Conservative Student News

photo credit pacificresearch.org

Children are the future; everyone wants to do what’s best for kids. The question is, what exactly is best? When John Stossel spoke at the KidsFirst Banquet on Sept. 21, 2006, he made it clear that Americans are going to have to choose between Schulze Pie and “dancing lemons.” If you’re a bit confused right now, that’s okay, but by the end of this article you will need to decide for yourself which is better for children and the future of America.

The KidsFirst Scholarship Fund is a non-profit organization based in Minneapolis whose mission is to, “empower low-income parents living in the Twin Cities by giving them the opportunity to choose the school that best fits the needs of their child.” Since its founding in 1998, KidsFirst has raised over $7.5 million and awarded 6,150 scholarships. The scholarships are renewable, kindergarten through eighth grade. During the 2006-2007 school year, KidsFirst will have over 600 children on scholarship.

At its first annual dinner, KidsFirst presented the results of its first class of eighth grade program graduates who are now high school seniors. 94 percent of scholarship recipients are planning to obtain an advanced degree in a post-secondary format.

As a way to both honor this graduating class and raise awareness for its mission, KidsFirst hosted John Stossel as the keynote speaker. Stossel is the co-anchor of ABC News’ 20/20. Stossel is also a three-time New York Times best-seller. He is famous for his exhaustively researched reports for 20/20 on topics such as government waste and parenting, as well as debunking commonly held “myths,” such as the evils of “sweatshops” and “record high” gas prices. He has received 19 Emmy Awards and has been honored numerous times by the National Press Club for excellence in consumer reporting. His most recent ABC special, Stupid in America, reveals that the government’s monopoly on education is cheating kids.

John Stossel is not your typical conservative. In fact, he is a libertarian. He opened his speech by informing the audience that he is pro-abortion and in favor of gay rights. He holds more conservative views on education and big business, but he said that this was not always the case. In fact, when he began his career in journalism, he was very anti-business. It was only through the investigating and research that he was forced to do for his job that he had a change of mindset.

In America today, the media is very suspicious of business and capitalism, noted Stossel. He also said that people look at entrepreneurs like Richard Schulze—Best Buy’s founder with a net worth of $3.8 billion, according to Forbes—and think that he is a prime example of a businessman who has created and kept one big pie to himself. In truth, when entrepreneurs like Schulze are allowed to innovate and flourish, the impact on the economy is such that the pie becomes bigger and richer for everyone else: There are more job opportunities and more wealth for everyone.

This suspicion of business and capitalism stems from an adversity toward competition. Competition is healthy, Stossel argues, because it allows the best product or service to rise to the top, giving the consumer the highest quality for the most reasonable price. Schools are failing kids today because they have absorbed the negativity towards capitalism and competition that’s promoted by the media.

While Stossel was investigating for Stupid in America, he discovered that American students performed far below the international competition. In one of his studies, Belgian children were asked to take tests similar to those taken by New Jersey students. Stossel noted that New Jersey is an above-average state for academic performance and the students were selected from an above-average high school.

Nevertheless, the results were far from comparable. On average, the Belgian high-school students scored 76 percent correct compared to the New Jersey students who got only 47 percent of the answers correct! One Belgian student interviewed said, “The test was so easy, I think that if the kids in America couldn’t do this, they’re really stupid.” Another remarked, “Well, I thought it was pretty easy, considering the tests we usually get here. This was kind of a piece of cake.”

Furthermore, by age 15, when Americans are tested compared to students in forty other countries, they place twenty-fifth, which is, “well below the international average,” states Stossel in his book, Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity. Basically, the government has a monopoly on education. The public school system is broken because it does not allow for competition. It still operates according to the agricultural calendar—nine months of class with summers off—even though only 2 percent of American families are in agriculture.

The educational system in the U.S. balks against higher standards for students and teachers, and instead embraces feel-good methods that are thought to boost self-esteem and confidence. There is no parental choice about which public school our children may attend. Little Johnny has to go to the school in his district or his parents are forced to pay top-dollar out of their own pocket for a private education.

Since Americans have little-to-no say in how their educational tax dollars are spent, there is no accountability in the public school system. According to Stossel’s research, as per-pupil spending has gone up from $4,479 per student in 1971 to $8,996 (adjusted for inflation) in 2001, student achievement scores have remained flat and graduation rates have even decreased slightly. There is something wrong with America’s educational system.

The lack of academic standards and zero accountability for increasing funds that are poured into the educational system have resulted in a plethora of “dancing lemons”—mediocre teachers who are kept on the government’s payroll and are bounced from school to school instead of being fired for poor performance.

Stossel asked his audience to imagine a scenario where they were forced to go to a single grocery store in their town to do all their shopping. On top of being stripped of their choice of where to shop, customers at this store received poor customer service and a disappointing selection of quality products. The result, according to Stossel, would be that residents would eventually be forced to move out of town if they wanted to go to a better grocery store.

This is what is happening in the public school system today since the government monopolizes it: Parents are forced to pay for private school, tutor their children at home, or create their own charter schools if they want both choice and quality education; the public school system has failed them.

Going back to the grocery store analogy, as customers begin to leave town in search of better service, how would the behavior of the store clerks change? As customers leave, they will be forced to provide better service to their current clients in order to keep their jobs. High customer service equates to job security.

Likewise, mediocre teachers will change their behavior, but only if competition is allowed between schools. If teachers at some schools were given compensation packages with bonuses based on student performance, the result would be that the best teachers would flock to these schools.

Since good teachers are always in high demand, everyone would want to get their children into these schools. With increased competition, mediocre teachers would be forced to step up their teaching standards if they wanted to insure their own job security. In short, competition among teachers and schools is the only way to ensure the best education for our children.

Stossel said that it’s time for the educational system to step up to the plate. Imagine, he said, if there were a school where teachers were accessible via cell phone until 9 pm if students had questions on homework or concepts covered in class. A school like this would spread by word of mouth like wildfire.

Stossel said, imagine if your kid was having trouble with their homework and you found out that the kid next door had access to their teacher via cell phone! You would undoubtedly try to find out how you could get this kind of support for your child. Essentially, in a competitive environment, the excellent schools would finally be able to set the pace for the whole educational system.

It’s time Americans make a choice: Do we want to dip our fork in the delectable, rich, multi-layered “Shulze pie” that would result from competition and choice in education? Or, are we going to passively settle for the “dancing lemons?” If we think about the kids first, the choice is clear.