by James Walkinshaw
Washington Square News (New York U.)
(U-WIRE) NEW YORK -- We hear a lot about the poor state of our nation's educational system, and how to fix it, from the media and politicians.
"More funding to inner-city schools," says Sen. Hillary Clinton.
"Post the Ten Commandments in every classroom," cries the Rev. Jerry Falwell.
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"We need standardized testing," announces President George W. Bush.
Last year, testing of 15-year-old students showed that eight countries scored "significantly better" than the United States in math, seven countries scored better in science and three scored better in reading.
Without naming all of the countries that beat us, I will point out that Canada was "significantly better" than the United States in literacy. Canada cannot even beat us in hockey anymore, but they can beat us in reading?
If this keeps up, Celine Dion will be winning American music awards. Oh, wait a second. Did that already happen? Things are worse than I thought.
Many public schools are great. They send a huge percentage of their graduates to college and boast high scores on standardized tests. Other public schools, often those in inner cities, are disgraceful. They do not have enough teachers or books, not to mention computers. This inequity stems from the way we fund our public schools.
Public schools are currently funded predominantly by local property taxes. Thus, the lower the property tax yields, the less funding is available.
Whose school system do you think can afford to spend more on each student's education, Westchester County's or Brooklyn's? Obviously, Westchester spends a lot more per student and yields much better results.
Wealthy suburbs, where property values are much higher, collect much more in property taxes than low-income urban or rural areas. This translates directly into vast inequities in per student education spending between rich and poor school districts. Many of our schools, usually those in wealthy suburbs, are No. 1 in the world, while others resemble those in the Third World.
Some states have already begun to address this problem by trying to standardize per student spending on a statewide basis. This is a step in the right direction, but it is not a real solution. If per student spending should be the same from county to county, why should it not be the same from state to state? A child in Brooklyn certainly deserves the same level of education as a child in Westchester. A child in West Virginia deserves the same level of education as a child in California.
I realize that up to this point, few will disagree with me. Every child in the United States deserves an equal opportunity to get a quality education.
The issue of paying for it is a bit trickier. I can already hear the conservatives screaming about the growth of the federal government. They will call this plan a "boondoggle," saying that schools belong to our communities and not to the bureaucrats in Washington.
However, I am not calling for federal control over local schools. I am only saying that per student spending should be the same everywhere in the United States. To accomplish that, funding would have to be on the national level.
It could be paid for by an increase in the federal income tax, or even by a national tax on consumption.
If we shifted the obligation to fund schools to the federal government, state and local governments would be able to decrease taxation accordingly.
The burden on the American taxpayer would essentially be unchanged. The federal government would distribute the money to states each year based on a standard per student amount. State governments would then distribute it to the various school systems. The money would have to be distributed in block grants, with no strings attached, so local communities would still have complete control over their schools.
The bottom line is that in order for the United States to lead the world into the 21st century, we must have an education system that is up to the task. The current method of funding public schools is inefficient, unproductive, grossly unequal and, I believe, fundamentally un-American.
Every student, no matter where he or she happens to live, deserves an equal opportunity to get a quality education.
In the words of the California Supreme Court, "The distribution of a resource as precious as educational opportunity may not have as its determining force the mere fortuity of a child's residence." By making the necessary changes to our education system, radical though they may seem, we can be a world power in education as well as in military strength.
