Armed pilots provide roadmap for securing schools

When, in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, National Rifle Association President Wayne LaPierre called for armed security guards in schools, he faced widespread criticism from liberals who believe that fewer guns, not more, are the answer to the problem of mass killings. On the other side of the political spectrum, some conservatives argued that the cost of placing police officers in every school across the nation was too costly for a federal government that is already running trillion dollar deficits each year.

The concept of armed guards at schools was proven on Jan. 31, 2013 when an armed officer stopped a shooting at Price Middle School in Atlanta. A student had smuggled a gun past metal detectors and opened fire in the courtyard of the school, wounding a 14-year-old student in the neck before the officer was able to get the gun away from him according to CBS News.

Even though armed guards are effective, they are also prohibitively expensive for many school districts. According to Craig Steckler, president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, as quoted in the Wall Street Journal, the average salary of a police officer is $55,000. There are 98,817 public schools in the United States. According to the Department of Education, about 25 percent of these already have armed security officers on campus at least once per week. The cost for providing officers for the remaining 74,113 schools would be more than $4 trillion. In spite of the recent high profile school shootings, fewer than two percent of all youth homicides occur at or on the way to school.

The school protection dilemma is analogous to the problem of protecting airline flights in the wake of the September 11 attacks. One proposal was to put Federal Air Marshals on all flights, but with tens of thousands of airline flights each day the plan was prohibitively expensive. Training enough air marshals to guard these flights would also have taken years.

An alternative solution was to create the Federal Flight Deck Officer program. This program took volunteer airline pilots and deputized them as federal agents to protect their airplanes. The volunteers were issued pistols and then trained to use them effectively. The volunteers received no federal salary or extra pay from their airlines. Instead they use vacation time to travel at their own expense to the federal training center where FFDO training is conducted. They even paid for the training themselves.

The number of FFDOs is secret, but since the program’s inception in 2003, there have been only two public incidents involving FFDOs who caused safety issues with their guns. In 2011, NBC News reported that a passenger mistakenly picked up a bag containing a JetBlue pilot’s gun. More seriously, in 2008, a US Airways pilot accidentally fired his gun in flight according to Reuters. The aircraft landed safely and no one was injured.

The FFDO program has been spectacularly successful in terms of safety, cost and fulfilling the mission of protecting airline flights. Federal Air Marshals, full time agents, are used as well, but are deployed on flights deemed to be at high risk for attack.

A similar approach could be used in schools to allow volunteer teachers and school employees to become “Federal Classroom Officers.” As with FFDOs, the teachers would be federal officers and would be exempt from local gun ordinances that prohibit gun ownership. As with other law enforcement officers, they would also be allowed to carry their guns in the “gun free” school zones.

Teachers would not be forced to carry a weapon. The program would be for volunteers only. Teachers who do not like guns would be free to choose to remain defenseless. Those who prefer to be able to defend themselves and their students would be issued a weapon and trained to use it safely. They would be required to demonstrate competency with their gun at regular intervals to maintain proficiency.

Teachers who choose not to take part in the program would still benefit from it. First, they would be the direct recipient of protection from the Federal Classroom Officers in the event of a school shooting or terrorist attack. Second, the mere presence of Federal Classroom Officers might well deter many prospective murderers from attacking the school. In the past, many mass murders have taken in place in areas that were deemed to be “gun free.”

There is no doubt that many will oppose the idea of bringing guns into schools. Many of the same arguments that will arise were presented against the idea of arming pilots 10 years ago and have been refuted by the success of the FFDO program.

In reality, guns are already present in our schools. Thousands of schools are already patrolled by armed officers. Federal Classroom Officers would have the same training in firearms that these school security officers receive. All too often others, people like Adam Lanza, bring other guns to school when police officers are not present. In the end, that is why teachers should be given the option to arm themselves. There is no foolproof way to keep bad guys with guns out schools, but we can give our teachers and students a fighting chance.

