C - - Funding.

Why does a driver of a hay bail gathering machine (New Holland
"Harobed") earn more per day than a school teacher? Are cows more
important than kids? Put that way, the question is absurd. Is food
more important than education? We certainly pay more for food than
for education, so it must be considered more important. Of course,
we feel gastronomic discomfort if we go without food. Unfortunately,
we don't ordinarily feel mental discomfort without education.
Conversely, we frequently feel more uncomfortable with it than
without it. Hence the proverbial expression, "ignorance is bliss,"
and the paradox about whether it is better to be a frustrated and
anxious philosopher than a contented moron. The 1985 World Almanac
provides comparisons for 1980: Collectively we spent 345.1 billion
dollars for food and only 95.962 billion dollars on public
elementary and secondary school education, less than 30% as much.
Another reason blue collar laborers, with much less education
required to qualify, frequently earn more than teachers, who spend
from four to eight college/university years in preparation, is that
there has been, until recently, an over-abundance of teachers.
Teacher education colleges have failed to recognize a basic rule of
economics and have allowed the supply to exceed the demand.
Therefore, the value has been low. They have, for their own
survival, encouraged students to prepare to be [unemployable]
teachers, for which there was little demand. For example, a recent
opening for a history instructor at a small community college in
California had over 300 applicants for the one position.
Paradoxical, yet potentially beneficial to the quality of education
through presumed consequent increased incentive to teacher
preparation in districts that respect education, is a 1985 claim by
the National Center for Education Statistics that there will be a
shortage of 28,000 teachers within two years. Soon thereafter,
demand was expected to outstrip supply by 300,000, according to "To
Be a Teacher," an NBC news white paper sponsored by IBM on 5 January
1987 and other news reports. 700,000 teachers are expected to leave
the teaching profession by 1992. Some are retiring, some are "burned
out." Educational institutions cannot pay enough to attract
replacements for these teachers. Teacher colleges have had total
average enrollments of 320,000; currently, there are only 100,000.
Most prospective teachers are below average academically. With few
exceptions, the better college students are opting for business and
industry because the pay is much better and the pressures are less
outside of education. The education profession now ranks 22nd out of
26 careers chosen by college students. And due to unanticipated
frustrations they experience on the job, 33% of all beginning
teachers are expected to leave the teaching profession within two
years after they begin teaching.

The second wave of post war baby boomers (the babies' babies) are
entering schools now and many school districts are recognizing a
need for more teachers. Rather than increase the teacher salaries,
however, to increase the quality of education, many school districts
are lowering the credentialing standards and are hiring poorly
qualified teachers as "baby sitters." A severe teacher shortage will
exist for elementary and secondary schools in the late 1980's, which
is expected to cause a shortage of college instructors in the
1990's. This circumstance should reverse many of the adverse effects
of enrollment declines experienced during the 1970's and early
1980's. Due to demographic fluctuations, the traditionally stable
market for teachers is becoming as volatile as in some of the other
sectors of the economy.

Many of the economic problems of public education resulting in
overcrowded classrooms, frustrated teachers, underpaid teachers,
unqualified teachers could be solved merely by reducing the student
time spent in school from, for example, six to three hours per day
and reducing the ages of attendance from 6-18 to 9-14. Emphasis
would shift to assisting students to learn how to learn and
developing skills of communication and logical thinking (3 R's?).
The students' interests would determine the remainder of their
lifelong continuing education easily available through the means
discussed elsewhere in this book. And there would be fewer angry
taxpayers.

Capable potential teachers are not entering the profession because
of the low incentive and greater attraction of optional careers. In
1985 a beginning teacher earned an average salary of $14,500
annually. The beginning yearly pay for sanitation workers was over
$20,000. Teachers with ten years' experience averaged $22,000.
Students have difficulty respecting the value of education when
their teachers cannot demonstrate that being formally educated
provides economic security.

        ````````````````````
Have ambition!  Be a garbage
collector!
           ``````````````

There is a paradox between the too large supply and too little
demand with the prognostications of scarcity of qualified teachers.
Even in times of greater demand teaching remains a relatively low
paying profession.

