Category Archives: Education

Education, Politics

Will Ohioans make the right call on unions?

If they understand the issue properly, I think they will.  Thanks to unions, every Ohio citizen owes government workers $6,150!

See With Each Ohio Citizen Owing Gov’t Workers $6150, Union Bosses Urge A Return To Cannibalism | RedState.

Given that just a few short years ago (pre-market meltdown) Ohio’s taxpayers were on the hook for $46.5 billion due to its underfunded retirement system, one would think that November 8th’s decision to Vote YES on Issue 2 would be a no brainer.

After all, if you’ve got a system where union bosses have been able to put every single Ohio citizen (now) $6150 in debt, why would you want to keep it?

Moreover, if you’ve successfully ridden yourself of the system, why would you want to return to it?

Yet, that’s the issue that Ohioans have to decide when they go to the polls on November 8th to vote on Issue 2: Do . . .

Issue 2 on Ohio’s November 8 ballot poses a simple question to voters: Should SB5, Ohio’s government reform effort to get control back from union bosses, be allowed to go into effect?

As fellow RedState contributor Kevin Holtsberry explains:

Issue 2 is a result of a union led attempt to repeal Senate Bill 5 – legislation which brought much needed reform to Ohio’s collective bargaining laws.  A yes vote allows these important reforms to go into effect which will give much needed flexibility to government at all levels and will remove barriers to merit based management.

A YES vote on Issue 2 gives Ohio’s taxpayers the ability to see SB 5 go into effect. And, in the words of Building a Better Ohio:

It allows an employee’s job performance to be considered when determining compensation, rather than just awarding automatic pay increases based only on an employee’s length of service.

It asks that government employees pay at least 15 percent of the cost of their health insurance premium.  That’s less than half of what private sector workers are currently paying.

It requires that government health care benefits apply equally to all government employees, whether they work in management or non-management positions.  No special favors.

It asks our government employees to pay their own share of a generous pension contribution, rather than forcing taxpayers to pay both the employee and employer shares.

It keeps union bosses from protecting bad teachers and stops the outdated practice of laying off good teachers first just because they haven’t served long enough.

Finally, it preserves collective bargaining for government employees, but it also returns some basic control of our schools and services to the taxpayers who fund them, not the union bosses who thrive on their mismanagement.

 

Education, Politics

Things you should know about Rick Perry

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The Left is in full pants-wetting mode over Rick Perry joining the race, which shows just how afraid they are of him.  He should easily trounce Mitt Romney, the preferred candidate of the Leftist mainstream media.   Faux Christians play the pathetic “separation” and “hate” cards against him in their religion-disguised-as-politics charade, all the while ignoring people like Jim “the Gospel is all about wealth redistribution” Wallis who are meeting directly with Obama to peddle their false gospel.

Perry isn’t perfect, of course, but my understanding is that Jesus isn’t running in 2012.  Therefore, we need to pick the least-imperfect person.   There are a lot of Republican candidates I like, but I think Perry would be a fine choice.  I hope that when the Republican candidate beats Obama that he or she puts most of the rest of the field in high level cabinet spots.

I urge you to bookmark Seventeen (17) things that critics are saying about Rick Perry, where someone actually did some real research on all the claims being thrown at Perry.  I thought it was pretty unbiased and noted where Perry has made mistakes.  But even his mistake on Gardasil was overblown, and unlike most politicians — including our President — he admitted his mistake.

He is strongly pro-life, which is a huge plus.

Here is my favorite from the list, which uses real, live facts to show how Texas education is better across the board (whites and minorities) than the national average, way better than unionized states like Wisconsin and how Perry’s opponents are

6. Texas ranks poorly in educational spending and high school graduations

That statement is true. Texas does rank near the bottom of generalized rankings in spending per student and high school graduations, but as usual, those rankings alone are misleading. The statement is intended to imply that the state does a poor job of educating its students and therefore its Governor, Rick Perry is to blame. It’s just another two-for-one Texas/Perry smear.

With Perry as governor, how does education in Texas really compare with other states?

