My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s part of it:
Finally, it is not just that Governor Evers wants to spend money we do not yet have. It is that he wants to pour it into the bottomless pit of government schools for no benefit. The governor lists 14 spending items directed at government schools from general state aid to grants. Nowhere does he even pretend that the additional spending will improve educational outcomes for the kids. Even Evers appears to know that more spending will not result in better education.
In fact, Wisconsin spends more on government education than at any time in its history, and yet, test scores and student performance continue their steady decline. It is a travesty that liberals like Governor Evers continue to spread the lie that more money leads to a better education because it distracts from advancing policies that will actually improve education for our children. Governor Evers’ spending plan is a boon for government workers, special interest groups, and school construction companies, but it once again leaves our kids behind.
Typical liberal.
Wasting resources with no measurable result.
OK, then name the policies that will improve education for the children.
School Choice, uniforms (sometimes), focus of core subjects, all-year school, merit pay for teachers (fire teachers for bad performance), licensing reform to allow career experts into the classroom, return to phonics to teach reading, empower teachers to maintain discipline and have disruptive students removed, charter schools, online school options, etc. There are plenty of things that have proven to improve educational outcomes that do not involve just throwing more money at it.
I go one step further than all of Owen’s great ideas.
Public school is held accountable by attaching money to students, not school, by voucher.
If public school cannot attract students, it does not get funded.
Evers (WEAC-WEAC) is just doing what his bosses at WEAC want – give them all the money.
School choice doesn’t really tell us what works and what doesn’t. If your intent is to defund and empty the public school system, just say so. But is it in the Constitution, right?
If your intent is to use an ecosystem of different schooling techniques to discover which work best, as you say, why not turn to the research? Instead of using today’s kids as experimental test subjects.
Focus of core subjects… pretty nebulous, sounds like a dog whistle. Sounds like you want to remove Certain Topics.
All-year-round school, I’ll take it. Sounds like it costs more, and that it’s not for everyone.
Merit pay? Firing for bad performance? You think public schools don’t have ways to detect bad teachers? Or don’t have any ways to deal with it?
Bringing in career experts? Instead of someone trained to be a teacher? As an add-on, I think it makes sense. Blindly saying that anyone can be a teacher, that’s foolish. It reminds me of substitute teachers. If a school loses a teacher for some reason, filling in with subs on a long-term basis can severely damage the learning experience for those kids.
Phonics, sure. But it’s been around for fifty years.
Empower teachers… are we on guns already? Or are we at spanking? Oh, you just want them to have some unnamed Power they don’t have now. Discipline. Here comes the authoritarian mindset, right on schedule. Right up there with uniforms – we’re for freedom, except for dress and hair styles. Students removed – to where?
It all sounds like segregation… we’ll start a charter school for the best kids, our kids, not those rough kids with their saggy drawers. And no talk about what works best and how to fold it back into the public system.
>It all sounds like segregation…
Everything you hear on this blog sounds like segregation or racism or sexism – TO YOU. It’s why you don’t get treated respectfully, you fall back to the same bullshit every time someone actually engages you on a topic. Face it jjFlaccid, you haven’t earned it our respect.