Tag: Education

Endorsing Laura Belnap

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School board elections tend to fly under the radar compared to other elections in Utah. I suspect that at least part of the reason for that is that they are non-partisan so candidates aren’t affiliated with a party (at least as far as their campaigns are concerned) and the parties aren’t involved in promoting the campaigns of any candidate for those offices. I’m not going to make any argument about whether that is good or bad, but I feel confident that it is a natural consequence of having these be non-partisan. As a voter I have generally felt less informed about School Board candidates before they are elected and the records of Schoold Board members after they are elected than I do about candidates and holders of other offices. Because of that traditional lack of feeling informed I have decided that despite being busy and foregoing other endorsements this cycle I am going to make this endorsement of Laura Bellnap for State School Board.

Laura Belnap stands head and shoulders above her opponent in her understanding of the way to address the issues in our education system in Utah. She recognizes the importance of keeping parents informed and involved to ensure that their children get the best available education. She recognizes the value of technology from an educaitonal perspective without blindly thinking that technology alone will solve all our problems. She is also able to see the value of Common Core along with the pitfalls of it where too many people see only one side or the other.

It is because I expect that many voters are in the same boat I have often been in with regard to school board elections that I consider it important to share my perspective when I feel that one candidate so solidly stands above the other in this important race.

Tags civic participation, Education

culture politics State

Funding Education

Senator Pat Jones has an idea about how to bring in more money for our public education system in Utah. I appreciate what she is trying to accomplish and laud her efforts to make a difference but as someone who definitely qualifies as having a large family (this bill will hit me twice as hard as at least half the households in the state) – in other words as someone whom this bill targets for funding – I have to say that there are a few problems with the logic behind this effort.

Tags civic participation, Education, KSL, Utah

Local State

The Straw Man of Teacher Pay

Post author By David
Post date March 1, 2011
No Comments on The Straw Man of Teacher Pay

photo credit: 2create

I saw a post on Facebook, and later an email, with a title about how overpaid teachers are. The post went on to show mathematically that teachers are not overpaid by any reasonable measurement. Teachers and their unions would certainly appreciate the logic in their favor but the real value that I found in the post was not simply the numbers presented but the example that the post provides of using numbers to keep the debate uninformed. While it showed very convincingly that teachers are not overpaid (either literally or in relation to the service they provide) it masked the complexity of the issue by ignoring the crucial questions of how much we spend on education (it’s much more than teacher pay), whether we can afford the cost (whether or not the cost is a bargain), and what other alternatives we could explore to address the real issue (which is how we make sure that our children have a decent education available to them).

First let me list a few numbers (and their sources) that I would like to use in illustrating what was unsaid in the other post. I would like to thank Becky Edwards for helping me obtain the current numbers for the state of Utah that I am using. (Becky is currently the Representative for House District 20 in Utah and a member of the House Education Committee.)

The post compared teaching to babysitting and, using that assumption, concluded that parents should be perfectly happy to pay $20 per day for 6.5 hours of babysitting for each of their school aged children. Using that $20/day figure they calculated that teachers would be making over $100K per year. I don’t expect to use that $100K figure but wanted to include it here to briefly illustrate the conclusion of the original post.
The post also claimed that the average teacher salary was only $50K per year. I will be using that number because it seems reasonable and convenient but would like to state that I have made no attempt to independently verify its accuracy or its source.
The state of Utah currently spends $3.34 Billion on elementary education per year.
The state of Utah currently employs 32,473 elementary school teachers. (As far as I can tell that does not count administrators and other staff.)

It is easy to see that teachers salaries are only a part of what we spend on education. Multiply 32,473 by $50K and we get $1.62 Billion or 48.6% of our education budget. The other 51.4% goes to other education costs. Note that none of this education budget even includes the various book fairs, walk-a-thons, and other fundraisers that schools are perpetually engaging in. If the issue were simply a matter of teachers salaries we could easily pay them more. The fact is that less than half of our education cost is teacher salaries. Whoever originally wrote the document was probably thinking of all the fuss in Wisconsin where the Governor and the Republican members of their legislature are pushing legislation that would take away the collective bargaining rights of teachers for things other than salary – that should give us a clue that the real problem is not teachers with exorbitant salaries but rather unsustainable long-term benefits such as pension and health care costs.

I recently read an article about how dire the fiscal situations of state and local governments are in this regard (of course that is more than teacher salaries or even education) and the obstacles that stand in the way of fixing the structural problems that prevent something as simple as a salary cut or a tax increase from solving the issue:

. . . in most places, state legislators are overmatched by savvy public-employees’ unions and by pension-fund managers wedded to the status quo. Their influence explains why, though 18 states enacted some sort of pension reform in 2010, very few will offer real, long-term relief to taxpayers.

