Monday, January 10, 2005
Every Child Left Behind
The conservative commentator Armstrong Williams was paid, under a Department of Education contract, $241,000 to promote the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Of course he did not reveal this to his readers and listeners as he promoted the President and his other policies. A very good article in The Nation explores the controversy.
After reading the article at The Nation several questions occurred to me.
First was, How do I file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to learn the specifics of this contract with Williams rather than waiting for the Inspector General to ask the right questions?
I learned how to do this and actually filed my request with the Department of Education by going to this website. A big thank you to Ralph Nader for fighting so hard for this valuable citizen's tool, especially now that we know that the nation's journalists are on the take from the government and are not likely to investigate themselves!
Secondly, how many children were left behind by the choice to allocate valuable educational resources to Armstrong Williams rather than to struggling students through the Federal government's Title I program?
As I have mentioned before, my wife is an elementary school teacher in a rural (poor) school district that she commutes to outside of Portland. I was curious what the average Title I grant per student was in Oregon so I just looked it up. My rough guess is that conservatively it is about $1,700 based on a cursory glance at the long list of figures for every district in Oregon. Title I is the federal program which supplements state and local spending for funding supplemental programs for low achieving k-12 kids, the ones in danger of being "left behind".
Apparently in order to promote the NCLB act, Williams was worthy of allocation of funds equivalent to Title I funding of 141 Oregon kids for one year. I am certain that my wife's fellow dedicated teachers could have put that money to better use!
To make matters worse while "googling" this story I learned through a Washington Post article that this is only the tip of the iceberg.
"The (Education) department already has paid Ketchum (public relations firm) $700,000 to rate journalists on how positively or negatively they report on No Child Left Behind, and to produce a video release on the law that was used by some television stations as if it were real news."
That represents Title I funding for another 412 struggling kids down the toilet in a political scheme which does nothing for our struggling schools!
Now I know that some would point out that such figures when compared to the massive amounts of money spent by the Federal Government are statistically insignificant. That is part of the problem. The larger the organization the more wasteful since larger and larger amounts of wasteful spending become "insignificant". At my wife's school the water from the water fountains in the school is undrinkable. After further drastic budget cuts from the state the teachers voted on whether or not to allocate dwindling resources for teacher supplies to pay for coffee or bottled water (5 gallon jug type) for staff since the district could not afford to provide both. (They chose water, the kids are simply out of luck). The school commonly runs out of all paper by the middle of March and teachers - all of whom are required to get Masters degrees and are paid very poorly - purchase their own paper, and countless other classroom necessities, for the remaining school year out of their own pockets.
As I wrote late last year I am now nearly convinced that we should abolish the Federal Department of Education and give all education dollars directly to the states with no strings attached.
This is an outrage on so many levels I don't even know where to start! When I receive the requested FOIA documents (I'm sure it will be a while!) I will report back.
The conservative commentator Armstrong Williams was paid, under a Department of Education contract, $241,000 to promote the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Of course he did not reveal this to his readers and listeners as he promoted the President and his other policies. A very good article in The Nation explores the controversy.
After reading the article at The Nation several questions occurred to me.
First was, How do I file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to learn the specifics of this contract with Williams rather than waiting for the Inspector General to ask the right questions?
I learned how to do this and actually filed my request with the Department of Education by going to this website. A big thank you to Ralph Nader for fighting so hard for this valuable citizen's tool, especially now that we know that the nation's journalists are on the take from the government and are not likely to investigate themselves!
Secondly, how many children were left behind by the choice to allocate valuable educational resources to Armstrong Williams rather than to struggling students through the Federal government's Title I program?
As I have mentioned before, my wife is an elementary school teacher in a rural (poor) school district that she commutes to outside of Portland. I was curious what the average Title I grant per student was in Oregon so I just looked it up. My rough guess is that conservatively it is about $1,700 based on a cursory glance at the long list of figures for every district in Oregon. Title I is the federal program which supplements state and local spending for funding supplemental programs for low achieving k-12 kids, the ones in danger of being "left behind".
Apparently in order to promote the NCLB act, Williams was worthy of allocation of funds equivalent to Title I funding of 141 Oregon kids for one year. I am certain that my wife's fellow dedicated teachers could have put that money to better use!
To make matters worse while "googling" this story I learned through a Washington Post article that this is only the tip of the iceberg.
"The (Education) department already has paid Ketchum (public relations firm) $700,000 to rate journalists on how positively or negatively they report on No Child Left Behind, and to produce a video release on the law that was used by some television stations as if it were real news."
That represents Title I funding for another 412 struggling kids down the toilet in a political scheme which does nothing for our struggling schools!
Now I know that some would point out that such figures when compared to the massive amounts of money spent by the Federal Government are statistically insignificant. That is part of the problem. The larger the organization the more wasteful since larger and larger amounts of wasteful spending become "insignificant". At my wife's school the water from the water fountains in the school is undrinkable. After further drastic budget cuts from the state the teachers voted on whether or not to allocate dwindling resources for teacher supplies to pay for coffee or bottled water (5 gallon jug type) for staff since the district could not afford to provide both. (They chose water, the kids are simply out of luck). The school commonly runs out of all paper by the middle of March and teachers - all of whom are required to get Masters degrees and are paid very poorly - purchase their own paper, and countless other classroom necessities, for the remaining school year out of their own pockets.
As I wrote late last year I am now nearly convinced that we should abolish the Federal Department of Education and give all education dollars directly to the states with no strings attached.
This is an outrage on so many levels I don't even know where to start! When I receive the requested FOIA documents (I'm sure it will be a while!) I will report back.
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