Wednesday, September 17, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

EDITORIAL: More money, less education

Report debunks 'throw money' paradigm

The United States spends more public and private money on education than other major countries, but its performance doesn't measure up either in high-school graduation rates or in math, reading and science test scores, according to a new report from the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The report compared the educational performance of 25 industrialized nations. It found the United States spent $10,240 per student from elementary school through college in 2000 -- the highest per-pupil allocation on higher education and among the highest on primary and secondary education.

Australia, Finland, Ireland, Korea and the United Kingdom are among the nations that spend quite moderate sums on primary and lower secondary education -- compared to the rate at which American taxpayers fist over their hard-earned loot -- but still manage to achieve higher levels of performance by 15-year-olds.

Doesn't anyone with credible credentials have an alternative theory that might explain this counterintuitive result? Well, yes.

"One of the principal reasons we got into the mess we're in is that we allowed schooling to become a very profitable monopoly, guaranteed its customers by the police power of the state," said John Taylor Gatto -- named New York City government-school teacher of the year three times and Teacher of the Year for the entire state of New York in 1991 -- in a talk delivered more than a decade ago. "Systematic schooling attracts increased investment only when it does poorly, and since there are no penalties at all for such performance, the temptation not to do well is overwhelming.

"That's because school staffs, both line and management, are involved in a guild system; in that ancient form of association no single member is allowed to outperform any other member, is allowed to advertise, or is allowed to introduce new technology or improvise without the advance consent of the guild. Violation of these precepts is severely sanctioned -- as Marva Collins, Jaime Escalante and a large number of once-brilliant teachers found out."

John Taylor Gatto is the author of the books "Dumbing Us Down," "A Different Kind of Teacher," "The Exhausted School," and "The Underground History of American Education."

But don't expect the education establishment to ever consider the arguments of someone who says the solution is not more government money and control, but less.