Reaganesque Conservative Blog

Written about a decade ago.  No revisions, raw in its purest and most youth form.

A Prescription for Fiscal Responsibility

tbb@reaganesque.com

Since birth in 1979, the Department of Education has been a growing inefficient swell of bureaucratic waste.  An organization created to ensure equal access to education and to promote educational excellence for all Americans, has accomplished the exact opposite.

Over a 30-year period of time the average SAT score has dropped 70 points while spending per student has more than doubled from 3,000 to 6,500.

But wait, there is always more.  Beginning in 1979 the Department of Education held a budget of 14 billion with 450 employees.  As of fiscal 2000 the DOE maintained a budget of 32 billion and employed over 4,800 and its spending on public education accounts for a mere 6% of total education spending.

National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) tests of school students over the last twenty years show little to no improvement and in some areas like writing, performance has dwindled.

The inadvertent flaw with the Department of Education is that it has empowered the wrong group of people.  Any meaningful reform needs to empower parents and students, not teachers and wasteful bureaucratic agencies.  The ultimate solution is to streamline the Department of Education.  Federal funding on the state and local levels must be directly issued through block grants and governed for proper usage by the streamlined DOE.

Block grants are designed to send money directly to school systems with the requirement that at least 95% of the funds reach the classroom.

The next step is to make sure that moneys are used responsibly.  The only applicable method of insuring fiscal responsibility is to test annually.  Schools maintaining consistent sub-standard levels must not be allowed to continue.  They must be closed immediately and reopened with new faculty.  Tenure must be eliminated at the state and local level and teachers must be paid based on results.  State and local governments unwilling to cooperate with the new federal standards should kiss further government subsidization good-bye.  A fiscally responsible federal government will not bow to state and local union pressures.  This federal government must cherish the mentality that it spends the people’s money, and as the taker and holder of the people’s money it will not spend irresponsibly.

As a nation built on excellence we do not accept below average in the private sector.  Why is it acceptable in the public sector?  Have we ever known a U.S. corporation to show negative results over a 21 year period of time and remain functional?  Not a chance.  The fact that we continue to throw billions upon billions of dollars at an untamed agency incapable of being fiscally responsible is appalling.  I am appalled.

TBB

It has been about 8 years.  There’s plenty more to come.