Schools Can Be Just Too Big

The dinosaur's eloquent lesson is that if some bigness is good, an overabundance of bigness is not necessarily better. -- Eric Johnston

In the 1930's there were about 127,000 school districts in the United States of America. By the late 1980's they had been consolidated into slightly over 15,000 much larger units. Bigger pots, is seems, were thought to make better soup. Do we still think this is true? Is it time for a change?

No doubt some can point to many benefits gained by such consolidation. But who exactly gained those benefits? And who paid the costs?

University students who are prospective teachers want to be told there is no connection between what goes on in a classroom and the organization of the school. After all, why not close their classroom door and shut out the world? Can't they just "raise their expectations"?

Prospective teachers also want to know how to be "effective." That is all. They do not want to hear that important factors are not under their control, unless, with equal though contrary confusion, they give up the struggle, citing them as insurmountable.

Would-be teachers tend not to believe that school consolidation can have much effect on what they do. Much more important, they imagine, is their personal verve and dedication. This "Man of La Mancha-complex" often persists well into their careers. Being true to their glorious quest, their hearts, perhaps, will lie peaceful and calm when they're laid to their rest. Fine for them, but what about their students?

To examine these issues further, see Really Want Change? Deconsolidate the Schools!

-- EGR

Selling Off Your Freedom: what would be your price?

updated 081718

Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose
And nothin’ ain’t worth nothin’ but it’s free
-- K. Kristofferson, F.L. Foster

Do you want to have a say in what happens to you and yours? Do you want to be able to protect and promote the things you value? What’s it worth to you?

Would you be willing to join the 1/7 of mankind that goes to bed hungry every night, that watches their children’s bellies swell up with Kwashiorkor, and their limbs wither away with their hopes? Or join the even greater number who lack medical services, a roof over their heads and reliable water and electricity?

Would you be willing to worry about pollution, tsunamis, recession, immigration, food and water scarcity and so on; or, would you be willing to have someone else worry about it if you can be left in peace?

How about if I offered you a steady income large enough to afford some minor luxury, health services for you and your children, and a comfortable pension? Suppose I told you that you might be asked to render a service at some point, but its likelihood would be of low probability. In addition, only a small number of those called would be exposed to any kind of risk.

Would you be willing to leave governance to people who made you such an offer? How many people like you, would you estimate, would be ready to accept the deal?

But there’s always a catch. Here it is: Who can you trust to make such an offer and keep their part of the bargain? The world is filled with would-be tyrants, false prophets and charlatans. How would you know what they were? How could tell them apart from the many well-meaning but merely less than competent people you meet or see in the media?

It is worth your bother even to think of all this? How did your education prepare you, and how does the education your children are now receiving prepare them to be involved and act intelligently in dealing with the real problems of living in a vast, multicultural society?

For references and to examine these issues further, see Personal Liberation Through Education


Cordially
--- EGR

Caveat Emptor: The Coming School Voucher Disaster

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. -- Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
Book I, Chapter X, Part II

Americans in the education business, like most peoples who work to maximize their personal benefits for minimal cost, are much more like poker players than like philanthropist saints. Gaming the “free market” pays far better than does supporting it.

Of course, it has always been the practice of those in the “uplift” biz, educators, clergy, social workers and the like, to pretend to an almost otherworldly disregard of their own needs and benefits, while pushing the idea that they sacrifice in the service of others.

The business world is a jungle. Genghis Khan is a role model. Relatively few people accept a morality as strict as that preached by Adam Smith to be the backbone of a free market economy. Bullshit and fraud are the language of daily discourse, even though the Nicespeak promoted by advertising is the politically correct dialect.

It is really little different in the education business. Only wishful thinking blinds us to the malfeasance that is far from rare and that serves as an incentive to much institutional development. Vouchers for education will provide the economic wheelers and dealers, who already loot the public treasuries, one more easy entrance to pillage.

Our kids, our hopes and dreams, are involved in education. Therefore, let us permit hope to triumph over experience. Let us, resolutely, continue to believe that, someday, in the not too distant future:

a. no child need be left behind;
b. all adults, educated thoroughly and efficiently, will participate in the processes of self-governance;
c. most kids, and adults, will be math whizzes, and champions at Jeopardy;
d. all Americans will be financially schooled, intelligent consumers -- particularly of education; and
e. America, the New Jerusalem, will finally achieve “alabaster cities” whose gleam is undimmed by human tears.

All this from the viking of Genghis Khan and his Poker Players, pretending to the priesthood of the Free Market.

What is liberty without … virtue? …It is the greatest of all evils… -- Edmund Burke

For references and to examine these issues further, see Charter School, Vouchers and America's Growing Divisivemess.


Cordially
--- EGR