perfect, far from it. But none of the things "annoymous" talked about were in the school's control. For those of you that feel being in Iraq is a good idea, there have not been any complaints of the excalating cost and diminishing returns. The soldiers are doing their jobs, they are just in a real tough situation. That is pretty close to the situation that schools are in. As I said before, you can't put schools on pause while you address the issues. The issues have to be addressed on the fly. I dont agree with all that public schools do, yet I can recognize that they are faced with an extremely difficult task. Most of the things conservatives complain about schools on have nothing to do with the schools, but the parents,the community or lack thereof. When you talk about stop funding public schools or not giving schools any more money, you are on the outside looking in and attacking the people that have decided to try and make a difference. Conservatives dont have an issue with spending, they have an issue with spending that goes to things they dont support. A solution is going to be found in making the best use of every dollar received and also recognizing that schools have more complex needs than they did decades ago. Money is not the cure, but money is also not the infection either.
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