“Betsy DeVos, Trump’s Education Pick, Wields Wealth Like a Koch” (nytimes) talks about a rich family that is controlling American voters’ minds with their wealth:
In the 2016 cycle alone, according to the Michigan Campaign Finance Network, the family spent roughly $14 million on political contributions to state and national candidates, parties, PACs and super PACs.
According to the Times, some of the $14 million goes to “education activism, which favors alternatives to traditional public schools”.
Perhaps as much as $5 million then goes to advocating for changes to education policy. Can we put that number in context?
The Department of Education says that, in 2012-13, American taxpayers spent $620 billion on public schools. This analysis suggests roughly 850 hours of actual instruction per year for California schools, which are presumably representative. Schools are thus spending 0.73 billion tax dollars per hour or $202,614 per second.
The rich bastards are purportedly significantly influencing the national debate about public schools with 25 seconds of spending.
And the teacher’s unions are completely silent on the matter.
superMike: even teacher unions can’t be significant compared to lobbying public opinion by the schools themselves during day-to-day operations. There is a huge amount of communication from schools to parents (also taxpayers in most cases). In the same way that McDonald’s tries to influence your opinion of the restaurant every time you go in and get a Big Mac, schools may influence student and parent opinions by what they say and do all day every day. I have yet to see a memo from a public school that says “Our school is about average nationwide, our staff’s primary concern is getting a paycheck plus pension, and your child could probably learn about twice as much if presented with material tailored to his or her precise current level.”
But let’s also consider a world in which government-run schools are actually magnificently effective and an efficient use of everyone’s time. There is thus a $620 billion enterprise (perhaps closer to $700 billion by now?) doing a great job all day every day (well, at least 180 days per year). Nearly American with a child aged 5-18 has at least some contact with this enterprise. Someone spends $5 million falsely claiming that this enterprise is inefficient and ineffective. Would that really convince people who had direct ongoing experience with these fantastic schools?
If you knew the education scene in Michigan over the last 20 or 30 years, you would know just how the right leverage dollars in the right places, namely, politicians’ pockets, can swing one helluva wrecking ball at public education.
Try reading the blogs or books of Diane Ravitch, Peter Greene, Mercedes Schneider, Julian Vasquez Heilig, and Jennifer Berkshire for a start.
Jon: So the schools of Detroit, for example, were doing a great job at a reasonable cost to taxpayers (including an accounting of the pension cost)? And students, parents, and friends and relatives of parents could figure this out from their daily experience with these wonderful schools? But then a small amount of lobbying persuaded politicians to tear down the Finland-quality educational system of Detroit?
The reason the New York Slimes are concerned is right there in the headline, and it’s got nothing to do with wealth. Compare this to their coverage of Michael Bloomberg boasting about spending $50 million to attack civil rights:
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/16/us/bloomberg-plans-a-50-million-challenge-to-the-nra.html?_r=0
Maybe Trump should have nominated Bloomberg for something to, just so the Slimes would turn on him?
Here’s one random data point, for it’s worth. I attended one year of high school in Michigan in 1970, it was in a almost entirely white, middle-class suburb of Flint, Michigan. It seemed like a decent enough school, my math and physics teachers were both interesting individuals and probably didn’t do me any serious harm. There were some resource issues, even in a moderately well-to-do suburb: 11th and 12th grades had classes between 7am and noon; 9th and 10th grades were between noon and 5pm – sharing the same building.
I attended two other high schools before Michigan, in rural areas of Texas and Kentucky: the one in Michigan was significantly better. But in all those states, I felt like most (but not quite all) of the teachers I had way back then were moderately intelligent, knowledgeable and motivated.
I left high school after my junior year in Michigan and started MIT a year early (a late bloomer compared to you Philip!) Once I got to MIT, I found that my classmates – who typically came from big city school systems – were significantly better prepared than I was. Though I also had classmates who came from rural areas in the South and Midwest that did extremely well – much better than I did haha.
In addition to the kinds of issues that Philip – and others – have with the education systems in extremely priviledged enivornments, I wonder if there isn’t still a big “Red/Blue” difference in education systems that I perceived way back then? And if that may contribute to or even determine the political differences?
