A Sad Conclusion

So, the giant California education study was released last month. The conclusions of two separate groups of researchers: California could add upwards of $20 billion to a $45 billion education budget and still not have most of its schools meeting state academic goals. That's not pocket change.

I have not worked on education policy for very long at all, but I have worked in the field long enough to come to a sad conclusion: we cannot close achievement gaps the way we are doing it. Though EdTrust will keep saying schools can succeed on their own until they are blue in the face, they are simply wrong. There are just not enough talented teachers or talented principals, there is no set of incentives, there is just not enough money to get schools to the point where we want them by adding more educational programs. Money matters in schools, without a doubt, but there is a point where more money becomes madness.

All of you conservatives out there who claim you have respect for life and are compassionate, I'm calling you out on your bullshit, right now. The free market cannot solve problems of poverty. Just think about it:

- Almost one in five children lives in poverty.
- Twenty eight million children - 39 percent of all children - are classified by the federal government as "low-income" and are eligible for free or reduced-price school lunches.
- One in nine children has no health insurance.

Should I go on?

- Among the 25 OECD nations reporting data, the U.S. ranks 4th in its percentage of low-birth weight babies. This indicates a lack of adequate pre-natal care, which can translate into learning and cognitive impairments in children.
- Even better, if you want to see how much health care our children get: we have the 2nd highest rate of infant mortality among those countries. Seven of every thousand children born in this country die before the age of 12 months. Most European countries are between three and five.

Try imagining a kid who has grown up in poverty, who doesn't see a book until he walks into kindergarten, who has never had proper health care and is often sick, who has had such poor health care that he has not even had all of his immunizations, who is from a single-parent home and has likely had very little in the way of positive role models, who can't concentrate in school because he has being inadequately nourished and lacks access to proper nutrition.

Now imagine a class of twenty of these children, each with his own specific disadvantages. This is what teachers in urban schools are up against. This is why half of those teachers have new jobs within three years.

If we're going to spend money, put it into social welfare. Put it into universal health care for children, put it into health clinics for low-income areas, nutrition programs, community-building programs. Put it into providing adequate health care for pregnant women. I guarantee you that every dollar we put into these programs would boost the economy and reduce education costs by a far greater amount than these programs would cost.

Just another note while we're talking about money. Under Eisenhower, there were 20 federal income tax brackets extending to $200,000, or $1.5 million in today's dollars. Today, we have six tax brackets going up to $319,000. The highest bracket under Eisenhower: 91%. Under Johnson: 77%. Under Bush II: 35%.

So, I have a message to any Republican who thinks Democrats want to tax Americans into economic oblivion, to any Republican who claims to be compassionate, to any Republican who claims to have a respect for life, to any Republican who opposes abortion on religious grounds but does not feel a religious compulsion to give up all he has and give it to the poor:

Shut the hell up. We know how to fix America's problems, and you're standing in the way.