April 10, 2005
TOO LOW A MINIMUM:
The 65 percent solution (George Will, April 10, 2005, Townhall)
Patrick Byrne, a 42-year-old bear of a man who bristles with ideas that have made him rich and restless, has an idea that can provide a new desktop computer for every student in America without costing taxpayers a new nickel. Or it could provide 300,000 new $40,000-a-year teachers without any increase in taxes. His idea -- call it The 65 Percent Solution -- is politically delicious because it unites parents, taxpayers and teachers while, he hopes, sowing dissension in the ranks of the teachers unions, which he considers the principal institutional impediment to improving primary and secondary education.The idea, which will face its first referendum in Arizona, is to require that 65 percent of every school district's education operational budget be spent on classroom instruction. On, that is, teachers and pupils, not bureaucracy.
Nationally, 61.5 percent of education operational budgets reach the classrooms. Why make a fuss about 3.5 percent? Because it amounts to $13 billion. Only four states (Utah, Tennessee, New York, Maine) spend at least 65 percent of their budgets in classrooms. Fifteen states spend less than 60 percent. The worst jurisdiction -- Washington, D.C., of course -- spends less than 50 percent.
Under the 65 percent rule, Arizona, which spends 56.8 percent in classrooms, could use its $451 million transfer to classrooms to buy 1.5 million computers or to hire 11,275 teachers. California (61.7 percent) could use its $1.5 billion transfer to buy 5 million computers or to hire 37,500 teachers. Illinois (59.5 percent) would transfer $906 million to classrooms (3 million computers or 22,650 new teachers). To see how much money would flow into your state's classrooms, go to firstclasseducation.org.
Voucherize it all and you can get an even higher %. Posted by Orrin Judd at April 10, 2005 9:45 AM
Buildings will start collapsing, the schools will cut back on sports, meals, transportation, causing a lot of bus drivers and lunch ladies to lose jobs. The notion that the school bureaucracy in any little town, much less the crime against humanity known as 110 Livingston Street in Brooklyn, will shrivel is the product of intense drug usage.
Taxes will continue to increase. New layers of bureaucracy will be formed. And if any kid actually learns even the most basic reading, writing and math skills, it will be by accident.
The model for decent public education exists all over the world from Singapore to Slovenia. It is not the unions that foul it up, but the politicians, the parents and the permanent bureaucracy and political hangers-on.
Posted by: bart at April 10, 2005 11:41 AMSo to get to 65%, and unable (and too cowardly) to make any cuts, the reaction of most politicians will be to just increase the budget (and the taxes to pay for it) with the whole increase supposedly to be "spent on classroom instruction." With no guarantee that the money is actually needed or will be spent wisely. Sounds to me like yet another way to package what they've been doing for decades.
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at April 10, 2005 12:43 PMi don't know, sometimes these kind of hard limits have good effects. why not wait until it works or fails to be negative (if necessary) ? there is always a multitude of reasons to not try, but if you try sometime, you just might find....
Posted by: cjm at April 10, 2005 10:20 PMcjm;
Because it's like taking morphine to cure your cancer.
Posted by: Annoying Old Guy at April 10, 2005 10:34 PM