Black schools worth a try? Maybe

[Ani_Ibi]

Black schools worth a try? Maybe

I am starting this thread for a couple of reasons not immediately connected to issues of racial sidelining or legitimate worries about segregation.

On another thread, Vern Humphrey made some observations about the results of minimum wage:

1. It forces certain jobs out of existance (for example, gas station attendent.)

1. It drives other jobs overseas (example – all the closed shirt factories that dot the Ozarks.)
2. And it creates a huge blackmarket in labor (example – the millions of illegal immigrants in the US.)

Aside from these major impacts, it also creates wage compression – so those on the next few rungs of the ladder get less because the pay they are rightfully entitled to is being funneled to those below them.

In addition, it fuels inflation.

Vern then set out as a remedy to unemployment an educational reform called the Three-Paper Solution. Perhaps Vern will be kind enough to repost that here as well as his next steps.

I am posting this particular news story because I need a news story for this forum and because it seems to be the case-in-point which has arisen up here in Canada for schooling alternatives.

Many of the same problems as yall have identified in the US are identified in the Toronto article, with the difference being that the Toronto Black community has been the one to vocalize these problems. It could have been any other community. First Nations have experienced community-specific schooling in many different forms up here.

The question I wish to raise is not the responsiveness or non-responsiveness of big government to educational problems. In another words, I don’t think big government is the answer to the problem. Big government tends to be one-size-fits-all. This approach sees too many human beings falling through the cracks and not receiving the education necessary to grab the brass ring of dignity through employment.

How can communities themselves solve their own educational problems? How are communities in a better position than big government to address barriers to employment posed by profiling according to race, language group, disability? How can schools be made accountable for results – results being smart, competitive students – regardless of race, language group, disability?

“Nothing was expected of these children. They were constantly sent the message that, `You can’t do anything.’ No one seemed to consider that if children are treated like they’re dumb and lazy, that is how they’re going to act,” observed a teacher friend of journalist Maureen Murray… Premier Dalton McGuinty is strongly opposed to the option of black-focused schools, arguing that students should be educated in an inclusive environment that meets the needs of a broad range of children.

In an ideal world, who could argue against this? But we don’t live in an ideal world. In this city, there are neighbourhoods and schools where children are being taught by teachers who cannot see beyond their the students’ blackness or their poverty. Critics argue that black-focused schools would amount to racial segregation. The very idea makes the liberal-minded cringe…

I can vividly recall interviewing Minnijean Brown some 40 years after she and eight other black students desegregated Central High School in Little Rock, Ark., under the watchful eye of 1,200 armed U.S. federal soldiers. Many have paid a high price in the name of integration… But my teacher friend questions whether what she saw wasn’t a form of apartheid; children within the public system so marginalized that the education they are receiving is separate — and unequal.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

The Three-Paper Solution

This paper addresses the issue of education in America. It is based on four principles:

• We, the public, should pay for the education of each child in the nation.
• If we pay for a child’s education, the child should get an education – one commensurate with the amount we pay (which is to say, a world-class education).
• There should be no disparity among children, either in what we pay, or the quality education they receive.
• America works best when we have free and open competition among suppliers – and that applies to suppliers of education as much as to any other thing.

The Three-Paper Solution is a framework for applying these four principles. In practice, it is quite simple – first of all, get three sheets of blank paper:

On the first sheet: write the standards which you feel every school should meet. If you want a school to serve a hot lunch, write it down, and set standards so we can determine if the school is meeting the requirement. Similarly, if you want integrated schools, write standards for integration. Continue until you feel you have described all the standards a publicly-funded school should meet.

When writing, remember – all schools which receive public funds will have to meet your requirements, not just “public schools” and not just “private schools receiving public funds.” Schools which cannot meet your standards – whether public or private – will not be eligible to receive public funding. Also remember – these will be the only public funds the school receives.

On the second sheet: write the standards which you feel every student should meet. Specify how well children should read at the end of each grade. Set standards for electives as well as mandatory subjects – for example, if a school has a course in carpentry or automotive repair, set standards for courses in those subjects.

Write your standards as objective, measurable standards. Tell what the students must do to prove the standards have been met.

On the third sheet: list those things for which you are willing to pay extra and set a price tag beside them.

How it works: any agency or business can open a school and receive ninety percent of the per-pupil share of the state’s educational expenditures for each pupil the school attracts. This is the only source of public funding any school will receive; public, private non-profit, or private for-profit.

**But won’t that drive the public schools out of business?

**Only if you assume the public schools cannot compete in an open market – a market in which the same standards are applied to all schools. Schools which cannot attract enough children will go out of business – and they should go out of business. Any school – public, private non-profit, or private for-profit, which can attract enough children will have enough funding to continue operations.

**Won’t poor children suffer?

**No. Poor children will be better off under this plan than under the present “public school” system, because they will be able to attend any school they wish,. just as the children of more affluent parents can.

**What about children trapped in a declining school as other children leave?

**No one will be “trapped” in a declining school. All children will have the same opportunity to move. Children whose parents do not move them at first can be moved later, at any time – because their parents will have the same funding the other children’s parents had.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

The Three Paper Solution (continued)

**Would parents be allowed to supplement the public funds?

**Of course! Look at it this way – I open a school that gets $5,000 of public funds per child (the national average is closer to $6,600, but we’ll use $5,000 in this example), and the parents kick in an extra $10,000 per child. I successfully recruit nine affluent children. But in your First Sheet of paper, you said that to receive public funds I have to have at least 10% poor minority enrollment. So now I have to recruit a poor minority child, or lose $45,000 in public funding.

