Health Care Reform Advocates: Take a Look at Public Schools
As D-Day for health care “reform” approaches, we’re hearing a lot of contradictory claims about how things are going in countries where they have socialized medicine. One side says Canadian, British, German, and even (in the more extreme cases) Cuban health care is wonderful. The other side says it’s a catastrophe. All these directly conflicting claims aren’t very helpful to those who might be in doubt about the truth.
Instead of seeking our evidence in far-flung corners of the world, why don’t we look at what’s happened to the one profession we’ve already socialized right here at home? The government school monopoly gives us a great opportunity to examine what happens to a profession when you dragoon it into government service.
Public Agenda, a social science research group whose political leanings are generally leftward, just released a major bombshell report on the state of the teaching profession. Short version: however bad you think it is, it’s worse.
The huge survey of public school teachers nationwide finds that a full 40% of the nation’s teachers fall into a category they call “disheartened.” It’s the largest of the three categories Public Agenda identified. Another 37% of teachers fall into the complacent “contented” category. The “idealists” — the teachers who form our cultural image of what a good teacher is like — make up a mere 23% of the profession.
America’s enormous phalanx of “disheartened” teachers tend to hate their jobs and — far more disturbingly — they even tend toward the attitude that teaching doesn’t matter. Only half of teachers in this category think teachers can impact the effort students put into their work, compared to three-quarters of idealists. Only two-thirds of disheartened teachers think that good teachers make a difference to student learning, compared to about nine out of ten idealists.
It’s hard to convey just how big this problem is. A little basic math (courtesy of the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence’s Dave Saba) tells us that this means a full 22 million students are being taught by “disheartened” teachers.
But let’s do just a little more basic math. Every year, the government assigns your child a new teacher — with no input from you, of course. Suppose (for the sake of illustration) every year you have a 40 percent chance of being taught by a disheartened teacher. The chances your child will go through 12 years of schooling and never be forced to have his future crippled by a disheartened teacher are 0.2%. The reality is, you’ll probably get not just one dud, but several.
We already have a two tier teaching system with public and private schools driven by the need to avoid the government regulators, bureaucracy and unions. We are rapidly approaching the same scenario in medicine and as the supply of physicians erodes this will only become worse. Medicare and Medicaid don’t pay their way, third parties continuously look over the shoulders of the practitioner…if you can find one that speaks English.
Boutique practices that will not deal with insurance companies work for cash and the patient is not required to pay the cost shift to cover government underfunding…or about 65 to 75 percent of regular rates. Our own graduates stratify into those that want to work and those that want to be nine2fivers supported by extenders running a mill. Forget about a “Medical Home”…how about a Medical Mill backup up with active waiting lists, discouraged “waiters” and medical tourism (which may be just down the street in a cash only clinic where English is spoken as a primary language).
AMA…just a joke. Follow the money. Its membership will continue to erode and the specialty societies will become stronger. Undoubtedly the AMA will soon be too big to fail and its only asset of value, the CRT Code System, will be nationalized to a committee of the feds.
As a teacher of eight years about to leave the profession, I could write volumes on this subject. Indeed, our many problems in public education vary widely from state to state, district to district, and school to school. It’s just one reason why NCLB as a one size fits all solution was flawed from the start.
My main reason for leaving is the overwhelming amount of useless bureaucracy that plagues my profession. The barrage of new mandates handed down from federal, state, and local governments is smothering. It’s all quite useless, of course, mostly paperwork compliance used to justify the job of a bureaucrat above me. And it’s non-stop. Imagine if you will what will happen to the medical profession when doctors are forced to spend 30% of their time complying with federal mandates, all of it useless paperwork. It’s the only argument you need against socialized medicine.
The impact of bureaucracy on public education cannot be underestimated. It’s costly and time consuming, produces nothing of value, and ultimately a primary reason why so many teachers leave the profession. Worst of all the kids get short-changed as classroom instruction is truncated for standardized testing, teacher professional days, and other mandated interruptions in the work week. There is no learning where there is no continuity from day to day.
those who say the canadian system is good and working have probably never had the need to use it.
they will not allow clinics to operate outside the government system ..so there is no two tier availability. the system is bogged down with delays and bureaucracy. there are doctor shortages and if a hospital needs expansion it cannot get funds and usually goes looking for donations from the public.
there are more bureaucrats then medical workers in the system …but isn’t that the definition of government !