An example of what educators consider a disparity in income is that
of a new comptroller with no service to a college. She received more
as a starting salary than professors who have been teaching 20 or
more years and are receiving salaries at the top of the salary
schedule. Comptrollers are in demand; instructors are not. Perhaps
unionism has damaged educators' income potential by equating the low
priority subjects and personnel (humanities, art, music, philosophy,
languages) with the high priority subjects and personnel (business
management, computer science, engineering, technology). The capable
ones in these high priority subjects are more likely to be able to
find employment opportunities outside of teaching. This is not to
say the former are not valuable; they are just not recognized as
such and are consequently not in demand.

More recently, I was offered a 12% salary increase (and 30% increase
in workload) to leave my community college teaching position and
become the registrar at two and a half times the salary that the
terminating registrar was earning. Why? I had the over-valued
degree, although I knew less about registration procedures than the
non-degreed person leaving the position. I told the administrative
officer who offered me the position that this seemed to be an
unnecessary waste of taxpayers' money and asked him why he just
doesn't provide the out-going registrar a significant salary
increase. Reasons: accreditation is easier when a person with the
proper degree is in that position; part- time instructors could
teach my classes at a considerable savings and the state pays much
of a degreed person's salary, not the case for a non-degreed person.

Overexpansion of facilities and faculties to meet the demand of the
early to mid 1960's college age products of the post war "baby-boom"
(from 3.78 million to 8.5 million) may be a primary, albeit
indirect, cause of the decline in quality of learning alluded to
earlier. Standards have decreased in order to maintain enrollments
in colleges and universities. Consequently, high school students
realize that, regardless of their academic records, some
institutions of higher education will be begging them to enroll.
Once the students are in college, instructors have to be careful
that they don't alienate the students, so standards are reduced to
keep the students from withdrawing. The state funds schools on the
basis of the number of bodies present, on "A.D.A." (average daily
attendance), on quantity rather than quality. This problem is
poignantly exemplified by a statement of an elementary teacher of a
non- compulsory summer session. "The principal told us to keep the
enrollments up by giving the students 'fun and games,' but try to
teach them something, too."

A primary concern of our society should be the effective education
of its people. The primary concern of educators should be the design
of the most effective learning environments for students. However,
society is not willing to support education adequately and
educational administrators are more concerned about financial
support than effective educational procedures. One college
administrator refers to students who are not enrolled as "A.D.A. on
the hoof." To generate more tax money from the state, that
administrator advocates offering more recreational type courses in
order to attract students. He used this example to defend his
position in the defense of eliminating a nursing curriculum:
Aerobics has an enrollment of 50; Weight-lifting has 44. The state
pays the college $59,800 to offer these two courses, but only
$14,000 each is paid for fewer students in Human Physiology and
Nursing Clinical Laboratory. The costs to offer these are $24,000
and $19,000 respectively; consequently, $15,000 is lost by offering
these academic courses. From the provincial point of view of the
college district, this subsidizing academic courses with "revenue"
generating recreational courses may make good economic sense. Angry
taxpayers from other geographic regions of the state, however, may
prefer to pay $43,000 for the two academic courses rather than
$102,800 for the four courses used in this example.

Relying on the popular attraction of college courses for the basis
of funding is tantamount to popular entertainments' relying on mass
audiences for ratings and consequent advertising fee rates.
Ultimately, quality in education, as quality in mass media,
deteriorates because values in both are determined collectively by
all whose tastes and mental capacities are similar to those of the
proverbial couple, Billy and Betty Bluecollar. Masses are attracted
to the easily predictable, formulaic, simple, banal, redundant
and/or sensational in education as in entertainment. Courses in
popular arts have much higher enrollments than courses in the
classics, for example. Quality is sacrificed for quantity.

In colleges, to bolster enrollment, grades have been "inflated" to
appease students and encourage their return in subsequent semesters,
but skills, standards and actual achievement have declined.

The problems of overexpansion and consequent economic difficulty are
capably summarized by Lawrence Johnson in a late 1979 CBS Radio
commentary, "What's New in Learning? The Shrinking Student Body."

     For the first time in decades, education at all levels in this
     country will soon be a declining rather than a growth
     industry," so says Edward Fisk writing in the New York Times.
     Mr. Fisk traces a change back to the mid-1960's when the post
     World War II baby boom peaked and the birthrate began to
     decline continuing to this day. Since then hundreds of
     elementary schools have had to shut their doors. High schools
     have been feeling the pinch of fewer students . . . and the
     colleges [are] experiencing a sharp drop in the number of
     eighteen-year-olds. It all adds up to millions fewer students
     to educate. The consequences are staggering. A basic question
     that will have to be answered is whether the declining number
     of students will be used as an opportunity just to save money
     or to increase quality.