To see how Texas stacks up, we’ll compare Texas to Wisconsin. We chose Wisconsin because earlier this year, during their sit-ins and demonstrations, Wisconsin teachers compared their state’s (supposed) ranking in ACT/SAT test scores directly to Texas (at #47). Their reason for comparing to Texas was that Wisconsin teachers are unionized while teacher unions are illegal in Texas. This direct comparison was intended to show the benefit of unionized teachers in educating our children.

However, those rankings were found to be: 1) obsolete, using 12-year-old data, and 2) used questionable methodology. The ranking was debunked by PolitiFact and the claim has since been removed from the union’s website, in other words, they stretched the facts to fit their agenda.

One facet that makes a Texas comparison to many other states is the racial makeup of the student population. Minority students – regardless of state – tend to score lower than white students on standardized tests, and the higher the proportion of minority students in a state the lower its overall test scores tend to be. Regardless of the reasons, the gap does exist, and it’s mathematical sophistry to compare the combined average test scores in a state like Wisconsin (4% black, 4% Hispanic) to a state like Texas (12% black, 30% Hispanic).

But let’s ignore that mismatch and compare them anyway – broken down by racial groups. We’ll compare some 2009 standardized test scores (the latest available) for 4th and 8th grade students in the areas of math, reading, and science. A pilot program for 12thgraders is being tested, but national comparisons are not yet possible for that grade. The data supporting the following rankings are found at the Nation’s Report Card website (link below the rankings).

2009 4th Grade Math

White students: Texas 254, Wisconsin 250 (national average 248)

Black students: Texas 231, Wisconsin 217 (national 222)

Hispanic students: Texas 233, Wisconsin 228 (national 227)

2009 8th Grade Math

White students: Texas 301, Wisconsin 294 (national 294)

Black students: Texas 272, Wisconsin 254 (national 260)

Hispanic students: Texas 277, Wisconsin 268 (national 260)

2009 4th Grade Reading

White students: Texas 232, Wisconsin 227 (national 229)

Black students: Texas 213, Wisconsin 192 (national 204)

Hispanic students: Texas 210, Wisconsin 202 (national 204)

2009 8th Grade Reading

White students: Texas 273, Wisconsin 271 (national 271)

Black students: Texas 249, Wisconsin 238 (national 245)

Hispanic students: Texas 251, Wisconsin 250 (national 248)

2009 4th Grade Science

White students: Texas 168, Wisconsin 164 (national 162)

Black students: Texas 139, Wisconsin 121 (national 127)

Hispanic students: Wisconsin 138, Texas 136 (national 130)

2009 8th Grade Science

White students: Texas 167, Wisconsin 165 (national 161)

Black students: Texas 133, Wisconsin 120 (national 125)

Hispanic students: Texas 141, Wisconsin 134 (national 131)

To recap: white students in Texas perform better than white students in Wisconsin, black students in Texas perform better than black students in Wisconsin, and Hispanic students in Texas perform better than Hispanic students in Wisconsin. In 18 separate ethnicity-controlled comparisons, the only one where Wisconsin students performed better than their peers in Texas was 4th grade science for Hispanic students (statistically insignificant), and this was reversed by 8th grade.

Further, Texas students exceeded the national average for their ethnic cohorts in all 18 comparisons; Wisconsinites were below the national average in 8, above average in 8. That bears repeating: Texas fourth and eighth graders outperformed the national average scores in all categories.

Perhaps the most striking thing in these numbers is the within-state gap between white and minority students. Not only did white Texas students outperform white Wisconsin students, the gap between white students and minority students in Texas was much less than the gap between white and minority students in Wisconsin.

In other words, students perform better in Texas schools than in Wisconsin schools – especially minority students.

Education

Outrageous and unsustainable educational costs per pupil

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I don’t know the precise figure for what the target per-pupil cost should be for public education, but I know what it isn’t: $17,800.  Yet that is what is costs in New Jersey today.  See New Jersey per-pupil cost is $17,800 « Wintery Knight.

Think about the average wage in America and how unsustainable that per-pupil cost is.  That is equal to the gross annual wages of a $9 / hour job.  Of course, that person would have to pay taxes, buy groceries, food, transportation, housing, etc. for themselves and the child, so the wages required to fund basic living costs and the student’s education would be much higher.

