Kudos to Adam Schaeffer, education policy analyst at the Cato Institute, for exposing a lie perpetrated on taxpayers by the Los Angeles Unified School District. LAUSD claims to spend about $10,000 for each of its nearly 700,000 students. However, that $10,000 figure omits a few things like the cost of building schools, interest on various payments, etc. When all the withheld expenses are added in, the spending figure comes to a whopping $29,780 per student per year.

Writer John Seiler decided to take matters one step further and contacted LAUSD. He talked to district spokesperson Lydia Ramos who told Mr. Seiler, “You’re using a methodology that only you are using…. No, that’s not accurate. That’s not what we’re doing. I’m going to have to let you go. This is an issue to take up with the state, or your local district, to see what they are doing.” (Not counting these capital costs is like not reporting part of your income to the IRS and telling them that, according to your methodology, you don’t have to.)

And therein lies one of the problems – there is no uniform reporting. Districts put out numbers that suit their needs. Hence, one must ask a lot of questions before an honest comparison can be made between two or more districts. Oh and something else – an “X factor” not included in education spending are teacher pension overruns which are spiraling out of control and will add to the total cost.

If nothing else, I hope Mr. Schaeffer’s research once and for all will silence the educrats and the teachers’ unions. Their ongoing “we need to spend more on education” mantra has been exposed as nothing more than the shibboleth that it is. Clearly spending gobs of cash on education really isn’t going to solve any problems. Mr. Seiler ends his article with, “For its $29,780 spent per student, LAUSD’s graduation rate is 40.6 percent, second worst in the country.”

In an op-ed published yesterday in the Orange County Register, I proposed a very simple way for school districts to save a chunk of money very quickly. If we let the bottom 10% of teachers go and raised class sizes slightly, we would have superior teaching staffs and save millions at the same time. Many businesses do this periodically; it keeps their bottom line in good shape and their workers on their toes. It’s not rocket science. But just watch - our bureaucracy-bloated school districts and the teachers’ unions will do everything they can to maintain the failing status quo.

     Here’s a story problem to get kids ready for the new school year:

     If Congress borrows $10 billion to bail out the public schools, and if toilet paper costs fifty cents a roll, how many rolls of toilet paper will each of the nation’s 132,000 K-12 public schools receive? 

     The answer:  Zero. Zip. Zilch.

     The average American can be forgiven for thinking that the $10 billion “edujobs” bill signed into law last week by President Obama would directly benefit the nation’s school children.  That’s certainly how the National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel spun it:  “As a result of this vote, we expect to see less crowded classrooms, reinstated bus routes and restored education programs and services,” Van Roekel said.

     What a windfall for the kids, right?  But how to make sense of this headline in The New York Times:  “Back to School? Bring Your Own Toilet Paper.”  Just five days after the $10 billion bailout became law, the Times reports that schools all across the country are sending out shopping lists to parents and students, requiring them to help stock the janitorial closets that have been stripped bare by shrinking school budgets.  Wasn’t that money supposed to prevent this kind of thing?     

     It’s a fact that school districts all across the country have smaller budgets to work with, due to the aftermath of “The Great Recession.”  It’s also a fact that unlike most American workers who have had to take less pay and fewer benefits to keep their jobs, many teacher unions all across the country have refused to make any concessions (i.e. accepting a freeze in pay or contributing to their health insurance costs).   Left with no other options to balance their budgets, school districts were forced to cut teaching jobs.  This resulted in a “crisis” and led to Congress’ $10 billion bailout.

     With Congress pumping all this new money into the education system, the teacher unions can forego any unpleasant concessions and can protect the status quo.  Meanwhile, parents and students are forced to stretch their back-to-school budgets to help stock the restrooms with toilet paper and Kleenex. 

     Despite all the spin, it is clear that the “edujobs” bill was simply a bailout for the intractable teacher unions dressed up as being “for the children.”  Once again, the nation’s school kids are asked to do with less so the teacher unions can do with more.  

     Welcome back to school. 

This past Sunday, the Los Angeles may have started a revolution by running a story called Who is Teaching Our Kids? What they did was this–
•    The Times obtained math and English scores for the California Standards Test for the years 2003-2009 under the California Public Records Act.
•    They hired Richard Buddin, a senior economist and education researcher at the Rand Corporation to conduct an analysis of the data.
•    The scores were then converted into percentile ratings, dividing them into five equal categories from least effective to most effective
•    The first report, including 6,000 third, fourth and fifth grade teachers, will be posted by the Times on its website later this month.
•    The Times is giving teachers an opportunity to comment on their ratings.

It is important to note that teacher performance is being measured using the value added technique, which rates teachers “based on their students’ progress on standardized tests year after year. The difference between a student’s expected growth and actual performance is the ‘value’ a teacher adds or subtracts during the year.”

Predictably, AJ Duffy, president of the United Teachers of Los Angeles, who represents 36,000 LA school teachers, threw a tantrum and promptly sent out an autodial phone message to every UTLA member urging them to boycott the Times. Additionally, a lawsuit by the union is being considered. Duffy claims “You’re leading people in a dangerous direction, making it seem like you can judge the quality of a teacher by … a test.”