     Educators and others will be wrestling with issues that go to
     the core of the educational process. For example, how will
     school boards maintain teacher morale and sustain the flow of
     new ideas at a time when few young teachers are coming into the
     system, and when those who do find jobs face limited prospects
     for advancement? Some observers say the bleak market for
     college teachers may well result in the possible loss of an
     entire generation of scholars.

     Despite the strains on the educational system, some believe the
     long term effects might have a positive side. Ernest Bowyers,
     of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teachers,
     says that "During the period of expansion, growth is often
     viewed as an end in itself. Now we are taking a closer look at
     the essence of the whole educational experience. And that," he
     says, "is a good thing."

     Meanwhile, the competition for students at the college level is
     getting brisker. Some far out advertising gimmicks dreamed up
     by admissions officers to attract students . . [include] .
     offering rebates to students who bring along a friend to
     enrollment. One college even handed out frisbees with its name
     on them on the beaches at Fort Lauderdale. . . .

Other regrettable results of the reduction of school enrollments
were many unemployed or underemployed, well educated, college
graduates in the early 1970's, some with unmarketable advanced
degrees. The problem has not gone away. A friend of mine with a
Ph.D. in music is now working as a distributor in his uncle's
gasoline company. He spends much of his time as a truck driver
delivering gasoline. My own Ph.D. pursuit was abandoned because I
was reluctant to drag the title, Doctor of Philosophy, into some of
the vocational activities in which I have found myself in order to
supplement an educator's inadequate income, including driving a hay
truck. The cover of an early 1970's issue of a weekly news magazine
showed a man in graduating cap and gown pumping gasoline at a gas
station. Many former scholars with advanced college degrees accepted
jobs which did not require even a high school education: fry cooks,
taxi drivers, window washers, motel maids or clerks, grocery shelf
stockers, . . . Where did all the scholars go?

Answers are elusive. To maintain positions for scholastic educators,
grants-in-aid programs have been provided to assist financially
disadvantaged students with living expenses above and beyond tuition
and book costs. Financial aid for the responsible and serious
student has helped support and encourage scholarship. However, too
many irresponsible and non-serious students have abused this
privilege by being interested only in the financial aid and not in
the education it is supposed to help provide. Admissions officers,
concerned more about bodies than minds, encourage enrollment of
these students who make college an elementary school for adults and
who discontinue after receiving their final grant checks prior to
the end of the semester. One gets the impression that the welfare
dollars are being rerouted through educational funding channels.
Potential students with scholastic ability refuse to be associated
with a college campus that has become, as one capable high school
graduate called one, "a welfare school." And each student without
scholastic ability should be provided apprenticeship training after
a diagnosis suggesting that a collegiate objective is inappropriate,
a waste of time for the incapable student and a waste of tax money.
The following example is the typical work of such a student. It was
written in response to a question in a mass communications class
about classical silent movies.

     yes i have seen some movesi that was very would make me i dont
     thank movers haller change of anmay today they are same funny
     moves today that i Like for the Sitint movere are very good now

On the day after registration for spring semester 1987 at the same
community college, an elderly man, obviously recruited as a "warm
body," came to the registrar's office to pick up his schedule and,
after studying it for a few minutes, had to ask the registrar if he
had any classes that day. If he cannot read his schedule, can he
read anything well enough to be a college student?

These examples are not provided to ridicule the students. They are
provided to indict a system subject to abuse from within. Is
traditional education so undesirably presented in schools that the
government has to force or bribe students to "buy" it through
compulsory attendance laws and grants in aid programs, respectively?

A learning resources center para-professional in English reported
the cheating that she observed there as a consequence of students'
being required to "earn" a minimum grade average in order to
maintain eligibility for a grant. The problem would not exist if
students knew the reason they should be attending college: for
information and skills rather than grades and financial support.
These incidents support the observation that the entire educational
system, as presently administered, is a terrible waste of taxpayers'
money. That seems like a good title for another book, Public
Education: A Terrible Waste of Taxpayers' Money!


