On Ending The Department Of Education

From The Patriot Word:

Monday, October 4, 2010Patriot Paper #5 Ending the Education Department (Benefits of Deregulation)


Patriot Paper #5 Ending the Education Department (Benefits of Deregulation)

By

Walter L Brown Jr



According to the Education Department:



The U S. Department of Education (ED) establishes federal policy, administers and coordinates most federal assistance to education. It assists the president in executing his education policies for the nation and in implementing laws enacted by Congress. ED's mission is to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.



When Congress passed Public Law 96-88 in 1979, creating the Department, it declared these purposes:

•To strengthen the federal commitment to ensuring access to equal educational opportunity for every individual;

•To supplement and complement the efforts of states, the local school systems and other concerned organizations and individuals to improve the quality of education;

•To encourage the increased involvement of the public, parents, and students in federal education programs;

•To promote improvements in the quality and usefulness of education through federally supported research, evaluation, and sharing of information;

•To improve the coordination of federal education programs;

•To improve the management and efficiency of federal education activities; and

•To increase the accountability of federal education programs to the president, the Congress, and the public.



ED was created in 1980 by combining offices from several federal agencies. ED's mission is to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access. ED's 4,200 employees and $63.7 billion budget are currently dedicated to:



• Establishing policies on federal financial aid for education, and distributing as well as monitoring those funds.

• Collecting data on America's schools and disseminating research.

• Focusing national attention on key educational issues.

• Prohibiting discrimination and ensuring equal access to education.



There is no constitutional authority empowering Congress to regulate education, therefore the US Education Department was unconstitutionally commissioned and has no legal basis for continued existence, education is a state issue and should reside there. Laws against discrimination already exist, and although protecting citizens Rights is a responsibility of the Federal Government these activities fit better in the justice department than in the education department. If the Federal Government must regulate education then we should amend the constitution make it permissible. I am opposed to such an amendment as it would merely accommodate and perpetuate the misconceived structure of our current education system. The Education Department should be closed immediately in order to restore the respect for the Rule of Law and to improve the quality of American Education.



America in general needs less government regulation and education is no exception. Deregulation of the education industry is badly needed. Deregulation naturally provides the proper incentives for reform. Like any other industry, left to its own devices, the education industry would quickly reform itself into an efficient and effective system if relieved from suffocating regulations.



Parental involvement is cheapest and most important influence on education. Common sense and numerous studies have demonstrated this point. This is the reason that home schooling is so successful. The only question that remains is how to increase parental involvement.



Marketing provides us the answer:

The value of a service is intuitively understood to be the relationship between the benefits a service provides and the cost of the service. The fact that education provides benefits and that these benefits come at a cost is universally understood. So, where is the problem?



Is it the teachers? No, the teachers are only the messenger. Blaming the teachers is exactly the same as shooting the messenger. Sure, some teachers have lost interested in their work. Really, who could blame them? Virtually all teachers suffer because of the disconnect between their will and passion to teach, and the indifference and disrespect of their students. In general, the problem is definitely not the teachers!



Is it the students? Yes, but it’s not their all their fault. The fact that many students are indifferent about education and are disrespectful of their teachers is a reflection of their parent’s attitudes more than anything else is. Although the students are the problem, they are not the root cause and trying to fix the students is like treating the symptoms and not the disease.



Is it the parents? Yes, it is; but its not completely their fault either. Parents are consumers, with limited time and resources. Parents are forced to make value decisions like all consumers. Therefore, we need to understand why some parents place virtually no value on their children’s performance in school or in education in general.



Basic marketing teaches us that: Value = Benefits / Costs



Our education system has destroyed this natural relationship that causes people to make good decisions in virtually everything they do. For example, the cost of a high school education doesn’t vary with the benefits obtained. To correct this it is clear that parents and/or students must pay directly a substantial part of education. This would quickly increase parent’s interest in ensuring that their child was actually obtaining some benefits related to the cost of the service purchased. This is a good first step but in the long-term the situation would deteriorate back into roughly the indifference we have today, assuming that the cheapest educations were all roughly priced the same. The cost of education would function like a fixed tax and once again there would be no connection between benefits and cost. The likely effect would be a reduction in the birth-rate.



A market-based solution to the education problem would be to consider the amount of work a teacher must do for each student and price the service based on that work. Most services are priced this way and the fact that education is not is the root cause of the education problem, in my opinion.



When parents are forced to decide where to dedicate their time and money, why would they dedicate it to something they get free? Considering simple economics, there is no reason to do so. Of course, the natural instincts of parents are to do what is best for their children but when times are tough, people make tough decisions.



The amount of work that a teacher expends for an exceptionally good student is minimal. The class size possible if all students were well prepared and motivated could be very large and the results very good. Excellent students are cheap students to educate and the price that their parents pay should be proportionally less, if market forces were allowed to work in education.



The amount of work that a teacher expends for an exceptionally poor student is extraordinary. The mere effort to control the student’s behavior consumes so much of the teacher’s resources that the rate of learning effectively zero. The class size for students like this must be very small just to ensure the safety of the other students and school staff. Naturally, the cost of educating a student like this is very high and the fact that this cost is not reflected in the price of education is the root cause of virtually every problem with education today.



The concept of market-based pricing not only solves the problem of parental involvement; it also solves the problem of teacher compensation. A teacher that is in high demand can price his or her services higher than a teacher that is in low demand. A teacher that can produce good results quickly and with large groups will earn more than ones that can produce good results with similarly populated smaller classes.



All of us remember the special and gifted teachers that made a difference in our education. I can only imagine how high the demand would have been for these teachers’ services and how much they would have earned had a free market system existed at the time. Education should be a very profitable business, unlike a doctor that can only treat one person at a time teachers can treat a virtually unlimited number of clients simultaneously.



We are fortunate that so many exceptional people chose to teach in spite of the current disconnect between performance and rewards on their side of the equation, and fortunate that so many parents involve themselves in their students education in spite of the broken economic system. I can only imagine how much better it would work, if the free market were allowed to function. My guess is that within 1 year of implementing a system like this the performance of the US education system would be rising like a rocket.



Rather than specify the teachers’ educational backgrounds, teaching methodologies, number of hours spent, facilities minimum standards, etc. State education departments should be producing standard curriculums and tests to confirm performance. Education is a results-oriented business and not a process-oriented business and the sooner we return to that principle the sooner it will start to function correctly.



Other problems associated with the Education Department that would be resolved by terminating its existence are:

• Unfunded mandates, which force states to implement property taxes which deprive persons of their property without benefit of a trial by jury as required by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.

• Racial and economic reverse discrimination which violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which was established to prevent such discrimination.

• Pandering to the educational electorate through wealth redistribution programs.

• Specifying curriculum standards with the aim of indoctrinating students versus educating them.

• Strong arming educational institutions to conform to preferred federal dogma on political issues using state and federal certification requirements to participate in loan and grant programs.

• Mandating political agendas via application of loans and grants dedicated to favored groups, positions, and causes.



All of the valuable functions provided by the United States Education Department could be provided more efficiently and effectively by private or local entities, and the American taxpayer would be relieved of $63.7 billion dollar annual expense…



Education is too important and too big of a temptation to be left in the hands of politicians who invariably interject politics into everything they do, that’s why their called politicians today and not leaders or statesmen…

Posted by Walter L. Brown Jr. at 2:58 PM