Federal Funding: Why is it So Tough to Get Money for Our Schools?
Paul,
At the end of one of your entries, you ask why aren't more cities trying something akin to Canada's Baby College. More broadly, I'd ask why - given all that we know - isn't there a greater public commitment to early childhood education? (To say nothing of a greater commitment to education in general, but more on that later.)
I think parenting classes are a tough public sell, mostly because we get jittery when trying in any way to intervene in the lives of families. A number of years ago, early in the Bush administration, before 9/11, before the disastrous foreign policy, there was conversation about the importance of marriage. The proponents of some kind of marriage program were roundly jeered at, especially by liberals, in large part because it smacked of paternalism, and of sticking our noses in places government didn't belong.
But, look, there's a growing concensus among social scientists and researchers that, all things considered, two-parent families are best for children. Yet, we couldn't have a real conversation about this. It felt like treading where we needn't tread - and it felt moralistic, if not outright condescending (which, honestly, it was at times, especially as conservatives stigmatized single parenthood, reintroducing the term "illigetimacy" back into the lexicon.) But most of all, the administration's push seemed to ignore all the forces bearing down on families, and neglected, for instance, any real push to reform our schools. That's the brilliance of what Canada is doing. He's not afraid to engage families, to push them, to challenge them, to poke his nose in places where perhaps it doesn't seem to belong. But he holds up his end of the bargain which is to provide rigorous, accountable schooling for their children.
In a NYT op-ed page piece a number of years back, I wrote of Daniel Patrick Moynihan's report entitled "The Negro Family: The Case for National Action." The year was 1965, and Moynihan at the time was a young official in Department of Labor. The report suggested the breakdown of the black family - one-third of all black children at the time lived with only one parent - was keeping African-Americans from finding their way into the middle class. Moynihan was pilloried by progressives. He was accused of blaming the victim. Liberals essentially abdicated the discussion about family to the conservatives, and have had a tough time finding their way back since then.
Well, Canada has found a way back into that conversation. In fact, he's claimed ownership of it. We need to talk about family, he's saying. But we can't do that if we do nothing to support them, especially if we can't guarantee a rigorous, challenging, no-nonsense education for their children. With Canada's program as a model perhaps politicians will reengage in this conversation, as well.
Which brings me to what's really eating at me this morning. Amy bemoaned the inequity of school funding. That inequity is a travesty. And as Amy suggested those school districts most in need have the least at hand. Like everyone else, I've been watching the free fall on Wall Street with great trepidation, each day trying to make sense of what's happening. I don't pretend to know enough about economics and business to know whether these bailouts make sense or not, but what is clear to me it that somehow over the course of ten days we were able to come up with nearly $200 billion to bailout Fannie, Freddie and AIG. Why is it so tough to get money for our schools?
Alex
A better question is to ask why people pre-computer were better educated than they are now. Certainly it wasn't the money or the technology.
That said, school systems won't collapse an economy, or pay back loans. Meanwhile, letting parents know in no uncertain terms, they actually determine their children's future in early years, is a good thing.
September 18, 2008 11:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Shooter asked "why people pre-computer were better educated than they are now"
I've never seen good data that show that they were. If you want to compare one-room-schoolhouse 8th grade texts to now, I have to point out how few people made it to the eighth grade, and how far from "universal" education we had then. If you want to compare 1970s with the 2000s, the data seems to show both loses and gains. Let me see what you're basing your assertion on, so we can delve in and see what might have been working better than and worse now, okay?
September 18, 2008 2:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with Sherrold here, I really haven't seen any data that agrees with your assumptions. Some anecdotal evidence to the contrary, our people are getting more intelligent every year. Every few years things like the SATs and IQ tests actually have to be recalibrated to account for average test scores consistently going up. Malcolm Gladwell (and other more "serious" researchers) have found this to be the case as well.
As far as "more educated"... you'd have to define what constitutes being "more educated". Our kids may not be memorizing Plato these days, but that doesn't mean they're not still learning more valuable things in place of them.
If you allow me to be so glib, I would argue that it is precisely our school systems which determine those two things.
September 18, 2008 5:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Getting back to the topic of the post, there are many reasons education money is hard to get. In California, Prop 13 crippled the property tax base for local funding, and required super-majorities for state revenue measures so the state made a bad Faustian bargain with lottery companies. It's not just immoral, but a large part of each dollar from a lotto ticket, exits the state.
