John Stossel hits it out of the park with Stupid in America

John Stossel's report "Stupid in America" is a great piece on school choice. While liberals and some duped conservatives are constantly crying about putting more money into the education system, this report shows clearly "...there actually isn't a link between spending and student achievement." It points out that per pubil spending is twice as much as 30 years ago, yet we are not seeing a return on that investment.

To further the point there is no link between money and results, the story highlights Ben Chavis "...a former public school principal who now runs an alternative charter school in Oakland, Calif., that spends thousands of dollars less per student than the surrounding public schools." His school has the highest test scores in the city. Chavis also debunks the myth that poverty of the students is the main cause of poor performance. He says "Give me the poor kids, and I will outperform the wealthy kids who live in the hills. And we do it ."

Here is a link to a former post of mine showing New York City paying almost $15,000 per pupil per year and still doing poorly.

The Stossel story targets the real solution: school choice and competition. It shows a comparison of above average American students from New Jersey testing against students in Belgium and getting their clocks cleaned. Belgium has a voucher system where the money is linked to which school the student attends. The story states:

"American schools don't teach as well as schools in other countries because they are government monopolies, and monopolies don't have much incentive to compete. In Belgium, by contrast, the money is attached to the kids — it's a kind of voucher system. Government funds education — at many different kinds of schools — but if a school can't attract students, it goes out of business."

The full piece is worth reading. It is amazing that such proven results continue to meet resistance in the US. To me it boils down to two things: the power of the unions and the desire of the NEA to shove a non-educational agenda down the throats of our kids instead of teaching them. Liberals are the first to decry that conservatives don't care about kids. Why? Because we want to fix the problem instead of throwing more money at it. Liberals either are too stupid to understand the facts or they love power more than our kids. Their hypocrisy on this issue should be a stench to every thinking American. It is time to get choice and competition in our schools and time to get the liberal, socialist programming out.