P.S. 334 – Manhattan

It’s sad reading about the impact of local budget cuts on higher education. In my own California, the once-treasured system of colleges and universities is slowly being reduced to a shadow of its former self, cutting programs, increasing class size, reducing the level of what is actually being required of students as a result, and facing additional cuts that some in the system may force the closing of entire schools. As California faces Governor Jerry Brown’s new set of ballot propositions to increase taxes at almost every level, the consequences of not raising such funds can be seen in a system that is already reeling from student-killing tuition increases and quality reductions of staggering proportions. New taxes, if approved, will re-fund $300 million in lost revenues to the system; failing to pass the legislation will de-fund a further $300 million to an already impaired operation.

“‘I’d be lying if I said what we offer students hasn’t been changed and that there hasn’t been a degradation of the learning environment,’ said Timothy White, the chancellor of the University of California, Riverside, which has had record growth in recent years. Last year, plans to open a medical school on the campus were shelved after state budget cuts. While there are more students than ever, the number of academic advisers has dropped to 300, from 500 a few years ago, for more than 18,000 undergraduates. Courses that used to require four writing assignments now demand half that because professors have fewer assistants to help them with grading papers, something other campuses have implemented as well...

“Chancellor White and others say the concerns about the budget cuts are beyond academic. For generations, the universities have been economic engines for the state, graduating hundreds of thousands of students each year. At every level, the universities are receiving more applicants than ever. But without more state money, colleges are struggling to find room for eligible students… Nathan Brostrom, executive vice president of business operations for the University of California, said the system was now in the middle of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. In the last year, the state has cut $750 million from the system’s budget. This year, for the first time, the system receives more money from tuition than from state aid — but that only makes up for roughly a quarter of the cuts from the state. Over all, the budget is the same as was in 2007, when there were 75,000 fewer students enrolled.” New York Times, June 1^st.

Across the land, political pressures responding to economic reality have continuously reduced the overall quality of American education. Over the years, our secondary school students have dropped from first to seventeenth in science scores against developed nations and to twenty-fifth in math. As job growth has stalled (with a slightly higher unemployment level) while global competition and educational standards increased, it is clear that the Americans without the necessary skill-sets not only will have a harder time getting a job, but when they do, the attributable pay scale and career potential will fall to well below that of prior generations.

Opponents cite bloated administrative costs, excessive pay for those at the top, unsustainable tenure and retirement benefits and waste throughout the system. I wish I could deny that such issues exist, but with about 13,000 separate public school districts around the United States covering our nation’s primary and secondary schools, waste and the prioritization of political teaching issues (e.g., school prayer, creationism vs. evolution, etc.) over learning are rampant, and the ability to weed out under-performing teachers has become almost impossible. Clearly reform is mandatory, but again, political pressures seem to push against the possibility of massive reform until the systems begin to collapse and file for bankruptcy. Meanwhile, the innocents in the mix, the students themselves, are forced to pay with their lives and careers by reason of the failures of their parents and grandparents to provide them with a competitive education.

To those who claim that we need to force fiscal responsibility onto basic and post-secondary public education even if there are abundant casualties along the way, I point to the harsh reality that America cannot grow its way back to prosperity, much less service massive budget deficits we have incurred, unless American workers earn enough in the global marketplace to cover those expectations. And most certainly we cannot reach that level of value-added without a vastly stronger educational system. Impossible!

But even in the public school system, the rich get richer. I’ve already blogged about the powerful private schools where high tuition all but eliminates anyone other than this nation’s wealthiest students. But even in the public school system, where parents have the financial ability to upgrade their local public schools with additional cash or other economically-valuable support, the impact on the students and the performance of the subject schools skyrockets, providing a long-term advantage to such students because their parents have money. “Each fall, parents at the Anderson School [P.S. 334], a highly regarded K-8 on [Manhattan’s] Upper West Side for gifted and talented students, receive letters from the PTA emblazoned with the school’s elegant ‘A’ logo. Though Anderson indulges in the usual trappings of public-school fund-raising — bake sales, book fairs, auctions — this letter is blunter: It urges parents to simply write a check. And it suggests an amount: This school year, it was $1,300.” NY Times. Generally, the aggregate raised is over $1 million per annum. Oh and the picture above is of the highly successful Middle School Math Team en route to the statewide competition.

