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Published in The Brownsville Herald 2/12/2006 and in “Lone Star Liberty” February 2006 the monthly news magazine of the Texas Libertarian Party.
On Friday January 13, ABC aired a John Stossel segment called “Stupid in America”.
I didn’t see it but found that it was a prime topic of conversation, in my “mainstream” so I secured a transcript. I also looked at the comments from a variety of sources.
Generally, in the educational world, with administrators at the different levels, the higher you go up in the food chain, the more vehemently the report was attacked. Also, as expected, those viewing social responsibility from a more liberal point of view were the most aggressive in their attacks with Conservatives more supportive.
The presence of this show in prime time, on a prime day by a news organization not usually known for Conservative bias, indicates a very important issue.
Some of the descriptions started to ring true with my personal experience. One in particular was where it was stated, “At age 10, American students take an international test and score well above the international average. But by age 15, when students from 40 countries are tested, the Americans place 25th.”
I have participated in a Texas UIL inter-mural academic competition by judging student essays for a “Ready Writing” classification. Many of the middle school students submissions were excellent often by any standards, and that when some of these same students reach High School the quality of the work declined substantially to just bigger words with no substance and the analysis that I enjoyed earlier was all but non-existent.

This is no surprise as I have been hearing the same stories from acquaintances who were teachers for many years and others. They were the same in New Jersey and now in Texas. The stories all went to support these assertions.
Stossel’s report went on to say:
The common cry is: “We need to spend more money on our schools.” President Bush bought into that when he let Ted Kennedy write the education bill that became the No Child Left Behind Act.
When I read this more than 690 page law I found it was mostly a quality assurance requirement to get money from the Federal Government. The thrust was that it mandated; 1. that each state develop a set of criteria, standards and expectations 2. that those standards be applied equally 3. that a method be developed to identify those instances where the standards were not met and to correct any problems 4. that the plan be forwarded to the Federal Government with the results and the lack thereof. Essentially, if a state lives up to the rules it makes it gets the money. If you don’t take the money – you don’t have to follow the law!
The concepts will be familiar to many who deal with the auto industry or supply companies in Europe. It is referred to as the ISO 9000 quality system.
It seems clear that there is something wrong with the educational system and it gets worse the longer the student is exposed to it.
In Texas we are anxiously awaiting the coming legislation relative to the state funding of public education.

Extorting more money from an already taxed out citizenry will not contribute to the solution. Per pupil spending has doubled over that last thirty years and the schools’ results do not improve. The US schools that spend the most, such as Washington, D.C. and New York City have the worst results. More money has not equaled better education.
Another complaint that I hear often is that it is poor families’ children that are disadvantaged in school. I have not found this in my personal life; growing up in a depressed economic area of a border community and in a disadvantaged family. (I didn’t know it at the time, because everyone I knew was the same). One Brownsville public school in a disadvantaged area has some of the best results in the city and a parochial school that is free to the students has extraordinarily high results.
As a first step, school choice would go a long way to improve the situation by providing for competition. I expect that it would reduce the costs as well.
I think that the whole concept should be examined. No one school can meet all the needs of all the students. We have many special needs such as non-English speakers, learning problems identified as Special Ed, and health and discipline issues. No one school regardless of the separation of departments are equipped to deal with that kind of diversity. Perhaps we need to reconsider some of the political correctness issues and provide specialized education to meet these needs.
One of the glaring areas is with ESL and Bilingual programs, none of which have ever been implemented as designed. Here in Brownsville there is a parochial school that has extraordinary results imparting English; perhaps those in need of that training could prepare there, for something further in a mainstream program to come later.
I am especially concerned that the Federal Government can exert so much influence as to determine what is being taught in our schools, and how it is to be taught. Those determinations should be made in the communities with parental cooperation; at the worst no higher than the state level.
A primary goal should be that the Fed not be involved in setting any criteria. It can be done! The school system that I attended as a youth, to this day, does not accept federal support and thereby does not follow the requirements of “No Child Left Behind”. Graduation levels are higher than many other systems that spend much more money; and similar percentages of students go on to Universities.
Since the Fed is already involved, I consider it a goal to dissolve the Department of Education and return the entire budget to the states, based on the amounts collected from its residents. That alone should provide all the funding needed!
As a large number of workers would be displaced; now would be the best time, to replace the “Baby boomers” as they retire.