Pretty much everything today is via Rich since I started there at midnight.
Kristin McQueary interviews him asking him questions from the feedback she received from her last column on Meeks and education funding. She took some flack over at Capitol Fax for the tone of the questions, but she explicitly states she is using feedback from readers to shape the questions–a perfectly reasonable method:
Q: Why aren’t parents in low-income school districts taking more responsibility for their kids’ education?
A: These parents are also products of the same system. The system undereducated them. The system was not well funded when they went through it, so they received an inferior education and it reduced their life options. College was not an option. Now they’re in the workplace, and they have to be a waitress or some menial job that doesn’t pay much. That’s why they’re low income. That’s why they ain’t livin’ in Winnetka.
Q: But parents should be more responsible for their kids’ education.
A: That misses the point. Even if parents in New Trier had to operate on Chicago Public Schools’ budget, they would lose $31 million. They could not provide the same education today with a $31 million hole in the budget. Multiply that by 25 years and you get all the social ills we have. They couldn’t do it, even with two parents.
Q:Throwing money at the schools is not going to solve the problem.
A: I beg to differ. Ask Linda Yonke (New Trier’s superintendent) if she didn’t have that extra $7,000 per pupil, could she do the job she is doing today? She will tell you that money matters. Don’t let anybody tell you money does not matter. They have training coaches for kids taking the ACT test and ACT prep courses and 17 students in a class. When Thornton or Fenger high school students take the ACTs, that’s the first time students sat down with it. Money matters because they have a coach and aquatics and microbiology.
Also, the school that feeds into New Trier spends $21,000 per student. Those kids come prepared. They don’t need remedial courses. They are all (Advanced Placement) when they come there..
ACT Prep courses are quite important method to getting lower income students into college. If a student is not familiar with the test and test taking strategies, they don’t do as well. Some kids in suburban schools have private tutors let alone ACT/SAT prep classes. That’s a huge advantage and that’s only on a preparation class, not everything that comes before that.
Q: But back to the parents, do you admit they play a more important role than the school?
A: I am not going to let this discussion go in the way people are trying to take it. They’re trying to take this into family responsibility. We have two-parent families in our congregation, a mother and a father, who insist their kids do their homework; who take their children to school; who know who is on the local school council. But if the school doesn’t have the resources to do the job, it makes no difference the commitment level of the parent.
For people who want this argument to degenerate into a family argument is not right, and it’s not fair.
This is one of the dumber arguments. Even if parents do the best job they can, their kids aren’t in classes with kids as prepared as the well off suburbs. That alone is a handicap as students tend to do better when surrounded by students well prepared by school. This means that by accident of birth, some students get a better education by being around students better prepared. Using money to overcome that disadvantage shouldn’t be that controversial. It may not be smaller classes (only a marginal effect if one is talking between 17 and 30 students), but a student with fewer resources and parents who may be trying, but are less prepared can utilize extra tutoring and year around school.
For that matter, think about Duncan’s current idea to create boarding schools. The boarding schools would be designed to provide a stable safe environment for kids to attend school, have a structured life, and have positive role models. What’s the hold-up? Money. Duh.