New York City is only representative of what is happening all over the United States – except in the average or below average income areas where public schools are left to twist in the storm. And what public schools can do in elite neighborhoods is indeed impressive: “They are [NYC] schools like Public School 6 on East 82nd Street, where big donors can have their children’s names engraved on plaques on chairs in the auditorium. Its PTA raised $973,518 last school year. Or P.S. 290, also on East 82nd, a popular school widely praised for its writing program, where the PTA raised $949,759 in the 2009-10 school year.

“Or P.S. 87, a coveted Upper West Side elementary a stone’s throw from the Museum of Natural History, where the parents’ association brought in $1.57 million in that same period: about $800,000 in fund-raising, the other $700,000 from the fees the association charged for the after-school programs… At a time when the city’s schools have had their financing cut by an average of 13.7 percent over the past five years, the money has buffered these schools from the hard choices many others have had to make. In a system where many parents’ associations raise no money at all, these schools have earned a special name among parents and school consultants: ‘public privates.’” NY Times.

On the other hand, educational systems can go the other way, providing vouchers for students to fend for themselves, sometimes able to grab the very few spots open at prestigious academies, or, more likely, to seek out schools with a clear emphasis on religious doctrines over academic values, forgetting about quality standards altogether. “Louisiana is embarking on the nation's boldest experiment in privatizing public education, with the state preparing to shift tens of millions in tax dollars out of the public schools to pay private industry, businesses owners and church pastors to educate children… The school willing to accept the most voucher students -- 314 -- is New Living Word in Ruston, which has a top-ranked basketball team but no library. Students spend most of the day watching TVs in bare-bones classrooms. Each lesson consists of an instructional DVD that intersperses Biblical verses with subjects such chemistry or composition.

“The Upperroom Bible Church Academy in New Orleans, a bunker-like building with no windows or playground, also has plenty of slots open. It seeks to bring in 214 voucher students, worth up to $1.8 million in state funding… At Eternity Christian Academy in Westlake, pastor-turned-principal Marie Carrier hopes to secure extra space to enroll 135 voucher students, though she now has room for just a few dozen. Her first- through eighth-grade students sit in cubicles for much of the day and move at their own pace through Christian workbooks, such as a beginning science text that explains "what God made" on each of the six days of creation. They are not exposed to the theory of evolution.” Huffington Post, June 3^rd.

I write about examples of the destruction of our educational systems – and hence our future – by citing regional or local examples, but the story is repeated all over America. I have shown that no matter how severely legislators wish to cut budgets because of the economically impaired world we all live in, those school districts, colleges and universities that have sufficient funding produce vastly more productive graduates. A recent Harvard University study shows that hard-dollar earnings for students can be directly attributed to providing better teachers: “So, for example, a teacher who is in the top 5 percent, an excellent teacher, we calculate generates about $250,000 or more of additional earnings for their students over their lives in a single classroom of about 28 students.” PBS.org, January 6^th. To see the actual report, please visit: http://obs.rc.fas.harvard.edu/chetty/value_added.html.

Better schools and better teachers in smaller classroom generate a relatively large financial return. Failing to meet that grade dooms the entire United States to a continuing fall among nations in competitiveness, innovation and economic viability. So as we debate school efficiencies and whether or not we should fund education at anywhere near the levels required, we are cutting our own throats, decimating the middle class and dooming future American generations to a quality of life that may even defy mediocrity.

I’m Peter Dekom, and if you really believe in America as a vital and powerful nation, prove it by championing those who are willing to invest in our future.