Something is horribly wrong when costs are that high.  Getting rid of teachers’ unions and dramatically cutting back administration costs would be a start.  Get the Feds out of education completely and you could significantly reduce education costs.

And of course, promote school choice.  You could give incentives to attend private school or home school and save many millions.  Or benchmark the private schools and see what they are doing right.

Compare that with the average tuition with higher-performing private or parochial schools.

Excerpt:

AVERAGE PRIVATE SCHOOL TUITION: $8,549

Elementary: $6,733

Secondary: $10,549

Combined: $10,045

(Digest 2009, Chapter 2, Table 59)

AVERAGE CATHOLIC SCHOOL TUITION: $6,018

Elementary: $4,944

Secondary: $7,826

Combined: $9,066

(Digest 2009, Chapter 2, Table 59)

I’m updating this with a comment from Glenn, which is dead on.

If you want to educate the youth, it doesn’t cost much. If you want to indoctrinate them in liberal ideology, it cost’s big money. That’s the difference between private schools and government schools.

Education, Politics

Bad news for teachers’ unions and racists in Washington D.C.: House reinstates voucher program and advances desegration

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See House GOP desegregates DC school system. | RedState.  Turns out the Democrats aren’t as pro-choice as they claim.  Pro-choice to destroy innocent human life?  No problem for them.  Pro-choice for minorities to attend better schools?  Eek!  Can’t have that.

The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program — which provides low-income District students with federal money to attend private schools — is a top priority of Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). The program was closed to new entrants by Democrats in 2009, but Boehner has sought to revive and expand the program. The House passed a Boehner-authored bill last month — the SOAR Act — to reauthorize the program for five more years, and that bill will be included in the final spending deal and signed into law by Obama.

. . .  The [Obama] administration was surprisingly unequivocal in its opposition to “the creation or expansion of private school voucher programs that are authorized by this bill,” probably because poor minority kids don’t contribute to Democratic slush funds to the extent that the NEA does.  Killing the DC voucher program has been a priority for Democrats since they took full control of the government in 2009 . . .

Education, Politics

Founders’ Fables – a terrific book to pass along key principles to children

A good friend of mine illustrated the book Founders’ Fables (his sister wrote it).  With easy to follow stories and catchy pictures, it teaches important principles held dear by the Founding Fathers and explains the concept and importance of limited government.

I bought a copy and was very impressed.

It is only $10 and would make a great gift for any child.  It would be great to have in public schools and I especially encourage home schoolers to get it.

From the web site:

What do Joe the Monkey, Benjamin Franklin, Holly the Hippo,
and Thomas Jefferson have in common?

They have all come together in this book to help explain our most treasured American values, based on the principles of our Founding Fathers and the concept of limited government. Through the use of funny and memorable characters, ten simple fables address these American values, often believed too complicated for kids to comprehend. Stories are introduced with a supporting quote from one of our nation’s founding fathers. Each fable is followed by age-appropriate questions and a short art activity to inspire your child to an even deeper understanding. Fun and colorful illustrations accompany each fable, written to appeal to children five years old and up. Through familiar quotations and a short biography, children will also become familiar with famous historical figures who played significant roles in the birth and early development of the United States.

Families concerned with maintaining our country’s conservative roots will want to commit these stories to heart, relating current events to the fables they will come to know and love.

Issues addressed in Founders’ Fables include:
  • National Debt and Future Generations
  • Private Enterprise and Government Intervention
  • Pork/Earmarking
  • Socialism
  • Eminent Domain
  • Outsourcing of American Businesses
  • Self-Reliance and Welfare
  • Government Intervention in Private Lives
  • Fairness Doctrine and Free Speech
  • Independence and Self-Reliance

Each fable is written in rhyme to encourage recall of the stories, and to appeal to a young child’s sense of rhythm and fun. Parents and teachers will agree that children have a fascination with rhyming stories and love to shout out the final rhyming word of each stanza. Many of us still remember every word of the rhyming books from our own childhood, and now share them with our own children…repeating them from memory and sharing in the love of those easily-recalled children’s stories. We hope Founders’ Fables will become a treasured part of your family’s library and tradition as well.

It’s never too early to instill a love and passion for the ideals of our Founding Fathers.
Prepare our future generation.
Encourage self-reliance.

Help preserve our heritage.