Public Education

We hear it every legislative session: More money for teachers salaries and more spending on education for our students.

Should our teachers in West Virginia receive higher salaries, of course. Should we increase classroom spending - well, lets look into that for a second.

You can see here how much each state spends per student. As you can tell, WV weighs in around $7,700 per student and ranked 19th nationally. Sidebar: That's about twice as much as what parents pay to private schools here in the state on top of the taxes they pay that goes to public education. But, that's an argument for another day.

Meanwhile, District of Columbia ranks #1 and spends about #13,000 per student.So, if spending per student is direct proportionate of how students will do in school, then DC's scores should be WAY above ours.

West Virginia's average ACT test score in 2007 was 20.6 while DC's average score was 18.7.

I have no problems giving teachers in West Virginia higher pay. We rank near the bottom and it makes recruitment tough for our public school system. But pumping more money into the system on the basis of an argument that it will increase our scores is just not plausible. Just ask the parents who send their kids to school in DC.

Our school system should be finding better ways to spend the money they already receive and making our school system more efficient and finding ways to keep kids attention.

Karl Marx and the Second Grader

At the Hilltop School in Seattle, Washington teachers Ann Pelo and Kendra Joaquin are teaching second graders that Communism is a fair and just system. Apparently, the kids built a town out of Lego blocks. The kids began to lay claim to the buildings they assembled. One kid refused to allow another kid to land his Lego plane at his airport.

The teachers response was to take away the Lego blocks. Then the teachers taught the kids “social and political understandings of ownership and economic equity from a perspective of social justice.” They were taught that personal ownership, property rights and Capitalism is bad. Whoa! These are second graders! After three months of Marxist indoctrination the Legos were returned to the kids with new Soviet style rules of property ownership.

Second graders should be taught sharing is a good thing, but trying to teach them complex socio-economic theories is another. Ann Pelo and Kendra Joaquin are clueless on the subject of Capitalism and Communism. They should be kept away from kids of all ages (including college).

Our nation was built on Capitalism, and it gives everyone an equal starting point. If you work hard you will be rewarded. Bill Gates started in a garage. John D. Rockefeller failed several times before finding success. Capitalism doesn't guarantee success, but it gives you an opportunity. What you do with that opportunity depends on you. You have heard the saying that rich get richer, that is true, but the poor get richer at a much faster rate than the rich in this county.

We live in the most successful nation in the world, and Capitalism is our system. If you want to know if our system is the best give it the "Gate Test." Chuck Kinder of the WV State Auditors Office gave a speech I had the opportunity to attend. In it he stated, "If you want to see how successful your country is give it the Gate Test. Open the gates and see which people go." The communist countries of eastern Europe built walls to keep there people from leaving during the cold war. We are building walls on the Mexican border to keep people out.

Gate Test: Capitalism passes with flying colors.