The Things We Ought To Keep 1000' Away From Schools

Two stories in the Houston Chronicle today focus on the efforts of the Usual Suspects (government bureaucrats) tasked to "preserve" the quality of education in Houston. The first involves a plan by HISD (Houston Independent School District) to incent teachers to transfer to failing schools by paying them $10,000 per year in "bonus" money for up to two years. The "pilot" program would involve only twenty teachers specializing in Math and English, and only for grades 4 through 8.

The other story involves the busybody minions of the State of Texas and Harris County going after Spec's, a reputable chain store that sells alcohol, mixers, soda, coffees, cigars and sundry specialty foods. The reason? Spec's built a store within 1000' of an elementary school.

Several thoughts come to mind on the bonus program. For one thing, it is refreshing to hear HISD admit, albeit unintentionally, that their programs - not to mention the Teachers they propose to replace - have failed to teach our children effectively. Given the regular feel-good stories that come out of HISD about how well their schools are doing, it's a change of pace for them to admit otherwise. It is also predictable that the solution that HISD would come up with would be to throw more money - and boodles of it - at the problem, as if that was the only option available.

It is also interesting that the standard for judging the success of the pilot bonus program would be if scores on standardized tests improve, inasmuch as there is a movement afoot in the Texas educational establishment to abandon the standardized testing component of No Child Left Behind. The Chronicle ran a story mere weeks ago outlining the consensus of our Educational bureaucracy that the TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) test has to go. Now, if TAKS is as useless as they proclaim, how can HISD bureaucrats then use standardized testing as the basis to justify enormous performance bonuses for Teachers? Sounds like a classic case of cherry-picking to me.

The next thing to consider is the cost. When the Obama Administration is allowed to portray any and every increase in education spending, including larger Pell grants, vastly increased Federal subsidy of primary and secondary education and a government takeover of student loan programs as a worthy "investment" in our "underfunded" school systems - and nothing less than a moral obligation on the part of America to boot - you better reach for your wallet. If you think this program (which has failed everywhere else that it has been tried) has not been well thought out, your instincts are correct.

There is nothing that can strike fear into the heart of a taxpayer faster than a bureaucrat mouthing the words "pilot program", so one must contemplate the consequences of this ill-conceived idea. For instance, who determines which schools are "failing"? Who determines which teachers qualify for the bonuses? And since HISD as much as admits that some Teachers are successful while others are not, in taking successful teachers from one school and putting them in another, aren't they dooming the students that lose the services of the successful teacher to failure?

Are they suggesting that the sterling qualities of a handful of "successful" teachers transplanted to a failing school will somehow rub off on the other teachers who are not? Exactly how will this happen? And exactly how do they keep from engendering jealousy - not to mention animosity - on the part of the incumbent teachers at the failing school who do not get bonuses for the Outsiders sent in to "rescue" the school from failure? And what of the teachers these superstars replace? If they weren't doing their jobs in the first place, will they be fired, or - more likely - will they keep their jobs and continue doing a substandard job?

And since there are apparently no objective criteria for determining the success or failure of the program, how long will it be before these "bonuses" become a standard feature in teacher compensation? How long could before a pilot program to give $200 thousand per year in bonuses to a mere twenty teachers devolves into a $10 million program for a thousand teachers, or a $50 million program for 5000 teachers? And who in their right mind would believe that these supposedly two year bonuses wouldn’t become a permanent part of teacher compensation? It's not like there isn't proof that this is the objective, inasmuch as HISD and school districts the nation over have been advocating "incentive" or "bonus" pay programs, on the assumption that a) Teachers are underpaid and b) they need to "pay like the private sector" in order to "attract top talent".

Note to the Education Establishment: a) Teachers aren't underpaid compared to their Private Sector alternatives and b) the Private Sector is ROTFLOL at the notion that you would attempt to emulate it. For starters, while not perfect, the Private Sector does not as a matter of course employ battalions of tenured, self-important and ultimately clueless windbags who think it's a good idea to subsidize failure with money in the first place. In that sense, you are indistinguishable from Investment Bankers - who are as surely a part of the Public Sector as you are - in rewarding incompetence with taxpayer dollars.

Further, what drives the Private Sector is measureable performance. Take, for example, a UPS delivery person. If he or she routinely failed to successfully deliver a truck full of packages on time and in reasonable repair, the Private Sector solution would not be to bring in another driver to take over their route, whilst still employing the underperforming driver. No, the driver would be subject to remedial training, some supervisory oversight and some form of counseling; and if their performance still didn't improve, they would be fired and replaced by somebody who could. Since that is not now and never has been the modus operandi of our education system, it seems extremely unlikely that incentive pay would yield any tangible results.