Remember: The issue isn’t the issue. The issue is control.
Speaking of socialized bureaucracies, I wonder how much better the US Post Office would be if it were run by a private company, like UPS or Federal Express? I wonder how much better Amtrak would be if it were run by a private company, a company that was actually interested in running a service well so that it could make a profit (heaven forbid)? And I also wonder how profitable General Motors, I mean Government Motors, is going to be now that the Federal Government owns it? Face it, the government doesn’t run anything in a cost-efficient manner. It may run things, like the Pentagon, but that doesn’t mean it runs it well. We lose billions (yes, billions) of dollars each year in Pentagon waste and mismanagement, yet we just accept it as an established fact. How much do you think we’re going to lose through waste, fraud, and inefficiency once the Government takes over health care? The answer is: A LOT!
Even as a sophomore in high school, I recall perceiving that younger teachers tended to be idealistic and naive. The old veterans tended be fatalistic and much less trusting of their students. And that was at a private school, where administrative interference with teaching was kept to a minimum.
I have a friend who is a public high-school English teacher in Georgia. When a kid doesn’t show up to class, the bureaucrats don’t permit him to mark that kid absent until he talks to the kid’s parents. The most common result is that he leaves a phone message and never hears back. But disconnected phone numbers are distressingly common with his students. Either way, students are almost never counted as absent from his classes.
Imagine dealing with that every day, plus a thousand other similarly pointless requirements that prevent teachers from actually teaching, and it’s easy to see why even good teachers are disillusioned.
There’s a bit of a problem with the basic premise in this article. ~Paules may concur?
Of those teachers I know, the disheartened ones are often the ones who actually care about the quality of the education they’re able to impart to their students. Their frustration is a function of being prevented from doing their best or anything even remotely close to that. That being the case, those are the teachers you WANT teaching your kids, not the ones who are perfectly fulfilled in the current environment, which is churning out more illiterate, innumerate graduates each year.
The ill effects of socializing any profession are a given. But in the case of education, the system provides an excellent example of how, if you want to really destroy a profession, the best way to do it is to unionize it.
Yeah right.
The interstate highway system and our National Parks are dismal failures.
And why do you hate our military?
@ goy #7
Spot on, my friend. And the only honorable thing to do in such a situation is throw in the towel. A teacher who is dispirited cannot inspire his students. Game over. A committed professional will not hang on in misery just to collect a paycheck.
“if you want to really destroy a profession, the best way to do it is to unionize it.”
7. goy:
I really and truly find it hard to be my fellow American’s could be so blinded and ignorant.
Major League Baseball anyone? How’s it doing with it’s union players?
@ jharp
You offer a false analogy. Our interstate highway system benefits from federal oversight by economies of scale and standardization. Fifty states with fifty different systems would produce a mish-mash of conflicting standards and reduce efficiency.
In contrast, schooling is a very local matter. The culture of an individual school is always a reflection of the community around it. If the Navajo believe that cultural preservation is more important than high academic standards, who is the federal government to say otherwise? If Silicon Valley needs a computer literate workforce, what business does a federal government have imposing standards for cultural diversity?
No conservative I know claims that the federal government has no role to play. Every conservative I know says the role should be limited. Education and health care are two areas better left in the hands of individual state legislatures.
~Paules:
@ jharp
You offer a false analogy. Our interstate highway system benefits from federal oversight by economies of scale and standardization. Fifty states with fifty different systems would produce a mish-mash of conflicting standards and reduce efficiency.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Exactly. That is why we need a single payer health care system. Or as a compromise a public option available in all fifty states.
Thank you for posting.
I have been teaching 17 years and in that time, I jhave seen my job change drastically and at times I am dishearted. If we are going to have NCLB legislation, there shoudl be a clear set of national standard the states are held to. My issue is that local, state, and national standards are all different. We need a clear national standard for reading and math and local and state governments needs build their curriculum around those National Standards. The national standard should reflect what students need to be able to do when they enter the work force.
The failure of NCLB is that it leaves each state to decide what passing is, imposes regulation without guidance, and dishes out penalty without clear evaluative measure.
