Utter cluelessness revealed again.
In addition to the flat out lies Romney was spewing in the first Presidential debate, there were also other topics where he showed just how clueless he is about the middle and working class and how most of us actually live. In the discussion about education he said he didn’t want the Title I money going to the schools but rather it should go to the student, via the parents, so that parents would be free to have their child attend the school they think is better.
I am not a full-time teacher, but I do sometimes work as a substitute teacher in the Fairfax County Public School System, which is a highly regarded school system nationwide. I also have school age children so I do have two perspectives on this. For people not immersed in education jargon, Title I schools are schools that have a higher percentage of low-income students, and they therefore get additional resources, and have additional and stiffer requirements in a number of areas. For example, in Fairfax County most of the elementary schools have a short day on Mondays, with dismissal at about 1:30, in order for the teachers to have planning periods. The Title I schools are required to have a full day, every day. All teachers in Title I schools must be fully accredited.
Title I schools usually have other additional instructional resources, for example additional reading teachers that work with students in all the grades to make sure they’re learning to read at the appropriate level and not falling down at any critical junction. In terms of reading, grades 1-3 typically focus on “learning to read” and the transition to “reading to learn” that occurs in 4th grade is just one of the many such critical milestones.
If the student’s native language is not English, and English is not spoken at home, this is even harder. And in Fairfax, according to the FCPS website, “One out of every three FCPS students has a home language other than or in addition to English.” In the elementary school that my children are in, there are 67 different languages spoken in the student’s homes.
The Title I funds are used to pay for additional educational services and resources, such as reading teachers. Many of the Title I schools have a high percentage of students that qualify for free and reduced cost lunches, and for many of these students, this lunch may be the best, and only hot meal they get all day.
So the additional resource of reading teaches is a perfect example of a “common good”. With Romney’s plan, “I want to give the money to the parents” are they supposed to go out and hire their own individual reading teachers? Or are schools supposed to go into a bidding war for parents who are now going to be equipped with a Title I Voucher, with the principals of “competing schools” sounding like a Billy Mays infomercial – “Come on down, bring your Title I voucher, and you’ll get a 90 day guarantee on your child’s reading score!” Romney didn’t specifically say voucher, but I doubt that he’s going to write individual checks for the parents of Title I students. I think this example falls on its face, but as DailyKos readers know, conservatives apparently love all voucher programs.
To use Romney’s example, what if the “better school that the parent wants to send their kids to, with the Title I voucher is on the other side of town, or even just 20 minutes away in the opposite direction of the parent’s job?” Now, here’s my perspective as a parent, and to paraphrase Samuel Jackson -- “Who the F&%* is going to take the kids to school, the nanny?”
The Title I kids are either walking to school, if they live close, or are taking a bus, with
the other kids in their neighborhood, and this matters and it is important. It is often the older sibling (middle school and early high school, meaning students not yet driving) who are watching the elementary age kids when they get home.
As a practical matter, this not something that is an easy or lightly considered decision, and to be real blunt, it is impossible if you’re working an early shift job, and don’t have a good way to get your child to a different school at an inconvenient time. Even if you do have such a plan, there is a real cost (and I don’t mean in dollars). For example about a decade ago in Fairfax, only some of the elementary schools had “Gifted and Talented Centers” and if your child qualified, they could take a bus to the GT Center school, which was not one’s neighborhood school, and the county provided transportation. The problem was that since this bus was picking up students from a wider geographic area, the students had to be the bus stop an hour before the “base school” bus, and they got home an hour later as well. We decided that there was not enough difference between the GT and “regular” school (which shortly thereafter added a GT center) to have our children be on the bus for an additional two hours, and not be able to play with their friends and neighbors when they got home.
In Romney’s plan, how exactly are the Title I parents supposed to get their kids to a different school? Oh, I know, the nanny can drop them off and pick them up!
BTW, this is my first diary, please let me know what you think of it. On a much more serious note, I think the right wing assault on the value and importance of public education is under reported and one of the biggest threats to our society.
Regards,
Virginia Common Sense