I feel very fortunate that my own State Senator, Dan Liljenquist, had the position and expertise to make sure that Utah is one place where we have enacted reforms that effectively address those structural imbalances. (To learn more about Dan and his efforts to make sure that Utah has a sustainable fiscal future read the article or visit his website.)

I also recently talked to a friend of mine who is a Democrat and a public school employee. I thought it was very telling to hear him bring up the subject of what was happening in Wisconsin and express his hope that the governor and the Republicans there would be able to win this fight and break the teachers union. His perspective was that unions only effectively protect the incompetent educators. He contends that the educators who are good at what they do are hampered by the fact that unions make it nearly impossible to fire ineffective educators or to pay effective educators based on their merit. While he believes, as I do, that there was a time when unions were a necessary tool to ensure that owners of various industries did not exploit their workers the fact is that the unions of today are more often the bullies. The contracts that teachers unions negotiate burden taxpayers with costly benefit packages while taking their dues out of the anything-but-excessive salaries of teachers and then they cry foul when taxpayers suggest that they should not pay part of teachers’ salaries when those teachers are spending their time on union activities rather than classroom activities.

The conversation with my friend illustrated the wide variety of alternatives that need to be considered in order to address the education issue. Simply throwing more money at the issue will not solve it. We need to look at ideas like merit pay, year-round school, reduced class sizes, increased parental involvement, etc. Some of those ideas seem promising to me, others seem neutral or even counterproductive. One idea I have not heard suggested anywhere that sounds very promising to me is grade clustering. Having a teacher teach, for example, three grades would allow for much more continuity in the education of each student. If the teacher still had a class size of thirty they would only have ten new students in one year that they would have to get to know and they would have more flexibility to have students work with older or younger peers based on their shared personal ability-levels. This would also allow parents to work with a single teacher for an extended period of time so that they could collaborate more effectively rather than working with a virtual stranger for the entire school experience of at least their first child. To buy into this we would have to accept the fact that teachers are not interchangeable automatons where there is little overhead involved in switching teachers every single year throughout a student’s academic career.

The $3.34 Billion Utah spends on education represent a substantial part of the roughly $12 Billion state budget – a budget that must also go to pay for so many other services that we collectively expect our government to provide such as higher education and various types of public safety and welfare services. Anyone who says that we should devote more money to education should make sure to offer some examples of where the state should get more revenue or what state services should have their budgets reduced to free up the money they want to give to education. It is also perfectly fair to ask whether there are areas in the $1.72 Billion in education spending that does not go to teacher salaries that is wasted. Do we pay administrators too much or employ too many administrators? Are we using our physical resources effectively?

Regardless of what side of the debate someone is on, it does no good for anyone to hold up the Teachers’ Salary straw man and proceed to beat their opponent in effigy.

Davis School District Bond Election

Post author By David
Post date October 9, 2009
4 Comments on Davis School District Bond Election

When I first heard about the Davis School District bond election I started with my default position of not being anxious to give any public entity an open line of credit – certainly not a quarter of a billion dollars in open credit that could cost me hundreds of extra dollars per year in taxes – without solid justification for why it was necessary and a plan for how it would be used.

After doing some more research I can see that this is not “just in case” money as it first appeared and although the wording of the issue on the ballots is such that they can raise taxes to pay for the bonds they have shown through past performance that they do not desire to raise taxes and very well may be able to pay for the bonds without increasing taxes. Courtesy of that history of their commitment to bond frugally and the fact that there is a need for school infrastructure growth in the district I am willing to support this bond issue.

Tags 2009, Davis County, Education, issues, School Board

culture

Use the Proper Tool

I have written before about our national propensity to use government when it is not the proper tool for the job. Scott summed my point up very succinctly in a recent post:

There is a proper tool for every job. Use of the wrong tool often produces substandard results. Sometimes it is necessary to make do with what you have. That’s called innovation. But regularly using the wrong tool when the right tool is available is just plain stupid.

One of the basic tenets of classical liberalism is to regard government as a tool to be used only where it is most appropriate; the chief role of government being to safeguard and expand liberty. Many people (from all over the political spectrum) view government as a big stick to be employed in forcing others to conform to their particular view of good.

Government is not the only tool that we often use inappropriately, and sometimes the wrong tool is employed not because it is the tool of choice, but because we refuse to use the proper tool. Such is the often the case with regard to schools disciplining children.