Granted, a test should not be the only measure of a teacher’s quality, but it is certainly better than what we have now, which is nothing. The LA Times has done us a great service by initiating this study, informing the public whose hard earned dollars are paying for our substandard education system and taking this issue to another level. It’s about time parents and taxpayers had a way to evaluate the quality of a teacher. Now let’s build on it.

      A recent poll should cause Oklahomans some sleepless nights.  As reported by SoonerPoll.com, 65 percent of Oklahoma’s voters support State Question 744.  Don’t let its innocuous title fool you: this proposed constitutional amendment would unleash a category F-5 tornado on Oklahoma’s state budget.

     Here’s a quick recap of what’s at stake.  If approved, State Question 744 would require that Oklahoma base its per-pupil spending on the average per-pupil spending of six surrounding states.  The measure would cost the state $1.7 billion over the first three years.   This budget-buster is opposed by both conservatives and liberals.  Here’s what the left-leaning Oklahoma Policy Center said about the proposal: 

By mandating huge spending increases for common education without ensuring an overall expansion of state revenues, we create the strong likelihood of setting the state further behind in all the other areas of public investment that Oklahomans, including our schoolchildren and teachers, rely on.    

     If Oklahomans of all political stripes realize that SQ 744 is a turkey, why is the National Education Association poised to spend $3 million campaigning on its behalf?  If we’ve learned anything at all about the teachers unions, it’s that they look out for ol’ #1, no matter what. 

     SQ 744 would be a huge windfall for the teachers union:  more teachers could be hired, more union dues would be collected, and the union’s political muscle would be strengthened.  And union members would not have to make contract concessions to help school districts make ends meet.            

     According to EnidNews.com, voters do not make up their minds about state questions until the last minute.  Hopefully voters will see through this hare-brained scheme and overwhelmingly reject it.  But knowing that the NEA, the nation’s largest labor union, has $3 million to spend campaigning for the proposal should get the attention of Oklahomans.  If the NEA gets its way, Election Day will unleash one doozy of a fiscal tornado on the Sooner State.  

President Obama and his Congressional cronies have made no secret that they think the haves amongst us owe the have-nots. This Robin Hood mentality would seem to be in evidence with the latest Harry Reid sponsored gambit – a $10 billion scheme to save some teachers’ jobs.

It plays out like this - Every few months since the economic downturn began, there is a prediction of massive teacher layoffs and it’s always a big news story. However, the number of jobs lost is never close to the doomsayers’ projections and this never makes the news.

The latest example of this phenomenon occurred this past spring when despite calamitous warnings, districts all over the country started to find money to retain teachers. And true to form, politicians ignored the local remedies and tried to figure out a way to throw even more federal funds at education. It took a few tries but it seems that a $10 billion bailout, the so-called Edujobs Bill, which passed the Senate last week will become a reality this week. Congress, on August recess, has been called back to D.C. by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for a vote on the bill.

Our legislators not only turn a deaf ear to the fact that there are far fewer layoffs than originally stated, they also ignore the reality that maybe we need to layoff some teachers because we hired too many in the first place. According to teacher union watchdog, Mike Antonucci, “In the 2007-08 school year, 48,396,076 students were enrolled in the U.S. K-12 public education system. That was a decline of 45,397 students from the previous year. They were taught by 3,150,061 teachers (full-time equivalent). That was an increase of 7,859 teachers from the previous year.” (Emphasis mine)

So why are our legislators tripping over each other to spend a massive amount of money unnecessarily? Election year politicking. The Democrats need to keep the teachers’ unions happy as the latter contributes many millions to the former on a yearly basis. It is so glaringly apparent that even the Washington Post is disgusted by it. “The crusade for an education jobs bill, led by the Obama administration and Democratic leaders in Congress, has always struck us as more of an election-year favor for teachers unions than an optimal use of public resources. …. What, except for election-year politics, motivated him (the bill’s sponsor, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid) to consider it in the first place?”

Who are the winners and losers? Amazingly, the losers are people who need food stamps – that  budget is being cut in order to accommodate the teachers’ unions, which will gain at minimum $40 million dollars – the amount of dues money these already wealthy unions will be able to hijack from the retained teachers’ paychecks. That’s right – the government is taking money from the poor and giving it to the rich - and surely, Robin Hood is rolling over in his grave.

      Remember the legend of Nero fiddling while Rome burned?  This could be the modern-day equivalent.  

      While Milwaukee Public School administrators are looking for any way to erase the district’s $1.3 billion budget deficit—laying off nearly 400 teachers, increasing class sizes— the local teachers union is suing the Milwaukee School Board for not covering the prescription costs of Viagra in the teacher’s health insurance plan. 

