No, it is the local level that is the problem. It is the local union that sends the lawyers when the administration takes action. It is the local union that holds the academic year hostage when contract negotation comes around. It is the local union that defends the bad teachers.

My priority would be the repair of the American education system. If that can be accomplished by keeping the unions intact and reforming pay and tenure, that is fine with me. If that can be accomplished by completely dismantling the unions, that is also fine. I have no interest in pursuing anyone's boogy man; be it the vilifying of unions, political correctness, school lunch or emphasis on sports. Those are only distractions from the actual problem. Quite simply, no external political solution is possible for the current problem. The problem is internal.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that I'm in favor of de-funding and disbanding the Federal Dept. of Education. My personal belief in the matter is that education should be wholly privatized.....(waits for shocked gasps to subside)

Okay, yes, I know how scary that is and I've seen every argument out there against such a stance. Poor children suffering from lack of access to education and greedy corporate money-whoring acadamies made to brainwash people into consumerism and all that.:o Not that education for the poor sucks anyway, or that they have been harmed by an overabundance of cheap products in other essential sectors, or that the state is capable of brainwashing, but I'm not going to talk about that.

What I really wanted to talk about was this: Tak gets an A+ for ability to deconstruct a problem, imo. Whatever we may think of the levels of education spending at any level, what it comes down to is the ability of teachers to teach. For some reason, our teachers seem unable to do their jobs well.

Unlike Tak, I am going to vilify the unions. I have no problem with unions at all, right up until the point where they obtain state fiat power to exist as institutions, regardless of circumstance, at which point they become special interests. And we all love those, don't we?

I work under a union that is very similar to the teachers' union. It is very large, very powerful, and part of a very indispensible industry. It's the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, and it is about as effective as the teachers' union in every way, which is to say that it is horrendously expensive for the customer and woefully incompetent at its professed task. The only real difference is that where teachers are politically essential (Think of the children!), railroads are actually essential; Who else is going to deliver 10,000 tons of product? Don't like our service? Move your factory, then. The other one railroad in the area charges the same amount, and they still have to use our lines so you still end up paying us!:nope:

Railroads and schools find themselves in this unique position for one reason: the state made it so by eliminating competition. Schools have no competition because the government assumed it could run the schools; you have to pay for them whether you have children or not. If you want to attend a private institution, you have to pay for school again. Oh, and it's a law for your children to attend. This is why there are no chains of private schools for the poor or the middle class. No demand.

Railroads have no competition because the government assumed it could run the railroads. It did this to make the railroads charge fair prices and engage in "constructive conduct". What ended up happening was that the railroads simply tore up all the track that was unprofitable because the new rates made it so. No supply.

These actions put the unions in advantageous positions. When the customer is a hostage and the job backed by legislation meant to protect workers from every concievable form of abuse by nasty employers (or parents), there is no reason to do anything other than the absolute minimum, if even that. Many more factors affect the complete lack of competition in these industries this is the crux of the argument.


Privatization, or partial privatization at least is my answer, but I'm also open to voucher systems for students or some kind incentive program for teachers... just anything to break up this stagnant monolith that we generously refer to as a "system". Such measures have been proposed, but the unions always block them. They don't even allow trial systems to see if things could be done better; "It might hurt the children":roll:

Whatever measure is to be taken, I'd only ask that it not include the state as the provider of incentive. State incentives and their preconditions have a notorious habit of being twisted into something completely different from the original intent, usually by the people they are meant to affect.

I have to disagree with Takeda and Undersea.

Remember folks, the question is not about how to improve education, but whether or not the DoE is one place where we should be looking to cut funding to resolve the overspending of the federal government.

While I agree that the union has too much power, etc - you are approaching this issue as if its a question of "how do we fix" education.

So, Takeda - if its your position that defunding the DoE "won't matter" in regards to the educational outcome, then I can only conclude that you would be in favor of saving the 160 Billion dollars to help reduce the 1.4 Trillion expected deficit. Is that what your saying?

I agree 100%. I meant the NEA as lobbyists. I was just trying to keep my thoughts on the national level, not local. They need to find a better system than tenure, once a teacher hits tenure, they're impossible to get rid of.
I would say our whole learning system needs a priority adjustment. They thing that is great about our system, you can be what you want to be. Even if you aren't the smartest or best student, you can still make something of yourself if you work hard. You're not trapped into a peticular cast, so to speak, but I digress.

@ Haplo, what are the weak points in the DoE? If you were to keep that dept, what kind of role would they have?

No, that is not what I am saying. What I am saying is that attempting to reform, fund, defund or empower the DoE without first addressing the problems inherent to tenure and teacher performance is like worrying about the rigging while there's a gaping hole in the boat. You might be able to get back to the heading that you want, but the ship is still sinking.