 

Originally published on Examiner:

http://www.examiner.com/article/experience-with-armed-pilots-can-help-secure-schools

Ga. charter school ballot measure sparks controversy

The presidential race isn’t the only reason to go to the polls over the next few weeks. One big reason in Georgia is the charter schools referendum. In Georgia, this ballot measure has generated almost as much confusion and controversy as the election between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.

Charter schools are public schools that receive public money, but are exempt from many normal rules in exchange for being more accountable. Charter schools cannot charge tuition and often have waiting lists for admissions. In some cases admissions are assigned by lottery. Although politically popular, charter school results are mixed. Some studies have indicated that they do not perform better than traditional public schools, while others paint a better picture.

According to Ballotpedia, the proposed text of the amendment is: “Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended to allow state or local approval of public charter schools upon the request of local communities?” According to the Georgia Department of Education, Georgia already has a number of charter schools; however these are run by local school districts. In 2011, the state Supreme Court struck down a state commission that could approve charter schools over the objections of local school boards.

What the amendment would actually do would reinstate the State Charter Commission according to the Augusta Chronicle. The commission could override local denials for charter school applications. These local charter schools would be financed by local money. The amendment would also allow the commission to set up state charter schools with a statewide “attendance zone.” These schools would be financed with money appropriated by the General Assembly, not local tax money.

Opponents of the measure see the amendment as a threat to local control of schools and tax money. The measure is opposed by many school boards, administrators, and teacher groups around the state. The NAACP has also announced its opposition to the measure, telling the Augusta Chronicle that the “amendment is not about fixing the schools and school systems, but is designed to decide who gets to spend our hard earned tax dollars for ‘special schools,’ which are not under the control of local school boards.”

In a letter to the Monroe Patch, state School Superintendent John Barge also states his reasons for opposition to the amendment. Barge says that he favors charter schools, but wants to preserve local control. He also says, “Until all of our public school students are in school for a full 180-day school year, until essential services like student transportation and student support can return to effective levels, and until teachers regain jobs with full pay for a full school year, we should not redirect one more dollar away from Georgia’s local school districts.”

Proponents argue that the amendment is not about tax money or control of schools, but school choice. In the Columbus Ledger-Inquirer, Rep. Richard Smith (R-Columbus) says, “There are some school districts around the state who will not even talk to people in their area about setting up a charter school.”

Maureen Downey wrote in the Atlanta Journal about the concern that charter schools would attract for-profit school operators to the state. Downey references a Reuters article that points out a federal program called EB-5 allows foreign investors to essentially buy visas by investing in certain projects. Over the past few years, charter schools have become a popular investment choice for wealthy would-be immigrants. Reuters notes that the program benefits both schools and investors since schools in general and charter schools in particular often face financial pressures.

The outside funding for charter schools may make up for the discrepancy between funding for local schools and state charter schools. Downey notes in the AJC that the state has confirmed that under the law, more money per student would be sent to state charter schools than local schools.

In an op-ed in the Savannah Morning News, Senator Buddy Carter (R-Savannah), one of the senators who drafted the amendment, explained its purpose. According to Carter, “special” schools were authorized and defined in Georgia’s 1966 constitution. When the constitution was changed in 1983, the General Assembly was authorized to create special schools, but the term was not defined. Carter says the lack of a definition led to the ruling against the Georgia Charter Schools Commission.

Carter further notes that local control is preserved because the first step to creating a charter school is to apply to the local school board. These local charter schools would receive money from the local school district.

If the applicant feels that the local school board has unfairly denied the charter application, the next step would be to appeal to the state. Carter says, “Not a single dollar will be taken out of the traditional public school system” because state charter schools will be funded by money appropriated by the General Assembly. “Voting in favor of this amendment will give the ultimate local control — it will give parents more options and allow them to be more involved in the decision-making process in public education,” according to Carter.

Given the current state of the economy and cuts to the state budget, there is some question about where the additional money for state charter schools would be found, but supporters like Carter are adamant that it would not be redirected from existing public schools. This might mean cuts in other areas of the state budget, higher taxes, or donations and investments from private individuals and businesses.

