Why I Vote Against Public Schools
Giving government schools more money will not improve academic performance. Higher taxes simply fill the pockets of administrators and union bosses. Time to abandon the money pit public school system.
Last month (April), our local school district held a “special” election for an $80 million capital bond measure. It failed. For as long as I can remember, school ballot measures have been held in February, never included in the primary or general elections. Holding such an election in April was new to me.
Our neighbor commented how running a separate election for school measures is expensive because there’s only one item on the ballot. I was surprised that this extra cost never occurred to me before. I’ve been conditioned, like everyone else, that this is just how school measures are done.
Not only is a single-measure election expensive, but the school district spends thousands of dollars on mailers and yard signs to get out the vote. Moreover, Washington has the extra cost of mail-in-only voting. So everyone on the rolls (signed up at the department of licensing or online), even the deceased and those who have moved away (One apartment building in Langley has dozens of voters registered at one address.), get a ballot.
(For financial and statistical analysis on Washington public school ballot measures, please see LevyNo.com and BondNo.com, part of The School Data Project.)
Government Schools—a Financial Black Hole
For over 30 years, my husband and I always opposed school measures as a matter of principle. It isn’t that we don’t care about education. It is because we do value learning that we reject the government school system. For decades, the public school systems have been a bad investment. No matter how much money taxpayers pour into that pit, the grades never improve. In fact, they get worse.
Now I believe this is a matter of design.
Dumbing Down and Indoctrination
First, I want to recognize that many enter the teaching profession with great intentions and truly want to make a difference in students’ lives. And many of them have had a positive influence on children. I even considered the teaching profession myself.
But the system is designed to limit academic achievement.
When Horace Mann (1796-1859) and John Dewey (1859-1952) led the transformation of a primarily private American education system into a state-run program, their goal was not to develop literate citizens but a functionally illiterate population that was easy to control. See the writings of John Taylor Gatto for more information.
Progressive educators tossed out the tried and true classical education system that had served Europeans for over a thousand years (and America for three hundred years). In its place, teacher colleges have instructed educators in new-fangled ways of teaching reading, writing, and mathematics.
In the early 1970s, my primary-grade teachers used a color-code system to teach students to read. Yeah, that really works when most books are printed with black ink. I taught myself to read Dr. Seuss’s books.
Then came the New Math. My fifth-grade teacher told us our parents might not understand our math assignments.
My aunt and great-uncle retired early from teaching because they became disenchanted by all the experimentation and social engineering they saw in the 1970s and 1980s.
Then came Outcome-Based Education. Then Goals 2000, then Common Core.
The schools added the self-esteem movement and even Transcendental Meditation into the classrooms.
Technology was brought in—word processors, magic whiteboards, and Chrome books.
Piled onto this failed pedagogy was indoctrination. God was removed in the 1960s, and atheism and hedonism ushered in: Comprehensive Sex Ed, Social Emotional Learning, the LGBTQ worldview, Black Lives Matter, Critical Race Theory, the 1619 Project, Climate Change, and “Ethnic Studies”—all cultural Marxism. (In 2021, the South Whidbey School District spent thousands of dollars to bring in Hooks Global social-change consulting firm to develop an equitable campus.)
All these innovations have done nothing to increase academic scholarship. (Nor were they intended to.)
The National Assessment of Educational Progress exam scores released in October [2022] reveal that Washington state's fourth-grade students placed the lowest since the testing started in 1994 for reading and since 1996 for math. Washington state eighth-grade students scored lower in 2022 than in any other year since the test began in the mid-1990s.
More specifically, 65 percent of fourth-grade students and 72 percent of eighth-grade students failed to reach proficiency in math. In reading, 67 percent of fourth-grade students and 68 percent of eighth-grade students are below proficiency. Everett Herald
See the report cards for specific Washington school districts or individual schools here. Regardless of performance, kids are advanced from grade to grade.
Parents and the greater community fret over these low test scores. So every year, the education industry cries out, “We need more money! That will solve the low test score problem!”
The Ponzi Scheme
Everyone agrees that supporting schools is a top priority because the children are our future. We believe that public schools are supposed to provide academic training. So, yes, we will pay more property taxes so Johnny can learn to read.
The increase in funds allows the schools to hire more nonteachers. School district administrations and nonteaching staff have bloated over the past several years. So, less money goes into the classroom.
Consider that Seattle Public Schools employs more than 7,000 adults, but only 47 percent serve as classroom teachers. There is 1 adult employee for every 7 students, yet the student-teacher ratio is far more than that. The bloated bureaucracy drives up the cost to taxpayers, equating to $22,200 per student, without counting capital budget funding. Furthermore, despite the Seattle district’s recent 7.5 percent enrollment downturn, the district has not paused plans to hire additional employees, despite no positive correlation between more staff and student learning gains.
Teachers’ salaries and benefits may grow, but the unions take the cream off of this increase. Fueled by property taxes via teachers’ dues, the National Education Association (NEA) and other teacher’s unions have become the most influential unions in the nation.
The NEA indoctrinates its members in its progressive agenda, funds progressive political candidates, and has the ear of education departments.
Thus, the “vote for the children” campaign signs lie. The additional funds don’t necessarily help the children. Instead, the increased tax revenue fills the pockets of overpaid superintendents, fat cat union bosses, and their politician friends who pass bills in their favor.
Test scores do not improve. Buildings are not maintained. These problems must not be solved because they serve as the catalyst that motivates the taxpayers to fork over more dough.
In essence, school children—and the taxpayers—are hostages to the teachers’ unions.
Because the public school system prioritizes administration salaries and the wishes of the teachers’ unions over students’ educational needs, my husband and I will always vote no on school ballot measures.
Parents and community members, we must defund the monopolistic government school system. It’s beyond reform. It must be shut down. Pull your kids out: either homeschool them or send them to a healthy private school. The schools are funded per pupil. Fewer students, less money.
Vote against school ballot measures. Washingtonians opposed five out of five school bond measures this spring. People are fed up paying for schools that don’t perform.
We can break the iron grip of the teacher’s union over our children and nation when we stop feeding the beast and abandon the system.
Well done, Lorinda