John Stossel: Money Is Not What Schools Need

"U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan recently claimed: "Districts around the country have literally been cutting for five, six, seven years in a row. And, many of them, you know, are through, you know, fat, through flesh and into bone ... ."

Really? They cut spending five to seven consecutive years?

Give me a break!

Andrew Coulson, director of the Cato Institute's Center for Educational Freedom, writes that out of 14,000 school districts in the United States, just seven have cut their budgets seven years in a row. How about five years in a row? Just 87. That's a fraction of 1 percent in each case.

Duncan may be pandering to his constituency, or he may actually be fooled by how school districts (and other government agencies) talk about budget cuts. When normal people hear about a budget cut, we assume the amount of money to be spent is less than the previous year's allocation. But that's not what bureaucrats mean.

"They are not comparing current year spending to the previous year's spending," Coulson writes. "What they're doing is comparing the approved current year budget to the budget that they initially dreamed about having."

So if a district got more money than last year but less than it asked for, the administrators consider it a cut. "Back in the real world, a K-12 public education costs four times as much as it did in 1970, adjusting for inflation: $150,000 versus the $38,000 it cost four decades ago (in constant 2009 dollars)," Coulson says.

Taxpayers need to understand this sort thing just to protect themselves from greedy government officials and teachers unions.

It was on the basis of this fear and ignorance that President Obama got Congress to pass a "stimulus" bill this summer that included $10 billion for school districts. The money is needed desperately to save teachers from layoffs, the bill's advocates said. We must do it for the children!

When you look at the facts, the scam is clear.

"Over the past 40 years," Coulson writes, "public school employment has risen 10 times faster than enrollment. There are 9 percent more students today, but nearly twice as many public school employees."

But isn't it just common sense that schools would be better if they had more money? As a wise man said, it's not what we don't know that gets us into trouble; it's what we know that isn't so.

Consider the American Indian Public Charter School in Oakland, Calif. It was once a failing school, but now it's one of the best in California. Ben Chavis turned it around without any additional money. His book, Crazy Like a Fox, tells how.

He and Coulson will be guests on my FBN show tonight.

Chavis' experience exposes the school establishment's lies for what they are. Nearly all of Chavis' students are considered economically disadvantaged (98 percent qualify for free lunches), yet they have the fourth-highest test scores of any school in the state."

Only the old folks like me remember back when unions were considered a Godsend. Then, the calender changed to 1960 and the times they were a'changin'.

I have absolutely no qualms with people getting as much money as they can get from their respective occupations. That said, teaching isn't all that hard mentally or physically, at least it doesn't HAVE to be, and instead of handling the problem of incredibly stupid kids from the bottom on up...meaning FAMILY VALUES comes first and foremost...no amount of cash is going to solve the problem of why Kizzaneshia can't read and Tyrone can't spell.

Discipline and attention to detail works wonders when raising a child. Just ask my Dad. He sent me to private schools that sat 45-50 children per class...one classroom, every subject, all the livelong day...and if I even dared of wasting his hard earned money by failing to do my best it was curtains and I knew it. I paid attention, or the forthcoming discipline was too frightening to imagine.

But it wasn't just the families that were held responsible once upon a time, but the teachers were, too. Unions were far from strong enough to do something dumb like requiring their membership to work and teach less in exchange for lots more money and time off. Plenty of people around that could teach and if you didn't like it, then find something else to do.

Not anymore. It's beating a dead horse to make mention of the bunko scheme that teachers and their unions have been perpetrating upon America and all I can say is thank the heavens for private schools that pop out one child after another who can pronounce his own name and even spell it correctly too.