Speed Gibson

I hope you saw that this John Stossel program, pre-empted by sports locally, was broadcast at 12:35 AM this morning. I stayed up, watching it as I recorded it. It was well worth it, possibly Mr. Stoseel's best work to date.

I also was pleased to see that ABC did not pull Stossel's punches. He says from the beginning that American students aren't making the grade because the public schools are failing them, then spends the rest of the hour showing why.

Even suburban schools are labelled as failures, even though 57% of us give our districts an A or B rating. That's only because we don't know what we don't know says the frequently quoted education reformer Kevin Chavous. "Right!" says Stossel, who then shows what happened when the same test was given to Belgian and New Jersey students. The Belgians, who spend less than we do, scored 76% vs 47% at an above average New Jersey, also above the national average.

Stossel then makes another key point. American fourth graders test above average againt the (free) world, but at the end, we rank 25th. Draw your own conclusion.

The money question took up another segment. The Kansas City billion dollar failure was featured as you might expect, but also school administrators who clearly think we need to dramatically raise education spending even more. Finally, examples of private and charter schools are given, where grades are up even though expenses are half or even a third of the average public school.

Choice was the next subject. In most countries that outperform us, education funds are attached to the student. Call them vouchers if you like. Schools that don't perform to parents' expectations - close! But here in America, the non-privileged get no choice. Your zip code picks your school. One interesting anecdote was about the new South Carolina Governor. He, too, theoretically had no choice, but some of the more well-to-do schools came to him and his wife offering waivers for their children to attend their schools. They eventually opted for a private school. The point is, the parents couldn't choose, but the schools could.

Finally, there are the unions. I don't think Stossel went out of his way to make them look bad, even thuggish. He didn't have to. First, Stossel showed the five foot long flowchart of the dozens of steps required to fire an incompenent teacher, even a sex offender. But when Randy Weingarten, President of the New York City teachers union said to John, "... those folks who like to say [we're a unionized monopoly], they really don't care about kids." I like to keep it civil here on my blog, but this is one case where, given the contemptuous look on her face as she said it, a b****-slap is in order for this h*.

Stossel finishes up by returning to choice, citing the success that vouchers have brought to Milwaukee, both public and private. But according to the teacher whose lawsuit cost Floridians their bite at this apple recently, "Competition is not for children, it's not for human beings, it's not for public education, it never has been [false! -SG], and it never will be." But Stossel ends on a high note, saying with examples, imagine all the ideas that could come forward when we do finally give parents the freedom to choose.