Where are our educational dollars going?

            Do you know where your educational dollars are going? Most people assume, and with good reason, that the property taxes and other taxes that contribute to education that we all pay do go to fund public education. Whether you have children of school age or no children at all, the allocation and spending of our hard-earned money on education should be a concern to us all. In the U.S. we believe in a free public education for every child, as that is what is most likely to help students grow up and become productive, tax-paying citizens like the rest of us. If we do not teach children well, they can and often do become a burden on society. It is much cheaper to educate children well and get them a high school diploma than it is to have them in and out of correctional institutions all their lives.

            No Child Left Behind has forced us to spend our education dollars on testing services that give us a one-day, one-shot look at what students know on a multiple-choice exam. These testing companies, such as NCS Pearson, Inc. are private companies taking money out of the general education fund for this one day test. Did you know that the new STAAR test that will replace TAKS cost nearly $1 billion just to develop?! On top of that, NCS Pearson charges Texas schools nearly $95 million per year (up from $9.5 million per year in 2005) just to administer and grade the standardized tests, which unavoidably contain some flaws in their construction and wording. This causes us to wonder if the tests actually measure what they are supposed to measure. How much of a difference would it make if we were to spend that money on resources, teachers, and buildings for our public schools?

            With the progressively higher passing rates on the standardized tests every year (which are unattainable and unrealistic goals), schools that provide services in their communities are being labeled as failures and this is being used to rationalize the closing of schools. What are these neighborhoods going to do? Most Americans cannot afford to send their children to private schools, so closing the neighborhood school does little to help most of us.

            NCLB is resulting in the privatization of public education in more ways as well. This includes money being spent on test-prep programs that do not teach the students any of the content knowledge but instead how to answer specific types of questions, boring materials to help students prepare for the test, as well as Supplemental Educational Services required by NCLB. All of these programs and projects take money directly out of our education fund and puts it directly in the hands of private, for-profit businesses.

            Where have we gone when we are willing to spend millions, indeed billions, of dollars on a one-day, one-shot test but we cannot agree to educate all of our children equally? These private companies are sucking money out of our already meager and underfunded education funds and they do not make education any better. The standardized testing reform movement, like many educational reforms, has not delivered as promised. We, as a society, owe it to our children to take a step back and see if our children are benefitting from the privatization of education. If not, as concerned citizens, we should start a discussion as to what the next steps towards improving the education system in our local communities and states should be, including all shareholders. No one group or body should make all the decisions that affect us all.