Post by ReformedLiberal on Aug 12, 2005 20:49:38 GMT -8
I saw the first salvo of damning TV commercials today, and read this in the local paper. Even before I read the paper, I knew the commercial was full of crap. But it was slick enough to piss off some attention challenged voters who vote by sound bite, and that's what worries me.
Teachers union the villain, not the governor
UNION-TRIBUNE
August 12, 2005
The lawsuit filed Tuesday by the California Teachers Association and state education Superintendent Jack O'Connell against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, which claims the state owes schools $3.1 billion, is weak on legal grounds. The respected Legislative Analyst's Office has already demolished the argument that spending levels violate legally mandated minimums. The lawsuit is also plainly partisan. Why not sue the Democratic-run Legislature, which approved the education budget, as well as the Republican governor? The lawsuit also ignores a key detail – the fact that education spending is going up 7 percent this year, at Schwarzenegger's behest.
But what's worst is how it plays into and reinforces the central fiction of the education debate: the assumption that school quality is a function of how much you spend.
Consider what's happened nationwide since 1983. That was the year that a federal commission issued a landmark report which warned that public schools were so mediocre they amounted to a threat to national security.
Unfortunately, besides toughening curriculums, the only major change backed by the panel that was widely implemented was its recommendation to increase education spending and teacher pay. The commission's call for merit pay for good teachers and competency tests for all teachers went nowhere in the face of bitter opposition from teachers unions, which argued that money was the only thing needed to improve schools.
Lawmakers and school boards bought the argument. And since 1983, inflation-adjusted education spending has gone up 60 percent.
So schools got much better, right? Not even close. Test scores have remained basically flat, and the same complaints the commission made in 1983 ring true today. If anything should hammer home that defining reform as spending more is nutty, this is it.
Yet even now, far too many politicians, journalists and parents accept the money-solves-everything premise and its equally ludicrous companion theory that teachers unions are benign and benevolent.
Obviously, many individual teachers are wonderful, caring, deeply valuable members of the community. But collectively, they are powerful, unrelenting defenders of an unacceptable status quo.
If you don't believe it, take a look at the California Teachers Association Web site. You can spend an hour there without ever finding a kind word for accountability or tougher standards or anything resembling real reform. Why? Because the CTA doesn't give a hoot about the quality of public education – only about how much is spent on public education.
And that is why the CTA isn't just suing the governor over funding, it's leading the opposition to his push for merit pay and tenure changes. Union bosses don't care if the status quo puts California's future at risk – so long as no teacher's job is at risk.
Keep this in mind during the teachers' campaign to demonize Schwarzenegger. On this issue, Arnold's on the side of the angels.
www.signonsandiego.com/news/op-ed/editorial1/20050812-9999-lz1ed12top.html?tr=y&auid=1038799
Teachers union the villain, not the governor
UNION-TRIBUNE
August 12, 2005
The lawsuit filed Tuesday by the California Teachers Association and state education Superintendent Jack O'Connell against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, which claims the state owes schools $3.1 billion, is weak on legal grounds. The respected Legislative Analyst's Office has already demolished the argument that spending levels violate legally mandated minimums. The lawsuit is also plainly partisan. Why not sue the Democratic-run Legislature, which approved the education budget, as well as the Republican governor? The lawsuit also ignores a key detail – the fact that education spending is going up 7 percent this year, at Schwarzenegger's behest.
But what's worst is how it plays into and reinforces the central fiction of the education debate: the assumption that school quality is a function of how much you spend.
Consider what's happened nationwide since 1983. That was the year that a federal commission issued a landmark report which warned that public schools were so mediocre they amounted to a threat to national security.
Unfortunately, besides toughening curriculums, the only major change backed by the panel that was widely implemented was its recommendation to increase education spending and teacher pay. The commission's call for merit pay for good teachers and competency tests for all teachers went nowhere in the face of bitter opposition from teachers unions, which argued that money was the only thing needed to improve schools.
Lawmakers and school boards bought the argument. And since 1983, inflation-adjusted education spending has gone up 60 percent.
So schools got much better, right? Not even close. Test scores have remained basically flat, and the same complaints the commission made in 1983 ring true today. If anything should hammer home that defining reform as spending more is nutty, this is it.
Yet even now, far too many politicians, journalists and parents accept the money-solves-everything premise and its equally ludicrous companion theory that teachers unions are benign and benevolent.
Obviously, many individual teachers are wonderful, caring, deeply valuable members of the community. But collectively, they are powerful, unrelenting defenders of an unacceptable status quo.
If you don't believe it, take a look at the California Teachers Association Web site. You can spend an hour there without ever finding a kind word for accountability or tougher standards or anything resembling real reform. Why? Because the CTA doesn't give a hoot about the quality of public education – only about how much is spent on public education.
And that is why the CTA isn't just suing the governor over funding, it's leading the opposition to his push for merit pay and tenure changes. Union bosses don't care if the status quo puts California's future at risk – so long as no teacher's job is at risk.
Keep this in mind during the teachers' campaign to demonize Schwarzenegger. On this issue, Arnold's on the side of the angels.
www.signonsandiego.com/news/op-ed/editorial1/20050812-9999-lz1ed12top.html?tr=y&auid=1038799