     The union’s complaint, as obtained by the Education Action Group, charges that:

     The MPS health plans exclude “Viagra and similar medications.”  The “similar medications” excluded      by this language are other erectile dysfunction (ED) drugs, Camberjact, Cialis, Lavetra and Muse.  These medications are prescribed to treat impotence.  Viagra and other medications are FDA approved for treatment of ED and are gender specific to males. The exclusion of an FDA approved, medically necessary drug…violates Wisconsin’s prohibition on discrimination on the basis of sex.

     NEAexposed.com has been chronicling the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association unwillingness to accept less expensive health insurance to save teaching jobs.  But this latest revelation by the Associated Press shows that the union has no interest in working with the district to reduce costs.  The AP estimates that “the drug benefit would cost [the district] $786,000 per year – the cost to keep perhaps a dozen first-year teachers employed.”

     Once again, the selfishness of the union has been unmasked. So what if hundreds of young teachers lose their jobs and the overall quality of education is diminished?  They’re fine with that, just as long as they get their Viagra.

     A review commission recently dismissed the MTEA’s complaint (which originated in 2008).  Regardless of the final outcome, one thing is for certain: Milwaukee’s parents and school children are the real losers in all of this.     

     Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn called out the National Education Association this week over the union’s multi-million dollar quest to pass State Question 744, a November ballot proposal that would ratchet up state education spending.

     The respected Republican senator summed up the situation in Oklahoma quite well, and his statements apply to a lot of school systems across the country.

     From NewsOK.com:

     “During this debate I was also reminded why I believe organizations like the NEA are responsible for creating this crisis. President Dennis Van Roekel claimed that my ‘vote reflected a troubling lack of understanding about the impact of this crisis on our students, our communities, our nation.’ Yet, it is the NEA itself that helped create this crisis by protecting a monopoly of mediocrity in our public education system that is threatening the ability of our workforce to compete in a global economy.

     “The union’s critique is especially troubling given the fiscal damage the union is actively working to inflict on the State of Oklahoma. The NEA plans to spend up to $3 million on an Oklahoma School Funding Initiative slated to be on the ballot this November which would require the legislature to raise school per-pupil spending to the regional average.

     “This is a wrong-headed proposal. Studies show it is the quality of the teacher – not class size or pay level – that determines outcomes for students.”

     Coburn’s statements come on the heels of a report by the Oklahoma Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, that showed that SQ 744 would ensure that other critical state departments would suffer severely to make up for an estimated $1.7 billion over a three year phase-in period.

     “If anyone has demonstrated a ‘lack of understanding,’ it is organizations like the NEA who block real reform while spending millions on initiatives that will create a severe funding shortage for all other functions of our state government,” Coburn added.

    It’s reassuring to know that Oklahoma has the strong political leadership necessary to stand up against this blatant money grab. Local and international studies have shown that more funding doesn’t equate to better schools, and the NEA’s attempts to convince the public otherwise are falling on deaf ears.

     A huge windfall for the teachers union, which represents less than one percent of the state’s population, would come at the expense of the other 99 percent of taxpayers. Coburn has obviously done the math, and it just doesn’t add up.

     We’re confident that voters will recognize SQ 744 for what it is and kill the ill conceived proposal in November. We believe it’s already heading down in flames.

      We’ve got a news flash for the leaders of the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association: 

     Our nation is in the midst of a severe economic recession, which has cost local government units, including public school districts, a great deal of tax revenue. 

     In order to maintain operations, and adequately serve students, schools are being forced to cut back on expenses. That’s tough to do when at least 80 percent of their budgets are tied up in labor costs. 

     So how does the Milwaukee teachers union respond to this financial challenge? First by refusing to accept less expensive health insurance, which would have saved hundreds of jobs for younger teachers and maintained smaller classrooms. Now union leaders are demanding that their insurance cover Viagra prescriptions for male teachers. 

     They must be living on the moon. 

     For years, Wisconsin K-12 teachers have lived a pretty nice middle-class life, with salaries and benefits that compare very well with compensation for teachers in other states. The vast majority of teachers in the state also have the luxury of being covered by “Cadillac” health insurance through the union-owned WEA Trust, even though it costs local districts an arm and a leg. 

     Teachers unions must accept the fact that public schools are struggling financially, and this is definitely not the time for them to spend even more money on employee health coverage. That’s particulary true for a prescription that has nothing to do with the health or well-being of the patient. 

     The school district says Viagra coverage would cost about $786,000 a year. How can the union ask for this when student programs and activities are being cut? Are union leaders capable of thinking about anything but their own selfish desires? 

     They give the distinct impression that the schools can rot and the students can miss out on crucial opportunities, but they will be happy as long as they get their automatic, annual step raises, exorbitant number of paid sick and personal days, and free health coverage. 

     “The rest of America is sacrificing,” said Kyle Olson, vice president of EAG. “Millions of private sector workers have lost their jobs or accepted concessions to keep them. Thousands of school administrators, bus drivers, cooks, secretaries and custodians all over the nation have accepted concessions to remain employed. 

     “But Milwaukee union leaders  think teachers should be held harmless when it comes to concessions, and they would very much like us to pay for their recreational sex drugs, as well. If this pathetic situation doesn’t tell us something about the twisted priorities of teachers unions, nothing will.”