Personally, I liked it the old way. I was trained in sound educational theory, I was provided good textbooks, and I planned lessons always trying make what I taught relevent to the world my kids were going to be working in. I have to say, my students 10 years ago had far more rigor because I could set the bar as high as I pleased. NCLB has only served to lower expectations because in an attempt to make sure everyone can meet standard, rigor has been reduced and hence our kids fall further and further behind the rest of the industrialized world. When I am able to set the bar high, the kids may not make it, but they do achieve at higher levels. When the bar is set low, those student who I could push do not achieve as much, and those who are lower performers, perform even lower.
Regards
Private schools can turn pupils away or turn them out, they have no responsibility to America, what so ever.
We, the American people are then left with the responsibility to educate all other children in our realm, as well as meet and accommodate what ever disabilities or handicaps life may have presented them with.
The comparison is a false dichotomy verging on the criminal, mush like the claim that a burgeoning population of legalized drug users would reduce crime. :: ))
@10. jharp: – I really and truly find it hard to be my fellow American’s could be so blinded and ignorant.
Was that supposed to be a sentence?
I rest my case.
@13. C: – The failure of NCLB is that it leaves each state to decide what passing is, …
Not exactly. The failure of NCLB is pretty much the opposite, in a way. Educational standards – like most other standards determined by society (i.e., by the People, as opposed to those determined to rule them) – are best determined locally. There is nothing to be gained by the feds dictating how or at what level a particular region qualifies for being the best it can be. The only guarantee there is that a lowest common denominator will emerge as the only viable ‘standard’. Regions are different. States are different. This is one of the fundamental truths the Constitution – by deliberately defining a weak central government with strictly limited powers – was designed to address. The further we’ve moved away from that definition, the deeper in the sh!t we’ve gotten. The federalization and unionization of education demonstrates this perfectly.
NCLB – a facet of Socialist Lite®, “compassionate conservatism” – is the best evidence yet showing why the general government was given no constitutional authority over institutions responsible for determining individual outcomes – like education and health care, for instance. And it’s no surprise that the demonstrated failure of the former – as mismanaged for decades through bureaucratic federal fiat – bodes ill for the latter, if we take the same approach.
The Founders never gave the central government specific authority over these aspects of society because they are best left to the States and the People, themselves, to manage. Running to the feds every time one thinks one is not getting as good a deal in their home State as someone in some other State is one facet of the entitlement mindset that is pulverizing the foundation of this Republic. Want better schools? Better health care? Do it. Make them happen. Locally. The feds have little-to-no authority to legislate in these areas. There’s no constitutional mandate for national uniformity when it comes to education or health care. I think your personal experience demonstrates this, C.
15. goy:
@10. jharp: – I really and truly find it hard to be my fellow American’s could be so blinded and ignorant.
“and truly find it hard to believe”
There. Fixed it for ya. No one, not even the most ignorant teabagger on the earth, gives a damn about a spelling mistake.
Now go back to your stupid blog that no one reads.
@17. jharp: – … gives a damn about a spelling mistake.
It wasn’t a ‘spelling’ mistake, moron.
Again, I rest my case.
10. Professional Sports Leagues are unique in that they must all compete for the best talent, but if any one or two teams dominate, it harms the entire league, and within a few years, the dominant team(s) in turn lose revenue because the audience finds it boring for one or two teams to win every time. Therefore, union imposed salary restrictions and free agency keep talent diversified enough among the sports teams to keep the sport interesting- a problem no other industry ever has, even other forms of entertainment.
Another problem unique to professional sports is that two leagues cannot compete on the same level for more than a few years. In short order, a hierarchy forms between the two leagues, and players from the lessor league always seek to join the greater league. Thus, the leagues no longer compete as equals, but as a major league and a minor league, or else, they merge. Either way, a natural monopoly forms. The result is that professional sports cannot be regulated by antitrust laws, nor can large market teams be permitted to spend unlimited amounts of money on talent to achieve short term success, lest they destroy the entire league’s long term prospects. No other industry can be compared to professional sports for this very reason.
19. myth buster:
I really haven’t a clue of what you are getting at.
What the hell does that have to do with a union lobbying for the best possible deal for it’s members.
And baseball can easily be regulated by antitrust laws. And they should be.
