Friday, October 22, 2010

Paddack burnishes her status-quo bona fides

Congratulations to Susan Paddack, a candidate for state school superintendent in Oklahoma. She has pulled off quite a feat. She has managed to out herself as more committed to the failed status quo than even Barack Obama and a local labor union boss.

The Oklahoman recently reported that Paddack told a room full of school superintendents,
I've been told on many occasions you can't throw more money at it. And I always think, “Gosh, let's try, you might like what you get.”

But of course, as the following charts make abundantly clear, (1) we have been throwing more money at it, and (2) we don't like what we're getting.







Sen. Paddack could learn a lot from President Barack Obama, who said last month:

We can't spend our way out of it. I think that when you look at the statistics, the fact is that our per-pupil spending has gone up during the last couple of decades even as results have gone down.

And as if her "throw more money" comment weren't enough, Paddack doubled down by asking the superintendents,

Are you not sick of the word “reform?”

Wow. Even Mr. Obama last month acknowledged that "money without reform will not fix the problem." Even Ed Allen, president of the Oklahoma City American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO, understands that "reform must come first and the dollars to support achievement must follow. As educators, we must accept the fact that reform is here and it is not going away. Demanding dollars without reform is a losing argument, morally unacceptable, and politically unattainable.”

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