Facts verses opinions on education

A version of this appeared in both the Times Union and Folio. -cpg

You can have your own opinions on education but you can’t have your own facts.

There are often loose facts offered to justify why the powers-that-be
feel they need to tinker with education, the problem is, with any
critical thinking these loose facts habitually lose their credibility.
Unfortunately this doesn’t stop the powers-that-be from tinkering and
much of the general public from believing them.

Take for example one of the education deformers favorites, the nation
has increased it’s spending on education exponentially but our kids
have gotten worse. We have increased what we spend on education but
one of the biggest reasons is we now spend money on disabled children.
Thirty years ago we barely spent very little and now about a fifth of
school budgets go to our special education students. We also now spend
money on the creation, administering and scoring of standardized
tests, which siphon money out of the classrooms and school districts.
Regardless spending exponentially more money isn’t a Florida issue. In
1976 before tens of millions in unfunded mandates, our inclusion of
disabled children and before standardized tests became the rage; the
state sent its districts 6,200 dollars per child. This year Governor
Scott is proposing spending the districts 6,200 hundred dollars per
child. That is actual, not adjusted for inflation, dollars.

As for our kids doing worse, when you factor out poverty our kids
shoot to near the top of the international rankings. Over a fifth of
our students live in poverty and another fifth live just above it.
Poverty is the number one quantifiable factor when determining if a
student does well in school or not, that is not an opinion that is a
well-documented fact. Some people would have you believe poverty is an
excuse, well if it is; it’s a pretty good one.

There are other ways those who seek to profit off education seek to
confuse the public. They use ideas like merit pay and charter schools
that admittedly sound good. The problem with merit pay is education is
a little more complex than pay the best and fire the rest and studies
have pointed this out. Vanderbilt University determined that merit pay
based on standardized testing did not work and there is not one study
that indicates it does. Hillsborough County, which received a hundred
million dollar grant for merit pay, is now revamping the way it does
things because the vast amount of the receivers of merit pay worked at
the most affluent schools (more proof that poverty does matter?)

Then there are charter schools; not only do they not have the same
accountability that public schools have but they also haven’t shown
that they do any better. This means that schools that pick and chose
who they both take and keep and often have more involved parents are
doing no better than public schools who are under an obligation to
educate every child who shows up.

One of the newer arguments disregards teacher’s experience. Some argue
that the last hired, first fired way of doing things protects bad
teachers and puts good teachers on the street. There are some great
first year teachers that hit the ground running but the vast amount
struggle and do so for years until they hit their groove often relying
on veteran teachers to get by. Almost half of all new teachers do not
last five years either. Is it fair that a great first year teacher
loses their job while a mediocre veteran keeps theirs? No, but it’s
also not the epidemic that some people would have you believe and the
system in place is better than the alternative. Perhaps a better
solution is not to slash education budgets so the rare and brilliant
first year teacher isn’t put in the position where they might lose
their job.

The biggest falsehood being presented is that teachers have tenure,
jobs for life. Teachers do not have tenure, they have the right of due
process and they only receive after several years of service where
administrators are supposed to weed out the bad teachers. The new
senate bill 736 in effect gets rid of due process making all teachers
at will employees putting them on perpetual one-year contracts. Most
businesses have some basic employee protections for workers who make
it through a probationary period but now new teachers will have none.
Teachers hired in the future will now be eligible to be let go for any
reason. Question too much and you could be gone. Refuse to do extra
work and you could be gone. Rub your administration the wrong way and
you could be gone. The principal’s neighbor has a nephew that wants to
try teaching and you could be gone. The scenarios where good teachers
can lose their job through no fault of their own go on and on.

Then there is the belief that the Duval County school system is a
failure, sadly a belief that I may have contributed to through my
writings. I have many issues about the way we do things here in Duval
County but I think the answer is to fix the problems not abandon the
district. I also know that there are many wonderful things going on
here. Everyday thousands of teacher show up with their sleeves rolled
up ready to work and tens of thousands of students are learning. And
not just at the magnet schools either but at every school even those
considered our worse.

There are many issues in education and everyone is entitled to their
own opinion just not their own facts. I would hope when people make up
their opinion they use facts, not just hyperbole, the word of
self-serving politicians, those seeking to make money off education
and whatever sounds good. Take once again the example of merit pay,
pay the best and fire the rest might sound good but education is a
little more complicated than that.

Chris Guerrieri
School Teacher