Re: Two-tier systems: this is exactly what the German and Israeli healthcare systems are evolving into. Here is the first part of a series analyzing various socialized medicine systems, starting with Germany (the granddaddy of them all):
http://spinstrangenesscharm.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/socialized-medicine-part-1-germany/
20. Unions generally push to make everybody equal, which has a tendency to reward the lazy and cripple the efficient. Baseball (and other pro sports) doesn’t have that problem because the employees are the best of the best and they know they can be replaced. In fact, in the case of baseball, the unions have the beneficial effect of tempering the amount of money spent by teams in large markets, while setting minimums that even small-market teams must pay, which in turn limits the ability of rich teams to outbid small-market teams and helps keep the teams balanced. How fun would it be to watch baseball if the Yankees won the World Series every single year?
As for antitrust regulation, how can two pro sports leagues compete with each other in the same sport? What ends up happening in every single case is either: 1. one league becomes a de facto or de jure minor league to the more talented league, establishing a fixed heirarchy and leaving the more skilled league without true competition, 2. the weaker league dies off, leaving the stronger league without competition, or 3. the two leagues merge, leaving the combined league without competition. Put it to you this way, how long could Microsoft survive if all of Microsoft’s employees wanted to work for Apple, and as soon as anyone started to shine at Microsoft, Apple offered that person a job at ten times what Microsoft was paying? In the software world, that makes no sense, but in the professional sports world, it happens every single time (although the salary jump is not necessarily as extreme).
The premise of this article misses the mark as it seems to blame “disheartened” teachers for the woes of our schools. I have taught at a large high school in Southern California for over ten years and now am also involved in administrative work. Because of this, I have a picture of our education system that is crystal clear. The problem is not “disheartened” teachers, in fact, as was pointed by an earlier poster; these are the teachers who still care. I am certain that the percentages are similar to any industry these days; the legal profession would make an excellent comparison. As for the 37% of contented teachers, those are the teachers who breeze in and breeze out, arriving at the start of the contractual day and leaving at as soon as the contract permits. Of course they’re content, they don’t care. Those who are disheartened are idealists who realize they are swimming against the tide. We see a tidal wave of dysfunction on a daily basis yet keep working fight. The number of American born students classified as English Language Learners is skyrocketing. In fact they make up the vast majority of students in these classes. Bred by peasants from 3rd World countries who have no loyalty to this nation and a disdain for the people, traditions, and culture that long ago made us a great nation. The parents can barely cope and the children of these students have no respect for authority as they are the defacto head of their household and family translator. Drugs use is common. Many of these students simply don’t care and no one at home will make them. Don’t kid yourself, your children are impacted by these groups. In addition these students are making up a larger and larger percentage of special education students. Our open borders policies and acceptance of this criminal behavior encourages the most wretched to walk across our borders. Interestingly, these are the groups that get the largest amount of funding in our system and all of the planning focus. These kids are not the only problems though. We must teach children who are the products of broken homes. Children of adults too selfish to place the needs of their kids before their own. Many of these children suffer some mental effects from their family situation and who struggle to cope with the lowest expectations placed on them. Yet this is still not really the problem. The problem is the legalistic, politically correct bureaucracy that requires schools to watch every single step they make and binds their ability to deal with problems in red tape. Dealing with issues in a common sense and fair fashion is done under the radar. The same political correctness that led to the deaths of thirteen of our service people at Ft. Hood last week is the same disease that long ago killed the public education system. The steps that schools must take to rid themselves of a problem child make the effort near worthless. The effort required to remove kids from the public school is monumntal. Of course many teachers are disheartened because the problem isn’t going to improve unless this nation overcomes the political correctness and irresponsibility that plagues us today. Maybe the most telling fact about our public schools is that I scrape to send my children to our parish grammar school. The teachers differ little from those in the public schools, in fact I’d say their training is a bit behind, but the school’s hands aren’t tied by red tape, proper behavior is the standard, and the peers of my children are the offspring of two-parent households who still care and expected their children to achieve. Children with problems quietly disappear with a helpful nudge from school leaders. My children are forced to compete against winners and they will be better for it.
Our public schools are not a problem just indicative of the problems of society in general. The public school system is the canary in the coal mine and the problems we face today are what you will all be facing tomorrow. Wake up!
Sorry for the grammatical and spelling errors. I typed the above up while putting my kids to sleep.
God bless our troops and those doing God’s work.
