A Failed Paradigm

The Cluster of Adirondack Park School Districts

Public education in these parts costs $25k per student, annually. NY has the highest per-capita pupil expense in the nation, but, jeez, $25k is half the yearly tuition at Harvard med school! So when the Universe provided an opportunity to find out what's going on, I jumped on it.

The AuSable Valley Central School district held a budget hearing last night. Only 12 people showed up, and 9 of those were employees. Even before the Superintendent, Paul Savage, started his presentation I had my answer: Finances are out of control because we, the people, don't care. If we did, the place would be packed. We'll have an opportunity to vote on this budget in a week and it'll be interesting to see the turnout for that. 

While citizens are working two jobs to make ends meet or are in a catatonic state watching "Judge Judy" reruns, the education-industrial complex is busily cranking out new and expensive programs. These are easily marketed to state legislators. Especially the politicians who'd like to circumvent the fundraising grind and seek the largesse of a few big donors. No worries, the voters are too preoccupied to notice or care. 

As with the US Congress, the NY state legislature has a lower turnover than the Politburo of the old Soviet Union. All one has to do to be a rep-for-life is accumulate enough cash to inundate Judge Judy's drivel with $500 TV ads. The school textbook industry is probably spring-loaded to provide financial assistance to any candidate who's willing to support them in return.

$85 for an Algebra One book...but it does have a cool-looking cyber fish on the cover.

Thus we have an exciting new mandate called "Common Core". Of course, it's for the children and to preserve our world class standard of living. Suddenly all those overpriced textbooks purchased just last year are obsolete. All must be scrapped to conform with the new standard, but that's merely a collateral detail. Common Core's noble goal is to graduate students who are actually prepared to enter the workforce or a university without a year or two of remedial training. The new books are head shakingly expensive (the nine employees in the audience grumbled about being ripped off when S raised the question) - but if we just buy them now perhaps our students will outperform their Spanish and Polish peers in math next year.  

The US ranks 16th of 21 developed nations in math. 

When school districts have to buy $85 algebra books, guys like Mr Savage have to cut back on math teachers to pay for it. This isn't hyperbole, two "math/science/social" teaching positions are being eliminated in the proposed budget to offset a 25% increase in the book budget. This is tragic because a perfectly good algebra book can be obtained for free, online. I suppose if one really wanted to buy a spiffy new textbook so our kids can compete with the top tier countries, they can order the algebra book that Canadian high schools use and save 42%. Perhaps the mandaters ought to take a field trip to Canada. There's a Canadian high school only an hour's drive north of here. They spend half of what we do and rank 6th in math. We rank 16th.

Canada gets better results with a cheaper book - and it, too, has a fish on the cover!
This one appears to be staring at a sucker.

This is just one tiny example, the system is riddled with junk like this. The Superintendent and School Boards are on the receiving end, and on the front lines when having to explain the costs to the few taxpayers who question it.

So I'll vote for the budget and against incumbents. If we get rid of enough of them we can address the utterly failed paradigm of public education.