WHY SHOULD WE LOOK AT THIS DIFFERENTLY?
Our children are the most valuable resource we have. There is nothing — NOTHING — more important than protecting them and making sure they get the best education possible.
The best hope for our future is to create a culture of accomplishment in our schools that equals the optimism and ambition of this nation. We must create a learning environment that encourages children to succeed and convinces every child that success is even possible — a place that makes us believe again.
At a time when many of our children’s futures are in jeopardy, our politicians treat their primary lifeline as a political football, tossing the challenges of education policy around like they are holding explosive dynamite.
Republicans choke at the faintest hint of anything remotely resembling a social safety net, while Democrats would never dream of compromising their own personal ATM machine, otherwise known as the teachers unions (the political donations by teachers unions increased from $4.3 million in 2004 to $32 million within twelve years, with 94 percent of the money routinely going to Democrats).
Some people say that the federal government should stay out of education policy altogether, and I’m in complete agreement that, in a perfect world, the federal government’s role in American education would be very limited, if not completely absent. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world.
The Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” Therefore, in a perfect world, education policy would largely be decided at the state and local levels. Communities and their respective states would be responsible for establishing schools, developing curricula, and determining requirements for enrollment and graduation.
In the spirit of the Tenth Amendment, our belief is that any federal funds appropriated for education should only be allocated for programs that:
Provide for the “general welfare” of the United States, in accordance with Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution.
Ensure “equal protection of the laws” as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.
Tragically, the general welfare of many of our children and their equal protection guarantee are being infringed upon by terribly inadequate education. If you really think about it, in a much broader sense, the general welfare of the entire United States relies heavily on properly educated citizens so, essentially, we’re all getting screwed by this.
So, like it or not, we have no choice but for the federal government to step in and demand improvement. We recognize the federal government’s track record regarding education has been abysmal, to say the least. But it doesn’t have to be. Read on!
Even though the federal government needs to be involved on some level, we must unequivocally insist that the politicizing of American education is no longer tolerated in any fashion. It is abundantly clear that education reform must be achieved outside of political maneuvering and entrenched bureaucracy.
The arsenic of politics is never more apparent than with academic policy, which is deeply troubling given that the stakes are never higher and the victims never more helpless. Through our chronic indifference and inaction as a nation, we have allowed our children to be sacrificed on the altar of selfish greed.
We must do something and fast! Quite frankly, it’s outrageous we have let this go on for as long as we have.
As we discuss education reform, it’s important we all see the big picture as opposed to simply looking out of our own individual windows. You may not recognize your experience or your child’s experience in these words, and I genuinely hope you don’t. But, trust me, far too many people do.
Demanding excellence in education is not only our moral obligation as a great nation; it’s also a critical component of the United States’ business model. The negative financial impact of our failed educational system becomes more ominous every year.
Even though it’s a few years old, McKinsey & Company’s report called The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America’s Schools is a cautionary tale for the ages:
If the United States had in recent years closed the gap between its educational achievement levels and those of better-performing nations such as Finland and Korea, our gross domestic product (GDP) in 2008 could have been $1.3 trillion to $2.3 trillion higher. This represents 9 to 16 percent of GDP.
If the gap between Black and Latino student performance and White student performance had been similarly narrowed, GDP in 2008 would have been between $310 billion and $525 billion higher, or 2 to 4 percent of GDP. The magnitude of this impact will rise in the years ahead as demographic shifts result in Blacks and Latinos becoming a larger proportion of the population and workforce.
If the gap between low-income students and the rest had been similarly narrowed, GDP in 2008 would have been $400 billion to $670 billion higher or 3 to 5 percent of GDP.
In 2020, McKinsey provided an update which estimates that “if the Black and Hispanic student-achievement gap had been closed in 2009, today’s GDP would have been $426 billion to $705 billion higher. If the income-achievement gap had been closed, we estimate that GDP would have been $332 billion to $550 billion higher.”
Think about it this way: Uneducated kids are just bad business. Take two fifteen-year-olds, Justin and Charles. Charles attends Highland Park High School (an enclave of Dallas), an exemplary school that should be congratulated for consistently ranking as one of the top schools in the nation.
Highland Park is 91 percent White and 85 percent of the population has a bachelor’s degree or higher (63 percent of the teachers in the Highland Park Independent School District have a master’s degree). The median household income is $234,427. In the 2020-2021 school year — one of the many years that Highland Park High School was on the U.S. News & World Report’s Gold Medal List of top high schools — 97 percent of the graduating class enrolled in institutions of higher education. That year, Highland Park students received a composite score of 1296 on the SAT (the national average is 1060) and the Highland Park ISD website confirms that “according to the 2021 SAT report, 90 percent of HPISD students are college-ready compared to 35 percent of Texas students and 46 percent across the nation.” Twelve Highland Park seniors were named semifinalists in the 2020 National Merit Scholarship Program and scholarships that year exceeded $21 million.
Across town, Justin attends Franklin D. Roosevelt High School. For the 2021-2022 school year, Justin’s school received the equivalent of a D/F rating from the Dallas Independent School District. U.S. News and World Report ranks his school within the bottom 20 percent of all the schools in Texas. The total minority enrollment at Roosevelt is 98 percent and 95 percent of the students are considered “economically disadvantaged.” Eighty-four percent (84%) of the students are classified as “at-risk” of dropping out of school and only 67 percent of them manage to graduate in four years. Of those who stay, only 4.5 percent are considered “college-ready” in reading + math at graduation and they receive, on average, a composite score of 835 on the SAT.
Since only 67 percent of students at Roosevelt graduate in four years, there is a high probability that Justin will drop out before graduation. Workers without a high school diploma earn around $682 a week while high school graduates earn around $853 a week, meaning Justin will earn roughly $9,000 a year less than high school graduates. Since workers with a bachelor’s degree earn around $1,432 a week, Justin will likely earn around $39,000 a year less than them.
In large part because of this wage disparity, a high school dropout will probably rely heavily on public assistance throughout his or her lifetime. High school dropouts also have more health problems and are more likely to be incarcerated at some point.
But the social services Justin and, presumably, his children will use are only half of the equation. The total financial cost to society remains severely incomplete if we fail to include the lost revenue from Justin’s reduced tax contribution and his lack of participation in our national economy.
On the other hand, Charles will most likely graduate from both high school and college and, statistically speaking, earn at least $74,464 a year. If he gets a master’s or other professional degree that figure is more like $86,372-$108,316.
Assuming they both work until they are 65 — and depending on the path Charles chooses — Charles will earn and pay taxes on $1.6 million to 3 million more than Justin over their lifetimes. Plus, Charles’ earnings will give him the financial wherewithal to buy homes, cars and other goods and services to fuel the overall economy.
When you consider what Justin is taking from the system as opposed to what Charles is adding to it, the business of education seems much more like an investment than some sort of charity case, yes?