How do I do that if the poor parents can’t afford to pay the extra $10,000?

I give the child a $10,000 scholarship, of course – and the public funds kick in another $5,000 for that child. So for a $10,000 scholarship, I get $50,000 in public funds.

Who loses?

Not me – I qualify for $50,000 in public funds in return for a $10,000 scholarship.

Not the public – they’re paying $5,000 per child, just as they would at any other school.

Not the students – they’re attending a first-class school (and if it weren’t first class, their parents wouldn’t be willing to kick in an extra $10,000 per pupil).

Not the poor minority students – they’re getting the same first-class education and making all the connections the children of the affluent are making, and it isn’t costing them a cent.

Nobody loses, everybody wins.

**But wouldn’t the private schools “cherry pick” – take the best students and leave the problem students for the public schools?

**Of course not! After all, you’re the one writing the rules. If you’re smart enough to figure they might do this, you’re also smart enough to write a standard to prevent them from doing it.

**But wouldn’t the private schools avoid ghetto areas?

**That’s what your Third Sheet of paper is for – if private industry or non-profit organizations aren’t willing to open a school in a particular area for $5,000 per child, bid $5,100 – and keep bidding until you get a good school there. You have the money because you held back 10% of the funds, remember?

**What about rural areas, or parents in areas where there are no alternative schools? How will these children get to school?

**When the money accompanies the child, schools will be where they are needed – aren’t there gas stations and fast food joints wherever they are needed? In addition, there are many alternatives to the traditional method of schooling. A good example is the Arkansas Virtual School. This is now linked to the public school system, and currently offers a complete curriculum up thorough the eighth grade via the internet. This technology – already available throughout the state – will allow any child to attend a quality school.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

The Three Paper Solution (Continued)

**But can it be done at the figures you use?

**Absolutely! I have worked for a for-profit company as a training analyst, developer and program manager. I have costed out, bid on, and won contracts. In the commercial training industry, the “burden rate” – the cost of overhead, administration, benefits, profit, and so on – is about 100%. That means that for each dollar the company pays a professional (like myself) it must charge the customer two dollars to cover rent, salaries for administrative personnel, social security, benefits and the like, and still make a profit.

If we maintain one teacher for each 25-student classroom and assume $5,000 for each child (Arkansas currently spends about $6,200 per child), that teacher is generating $125,000 per year, and we can afford to pay the teacher about $62,500 a year in salary.

But in a competitive market, we can do innovative things. For example, instead of starting school once a year, we could start school every quarter. This would generate a one-third increase in efficiency, so now the teacher is generating a little over $165,000 a year.

We can do other things – for example, I mentioned the Arkansas Virtual School earlier. I have extensive experience with this type of technology. My company developed Computer-Based Instruction (CBI) programs in basic educational subjects for the Department of Defense. These programs were designed for military personnel who had graduated from the Public School System without the necessary reading, writing and math skills they needed.

We can use such programs combined with live classroom instruction to further increase the efficiency of the professional teacher, and raise the income generated to well over $200,000 per year – which means we could afford to pay teachers an average annual salary of about $100,000. Of course, starting teachers would receive less, while experienced, star-quality teachers would receive much more.

**But what would happen to the public schools?

**They would become part of the Public Education System – a system in which every child receives the same funding, and can attend any school the parents choose.

Bad public schools – and bad private schools – would fail. Good schools – public and private – would prosper.

What about rapidly-growing areas? How would they get schools?

Very easily. It typically takes the current bureaucracy-ridden system about five years to establish a new school.

But it doesn’t take private industry five years to put a shopping mall near a new subdivision, complete with fast food outlets, grocery and drug stores, video stores and gas stations. Private industry has shown that it can meet all the needs of the public, no matter how fast they change, if the profit is there.

Open up the Public Education System to private industry, and stand back and watch our schools improve.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Thanks for this, Vern. Now, what are the next steps? How does this get from the planning table to the street?
Vern Humphrey:

The first step is to enter the lists with two points:

1. It is a violation of the Constitution to force a child to attend a sub-standard school. Children, like anyone else are entitled to equal protection under the law – and kids in bad schools aren’t getting it. And this is a serious problem – their lives are being ruined.
2. Children in bad schools are suffering irreparable harm. You can’t put children in the freezer and thaw them out in fifty years or so when the education system has improved. We have to have results NOW.

With those two arguments we can press forward on two fronts – in the legislature, and in the courts.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

True. But isn’t the marketplace where things really materialize? What are some steps to interest investors – say in Arkansaw – so that you have say five of these new schools built by say 2010?
Vern Humphrey:

I think the first step would be a court ruling on those two points. It’s really unarguable that some schools are abismably bad, that children’s rights are being violated, and children can’t wait.

At that point, private capital will appear – because the flood gates will have been opened.

I would prefer, of course, to see the legislatures study the problem, and fill out those three sheets of paper before hand, and not need a court ruling.

Unfortunately, I’ve seen too many educational reform bills sidetracked or ruined by loading on more pork and graft than they can carry.

Once you have a market prototype and you can show that it is viable economically and produces results (smart, competitive students) then marketing it is a cinch: people will be falling over themselves to replicate the project in their own communities.
Vern Humphrey:

The market prototypes already exist – there are quality private schools in most cities, and the internet version is up and running. All we need to do now is attack the funding issue.