           ``````````````
This business of education is more
business than education.
           ``````````````

Gay Ostarello wrote this appropriate poem about non-learning,
non-caring students who are concerned only with receiving grants in
aid money. It was printed in a Diablo Valley [California] College
Faculty Senate publication:

                  V IS NOT FOR VICTORY

     Back in the days when a C was a C,
     It meant what it said, "Satisfactory."
     And once in a course, in it you stayed
     And took what you got in the form of a grade.
     If you slipped below par, you certainly failed
     And the grade to your permanent record was nailed.
     Firmly affixed from that point in your life
     To show to your mother, your sweetheart and wife.
     But someone decided that psyches were cracked
     By telling a student there was something he lacked.
     His life should not suffer because of a D
     He received for not learning enough history.
     So a way was established to let him save face
     And withdraw from the course without any disgrace.
     Now when a student makes a mistake
     In deciding the sequence of courses to take
     He'll know of the error in a month, maybe two,
     And a withdrawal request is the thing he should do.
     Or if sickness arises or family distress,
     A W taken avoids quite a mess.
     But a student who's able, who's lazy, my friend,
     Should not have a final bail out at the end.
     Especially those who want only A's
     To show on their records for med school these days.
     A tacit agreement sometimes is this,
     "Give me a W in case I should miss."
     When a student earns less than his hoped for grade,
     A W is given, no penalty paid.
     My solution is this, after a certain date,
     Take the rewards for your labor and toil
     Though your perfect 4.0 you may spoil.
     If after nine weeks you haven't withdrawn,
     The option of W is forever gone.
     And what of the student who gives no resignation,
     Just quits with no effort to meet his obligation?
     Did he want to withdraw?  Did he meet his demise?
     Will he ever return and demand more supplies?
     For this case of gross immaturity,
     I propose a new grade represented by V.
     V is for Vanished, we don't know where,
     He didn't call, he didn't care.
     A grade for the student who stays and who tries,
     But a V for the student who says no good-byes.
     Let's record all the grades to show what was learned,
     From A through to F, whatever was earned.
     Use a W for only appropriate cases
     As defined in the catalog and other such places.
     And for our old problem, the ghost enrollee,
     A new mark shall brand him, forever a V.

A rarity among college administrators is the frugal president of
York College of Pennsylvania, near Harrisburg. Carol Innerst reports
his recognition of waste in her article "Schools Under a Spending
Spotlight" in the June 1, 1987 issue of Insight. He acknowledges
that federally subsidized student aid, including a $592.5 million
work-study program, drives up college costs. He also suggests that
the AAUP (American Association of University Professors)
recommendation of a nine-credit teaching load (three courses a week,
three hours per credit) for a 30-week school year is "a part-time
job."

Education is ordinarily administered by those who may be expert in
business and accounting, but know very little about efficient
educational procedures. It is bewildering how state supported
community colleges must take 3 hours a week for 18 weeks to teach,
for example, the same content in a real estate course that a
commercial real estate school can provide through individualized
correspondence procedures in less than half the time. Similarly
bewildering is a state administrative mandate that college
independent study courses are funded on the basis of attendance in
class when the projects are designed for the student to do
independently outside of class. Conditioning students to learn
independently of an instructor is not only less expensive to
taxpayers and more institutionally efficient, it is consistent with
the principles of adult learning.

So, how, the reader may ask, will education be funded if present
procedures are abolished? As suggested above, there are no easy
answers, but getting enough concerned citizens to brainstorm will
provide some. Here's one: Have teachers monetarily supported in a
manner similar to the manner in which fire fighters and law
enforcement officers are paid. Fire fighters certainly are not paid
for the number of fires they fight, nor are law enforcement officers
paid for the number of arrests they make. If they were, fire
fighters would deliberately set fires to give themselves something
to extinguish, and policemen would encourage crimes to give
themselves something to solve. In much the same way, educators
detract from educational quality by recruiting non- educable
students to provide revenue generating chair warmers in classes.
Teachers should not be funded on the basis of the number of students
in classes any more than policemen should be paid on the basis of
the number of crimes committed. Under a new type compensatory system
not dependent upon numbers of direct student contacts (although
possibly upon indirect potential student contacts determined by
community size), educators could spend much of their time preparing
efficient informational delivery systems and packages, critiquing
student projects, and engaging in research and professional growth
and other activities necessary to maintain awareness of new
developments in their respective disciplines. Priority would be
given to a student when the student requires clarification of a
concept encountered in a tutorial package or requires assistance on
a project. But the student would not necessarily have to be in a
classroom setting to take advantage of consultation with the
instructor. He may visit the instructor at a neighborhood
educational "clinic" or contact him/her by telephone or leave a
video text message in a computerized electronic mail system.