It's time to get our heads out of the sand and take note of the serious problems affecting the quality of our children's education.

As a parent myself, I would like to share some compelling information with you…Did you know that American 12^th graders scored below every nation, except Cyprus and South Africa, in the 3^rd international math and science series (2/24/98)? Did you know that more than 40% of American 10 year-olds cannot even pass a basic reading test (The Economist, 1/22/98) and that 70% of Florida's 10-graders, as an example, scored below the basic reading level? (June 1999 newsletter by State Representative Mark Ogles). Interestingly enough, children who are home schooled scored 70% higher than the children going to public school. In addition, over 70% of college freshmen have to take remedial courses to make up for what they should have learned in high school!

"The quality of schooling is far worse today than it was in 1955," wrote Dr. Milton Friedman, Nobel Laureate in The Washington Post - - which is confirmed by the left graphic. As a parent, this information worries me sick. The question that demands an answer is "why?!!" We've heard how reducing class size and increasing per student expenditures will make our schools better…the facts show that actually the opposite is true. Mike Hodges is a concerned grandfather who has identified some very disturbing trends that show the steady decline of our education system. His website, The Grandfather Economic Report" is available as a public service (http:\\home.att.net/mwhodges/). (Please refer to the section on education.) Mike Hodges has received support and accolades from many, including Dr. Milton Friedman, Nobel Laureate who wrote: "I fully support and applaud your efforts; your data presentation is excellent."

Teachers Speak Out

Mike Hodges has been inundated with feedback from people who discover his site, including teachers and students.

Here are some of the comments:

From an elementary teacher in Pennsylvania:

"We are chastised by superintendents for giving failing grades. The superintendent actually looks at report cards and questions the F's. The standards should be set and met. We should not go down to the level of the students who don't perform, but rather bring them up to an appropriate level of competency."

From Texas: "I teach first grade in a very large school district in Texas. I am not allowed to fail a student for any reason! It doesn't matter if the student can not read, can not count, or even do basic Kindergarten skills! I am appalled and am planning to leave education because I cannot believe that it has come to this. Our system is not being made better by social promotion - it is being degraded."

And this from a student:

Dear Mr. Hodges: "I am a 15 year old Connecticut high school student.

I think what you said is very perceptive and has much truth to it. Try to think of schools as economic institutions. In the case of a private school, they must attract customers and KEEP those customers, and are therefore on a constant regimen to maintain good performance.

However, in the case of a public school, they hold no responsibility to anyone. So what if the parents or children are dissatisfied? A private school has a personal, self-profitable interest to satisfy its customers. But if a public school parent is unhappy, and they withdraw their child from the school, the public school is totally unaffected - they will still receive the parent's taxes for pay, whether the customer is happy or not! Therefore, what incentive does a public school have to perform at its best? I went to public school all through 9th grade, and it was absolutely disgusting - they could simply care less about anything my family and I, the customers, had to say. I am now in private catholic school, which is a definite improvement…"

Why is this happening?

What is causing our school system to fail and make American children fall behind the rest of the world? The education report shows that the following appear to be among the contributing factors to the demise of our children's public school education:

• school districts have become larger - this results in parental influence being diluted and children not feeling connected and part of a team (note: the report also shows that violence and discipline problems are much worse in larger schools…"The larger the school, the greater the rate of crime, violence, absenteeism and tardiness.")

• the PTA's influence is being reduced and even eradicated - Today, fewer than a quarter of public schools have active PTA chapters. This is related to the size of the schools and the fact that the National Chapter of the PTA has become subservient to the two largest education unions (NEA and AFT).

• The number of administrators has greatly increased, creating more of a bureaucracy.
  

I'm Worried. Are You?

As a parent entering the public school system for the first time this year, I am very worried. Before we moved to the Dallas area, we were in areas where the schools were known to be substandard, so we had to pay for private schooling. I took comfort in looking at our new school district's data and seeing the amount of money being paid per student. I thought that was a good sign…Strangely enough, the report reveals that the more money spent per student actually appears to reduce the performance of the school! "There is an inverse relationship between spending and quality."

Does this make sense? This bizarre fact was supported in National Review (Sept. 1998): "…students in the top five states in per pupil expenditure performed far worse on the SAT than students in the bottom five spending states."

The question, perhaps, that should be asked is: how much of this spending is actually going into the classrooms? I assumed 100% -- was I naïve?

Private Schools Do Better with Less What are private schools spending? The Report studies that as well. This chart shows public school cost per student is from 74% to 400% higher than private school cost per student. The national average cost per student of public schools was $6,857. This was 120% higher than $3,116 for private schools, and 215% higher than $2,178 for catholic schools. (CATO Institute/U.S. Dept. of Education Digest of Education Statistics 1995). Mike Hodges says: "It is obvious that there is urgent need for serious reform, unless it can be proven that the average public school is producing 74% to 400% better quality than private schools and that public schools have a higher teacher-student ratio than private schools -they do not." Data Source: The Cato Institute March 26, 1996 and Dept. of Education

Smaller Classes are Not a Cure All

The Grandfather Economic Report reads: "We have heard public school officials and their unions claim that a smaller class size is an important ingredient for quality education, and if only the public schools could have more money they would hire more teachers to lower the current ratio and resolve the quality problem. Should we believe that? Suppose public school test scores fell (instead of rising) as the student-teacher ratio (class size) is reduced? That's what has happened. One could argue there is an inverse relationship between test scores and fewer pupils per teacher in the public system."

Maybe this is one of the reasons that:

"Private schools are the system of choice for the children of teachers and politicians with the economic means of free choice. 53% of public school teachers in Cleveland send their children to private school; in Boston it's 49%; in Los Angeles 39%."

(Imprimis, April 1997, Hillsdale College - article by Jeb Bush, Chairman, Foundation for Florida's future)

Take a Stand

So what can we do about it? First of all, as parents, we all need to take a proactive role in trying to "buck the system." Hodges has received feedback from various parent groups who have organized citizen groups to demand that standards be set - and met in their school districts. This is a hopeful sign that if we band together, we can help to turn this scary trend around.

Mike Hodges suggests that you ask "hard questions" of your local school board:

1. Provide me a 15-year trend for audited SATs for verbal and math and total for each school in your district.
2. How does your school district compare itself to international standards?

Hodges says that if a school is interested in quality, they will have the information.
"Don't be surprised if you don't get any data, but hear excuses about why not…" - Mike Hodges.

As a result of his research and the input of others, Hodges offers recommendations on what can be done, overall, to improve our public school system.

See: The Grandfather Economic Report

"America is at a crossroads. It's time to go back to basics - the 3r's and families - first. Don't our children deserve an education that will allow them to (at least) be on par with their international peers? Are we not responsible for preparing them for the future?" - Mike Hodges, author of The Grandfather Economic Report.