$2.3 billion therapy
Dana D. Kelley
More and more, the state of Arkansas is acting like
a self-absorbed parent who spends money on his children rather than
actually taking the time to raise them.
We’ve all seen such parents. They have their own demanding lives and
careers, and their children seem like a distraction. The parents are too
busy to make field trips, too tired to read stories at night, too bent on
"success" to invest much time or energy in being equally successful as a
plain old mom or dad. Being short on those intangibles, they try and make
up by investing the old fashioned way: with their pocketbook. They want
the best of everything for their children, provided it can be charged to a
MasterCard or Visa.
These parents know how to work, so that’s what they do. Since the fruit
of labor is money, that’s the thing they shower upon their children. It
may not make them better parents, but it makes them feel better. It’s
therapy.
Good parents know that when it comes to children, time and money are
not one and the same. The state seems incapable of separating the core
foundation of education from the political jockeying surrounding its
bureaucracy.
It’s bad enough that the state seems intent on assuming a foster parent
role over every local school. But with the first peek at the statewide
educational facilities assessment report, it’s becoming evident just how
bad a parent the state will be.
The governor said the 76-page report was the result of "a meticulous,
professional process that deserves our respect and appreciation." It’s
true that we spent almost $9 million on consultants to tell us how to
throw money at our public school facilities, and they did a meticulous and
professional job of it. But the idea that, with our limited means, we need
to spend more than $4 billion on bricks and mortar commands neither
respect nor appreciation.
This is exactly the same kind of guilt therapy so many absentee parents
subject their neglected children to. The state doesn’t want to address the
true problems facing education because there’s some real work to be done
there and the solutions likely won’t be pretty or politically correct.
Instead, let’s just buy Junior a new classroom and a new roof. See how
easy that is? All it takes is money. And if there are two things the state
knows how to do well, it’s borrow and tax.
It would be nice if the state would actually learn something about
classroom education if it wants to take over local control of it. Before
we go spending a lot of money on facilities, maybe we should try to
determine the relationship (if any) between student achievement and
facility cost here in Arkansas.
The statewide report uses only current building codes and standa! rds
for its cost estimates, even though almost all schools were built earlier
and thus don’t conform to them. Why didn’t the study go back and track
academic achievement in newly built schools starting in, say, 1970 to see
if new "in code" schools actually outperformed older ones?
In general, it’s been established that deplorable conditions negatively
affect learning, and that improving facilities from poor to excellent
tends to result in improved test scores for students. But the same link
has been found for smaller class size and more individual attention. A
couple billion dollars might have more educational impact if used to
drastically increase the number of teachers in schools that have extra
class space (many with falling enrollment do), so the teacher/student
ratio drops.
Which would be more beneficial to students? Existing studies vary
widely in scope, definitions and comparison factors. With all the district
data and demographic information ! we have, we should easily be able to
determine the elements that have the most effect on learning.
Most of you reading this column went to schools in which some buildings
were always in need of repairs. Which means school is no different from
where you work, where you live or what you drive. The state could spend
$20 million or $30 million more on consultants to create a "facilities
cost index" on your office, your home or your car and likely would find
that each is wanting in some respect when compared to the most up-to-date
standards.
But what would we really learn from such studies? Families have been
happy in shoddy cottages and have fallen apart in mansions. Following the
logic associated with this report, if your 16-yearold son or daughter
isn’t driving as well as you’d like, the best money spent would be on a
new car.
Granted, there are some pressing physical plant needs at some schools.
But Arkansans already are highly taxed in ! relation to our per-capita
income. We can’t afford $2.3 billion worth of therapy just so state
educrats can feel better about our schools.
Any billion-dollar-plus education expenditure should have a direct,
positive and demonstrable effect on student classroom performance.
Two needs consistently identified during the 89 local "Speak Up
Arkansas" forums the Blue-Ribbon Commission on Public Education held in
2002 were more student discipline and greater parental involvement.
Where’s the $9 million study designed to assess and offer recommendations
to improve either of those things?
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Dana D. Kelley is a free-lance writer from Jonesboro.
This story was published Friday, December 10, 2004 in the Arkansas
Democrat Gazette. Printed by permission of Dana Kelley.
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