Demonization of Teachers (Cont'd.)

Drat. He's back.

It's been a disappointing week from Reinhard. He had no column in Thursday's Oregonian, and this week's Sunday column is basically a re-hash of the same column from three weeks ago. To quote Napolean Dynamite: "Gosh." Two columns a week shouldn't be that hard right? That's all Dave has to do to earn his hefty salary- and he can't even do that?

Seems kind of hypocritical for him to write columns saying that teachers are overpaid, isn't it?

I'm tempted to copy & paste my response from three weeks ago (I mean, if he can do it, why can't I?), but let's examine Dave's latest:

He begins by acknowledging his column from a few weeks ago in which he cited an article in the Portland Tribune (!!!) that compared school districts in Austin, Texas and Portland, two similar cities, and pointed out that Austin schools spend less money per student, yet have a lower student-teacher ratio and longer school year. He also addresses the reaction to that column: readers pointing out that Austin has a lower standard-of-living than Portland's; others cheering Dave for bringing the subject up; and others 'not caring' about the numbers he writes about. Funny. Dave glossed over the points I raised in my response to him a few weeks back: that Portland's teachers earn the national average salary for master's degree holders; that Portland's spending-per-student fall in line with the national average for cities of comparable sizes; and Portland's funding-per-student is nearly $2500 less what Cleveland spends on its students, although Cleveland's population is 75,000 people smaller than Portland's.

No. Austin's funding-per-student rate is lower, therefore Portland tax-payers are getting screwed!

Dave's inisistence on relying on 'averages' is a cheap way to hide behind 'fuzzy math.' As I pointed out in my earlier response, Portland public schools pay less per student than the national average. An anonymous commenter points out the fallacy of relying on averages:

He might think for a moment about how misleading averages can be unless supplemented by additional info. If Paul Allen and Dave were in the same room, for example, their average net worth would be in the zillions of dollars, but I don't think Dave could then quit his job and live off his wealth.

Could it be that some of Portland's wealthier schools actually end up skewing the district's over-all average? If we were to remove those schools, would Portland's funding-per-student come to a closer match with Austin's?

There is no individual per- school funding provided by schoolmatters.com (just districts as a whole) so that information is not available, but what if this supposition were correct? Middle-class families and neighborhoods have proved, historically, to fight to protect 'their' school and deny any cuts in funding, programs, or services for the schools that best provide for their middle-classiness. That means if cuts, or closures, are to be made, they will be made at the expense of schools in lower-class neighborhoods that are traditionally neglected in the first place.

How fair. How democratic.

Dave and his ilk would argue that a more democratic solution would be for teachers to take across-the-board cuts in salary and benefits, a solution he offers in his column. This is where the demonization of teachers continues. Again, Portland's school teachers get paid the national average of master degree earners. And we need to ensure that teachers in our community are financially secure- if you were to be served by your child's teacher behind the counter at Plaid Pantry duing the weekend or in an evening, wouldn't you wonder about the quality of your child's education? Besides, in the past few years, teachers in Portland have agreed to a pay cut, a reduction in benefits, schools being closed or combined, and were willing to work ten days for free to make up for budget shortfalls. (Which flies in the face of the traditional conservative ethic that you 'get paid the value of your work.')

Obviously, to Dave that's not enough. He seems determined to see just how much blood is possible to get from these stones...

And the most galling aspect of Dave's rhetoric is his insistence in referring to it as a "crisis." As if a $57 billion shortfall and 11 possible closures are anything but. I know it's oft-repeated, but healthy schools are essential for healthy neighborhoods. People, that is middle-class families, aren't going to want to buy houses and spend their incomes in neighborhoods that have overburdened, deteriorating schools. This explains the "demographic change" the Oregonian made mention of in an unsigned editorial that reduced enrollment of Portland's public schools from a high of 80,000 to a stabilized 46,000. Obviously, school closures are necessary when the enrollment is cut in half, and Portland may be full of "hip, edgy" childless twenty-and-thirtysomethings currently. However, as my "hip & edgy" friends marry, buy houses, and settle down, they're increasingly doing it outside of Portland, as Portland is looking like a less attractive place to raise a family.

By Dave referring to it as a "crisis", the concerns of middle-class families are ignored in favor of divisive rhetoric, and the actual crisis continues unabated.

As Dave's erstwhile colleague David Sarasohn pointed out in his column last week, even though the states of Oregon and Washington may share a border, they couldn't be further apart when it comes to funding schools. As Oregon is besot by the (easy) demonization of teachers, and a do-nothing legislature willing, it appears, to watch the state's only urban school district fail, Washington's legislature just put $30 million into a program to help high school students meet graduation requirements.

Thanks to Dave and other pessimistic nay-sayers scoffing at Portland public school's "crisis", it may appear that the best place to have your kids go to school in Portland is Vancouver.