GilfordGrok

Accountability?

During Laconia's last election when the Tax Cap was the major issue, David Stamps wrote an impassioned plea against it, stating that the taxpayers had to trust their government. My Letter pointed out that the mere fact that the petition was on the ballot, with significantly more signatories than needed, already proved that the trust of which he wrote had all ready been broken.

In the same vein, Holly Ramer's article (AP) caught my eye as it reported on Senator Clinton's speech to the NEA meeting in Concord (certain unions cannot be ignored during elections and politicking was exactly what Clinton was doing with one of the biggest Democratic voting blocks in the country):

The 2002 No Child Left Behind Act requires school districts to provide free tutoring in math and reading to poor children in schools that repeatedly fail to meet state testing standards. Clinton said that amounts to $500 million a year being paid to tutoring companies and other supplemental service providers that aren't held accountable.

"Why would we outsource helping our kids to unaccountable private sector providers?" she said. "They don't have to follow our civil rights laws, their employees don't even have to be qualified, they aren't required to coordinate with educators, there's a grand total of zero evidence that they're doing any good."

Observations: Doesn't the law require all obey civil rights laws? NCLB was also the creation of uber-liberal Senator Kennedy – why isn't she bashing him as well as President Bush? And if schools are failing, why should students be penalized by removing help? After all, “it's all about the children”, right?

An inconvenient question: If there was no need for NCLB, and given the tremendous opposition by the NEA to it, why do you think it finally passed?

Consider - decades ago, the UAW was a powerful union with millions of members and could shut down the auto industry if targeted companies didn't bow to its demands. Combining restrictive work rules built up over time, high wage and benefit costs, and helping to churn out shoddy products sold to the public, the UAW has played a part in its own demise with a remaining membership of only about 600,000 and seemingly locked out of the “transplant factories” (e.g., Toyota). Who held the UAW (and car companies) accountable? Consumers – they stopped buying inferior high priced products as competitors provided better value. Effectively, the UAW did their part to kill their golden goose by not adjusting to competition.

The teachers unions virtually control K-12 education with spending about $500 billion / year. However, is the NEA starting to follow the footsteps of the UAW? While everyone may like their kids' teachers, make no mistake – in the aggregate, unions play hardball and brook no opposition – it is about money, power, and shutting down competition. Yet, with one of our most important national products our country produces at stake, well educated citizens, why is the phrase “the dumbing down of America” gaining traction?

The same lack of tutor accountability against Clinton decries seems to be the same perception by the public - a lack of accountability and results from the public school systems. One sees increased efforts for charter schools, increasing numbers of home schoolers, and enhanced efforts to aid parents with vouchers as parents are seemingly abandoning what they feel is an inferior product. The NEA fights against any effort to allow children to receive better publicly funded educations not under their control. Yet, without accountability, fair judgments cannot be made and fair actions cannot be taken.

The NEA, with steadfast opposition to NCLB and standardized testing seems to be trying to avoid the accountability of which Clinton is accusing the tutors. The problem is not educational spending as they want; look at the DC school system with its highest spending per student in the country – and ranks among the worst.

One level of accountability is by standardized measurements. The New England Common Assessment Program includes tests given at designated grade levels and provide snapshots of how NE students are doing. While other factors should be considered, these standardized tests provide parents and officials a way to judge a school's performance.

Our cost per pupil is well above the state average ($11,796 compared to $9,098). However, Gilford's recent results show performance below state average (rounding doesn't sum to 100%, actual categories were Advanced, Proficient, Basic, and Novice).

For the years listed, the majority of our 10th graders were judged not proficient. Who is accountable for these results?

Parents? More involvement with homework and demanding higher standards. Teachers? Set higher standards but also be given the ability to discipline unruly students. Management? Back teachers but also get rid of bad ones faster and setting teacher standards higher. Better performers should be paid more. The NEA is against merit pay – that would be “pitting teacher against teacher”.

Just like the private sector.....welcome to globalization.