My response to Brooks: the readers write!

Reader Anonymous, responding to my critique of Brooks' column, suggests I may have gone a little astray in my thoughts on this issue. Anonymous writes "the point of this article is not “why fund schools when it is one's place in society that really determines a kid's future?” Rather, the point is why continue to throw money at a problem when more money has clearly not led to a sustainable solution."

Brooks was trying to point out that there is more to educational achievement than simply going to a school that is funded really well. A student's habitat has an undeniable effect on how that student does in school. That I will not dispute. What I will dispute is that everything has been done within the school to act as a counterbalance for what the student sees on the outside of the schoolyard. Pre-school funding has been cut, before-school activities have been cut, after-school activities have been cut year in, year out. In many places the school offers nothing more than a building one goes into for seven hours a day. Yes, students must be primed to learn, but without proper funding, a school is just a building.

Both Anonymous and I agree that "education is...the silver bullet," but s/he thinks that social problems can't be fixed by "throwing money" at the problem. Certainly public money should be spent wisely. All officials should spend money wisely and with discretion and indeed money probably shouldn't ever just be thrown around. While money should be spent wisely, it should also be spent fairly. The local property tax issue I raised in my post is still valid. Prestigious school districts are always in prestigious and exclusive neighborhoods. You can't say that doesn't have something to do with how much funding they get from their local property taxes. Reports of outdated textbooks, old (or non-existant) science equipment, no music or art facilities -- these are not problems that plague rich, suburban school districts. These are problems faced by all of the other schools districts out there.

After a certain level, education spending will bring few rewards for the extra spending (diseconomy of scale, right?). But, can anyone reasonably argue that every school is at that top level, especially in areas of blight and deprivation?

Brooks was saying that rich students are outpacing poor students, thus catapulting themselves to financial security and relegating the latter to serfdom (making the American dream harder to realize). But he goes on to blame the serfs for their serfdom. They live socially dysfunctional areas, their families are falling apart, how can they learn in school? I agree with that, to a point, but we aren't talking about a level playing field here at all. I had plenty of friends who had dysfunctional families or grew up with a single parent. Want to know something? They ended up going to Ivy League schools, prestigious state and private schools, and most of them did really well and are doing great things with their life.

Oh yeah, and my school district spent the second highest amount on its students in the entire state.