Letters: Don't Shop for Education

Credit: Edutopia

Lisa Snell wrote recently that if you give families school choice, they will get choice schools ("Money Talks: Making Good Public Schools a Priority for Everyone," [1] Dispatches, June 2007), but this makes sense only in areas with either large populations or high incomes. You merely have to look at your editor's supermarket example ("Editor's Note: Think Before You Leap," [2] June 2006) to see how free enterprise would really work in the education marketplace.

I live in a booming suburban area with four "signature" supermarkets fighting for market share with lots of product choices, beautiful stores, and great customer service. I work in a rural area thirty minutes away that is not as well off, with no booming population. There's one beat-up, old-fashioned grocery store with a limited selection and higher prices. Inner city areas have similar challenges, because the supermarkets have no incentive to do more. That's the free-market system at work: You go where you can maximize your profit. Community service, if profitable, is a by-product. In an open-market education system, you would have the same large percentage of consumers with no real choice and others with all the choices in the world.

Education should be different from the supermarket business. As a society, we have made a pledge that all children will have an equal opportunity to get the best education possible -- regardless of where they live or what their economic status is.

Ted Jongbloed

Director, technology services

Waller Independent School District

Waller, Texas

Dollars for Defense

Ben Cohen is a prime example of how ignorant most, not all, Americans are when it comes to monies for education ("Get On the Bus: A Political Unit on Wheels [3]," July/August 2007). Cohen, like so many on the Left, always comes up with "The military gets x dollars, and public education gets y dollars." Perhaps Cohen and others of his mind-set do not realize defense is a major function of the federal government. Education, tragically, is not. Education is basically a state/local matter, with some federal monies for certain programs.

And even when Washington sends money to the states, most state education agencies take about 20 percent for overhead. Then, when the state sends money to locals, especially in urban areas, the local administration takes a hunk. Little money ever gets to the classroom.

I know this because I worked for the National Education Association for twenty years. This fine teacher organization spent millions of dollars to find out how federal money flows down, but it has never been able to discern why the classroom teacher never gets very much of the federal money.

The Congress and the White House (and not just on George W. Bush's watch) give the states a lot of dictums, such as that horrible program called No Child Left Behind. "Do this," say the folks in Washington, yet they don't follow up with the money. It would be grand if they would send more.

Unless we change a lot of laws (and possibly the Constitution), defense will get a lot of money, much of it spent on technology so we won't have to read the number of Americans who have been killed in some far-off land. (I wish it were not so.) Cohen's gimmick may find a home with irrational, arrogant, and ignorant Americans, yet it won't change a whole lot.

R. D. B. Laime

Albuquerque, New Mexico

Preschool Studies

In "Preschool Comes of Age: The National Debate on Education for Young Children Intensifies [4]" (June 2007), Michael Lester writes, "It's difficult to dispute the positive effects of preschool," claiming that those effects exist for middle- and upper-income children as well as low-income children. He then goes on to cite three studies that looked only at low-income students.

The Abecedarian Project studied a very small group of economically disadvantaged black children who entered the program at an average four months of age and were provided educational day care eight hours a day, five days a week, as well as free medical care, dietary supplements, and social service help for children from birth through age five.

The High Scope/Perry Preschool Project involved 123 preschoolers deemed to be at risk for "retarded intellectual functioning and eventual school failure." All of the children were of low socioeconomic status, had IQs of 70-85, and had to have a parent home during the day. In forty years, no other study has replicated the results, and Head Start cofounder Ed Zigler noted, "The Perry sample was not only not representative of children in general; there is doubt that it was representative of even the bulk of economically disadvantaged children."

The Chicago Child-Parent Center Program included a parent-resource room with educational workshops, reading groups, and craft projects. Parents were required to volunteer in the classroom (so no working parents were allowed?), attend school events, and participate in field trips and were assisted in completing high school if they had not done so. The program included home visitations by staff and provided health screening, speech therapy, and nursing and meal services, and many children received tutoring in reading and math until third grade.

These services and requirements are far more extensive than those for the kind of universal preschool Lester advocates. And although he claims "many" studies show the same benefits for middle-income kids, he doesn't cite any. Nor does he note any of dozens of studies (including a recent one by the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development) demonstrating significant behavioral issues for students who spend large amounts of time in child-care centers.

Preschool advocates (of which I count myself one) would do well to stipulate something important: High-quality preschool can have a demonstrably positive effect on a low-income child's preparedness for school and ability to learn, and ought to be widely available to that cohort of children.

But to repeatedly claim results for middle-income children for which there is no evidence succeeds only in diverting scarce funding away from the populations that need it most.

Christian N. Braunlich

Vice president

Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy

Springfield, Virginia

Back to the Drawing Board

"The Fine Art of Choosing an Architect: Hiring a School-Savvy Designer [5]" (July/August 2007) provides school committees a useful set of tips. Though cost and aesthetics are important, the real bottom line is related to the primary role of the school as a home for learning. To that end, I suggest a few additional tips:

First, in addition to an architect who understands the developmental and distinct needs of K-12 students, add an understanding of current and relevant learning theory. An architect's body of work should demonstrate how design supports the best elements of educational programming and the impact on learning.

Second, ensure that the architect has a proven record of collaboration with all stakeholders. This includes not only the many voices at the table for the community and school but also the team of construction managers, general contractors, engineers, subcontractors, and others affiliated with the project. The vision of the design and its purpose should be clear to all involved and to the extent that they are aware that they are important members of a team doing noble work, quality is assured.

Finally, the passion for great design and for insisting that the great design facilitate the greater good of educating children well into the future should be evident in everything the architect says and does.

Gary S. Prest, EdD

Executive consultant, Cuningham Group Architecture

Minneapolis, Minnesota

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