Next on the agenda is Spec's vs. the State of Texas. As background, remember that the city of Houston has been on a mission for many years now in their efforts to shut down "gentlemen's" clubs within 1500 feet of a school or neighborhood. Now, never mind that many of those establishments were there first, and that the newly built school or neighborhood encroached on them. In their never-ending efforts to provide a quality living environment - not to mention creative new ways to spend your tax dollars - the City has been methodically shutting Girlie bars down, so as to preserve the tender sensibilities of our children, not to mention providing a goodly dose of self-esteem to the bureaucrats in State and Local government appointed to oversee - like vengeful Hall Monitors - the preservation of the moral character of our fair state and its citizens.

Fresh off their victorious effort to close down the Strip Clubs, these same devoted public servants (or their ideological soulmates) are now aiming their big guns at Spec's, a sterling corporate citizen of Houston and as benevolent a purveyor of alcohol, tobacco products and appetizers as you could imagine. I'll spare you the details of how this came to be except to say that the City didn't do all the necessary paperwork in granting Spec's an exemption. Yes, the general rule is that liquor stores cannot be within 1000' of a school, but only a public servant could make a crusade of the matter in the absence of any evidence to suggest that the store's presence had in any way affected the students of the nearby school.

Which makes one ponder the impact on the neighborhood - not to mention the moral fiber of our youth - by there being a Spec's within 600' of the school instead of the customary 1000'. What dire consequences must Officials have been contemplating if such a thing occurred? Granted, 1000' is safer than 600', since arguably few of the children in HISD could actually walk 1000' on any given day without a school-issued inhaler, so the shorter distance alone might be enough to give the school district pause in this, our litigious age, but for the fact that most schoolkids are equally disincented to walk even 600'. And school officials ought to be further comforted by the knowledge that close to 100% of the little darlings are chauffeured to and from school anyway, with little evidence that bus drivers (or Soccer Moms) are routinely stopping off at Specs so as to allow little Johnny to grab a Roadie for the trip home.

So, while there is a practical consideration to keeping places that children ought not to go into at least at arm's length, it ought to be tempered by the knowledge that - in going to school - schoolkids are never going to get close to them in the first place.

As for me, I can think of some real dangers Biffie and Brittany should be protected from that are within 1000' of your typical school:

- The vending machines found on most every campus - not to mention the nearby convenience stores - which dispense cans of Coke (44 grams of sugar), Mountain Dew (48 grams of sugar) and a six pack of Oreo Cookies (44 grams of sugar).

- School cafeterias that daily crank out metric tons of diabetes and coronary heart disease inducing breakfasts and lunches consisting of eggs, sausage, bacon, pancakes, syrup, butter, sugar, donuts, tacos, cheeseburgers, pizza, nachos, potato chips, processed meats, a vast array of desserts and more salt than the residue from Hurricane Ike. They do also prepare some cooked vegetables and the occasional salad, but these items are - as a Math teacher might confirm - statistically insignificant.

- Student's cell phones, virtually all of which are used to one extent or another for texting, "sexting", cheating, browsing, twittering, gossip and a dozen other recreational functions that distract from learning and contribute to the epidemic of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) that so contributes to the endless-funding educational bandwagon.

- Miss Comehither, the randy twenty-six year old temporary English teacher that revels in short skirts and the opportunity to relive her freshman year - with Freshmen.

- Student and custodial drug dealers, hardy entrepreneurs peddling dope on campus with an impunity not granted to, say, a group of kids attempting a moment of silent prayer, much less a student wearing a T-shirt that promotes abstinence. That includes School Administrators advocating a pharmaceutical strategy to address the ADHD of the aforementioned cell phone addicts, by the way.

- Teachers who are held to absolutely no standards, produce a terrible product, and then blame their customers.

- An educational bureaucracy that holds intellectual rigor in contempt, that promotes political correctness and moral relativism, and then papers over the resulting failures with decades of knob twiddling devoid of any empirical foundation or results.

- Organized crime on campus, including educrats who extort money from taxpayers with the gleeful abandon of Mexican Druglords, whose modern incarnation is known as the National Education Association.

As to the corrupting influence of Girlie bars and liquor stores, I'll start worrying about that the minute that HISD can convince me that their school system does less damage to the liver, arteries and moral fiber of our schoolchildren than does Spec's or Rick's Cabaret.