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Phil Krinke
Guest Columnist
On Nov. 6 voters went to the
polls in 99 of Minnesota’s 336 school districts to register their
opinions on higher property taxes to fund local schools. While the
results were mixed with 61 districts gaining approval of voters for
more funds, 32 districts did not convince their voters to raise taxes
for more education funding. The remaining six school referendums had
multiple questions with divided outcomes.
But regardless of the
results, one thing is clear, with the referendums behind us, the chant
for more state education spending has already begun at the Capitol.
A
newly constituted Legislative School Finance Reform Task Force has had
its first meeting, so the call to increase state taxes for the children
can’t be far off. But rather than the same worn out refrain of “more
money for education” how about a legislative task force to reform
education.
Isn’t it time to examine the educational process and
not just continue to pour more money into the same old system and
expect a different result?
Walking into a classroom today is like
deja-vu for the over 50 crowd: Thirty smallish desks with chairs,
facing the front of the room, a writing board in the front of the
class, and the teacher’s desk (larger in size) on the either the right
side upfront or on the left side upfront, a flag and sometimes (a new
addition) a computer on the teacher’s desk. In addition to the same
physical set up, the staffing is the same too, one adult teacher per
room, perhaps a student teacher or “para-professional.” I don’t know of
any other service industry that has changed so little in its delivery
mechanism over the last 40 years.
Perhaps this new legislative
task force could start things off with a real discussion about class
size. Two months ago, I was invited to address about 100 school board
members and administrators brought together by “Schools for Equity in
Education.”
What I tried to offer the group were some provocative ideas and out-of-the box thinking about education.
One
question I posed was if the University of Minnesota can provide quality
education with class sizes of 100-200, why can’t high schools? Is there
a distinct difference between the learning ability of a high school
senior and a college freshman?
Think about it. Teachers and administrators are complaining about class sizes of 40 kids.
But
in virtually any subject, there is introductory and factual material
which can be delivered in lecture format and then there is the more
difficult and subtle material that requires personal involvement of a
teacher and class discussion. So, let’s consider an example.
Say
a school has a group of 120 students taking a subject and three
teachers to teach it – 40 kids per class. Might it not make sense for
one teacher to provide introductory material to 100 students in a
lecture setting while each of the other two teachers facilitated a
discussion group of 10 students?
However, the current thinking of
the education elite is to hire three more teachers to bring down class
size to 20 students – and that is for just this one group of students
in one school. Multiply that situation across the statewide education
system and we’re talking millions of additional tax dollars with little
or no improved outcome for students.
Reducing class sizes is by
far the most expensive school reform we can engage in, and it might be
worth it if it produced results.
But the evidence suggests just the opposite.
A
Hoover Institute study actually showed a negative effect of reducing
class size. International comparisons back that conclusion up.
Teacher
quality, not quantity, is a better predictor of student performance,
and yet the education establishment fights every attempt to reward
better teachers.
There is little chance that this type of
discussion about education reform will never take place at the
Minnesota State Capitol because there is less political risk in
continuing to dump more and more money into a broken funding system
that rewards the status quo rather than change the system to improve
outcomes for students.
So hold on to your wallet because the
education cartel is about to rev-up the rhetoric on the need for more
funding for education.
Phil Krinkie, a former state legislator and chairman of the Taxes Committee, is president of the Taxpayers League of Minnesota.
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