Thousands for overhead... hardly a cent for textbooks

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Mon, 28 May 2001 10:03:10 GMT
FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED DEC. 21, 2000
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
Thousands for overhead... hardly a cent for textbooks

Many parents these days complain their kids bring home too much homework, particularly in the elementary grades.

Indeed, some sensible balance needs to be struck between school time and time for family and other activities -- in which a lot of additional learning takes place -- especially for those under 12.

But it's only common sense that -- once kids reach middle and then high school -- a lot of learning depends on books, and kids are more likely to master the material if they have their own textbooks to take home in the evening.

It's thus amazing that a recent legislative audit of Nevada's public schools -- mandated by a 1999 bill authored by Assemblywoman Kathy McClain, D-Las Vegas -- didn't even bother to count kids who leave their textbooks behind in the classroom each day (so they can be used by other classes) as being short of textbooks.

So long as the school system says it's meant to be that way, there's no textbook "shortage" in those cases, explained Legislative Auditor Gary Crews: "We're not judging the policy."

And it turns out 63 percent of middle and high school "language arts classes" statewide depend on this "bookset" system -- books left behind in the classroom for the next group of kids to warm the seats. "Booksets" are also the prevailing strategy in 31 percent of Nevada's science and 13 percent of Nevada's math classes.

While the Silver State allocates approximately $4,800 per student in state and local subsidies for public schooling (more in the smaller counties), it turns out the vast majority of those funds flow into salaries and administrative overhead -- the state budgeted only $100.53 per student in 1998-1999 for all actual educational supplies, including library books, educational software ... and textbooks.

The actual amount spent ended up exceeding that budget -- thank goodness -- reaching $130.65 per student statewide. In Clark County, the school district spent a paltry $127.77 per student on all instructional materials in 1999.

(Nevada rated a "D" - among the worst 10 states - when Education Week conducted its annual rating of the percentage of public "education" funds which actually go to "instruction." But the odd thing is that Nevada's 59 percent allocation for "instruction" falls so slightly below the national average, which is only 61.7 percent. Clearly, the state-by-state numbers now move in a very narrow range, with a 39 percent deduction for "overhead" having become the national norm.)

Now, admittedly, schoolbooks should have a multi-year lifetime. If properly cared for, books can be collected at the end of the school year and re-distributed the following year: It need not be presumed that every high school kid must receive a brand new set of textbooks every year.

Nonetheless, the classroom is "where the rubber meets the road," in education, and (whether the subject be history, math, or science) everyone knows the ideal conditions under which to read and study a textbook are in the quiet of the evening, at home or in the library ... not in the midst of an often loud and unruly classroom, where most teachers would rather kids pay attention to them than to their reading, anyway.

"In my opinion, every kid should have a textbook to take home to do the assigned homework so they could come to class prepared," opines Cheyenne High School Principal Ronan Matthew, quite sensibly. "The numbers show this is not happening."

"If we're going to hold students to higher standards, they need to have access to the resources they need to succeed" -- and the preferred alternative, at least in the secondary schools, would be a textbook for every student -- agrees outgoing state school Superintendent Mary Peterson.

Here's yet another example of the absurd and perverse allocation of resources which will eventually prevail whenever a vast, centralized, impenetrable government agency is given monopoly control over the distribution of an important service or resource -- in this case, schooling.

Any private firm anxious to attract parents to voluntarily pay for educational services would naturally stress the classroom environment -- and classroom supplies, starting with textbooks -- as its highest and proudest priority, right along with the quality and enthusiasm of its teachers. While everyone understands some administrative spending is necessary, it's unlikely many parents would voluntarily pay to send their kids to a private school that bragged a huge and well-paid administrative staff, if the actual classrooms lacked basic supplies.

Yet that's precisely the current situation in Nevada's public schools. And will the Legislature -- with numerous current and past schoolteachers ensconced in vital leadership positions -- now insist administrative overhead be trimmed by at least $200 per student, so the budget for carry-home textbooks can be immediately tripled?

Of course not. The administrative "nut" is taken as a given -- mandated as it is by contracts and time-honored empire-building. If parents want something as fancy as textbooks, they're just going to have to pay more in taxes, they'll be smugly told.

Is it any wonder more and more of the most insightful parents -- and kids -- are turning to home schooling, or otherwise abandoning the massive make-work jobs program which public schooling has become?

Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, and editor of Financial Privacy Report (952-895-8757.) His book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available at 1-800-244-2224; or web site http://www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html.

Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com

"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right." -- Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926)

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken

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