While the amendment is very controversial, polling shows that voters are in favor. The most recent poll, a September poll by Sand Mountain Communications, found 50 percent of voters favored the amendment with 25 percent against. Another 25 percent of voters are undecided. A last minute blitz of opposition ads by groups like Vote Smart Georgia could easily sway voters on such a convoluted issue.

Originally published on Examiner.com:

http://www.examiner.com/article/charter-school-ballot-measure-sparks-confusion-and-controversy

The Obama convention bounce is a myth

The supposed post-convention bounce in the polls that President Obama enjoyed briefly seems to have evaporated. Of the three most recent polls, all of likely voters, two show the race as a statistical dead heat. The outlier poll shows Obama with a six point lead.

Rasmussen’s daily presidential tracking poll now shows Obama leading Romney 46-45 percent. Five percent are still undecided while four percent prefer another candidate. Rasmussen notes that when “leaners” are included, Romney leads 48-47. A Washington Post/ABC News poll found similar results. President Obama led Mitt Romney 49-48 among likely voters in that poll. The outlier was the CNN/ORC poll in which 52 percent preferred Obama to Romney’s 46 percent.

In all cases the polls do not reflect the disturbing events of the past few days. On September 11, rioters stormed the U.S. embassy in Cairo, an event which first prompted the Obama Administration to condemn “those who abuse the universal right of free speech” according to Politico. Yesterday, the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans were killed in an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

Domestically, the September jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics was disappointing even though the unemployment rate edged down slightly to 8.1 percent as many people stopped looking for work. The 96,000 jobs added in August were below the average for the year and below the number needed to account for population growth. The BLS also revised downward the job estimates for July.

The president may also be potentially embarrassed the teacher strike in Chicago, part of which he represented in the Illinois state senate. Rahm Emmanuel, President Obama’s former chief of staff, is now the mayor of Chicago. The strike returns the issue of public employee unions to the forefront. The Chicago teachers are demanding pay raises even though Chicago Public Schools are currently operating at a $665 million deficit. If the raises are granted, the school system deficit would rise to $1 billion according to the Chicago Sun Times. Pay raises would likely mean that tax increases in a city that already has some of the highest taxes in the nation.

It was also revealed last week that the Department of Justice is suing Gallup, a prominent polling organization. According to the DOJ, the suit relates to whistleblower claims that Gallup overcharged the government for federal contracts. Critics point out that the federal government joined the suit after Obama campaign advisor David Axelrod criticized Gallup’s polling methodology in the wake of a poll unfavorable to Obama. Emails published by the Daily Caller suggest that Axelrod pressured Gallup to change its methodology.

The biggest problem for President Obama in the polls may be one that is totally unseen. In an article on The Hill, Dick Morris points out that pollsters are using a flawed sample. According to Morris, all pollsters are using models based on 2008 turnout. The problem is that the electorate has changed dramatically in the past four years.

For example, in Gallup’s party affiliation poll, Democrats outnumbered Republicans in November 2008 by a margin of 51-40 percent when leaners were included. Since then, however, Democratic Party identification has dropped precipitously. The most current poll shows the two parties almost tied at 49-46 percent favoring the Democrats. This is almost identical to the numbers in November 2010 (44-47 percent favoring Democrats) when the GOP won a landslide congressional victory.

Similarly, the demographic groups that propelled President Obama to power in 2008 do not support him nearly as strongly now. A Gallup poll from 2008 showed that 99 percent of black voters favored Obama. According to Examiner, it is likely that his support among blacks is now far lower due to high unemployment among blacks and the president’s “evolution” on same-sex marriage. Likewise, other polling data suggests that the president’s support among Latinos and young voters may be much lower than it was in 2008. While these groups still support the president, it is by smaller margins and with less enthusiasm than 2008.

