McCain on Education

You should, naturally, check out Sara Mead's take on John McCain's recent education speech and the policy proposals therein. She notes, among other things, that his ability to get behind meaningful reforms is constrained by the fact that he doesn't want to propose any net increase in funding (thus, he thinks school choice will solve all our problems, but doesn't propose doing anything to boost school choice for the vast majority of Americans who don't live in DC).

I would only extend that to note that once again his nonsense budget figures are being constrained by his unwillingness to propose the sort of specific, massive cuts in domestic spending that are implied by his combination of tax and defense policies. If you keep the Bush tax cuts in place, and add new tax cuts, and continue an aggressive posture in Iraq, and increase the overall defense budget, then we need to cut domestic spending a lot. And the McCain campaign has proposed doing this in various hand-wavy ways but doesn't really put the rubber to the road anywhere. He doesn't want to gut federal education spending, which is nice, but he would more or less have to gut it -- along with everything else -- to implement his big picture ideas.

Comments

"PONIES!!!" --John S. McCain

Posted by LFC | July 17, 2008 11:21 AM

I'm absolutely stunned by the bi-partisan consensus forming around charter schools and competition. I'm currently researching this issue, and there is very little evidence that these policies actually increase achievement. Evidence from the US is limited, but a quick look at Denmark, New Zealand and Chile demonstrate that school choice doesn't increase achievement or efficiency. What's worse is that international evidence demonstrates that choice increases stratification of educational opportunities!

In essence, what we seem hell-bent on accomplishing here is to transform our stratified system of public education to a stratified system of public schooling that pumps large sums of money into the private sector.

Education is an imperfect market that creates disincentives for innovation and serving the most challenging students. As with pharmaceuticals and aerospace innovation, R&D in education practices and policies require state intervention and funding. The private sector will not / cannot pull this off!

Posted by stick | July 17, 2008 11:28 AM

McCain's view on expanding the use of vouchers is, like so much of GOP policy, a gift of tax dollars to corporate interests. Note that none of the voucher crowd ever addresses what happens when one of these private schools fails, and the public school suddenly has to ramp up to absorb the students cast adrift.

So what would happen in the case of a failure? The taxpayers would be forced to pick up the bill. If the failure is large, that could even require a new building. Once again, it's free market profits and socialized losses, exactly what they want to do with our sagging economy today.

I'll back vouchers when they come with the proviso that any company accepting them must post a bond that is commensurate with the number of students taken using vouchers. That way if their business plan fails, there is money to pay for the costs of absorbing the students back into the public school system. I don't have to take on their risk.

Of course, the GOP would never agree to that. They want the public to absorb the risk while their donors reap the rewards.

Posted by LFC | July 17, 2008 11:38 AM

I think the entire Department of Education gets something like 2% of the federal budget. So even if you cut the whole thing it wouldn't really make much of a difference in balancing the books for McCain.

In that sense I think Matt is actually wrong. McCain wouldn't necessarily have to make proportionate cuts in every little domestic category. Rather, he would have to make sufficiently big cuts in the big categories (Social Security et al), and the rest is more or less beside the point.

Posted by DTM | July 17, 2008 11:41 AM

Rather, he would have to make sufficiently big cuts in the big categories (Social Security et al), and the rest is more or less beside the point.

The scary part is that I think this is exactly his plan. He wants to increase the short-term surplus in Social Security and use that to fund privatization and help "balance" the budget. That's how Reagan kept his horrific debt numbers to appear not quite so bad, by pushing debt off on future generations via the trust fund.

McCain will attempt this budgetary dirty trick too. Why do you think he won't explain what he means by "disgrace" and "that's the problem"? Why do you think he's pushing his personal views about Soc Sec off on some future "bipartisan committee"? You can have a future committee and still express your views today. He just doesn't want people to understand that he means to destroy Soc Sec as we know it.

Posted by LFC | July 17, 2008 11:54 AM

No one wants to watch you plug your girlfriend.

Posted by Judge Judy | July 17, 2008 12:25 PM

No one wants to watch you plug your girlfriend.

Posted by Judge Judy | July 17, 2008 12:26 PM

My neighborhood--lots of neighborhoods need--what new UFT president Randi Weingarten outlined this week--nothing else will address the root causes of underachievement and failure. We've known this since John Dewey:

(www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/education)
“Can you imagine a federal law that promoted community schools — schools that serve the neediest children by bringing together under one roof all the services and activities they and their families need?” Ms. Weingarten asked in the speech.

“Imagine schools that are open all day and offer after-school and evening recreational activities and homework assistance,” she said. “And suppose the schools included child care and dental, medical and counseling clinics.”

The rest is placebos and snake oil.

Posted by elle loco | July 17, 2008 12:32 PM

Democrats need to stop using the phrase "school choice" to describe public financing of private schools. This idea has nothing to do with improving education and everything to do with providing a tax break to wealthy Americans.

Posted by ndm | July 17, 2008 12:44 PM

Stick:

Do you have links to resources you qre considering on international experience with state-supported private schools. The Google (tm) is cluttered with so much American boosterism that it is hard to wade through.

Posted by Scott Ferguson | July 17, 2008 1:30 PM

Scott Ferguson:

Here are three examples from academic journals. They require a subscription I am afraid.

Denmark

New Zealand

Chile

Posted by stick | July 17, 2008 7:29 PM

Scott Ferguson:

Here are three examples from academic journals. They require a subscription I am afraid.

Denmark

New Zealand

Chile

Posted by stick | July 17, 2008 7:31 PM

Scott Ferguson:

Here are three examples from academic journals. They require a subscription I am afraid.

Denmark

New Zealand

Chile

Posted by stick | July 17, 2008 7:32 PM