Morgan Watkins’ subtle and professor Matheny’s not-so-subtle denouncements of Gov. Scott’s proposed cuts to education on the front page of Wednesday’s Alligator are, in a word, wrong.
As a student, I am always in support of improved education, especially in a state that, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, has performed consistently at or below the national average. However, I do not submit to the naive belief that tax dollars allocated to education are directly correlated to the teaching of our state’s youth. In fact, I would contend that the bloated bureaucracies that plague public education across the U.S. utilize their funding so poorly that continuing to feed them money only contributes to the steady decline in the quality of our nation’s learning relative to the rest of the world.
The simple fact is that it is folly to have faith in the government’s effectiveness in providing any public good. The miserable service at the Department of Motor Vehicles, the inefficiency of the U.S. Postal Service and the embarrassingly low profitability of Amtrak are all testaments to this fact. Education, however, is a special case, as we place much hope for the future success of our nation on the enlightenment of its youth. Thus, many are keen to increase education funding in the hope that we will make the future better.
The problem of poor education is not limited to the state of Florida. It is endemic, plaguing the overwhelming majority of school districts in the States. The most significant culprits are the teachers unions, which have made the process of improving education impossibly difficult, prioritizing members over students.
Public worker unions seem an oddity in and of themselves, but the ways in which they have stood in the way of education reform move beyond the crimes of inefficiency and into the realm of actively harming students.
A prime example is the unions’ recalcitrant opposition to the attempt to introduce private school vouchers in Florida. Ignoring a wildly successful, very similar program that has been in place in New Zealand since the 1970s, the Florida Opportunity Scholarship Program was challenged in the courts and shot down in 2006, due in no small part to unions lobbying against it since 1999.
In fact, when considering New Zealand, one finds an astonishing disparity between education quality and funding that is essentially the inverse of that in America. Funding per student in New Zealand was ranked significantly below the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development mean, and yet the U.N. Human Development Index shows that its education is tied for the very best with Denmark, Finland and Australia. The success of the voucher system in New Zealand is universally accepted and is often cited as an argument in favor of implementation in America, much to the irritation of teachers unions.
The point here is that increased education funding simply does not translate to an increase in the quality of education, and taking up arms over a decrease in that funding is not the most appropriate response. Matheny’s stated faith in the merits of increased spending exposes his desire for government expansion, despite evidence against government’s role in education.
His remark comparing Gov. Scott to an aspiring dictator of a Third World country is, reckless hyperbole aside, a contradiction. The oppression that the citizens of these “Third World state[s]” experience is due to governments with the hubris to believe that they can do everything. It is ironic, then, that Gov. Scott’s efforts to scale back the government’s corrupting reach, especially in an area so vital as education, inspire allusions to totalitarianism.
