Funding Schools to Fail
Supporters of bilingual education are getting spiritual.

By Jim Boulet Jr., executive director of English First
May 1, 2001 11:55 a.m.

resident Bush could set a million dollars on fire in the White House parking lot, label the blazing bills "education spending," and Sen. Paul Wellstone (D., Minn.) would object because the pile was too small.

The attitude of too many Democrats and Republicans in Congress was captured by Michael Lerner in the May/June 2001 issue of Tikkun: "Government ought to be the vehicle through which we each manifest our caring for others."

For these folks, government spending is a religious exercise. Spending your money demonstrates their goodness.

I have experienced this striking indifference to actual results firsthand. My job ensures that I have many opportunities to debate the merits of bilingual education — a program upon which states and local schools have been forced to squander at least $8 billion, as of 1993 (the last time this figure was calculated).

Recently, when I was debating an attorney on this subject, he stumbled over the following question: "Would you consider a bilingual-education program successful if the students graduated having learned absolutely no English?"

Given bilingual education's dreadful track record on the English-teaching front, I could understand the man's predicament. But some folks in the bilingual-education industry have decided that it is best to ignore the question of tangible results altogether. They now proselytize in a way that would normally give the ACLU hives.

In an astounding article in the Bilingual Education Research Journal entitled "Moral Dimensions of Bilingual Education", bilingual-education teachers are urged to refrain from "an exclusive focus on intellectualism."

Similar advice can be found in writings addressed to school matters generally. Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper headlined a recent opinion piece in support of public education as it is now constituted, "Illiteracy the cost of greater democracy."

To such people, the purpose of any education legislation is achieved so long as more money is spent. As the current (May 14th) issue of National Review points out, Senate Democrats are demanding a $250-billion increase in federal education spending.

"You can't have reform without resources," Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D., S.D.) told the Associated Press. Sen. Paul Wellstone joined with author Jonathan Kozol to decry President Bush's "tin-cup budget proposal," which would spend "only" $20.6 billion.

Will spending ten times more money actually help children learn ten times more? No.

According to a tiny item buried in the April 3 New York Times : "New York City's neediest community school districts spent the most money per pupil last year and the wealthiest spent the least. … The disclosure is sure to raise questions about whether spending more in needy schools is necessary to raise performance."

Former U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan made this same point in his 1996 book, Miles to Go:

[In 1992] I published an article showing that the correlation between eighth-grade math scores and the distance of state capitals from the Canadian border was .522, a respectable showing. By contrast, the correlation with per pupil expenditure was a derisory .203. I offered the policy proposal that states wishing to improve their schools should move closer to Canada.

What then is all this extra money supposed to accomplish? Richard Rothstein's March 7th New York Times column, "Reducing Poverty Could Increase School Achievement," has some ideas.

He calls for $2 billion for free dental clinics in public schools "to free poor children from taking tests distracted by toothaches." He also urged a new public-housing program because "[p]upil transiency stemming from poor housing is an important cause of low [test] scores."

Private and religious schools have done wonders with some of the same kids that the public schools have been unable to reach, despite the same problems of toothaches and transience. Such schools have succeeded on what most of us would correctly call a "tin-cup budget." It is high time Congress found out why.