A large number of schools use potentially dangerous methods to discipline children, particularly those with disabilities in special education classes, a report from Congress’ investigative arm finds.

In some cases, the Government Accountability Office report notes, children have died or been injured when they have been tied, taped, handcuffed or pinned down by adults or locked in secluded rooms, often to be left for hours at a time.

Some people would be quick to blame the authoritarian, impersonal schools for their outrageous methods of discipline and while I am far from a believer in the infallibility of schools I think that such blame is misplaced in the vast majority of cases.

The real blame lies in the fact that many parents fail to enforce discipline in their homes and even among those who do enforce discipline in their homes all too many make themselves unavailable to take on that responsibility when their children require more discipline than can reasonably be applied by a teacher in charge of more than a dozen students. What’s worse, is that we cannot even safely place the blame fully on the shoulders of the individual parents. Too many of them are forced into situations where they cannot devote themselves to parenting full-time. (Sometimes they just feel forced into those situations.)

As a society we have set too low a value on the role of parenting – placing it completely secondary to economic productivity. We have set expectations too high for our material and economic standard of living – where the luxuries of yesterday must necessarily be necessities today. Consider cell phones for every family member over the age of 10, cars for everyone over 16, cable TV, computers, game consoles, television sets in every room, dance-lessons, sports, and hobbies for each day of the week.

None of these things is intrinsically bad, but together they form unreasonable and unsustainable expectations and they destroy the possibility for most stable families to keep at least one parent available to take care of their children when needs arise.

Not only that, but we expect the schools to provide many of those hobbies through requiring gym, art, and music classes as well as extracurricular sports. The result is that even where there are parents at home and available the children often spend too many hours under the care of their teachers and not enough under the influence of their parents. This serves to lessen the parental influence and offers incentive for parents who would otherwise be available to commit themselves to other activities lest they feel they are wasting their time.

The problems are complex and interwoven so that any hope of identifying the solutions is dependent on our recognition of how and when any given tool can be used and insisting on using each tool in its proper place rather than finding favorite tools and trying to make this reduced tool set suitable for all our needs.

Tags children, connections, Education, Elevated, family, government, ideal, NPR

culture

An Education on Social Class

Post author By David
Post date November 20, 2008
2 Comments on An Education on Social Class

I read a chapter today that was intent on destroying the myth of American egalitarianism and our "classless" social structure. I almost laugh at the idea of a society without classes based on the amount of time we spend talking about the middle class (and how to get in or out of it). I also believe that nobody who has lived even one decade of their adult life in the United States can still believe the myth of American egalitarianism. If we have a meritocracy (as we often claim) then it is one where the greatest merit is being born into a family that is well off economically.

One of the problems I have with all discussions of social classes and social inequality is that they are all based on assumptions about the desirability of eliminating social class and a definition of class that is based primarily on economic factors. I understand that economic factors are used to define class because money is used to enforce social position and because class structures tend to coalesce around different strata of economic situation. While that makes sense, my problem is that those who discuss it imply that redistributing the wealth would break the class structure – and that it would be a positive change.

I believe that there is nothing wrong with having different social classes so long as those classes are not strictly enforced, in other words I don’t view it as a problem so long as people are allowed to change classes. In other words, a system that distinguishes classes but treats people of different classes with equal respect and equal rights is perfectly acceptable to me. (This does not mean that I will argue that our society embodies such a system.)

I also believe that inequality of wealth and income is not inherently undesirable. It again comes back to a question of whether people with differing levels of wealth or income are treated equitably. If the inequalities are achieved through dishonesty or manipulation that indicates a problem. This is true whether we are talking about individual wealth or whether we are talking about corporate market-share (thus the reason to be wary of monopolies).

I think the greatest thing we can do with regard to education on the issue of social classes is to tell the truth – that classes exist – and to work to ensure that we eliminate preferential treatment of one class over another (that goes for any kind of class, whether economic or otherwise) and manipulation intended to dishonestly profit.

If we would accept the existence of classes and then work to remove those negative elements that generally tag along with the class system people could feel empowered and we could have a true meritocracy where people advanced among the classes based on their personal strengths and fell based on theri own weaknesses.