22. myth buster:
You are a nut. And have the reasoning and writing ability of a child.
That said, you seem to be a pretty decent fellow.
I wish good health to you. (go to school son)
@23. silversurfer: – The public school system is the canary in the coal mine and the problems we face today are what you will all be facing tomorrow.
Yes. If that post is any indication, paragraphs will be completely extinct by 2012.
“I really and truly find it hard to be my fellow American’s could be so blinded and ignorant.”
“gives a damn about a spelling mistake.”
I guess expecting a level of literacy that was once expected of children in grammar school is too much too ask these days.
“You are a nut. And have the reasoning and writing ability of a child.”
Pot, meet kettle.
14. Donny: “Private schools can turn pupils away or turn them out, they have no responsibility to America, what so ever.”
Right. Private schools are accountable to PARENTS, not America. That’s the way it should be. This is not Cuba.
Larsen,
I am still accountable to parents as a public school teacher. I just get the added pressure of the government interfering.
About my first post. I said the problem with nclb was that there were to many fingers in the pot (or something like that). I think I was misunderstood. It is difficult to teach when there are so many vastly different standards we have to meet. Thus if we must be held accountable by the Feds, I want a clear nation set of standards. Otherwise, the Feds need to butt out and let local governments handle standards. The way it works now is not working.
“You have the reasoning and writing ability of a child”
I won a $2000 prize for an essay detailing the need to overhaul the tax system and why the Fair Tax is the best proposal to accomplish this task. This means I was the best essayist in the University of Michigan College of Engineering last year, hardly someone with childish reasoning and writing skills.
“Go to school, son.”
Don’t patronize me. I’ll be graduating with a BSE in Nuclear Engineering in May, and this is only my third year in college.
our local public school wants to charge kids for detention. Do you think that’ll fly?
Chuck,
where do you live? I want to make sure I don’t end up teaching in that system. Pay to play is one thing but pay to be punished. That is a bright one.
I’m a disheartened teacher of 9 years. Why am I disheartened? Because I have spent at least 1 out of 3 professional development meanings learning about how racist schools and teachers are and how it is our fault our black kids aren’t doing as well. Yet, no one tells me what to change or how to change it. No one considers the differences the kids come in the door with.
Because I now have to teach kids whose skills are behind 4 grade levels at the same time I have kids who are ahead by 4.
Because I am tired of parents telling me they don’t know what the homework is despite the fact that I maintain a website with assignments and they have been informed of this at least 3 times now.
Because I am tired of parents being furious when I apply strict discipline standards to their child.
Because I am tired of people that bash my union which protects my benefits and spells out clearly what I have to do and what I don’t have to do.
Because I am tired of people mocking my profession or worse.
Because I am tired of having special ed students lay hands on me and not seeing their LRE changed. Any child so out of control that they are physically violent with staff is clearly not in their least restrictive environment.
Because I’m tired of people outside education blasting the system when they really don’t have the vaguest idea of what is going on.
Am I tired of my students or actually teaching? No, it’s all the other crap I’m tired of.
#6, and just about everybody else here
Canada’s public school (grade, and high school) outcomes are rated 3rd best in the world, and Canada is so much healthier than the US it isn’t even funny. The lies told about Canadian health care and public education, here, are characteristic of people with very fragile self-esteem, a fragility prompted by the realization that the US is not the best at nearly anything, except, perhaps, the number of rich people and elite graduate schools.
Using the quality of the services which have already been “socialized” to project the quality of health care if it too is “socialized” is entirely appropriate. Most public schools are terrible places, especially in big cities. They are dangerous, and staffed with people who cannot ever be fired for poor performance, so performance tends to be poor. It would seem that public schools exist to provide jobs, not to provide education.
Public housing, there’s another fine public service paid for with our tax dollars. Who in their right mind would say that public housing is a safe, wholesome, healthful place to live and raise a family? Again, public housing is dangerous, and staffed with people who cannot ever be fired for poor performance, so performance tends to be poor. Again, it would seem that public housing exists to provide jobs, not to provide housing.
If we turn our healthcare system into a socialistic one, as the Democrats in DC are so clearly trying to do against the will of the people, I can see the day when hospitals will resemble today’s public schools and public housing. Hospitals will be dangerous and filthy, and staffed with public employee union bureaucrats whose sole function in life is to get a paycheck.