I would guess funding in the South is bad because the states are poor and there is a long tradition of second-class institutions for the poor and the dark since the plantation owners and bankers have first dibs.
Nationally, well there is the whole canard of local control. The education systems that knock our socks off are nationalized. How can one proclaim equality of opportunity when there are such large disparities in funding and organizational competency across this land?
September 18, 2008 12:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
But of course school systems can collapse an economy. We desperately need a skilled, educated workforce, and one thing employers complain about is the inability to find those people.
September 18, 2008 12:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, and school systems can make an economy. The US pioneered free, universal public education and became the world's richest and most powerful country. California became the leading industrial economy in the US because of leading edge industries staffed by graduates of the finest public, nearly free K-PhD system in the country. The community colleges, the state colleges, and the state universities offered a good post high school education to everyone and graduates at all levels were needed to supply a 20th century economy. The 21st century doesn't look so good.
September 18, 2008 1:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
But you don't really believe what "employers" have been whining about for years, do you?
If you regularly read EPI's Jared Bernstein, you'll learn that American workers have produced exceptional productivity growth over the past 15-20 years.
If American workers were "unskilled" and "uneducated," how did they do it?
September 18, 2008 3:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
I worked in the computer industry designing chips for Playstations, PC's, copiers, digital TV's, etc. Had lunch a couple of weeks ago with former engineer coworkers: Rajiv and Debjit from India, Marius from Norway, and Mike and me from the US. on the other, the SAG employees were nearly all native US citizens. Most, but not all, of my employers did not try to offshore the technical talent, even though it does make financial sense. So the answer for the computer HW and SW industry is we either import the talent or export the jobs. The employers are pleading for more H1-B visas. From the Wikipedia, an H1-B requires "theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge in a field of human endeavor including, but not limited to, architecture, engineering, mathematics, physical sciences, social sciences, medicine and health, education, law, accounting, business specialities, theology, and the arts."
September 18, 2008 5:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
JohnW has a sharper point than mine. Walmart is ruthlessly efficient because it pioneered technological business systems. The VA is the best medical organization for the same reason.
Still. we import engineers, doctors, nurses, etc because we don't produce enough of them which is partly due to a failure to invest in education if I may be so crude as to regress to the topic.
And deserve? I understand it in a moral sense. I understand it in a social sense. I don't think it has any economic sense or makes any economic sense. Maybe there is another word?
September 18, 2008 9:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
My objection to Bernstein's argument is that I think it conflates an economic question (as between labor and capital, what is the proper division of the profits ascribable to increased productivity) with a moral question (what level of income inequality should a society permit).
Bernstein would probably argue that if we had laws which strengthened labor's economic power (EFCA, for example), labor could grab more of the increased profits and across society, incomes would be more equal.
I think that's just hoping and wishing, and we should concentrate on the moral issue -- and that means major changes in federal tax and income support policies.
September 19, 2008 7:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
There were several causes for the Great Flattening. Unions, 92% top marginal rate, social pressure (avarice was one of the 7 serious no-no's), GI Bill, FHA, explosion of manufacturing and construction jobs, ....
September 19, 2008 9:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ellen asks:
Automation.
September 18, 2008 6:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good point.
I've been arguing for some time -- more for the sake of argument than anything else -- against Jared Bernstein's claim that American workers deserve a substantial share of the economy's growth caused by increased productivity and that capital has undeservedly appropriated it.
As JohnW1141 points out, capital (investment in information technology) was the source of the increase in productivity and therefore, rightly(?) deserves to take the benefits.
September 18, 2008 7:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ellen,
who's capital? And where did the capital come from?
September 19, 2008 9:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
We also need an educated electorate. We're seeing the results of bad schools play out daily in this election campaign.
September 18, 2008 5:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Alex asks:
What schools?
September 18, 2008 3:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
If the rumors are true you are going to need some more fingers.
Cable News is reporting that the BUSH admin is about ready to announce a MASSIVE bailout and the dollar figure on it will start with a "T" "and that rhymes with "B" which stands for Billion!"