Tags Education, money, thoughts

Local

Polly Tribe for Davis School Board

Post author By David
Post date October 31, 2008
No Comments on Polly Tribe for Davis School Board

I have not really paid much attention to the race for Davis County School board but I was reviewing my ballot to make sure I had looked into each race I will be voting on and realized that I had missed this one. I have not actively endorsed someone in each race I will vote in, but I was very impressed by two aspects of Polly Tribes campaign for the school board. After going to her site I soon clicked on the link to view her blog. I was immediately impressed with the way she had used her blog to answer questions that people had submitted to her. As I read through her answers I saw that I like the answers that she gave to those questions.

I am fully supporting Ms. Tribe for the school board (although I don’t expect this too have much impact this close to Tuesday) and hope that after she wins she will continue the tradition of open communications with two minor adjustments – I would hope that she would no longer use a campaign website after the voting is done, and I hope that she would open up comments ont he blog so that people can give feedback on her responses.

Tags 2008, Davis County, Education, elections, endorsements, School Board

State

Performance Pay – Round 1

The Legislature approved funds and loose guidelines for merit pay for teachers earlier this year. I really like the first news I have heard about the issue since then:

Each district and charter school that wanted money had to come up with its own plan following broad guidelines lawmakers set earlier this year. . . .

Lawmakers have referred to the law that provided $20 million for performance pay as an experiment they hope will inform future efforts to create a long-term, statewide system. . . .

Some states have taken years to create pay-for-performance plans, but Utah districts and charters had only a few months after lawmakers passed a bill appropriating the $20 million earlier this year.

I think the Legislature was exactly right to avoid the temptation (and it probably was tempting) to try to create a central, defined system for merit pay. Instead they put out the money and let the districts provide dozens of differnt plans for how to use the money – within general guidelines. The result will be that within a couple of years we will have found a dozen approaches that are not very effective and a few approaches that look very promising.

Odds are that if the Legislature had spent money studying the issue for years to come up with The One True Approach™ they would have spent as much money as they end up losing on the plans that will end up failing from this experiement. The real difference is that they will have a higher chance of identifying good ways to implement merit pay.

Anyone who grumbles that $20 Million is not enough can be reminded that this is seed money that can show us the best aproaches and it can be increased in the future as appropriate to foster the most effective merit pay schemes.

Tags Education, experiments, merit pay, money, Utah

culture

Right, Left, or Straight

I think that Lyall is right in suggesting that we are asking the wrong question in the education debate. He identifies the current question as “How can we reform, improve our system of education today?” He believes that the correct question if we are to come to the answers we need is “What is the purpose of education?”

I think the critical distinction between those questions is that the one we are asking publicly is equivalent to a game we used to play in the car as kids called "Right, Left, or Straight." (RLS for short.) In that game we would drive until we got to an intersection and then Mom would call out "Right, left, or straight?" We would then vote (by who yelled the loudest generally) to determine which available path we would take. There was no right answer to the question, but there was also no knowing where we would end up before it was time to return home. The question we should be asking is like sitting down in a family council and asking where we want to vacation this year. Again there is no single right answer, but there are plenty of places you would not want to go where you might find yourself if you just hopped in the car and played RLS for your summer vacation.

The first option can be fun, but not very productive. It is useful in changing course, but not in determining the desirable outcome. Once you have determined the desired destination then there is an innate game of RLS to arrive there (the difference being that there is now a correct answer to the question when you come to an intersection).

My answer to Lyall’s new and improved question was that the purpose of education should be to provide the foundation of basic skills like the three R’s and to teach students how to face challenges and find answers to questions. Lyall contends that there is another part to education that involves (as I interpret it) education regarding right and wrong, fair play, and other generic moral issues.

Who is right? Join the discussion by commenting here or there.

Tags childhood, decisions, Education, family, policy

State

Another Year-Round Idea

The Spectrum did a good job in Year-round Advantages of listing pluses and minuses to the idea of year-round school. Though the title says this is about the advantages they are good enough to acknowledge the well-known drawbacks. I also found the comments of stgeorgeteacher interesting in highlighting the difficulties that teachers can face with this kind of schedule.

As I read the article I began to think that while we are considering major changes to the structure of our education we might as well go all out and consider all the possibilities. What if we not only changed the schedule to have four separate blocks of classes each year but also changed the classes so that we have a higher degree of granularity in our grade levels. What if we replaced grades k – 6 with grades A – Z and students would have the chance to advance one grade during each block of classes. In one year a student could advance from grade D to grade H. There would be room for a student to be held back twice over 7 years and still get through all their grades before they arrive at middle school.

I leave it to readers to decide how serious I am about that particular proposal, but I’d like to know if there is any reason that we should not consider other proposals to change the system while we’re in the mood to discuss the issue of primary education.

Tags Education, year-round school