In his Hill article, Morris also points out that voters favor the Republican idea that government should “leave me alone” over the Democratic idea that it should “lend me a hand” by a margin of 54 to 35 percent. Most also believe that the country is worse off today than in 2008. Together with President Obama’s low job approval rating, which was recently as low as 29 percent among independents according to Rasmussen, these factors indicate trouble for the president that is not accurately reflected in the polls.

Education Reform

Education reform is likely to take a central role in Georgia’s gubernatorial election this year. Cuts to the education budget and teacher furloughs have been controversial issues of Governor Sonny Perdue’s administration and the continuing economic crisis points to a long difficult road in restoring funding.

Education is at least partly responsible for Governor Perdue’s election. His predecessor, Roy Barnes, had passed a series of education reforms that were not popular with teachers. These changes included eliminating social promotion and tenure for new teachers. Barnes was also damaged by the fact that Georgia ranked fiftieth in SAT scores just prior to the election (http://bit.ly/cT8FpP). By 2008, Georgia’s ranking in SAT scores had only risen to 45th in the nation (http://bit.ly/9hMOlt).

Education in Georgia also made news in February 2010 when rampant cheating on standardized tests was revealed (http://bit.ly/cXAKBQ). An analysis of erasures on the CRCT test indicated that unusually high numbers of wrong answers were erased and replaced with right answers. This highlights one of the problems of standardized tests: not only is it tempting to teach the test at the expense of broader knowledge, when teachers are ethically challenged they might take matters a step further.

It is obvious that Georgia is in need of sweeping education reform. What is not obvious is what should be done. There are typically several recommendations that are made with regard to improving education. Increasing funding, decreasing class size, charter schools and vouchers are commonly cited as answers to the education crisis.

In the midst of an economic recession, it is difficult to increase spending on anything, even education. Education in Georgia is funded primarily through property taxes. With high foreclosure rates, property tax receipts have plummeted. In the four years that I have lived in my current home, property taxes have increased by about a third as the local government try to take more money from fewer homeowners. The higher property taxes are in addition to a seemingly endless stream of fundraisers and requests for material support from local schools. Less than 8% of Georgia’s education budget comes from federal funds (http://bit.ly/aiXyyj).

It is also important to note that increasing funding does not automatically increase student. Spending per student has more than doubled since 1970, but has not yielded significant increases in performance (http://bit.ly/9RH0Tl). Additionally, the US already spends more on each student that most other counties around the world (http://bit.ly/aFylDK).

Similarly, reducing class size is not the answer either. Studies show that reducing class size is an expensive proposition that is ineffective in increasing performance (http://bit.ly/cbC9vT). Data from schools in the US and other countries all points to the conclusion that class size has little effect on improving education, even though the increase in teachers required for additional classes makes this strategy an expensive proposition.

Charter schools have long been touted as an alternative to traditional public schools. In Georgia, charter schools may be exempted from states laws and school district rules and regulations in exchange for meeting performance based objectives (http://bit.ly/dhadNh). This begs the question that if these laws and rules are not conducive to learning, why should they be left on the books for other schools and students?

There are other problems with charter schools as well. First, charter schools are not available to all children. My county does not have one (although one is slated to open in 2010). Georgia only has about 100 charter schools in all. Additionally, a recent study showed that charter schools are no more effective than traditional public schools (http://bit.ly/daQ5Nm).

A darling of conservative reformers is the idea of school vouchers. These vouchers would be given to parents who could then choose the school, public or private, for their kids. The idea behind vouchers is that school choice would promote competition and help to improve all schools. It would also allow parents to immediately move their children out of failing schools rather than wait for incremental improvements. The problem with vouchers is that their effects are difficult to gauge. There might well be positive effects from vouchers, but they are probably less than generally assumed (http://bit.ly/dARH6H).

It is evident that none of the traditional education reforms are a silver bullet and that we should seek new ideas and alternatives. One obvious idea is to do more with less. There is not likely to be much new funding for education in the near future. To increase funding would require either more cuts in other areas of the state budget or more deficit spending. Neither of these alternatives is likely at this time. Budget cuts in other areas will be more likely to result in trimming the state deficit than preserving the education budget.

