(GLO — July 2010 — From 2 years ago. The tilting continues, in its extreme. Change the way the dollars move, and the system changes automatically. The bulk of the work of status quo schooling advocacy is maintaining the financial status quo. Almost blindly. As if it is a given that what is “best” for a child’s schooling is maintaining the schooler in their fully securely financed condition. If Wal-Mart operated the same way, their would be “Roll Ups”, not Roll Backs.)
“What I concluded following my 16 months as ambassador — and based on my work in the U.N. system dating back to my earliest service in the Reagan administration — was that efforts at marginal or incremental reform of the U.N. are doomed to failure. Instead, I believe that we should focus on one issue: changing the arrangement by which financing of the U.N. is mandatory.” — John Bolton, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (from a speech delivered at a Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar on February 11, 2008)
After my years of intense involvement with government schooling, I concluded much the same thing about it. The only way to truly reform schooling it is to change the way it is financed.
In Alberta, at present, for every $1 of government funding that a child in a government school receives, a child in a non-government school receives 60 cents (on its way up to 70 cents, I believe, under upcoming changes). And this is just operating dollars… capital investment in building schools is a separate thing.
Reverse those ratios, and appreciate that for every dollar of public funding that a child in a non-government school receives to support their learning, a child in a government school receives $1.67 (on its way down to $1.43). I would not be overly troubled by this if I firmly believed that the extra 67 cents went directly to the benefit of the child. But over the years I have come to believe that the inequity serves more to preserve the status quo of government school monopoly (or near monopoly) over schooling delivery services.
It is a seriously tilted playing field, economically, that effectively prevents entry of competitors or choices into the market (in addition to other barriers to entry such as the previously mentioned capital funding). With high school completion rates averaging only 70% across Alberta, the justification for such preferred status financially seems even harder to accept. Receiving funding over 50% greater, while graduating only 2 of every 3… huh?
From the point of view of the child I struggle even more to understand the differential in funding. Two children… side by side… could be neighbours… one goes to a government school… one does not… one benefits from $1.67 in public funding for their schooling… the other only a dollar. Does this happen in the child’s health care support? How is such discrimination justifiable… from the point of view of the child?
Change the way public dollars are shared in support of schooling of children, I believe, and a good deal of the rest of what needs changing in schooling will happen all by itself.
GLO
gordotto@parentsnschools.com
P.S. Advancement of schooling technology and distance learning technology will facilitate greater choice in schooling alternatives… whether funding formulae change or not. In the 80%+ labour-cost schooling industry, technology that can dramatically reduce that cost can make schooling alternatives that are presently uneconomic under preferential funding regimes sustainable, affordable and competitive.
It costs upwards of $2,000 per year to deliver mathematics via government schools and “live learning”. By some estimates, reasonable facsimile’s can be delivered online at less than $1 per student to operate. Economic differences like that can be powerful forces. Just ask any encyclopedia salesmen…