September 18, 2008 6:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
It so difficult to get federal funding for public schools because we're spending in state and local funds ten times more than the federal gift already. The nation spends an enormous amount of money on public education. Personally I believe it actually gets much for its money. Schools are not only places where some teaching and learning occurs but also are places where eating, babysitting , socializing, and a mountain of other activities take place. No one will ever understand the complexities of a normal school day unless they actually experience the whole deal. It's not like it once was. Schools are often open at 6:00 am and many don't stop until close to midnight. With mandates and court orders public school has become a very complicated monster. For our candidates to include their love of the simplistic charter school as an answer is like saying all we have to do to fix our economic crises is to print more money.
September 19, 2008 3:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Alex,
I agree which much of what you wrote. However, it's worth noting that what Moynihan got pilloried for wasn't his statistical analysis of the black family. It was his use of pathologizing "culture of poverty" explanations for problems like poverty, single-parent families, out of wedlock births, etc, which many observers at the time, fairly or not, viewed as a "blame the victim" mentality.
I would further suggest that these critiques were borne out in the uses to which some of Moynihan's arguments were put in the 1970s and beyond, of which I'm sure many here are well aware.
My own view is that Moynihan identified some very real problems but clouded them with pseudoscientific analysis. What I find so brilliant about Canada's project is that he is able to address those same family problems in a more empathetic and useful, yet still quite tough-minded, way.
I am hopeful that I will have a chance this winter to read Paul Tough's book (and I should add that I'm an admirer of Alex's work), esp since our likely next President plans to use Canada's model in several American cities.
Bill Bush
September 19, 2008 10:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think most people know how school systems are funded or operated in this country. Schools for the most part in this country are community based co-operatives, funded by local property tax and governed by an elected board of overseers - one of the few purely democratic institutions left in this country.
That schools are funded by property tax rather than subscription or income tax is the reason why suburban schools are better for the most part than urban and rural schools. The funding base in the suburbs is steadier and consistently rising in most suburban areas. It is also true that for suburban communities much of the house value is tied to the excellence of the school system which intrinsically raises the value of the property everytime it is bought and sold. It is the best incentive for improving schools - a financial interest in maintaining and building excellence in the school system. People who live in suburban areas gripe and complain about the level of property tax they must pay, but they know there are tangible benefits to that tax.
Unfortunately, for urban schools the financial interest falls in the other direction - the lower the property tax, the greater the financial incentive for locating in that area. Cities which are dependent on income tax to operate take advantage of this, which is why they offer huge property tax abatements for 5, 10 or 15 years to businesses and developers willing to locate in the city. While in the short term this alleviates the city's need for income, in the long term it has been disastrous for the city's school system. Amortization of business dwellings, tax abatements for business properties have caused city schools to decline, the fluctuation and drop in income cannot sustain good school systems. It is also true that for most of the workers in the buildings as well as the corporations for whom they work, a good school system where they work isn't important - what is important to them is a good school system where they live - they don't use the school system so its improvement or maintenance is of no importance to them.
If this nation is truly serious about improving school systems, then they have to remedy the funding for the school systems. No more tax abatements, no more building amortizations and no more farmland usage reductions - all property must be valuated at a consistent and equal rate of property tax valuation. The other alternative, an income tax collected by the state and federal government and disbursed equally to all schools is self -defeating. Schools will no longer operate on the community level and they will no longer have the elasticity to respond to education deficits in a timely and remedial manner. (Which of course is why mandates from the state and federal governments usually prove to be fruitless endeavors - not all schools, students and communities have the same education needs or problems.)
Donmyers makes the point that schools are not just classrooms anymore, but have become community centers, a movement which I believe, is the only salvation for the school systems in this country - the more the community has invested in the schools as community based institutions, the more likely the citizens will be to see the need to improve them. Enrichment classes, daycare, social centers and continuing adult education classes in which local citizens actually see the inside of the schools will do as much as any government mandate to improve our schools.
September 19, 2008 11:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
More than 90% of funding for schools comes from the state and local governments. Most of this money comes from property taxes. If you live in a district that collects large amounts of property taxes you will have kids that go to well funded schools. If you live in a poor district your kids will go to a school that is underfunded. The answer to your question is the same answer to most of the problems of our country: selfishness and greed. Most of the people who live in wealthy districts and pay high dollar amounts of local taxes don't want their national taxes going to fund poor districts.
September 20, 2008 2:37 PM | Reply | Permalink