Our leaders should seek to trim the education bureaucracy. I would much rather see funds going to classrooms and teachers than to bureaucrats in Atlanta and Washington who never see a single student. The federal Department of Education has a budget of $63.7 billion and does not operate a single school or teach a single student (http://bit.ly/9VYlQX). If that money were split between the states, an additional $10 billion to each state’s education budget would certainly be welcome.

Schools should also return to the basic core subjects such as math, science, reading, writing, and history. We should consider schools to be houses of learning, not social engineering. Anything that detracts from the core mission of teaching core subjects should be eliminated. Schools should not be concentrating on such diverse subjects as normalizing homosexuality, feeding children around the clock and calendar, the pseudo-science of global warming extremism, and the revisionist view of American history as imperialist and corrupt (to name a few). Schools should also realize that the ultimate key to a student’s self-esteem is to actually learn and progress, rather than making sure no one’s feelings get hurt because someone is better.

There should be school choice, at least on a minimal level. If parents are going to send thousands of dollars to public school systems, they have a right to ensure that their children are getting a quality education. If that means moving their children to a different school (at least within the same school system), then they should be able to do so. I personally believe that they should be able to put their children in schools in other districts if necessary. It is unconscionable to take property tax money from low or middle-class parents while they struggle to pay tuition to keep their children in private schools. Of course, the parents would have to provide transportation if they chose a school outside their normal area.

Schools should also realize that different students learn in different ways. I was very interested in a recent Freakanomics radio broadcast about New York’s School of One (http://nyti.ms/buUfAj). The pilot program combines traditional teacher-led classrooms with virtual classrooms, one-on-one tutoring, and independent study. It is too early to make full judgments about either the cost or the effectiveness of the School of One (http://bit.ly/a3wHeA) but initial results are encouraging.

Finally, we also need to make it easier to get bad teachers out of the system. Unions often make it difficult and expensive to weed out teachers who are incompetent, who don’t care, or who otherwise fail their students. We need to reward good teachers, while making it easier to get rid of the bad ones.

It is often said that children are our most valuable resource. Education is vitally important as a tool to develop that resource. The future economy of Georgia and the United States itself depends on training future leaders and skilled workers for tomorrow. In order to do so, we must look to programs that actually work instead of just being politically popular. In this economic climate of falling tax revenues and shrinking budgets, we cannot afford to waste money on programs that do little to benefit our kids.

I know that I have several retired and current teachers who read this blog. I would love to hear from you regarding what does and does not work in education.

IN MEMORIAM: This article dedicated to the memory of my uncle, Junius Bronson Thornton, who passed away on July 11, 2010. Uncle Bronson probably did not agree with much of what I have had to say in this column politically, but I will miss him.
Sources:
http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/100902/new_20021009050.shtml
http://gaeducation.blogspot.com/2008/08/2008-sat-results-released-georgia-ranks.html
http://www.times-herald.com/opinion/op-ed/jones/Cleaning-up-test-scandal-will-swamp-Georgias-education-system---1010789
http://www.gsba.com/downloads/FundingGaPublicSchools_talking_points.pdf
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2008/09/Does-Spending-More-on-Education-Improve-Academic-Achievement
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_spe_per_sec_sch_stu-spending-per-secondary-school-student
http://www.wallis.rochester.edu/WallisPapers/wallis_10.pdf
http://public.doe.k12.ga.us/pea_charter.aspx?PageReq=CIIAPCharterFAQS#q1
http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/newsroom/releases/2010/Charterschool_6_10.asp
http://www.givewell.org/files/Round2Apps/Cause4/Childrens%20Scholarship%20Fund/B/EPI.vouchers-full.pdf
http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/index.html
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/freakonomics-radio-how-is-a-bad-radio-station-like-the-public-school-system/
http://schools.nyc.gov/community/innovation/SchoolofOne/default.htm

Photo credit: Felixco Inc.
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