Looking at school districts in Florida there are multiple problems, but they only fall into two categories management and funding. The funding problems are made even worse by the inability of school boards to budget properly and to make rational purchasing decisions.

Buying computers when you have no place to plug them in, and don’t have the money for higher utility bills if you could plug them in, is just stupid. Leasing portable classrooms for years at a cost in excess of what a permanent building would cost, is just stupid. Teachers don’t make those decisions.

Politicians determine what money will be available, and politicians decide on what will be purchased with that money. There is no obvious long term planning, and no indication that the people making the money decisions actually know what they are buying.

Everything I read about the various ‘school reform’ movements sets off my fraud alarm. The more I read, the surer I am that most of these people are con artists.

There is another move afoot for a school voucher system. They have tried doing this a couple of times, but the problem is that the only schools that are ready to educate students for the amount of the voucher are small Catholic schools. The Christianist schools and private schools want more than the amount in the voucher. Even worse, the vouchers were only available to students in ‘under-performing schools’ which are in poor districts.

Vouchers will drain even more money out of the system, and make things even worse, but the Repubs really want to do it.

Regarding charter schools, my inside scoop on that one as a former teacher: Charter school teachers are one of two groups: a) new teachers who are trying to get some experience under their belt so they can apply for better jobs, and b) teachers who just moved to the state due to their husband’s job, and who need a job to help pay the bills while they work on getting certified in this new state (since charter schools aren’t required to hire certified teachers). You will not find experienced teachers in charter schools, and what the studies on teacher effectiveness show is that the most effective teachers are those with between 5 and 15 years of experience — exactly the teachers you will *not* find at charter schools, because why would they give up their tenure, pay, and benefits at good school districts to go to work for peanuts at a school that’s likely to fold within five years (as most charter schools do)?

As for the whole money thing, all you have to do is look at California’s K-12 schools to see the impact of money. In 1978 California’s K-12 schools were funded in the top 5 and performed in the top 5. Today they’re funded near the bottom and perform near the top. The only difference between 1978 and today is not the ethnic composition of the population — pretty much the same — nor the quality of the available teacher force — pretty much the same — nor the quality of curriculum — pretty much the same. The *only* thing that’s changed in that time in California is school funding. Hmm….