On the other hand:
“But the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous.”
— Gibbon
Phil — Yes, when I first came to Michigan 50 years ago the less well-to-do areas of Detroit and Lansing that I knew about still enjoyed surprisingly good schools. This was due in large part to the fact that major industries had major land holdings in these areas and they recognized their debt to the public good strongly enough that they still engaged in that quaint practice of paying taxes. Those days are long gone and the property tax abatements that industries extorted from state and local governments were just the first of many corporate and state disinvestments in education at all levels.
Jon: http://www.michigan.gov/documents/mde/b1014_15_515139_7.pdf says that the Detroit City School District in 2014 had $13,743 per pupil in funding from “all sources”. That’s higher than the state average of $9,457. It is also higher than the national average of $11,000 per student (see http://www.governing.com/gov-data/education-data/state-education-spending-per-pupil-data.html ).
Are you sure that spending more than the state average and more than the national average constitutes “disinvestment”?
Philip, won’t big city school districts (e.g. Detroit) typically have higher per pupil costs?
For example, living costs are usually higher in big cities, so wouldn’t staff pay tend to be higher as a result?
Phil — You can lead a to but that doesn’t mean the lead won’t kill it.
http://www.michigan.gov/flintwater
It’s like that with Snydely’s Pravda, too.
Please check out the sources I cited if you want to get better informed about what’s really going on with education in the US, DeVos, etc.
Sorry, Phil’s got a point. The huge problem with mass introduction of tablets and “computer-mediated” learning at extremely young ages involves a lot more than a few million in spending. It involves billions. Basically bad pedagogy is highly funded and charter stuff is just a few sprinkles here and there.
Where exactly does the article talk about DeVos “controlling American voters’ minds?”
You’re equating lobbying and possibly advertising funds to operational spend? Apples and oranges.
It’s like not understanding how the tiny forces you exert on the steering wheel can possibly shift the huge momentum of that semi truck around.
Patrick: Teacher pay correlated with higher local costs, such as for real estate? As far as I know, Detroit doesn’t have a reputation for high housing costs. http://www.zillow.com/detroit-mi/home-values/ says median home value is $37,000 in Detroit and rent is $750/month. The cost of living in Michigan is lower than the national average (i.e., $1 buys you more in Michigan than it would elsewhere). See http://taxfoundation.org/blog/real-value-100-each-state-2016
Here’s a New York Times article on teachers in Rochester, NY getting over $100,000 per year back in 2009: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/fashion/01generationb.html
https://www.trulia.com/real_estate/Rochester-New_York/ says the median sales price for a house right now in Rochester is $103,500 per year (rent is $1,095/month). So a teacher who had no pay raise since 2009 could buy a house for one year of pre-tax income. I don’t think that there are too many software engineers in Silicon Valley or Massachusetts who could do that.
Jon, et al: If you think that operating a business and serving customers every day doesn’t have any advertising value then how can you explain enterprises that have customers and yet don’t purchase any advertising? Our humble flight school is an example. We have grown to more than 40 aircraft over the years because the mechanics do a great job, the owner is organized and honest, the instructors have done a good job, presumably, with most students and renters, etc. We can’t advertise cost-efficiently because the percentage of people interested in aviation is so low. So we advertise by doing our best with the customers that we have.
(And I don’t think that someone who spent 1/100,000th of our school’s annual revenue on advertising and lobbying would have a significant impact on our reputation with customers and their passengers.)
Phil,
We are talking about the mechanics of a very well-oiled political machine. The DeVos Imperial Empire discovered 20 or 30 years ago that it could not get its way though the normal democratic process — populat referenda, running for governor, etc. — the People of Michigan soundly rejected what they were selling time and time again. You may take that as a measure of the People’s product-satisfaction , at least, compared to the DeVos Brand.
But it’s amazing what you can get away with if you don’t care a fig about the Will of the People, and that is what the DeVos Klan has been doing ever since. They and their ilk have been steadily cutting the People, call them consumers if you wish, out of the decision-making process at every turn. This is neither the normal democratic process nor the normal business process, except perhaps in the Defense Industry Model, where no one ever gives the public at large its druthers.