In that regard, I disagree with the very premise of your question. Education is always the platform that politicians use to assail their pet peeves. When satisfied they walk away, leaving the system in the very shape that they found it. In this case, education is being used to justify or refute government spending. If the system were reformed, there would not be the sinking feeling that we are throwing money down a hole, and there would be no reason to talk about government spending in education. The problem that the political class has is that this is a problem that cannot be solved from the top down; it must be fixed internally.

I use 'system' as simply a convenient term.

I am totally with you on the unions, but disagree on privatization. As an example, the Philadelphia Public School System was privatized about 6 years ago. Student performance remains unchanged. What has happened is that the district is teeming with charter schools, most of which perform just as badly as the non-charter schools, and most of which have a life expectancy of two academic years. It remains a mess because you cannot solve the problems of education from the top down.

However, if we continue it should probably be elsewhere. Haplo has made it clear that this thread is not really about education, but about spending cuts, so I think that we're off topic.

Thanks Takeda. Not trying to stifle discussion (and how to improve our educational system is one that needs to be discussed!) but I do want to keep this focused on budgetary thoughts. BTW - thanks for the info on the privatized school system - gotta do some research into that.

Well, weak points. Per their own mission statement - they are a failure. The US educational system ratings internationally have plummetted, yet their budget grows. Is total failure not enough of a weak point when it costs 160 Billion in taxpayer funds?

As for what I would do - well thats what this discussion is for. However, I did some checking, it turns out the existing Pell Grant budget is about 18.5 Billion for 2010, and the current administration is requesting to nearly double that - to 35 Billion. While we can also debate whether adding Billions to the program is wise, what about limiting the DoE to administrating the Pell Grant program, add in say another 5 Billion for overhead and development of national standards. That drops them from 160 Billion to 40 Billion. a 120 Billion dollar savings on the 1.4 Trillion debt, while keeping the only effective things they do going.

This would still allow for "additional investment" in education by nearly doubling Pell Grant availability, while still making a dent in the deficit.

Let me ask this another way. Does anyone think we are getting 160 Billion dollars worth of results out of the DoE? If not, why not focus on where it is useful, and cut the rest?

As a college student, If i lost my pell grants, I'd have to take out about double the loans i have now.

Privatization or partial privatization are a funding cuts by their very nature, so I'm topical:O:

Vouchers also promise an effective solution and a funding cut. Even socialist nations manage to make that system work for less than what we spend per student, per year and achieve better results.

Because that won't fix anything. It doesn't matter what values you plug into an equation for fail, the end result is still fail. No matter where or how you allocate funding, the end result will be that most of the money is wasted and that more funding will be needed as new programs are adopted and the old ones become less efficient through complacency.

I'm really not trying to derail this thread, I just don't understand how the output will ever be any better if you don't fix the machine. What's the point?

I had to look this one up. Private schools and voucher schools have kind of a bad history when they are tried on an experimental basis, so my natural assumption was that Philly had "privatized" the schools but kept them so strictly regulated as to hobble them. That's usually what happens.

As it turns out, charter schools in Philly are not private schools. Actually, their presence has hurt private schools. They are privately run, but publicly funded, and they charge no tuition. I don't know the specifics of how they are run, but their nature alone makes the results unsurprising to me. Private industry only works where there is an incentive.

If you disagree or have anything to add, I agree that we should discuss it elsewhere because the discussion is likely to go way OT in a hurry. Thanks for making me think, though.

I vote paintball field! A duel!

Curious - what are you in school for? What is your expected income upon graduation?

Historically what was the purpose of "tenure"? Was it just academic freedom?

Is the problem that tenure was to solve/mitigate still around in the 21st century? Do we still need tenure is the question.

Would there be a disadvantage if we got rid of tenure?

As a layperson in this area, I have a hard time thinking that tenure is 100% bad and 0% good.

So what are the advantages and disadvantages of tenure?

Is this truly only a union thing?

western Michigan University. About 40K starting (getting my certs to work on aircraft)

Actually, its not plugging in different values, its changing the equation. 12x14/3+7x0=0
The end is the locked fail. Cut back on the equation....
12x14/3+7≠0

Suddenly we actually get something worthwhile.

In the case of the DoE, I don't oppose Pell Grants. I know many people who have benefited from them. So doing away with something that actually has a positive effect that is reasonable given its funding, I am ok with. However, the rest of the 140+ Billion should go.

So cutting funding drastically, limiting the DoE would save at least 120 Billion, a nice chunk, while not negatively effecting the Pell Grant system. Savings, while increasing overall effectiveness at the DoE.

Where is the fail there?