These are just a few examples of how alternatives help the very students you claim the public schools are teaching so well. Sorry, but the evidence is contrary to your generalization of private schools.

Secondly, the laws governing public schools are created by the teachers unions to force more money in to the pockets of teachers and administrators and not for education. If you want see how competition works with private schools let’s disencumber both from the unnecessary mandates with the plan that follows:

* Designate an equal amount of money for each school-aged child
* The parents then choose which school their child will attend
o Public – in or out of current district boundary
o Private
o Charter
* Remove all current mandates
* Require all financial data to be on the internet for all public/charter schools
* Require yearly testing of all students – all schools
* Require raw and aggregate testing results to be on the internet in a timely manner, i.e. in time for school selection for the upcoming school year – all schools
* Abolish NCLB, it will no longer be needed
* Abolish the Dept. of Education, it also will no longer be needed

If public schools are doing as great a job as you believe, they’ll get all the students and the money.

The teachers are being paid less. As a teacher fresh out of college, am I going to look to private schools as my first choice to work? The answer is no. Private schools typically get the worst teachers that exist in the educational field and there are no requirements that private school teachers are highly qualified. You could have practically anybody in those classrooms…so why do those schools succeed?

The answer lies with who is attending the schools. You’re dealing with primarilly higher economic higher educated parents who probably do a better job as PARENTS and are able to provide funding for tutoring or can tutor themselves. These students could be successful anywhere you placed them and practically are teaching themselves in private schools. Private schools have the safety of keeping the riff-raff out of their school and that is why people put their children there. The other 99% of the public is kept out and get to go to those public schools. I’ve seen private school teachers transfer to public education and you know what…they stink.

Looking at it this way, those slight differences in test scores seem pretty amazing at the public education standpoint. Think about it…they take ALL students regardless of intelligence, regardless of financial or socio-economic backgrounds, regardless of what kind of parents there are, and they not only equal the scores of many these private elite institutions but do so with what those people attending the private schools consider inferior students.

Maybe you should leave public education alone for awhile and try to get private schools to function better. Maybe insist that THEY take state tests so that we can really compare them. I have a feeling that they aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. This one-sided argument where public education is held up to a microscope while private schools are simply placed on a pedestal need to be given light weight and less value to the public until private schools are held to the same standards. I’m pretty sure that once the laws that public schools follow are applied to all schools…those private schools are going to dry up pretty quick.

The insistence that only public schools can meet the need of every child is ludicrous. If the money was available there would be schools created to specialize in the areas needed. In fact there are private schools that do specialize in kids withs disabilities.

Teachers complain that they have to teach everyone, and yet they fail to teach many students because they force every student to learn the same way. They complain parents are not involved enough, yet school choice has been proven to increase parental involvement.

Public education is currently overfunded. Charter and private schools get better results with less money. The system is broken in Big Hollow, Lake County, Illinois and across this country. Until we empower parents to choose their childs school public education has no incentive to be creative or cut spending. More money will not help Big Hollow, it will only perpetuate the spending problems without providing tangible results in the education the children of the district receive.

1. They built more schools because their student population has tripled. They were able to build these schools with SPECIFIC money that can only be used for building facilities. This money cannot be used for anything else. (People are always willing to spend money on a building…not on personnel.)
2. Although there are many people who are on fixed incomes, the population within Big Hollow has hugely grown to be a younger public. It seems misguided to provide poor public education just because retired individuals want to save money on taxes. I understand their needs, but we need to contribute towards our future and not just respect our past.
3. The tax increase does continue to be voted down. For some reason, people believe that there is rampant spending going in within the district. However, if you look at their financial statements and compare them with other districts in Lake County, they spend the least and are funded the least. They are, in fact, the lowest funded school district in Lake County. Feel free to look at their staff list and try to find positions that are not needed. If you compare it with other school districts, you’ll notice that many positions are actually missing. (And probably could be used!)
4. The old property is still property and not just a liability but a potential asset. I’m sure that the school district hoped that the community of Big Hollow would actually desire to have a good public education program. This would result in higher property value and then Big Hollow School District could later sell the property for additional value. Regardless, with a $30M debt and growing, a $5M sale of property isn’t going to help very much.
5. The personnel cuts are the programs that were cut. There is a requirement to provide certain types of education and although some people would not mind having 50 kids per classroom to save money on teacher salaries, this is absurd. If you look at their staff lists…they are already barebones. If you go to a popular website and look at the teacher salaries, you may also notice that they are poorly paid already.
6. Teachers can be proficient in more than one field. In fact, with the current NCLB requirements, all priorities must be towards supplying highly qualified teachers whenever possible. Those teachers would not be placed into regular classrooms if they were not qualified.
7. There are 3 buildings and each administrator must actually evaluate every teacher, maintain the school management, deal with the community as a whole, provide professional development, and ultimately be the leader and manager of a large staff. I find it hard to swallow that a suggestion of LESS administration is the solution than already exists. Many elementary schools have 1 principal AND 1 assistant principal. Middle schools in many cases have an assistant principal for each grade level. If you compare Big Hollow with other school districts, you’ll see that they have the bare minimum to function. By requesting that they actually remove more personnel is simply asking for them to give up and crumble.
8. There is no problem with a Superintendent or any other individual receiving a raise. If you look at his salary on a popular website, you’ll see that it is $40-50k less than other superintendents in the area. I’m not against pointing figures at overpaid teachers and administrators, but this is not the district to do so.
9. It doesn’t matter…what matters is that those administrators are still underpaid and will possibly go elsewhere where the salaries are better.
10. Raises are contractual and one of the few motivators for teachers to stay in their profession. This is especially true for Big Hollow who get paid so little considering their educational background. The theory is simple…the more experience a teacher has the better they are. I believe this theory holds true for the majority of teachers out there. Although we could hire 1st year teachers every year and fire them because they’d not be tenured, the quality of education would be even worse for the students.
11. The beauty or curse of contracts is that you cannot just freeze the salaries. See my multiple previous mentions about poorly funded/paid teachers and you’ll see why freezing salaries is not a good option.

The simple truth is that for public education to be successful, it needs to be funded well. This fact is what makes the difference between great school districts and horrible ones. It is a miracle that Big Hollow is doing as well as they are considering how little money they have to work with. When hiring new teachers, nobody is considering Big Hollow as their top choice to work. Nobody is dreaming of transfering there, and really some parents are not even glad that they are within this district as it stands. With poor funding comes poor quality and there is no getting around that. Nor is there any getting around the fact that the community is responsible for providing public education. The quality of that education directly reflects the community itself and if all you consider are dollars and cents…you may want to consider the damage that is being done to property value with the funding remaining where it is in Big Hollow School District.