American Spectator
Steven Greenhut

I love the Houston Chronicle story about the modest suburban Texas grocery store that defeated the Soviet Union and ended the Cold War. Seriously, any museum that commemorates the fall of communism needs to have photos on the wall of Ronald Reagan, Lech Walesa, Pope John Paul II, and the former Randall’s store in the Clear Lake section of Houston.

In 1989, two years before the collapse of the Evil Empire, Boris Yeltsin had been elected to the Supreme Soviet and the parliament. During a visit to Johnson Space Center, he took a short detour to see a typical American grocery store. He was stunned by it. There’d be a revolution if Russians saw this, he reportedly said to his Soviet colleagues. (It’s particularly amazing given how dowdy those 1980s-era U.S. grocery stores are compared to today’s marvels.)

“When I saw those shelves crammed with hundreds, thousands of cans, cartons and goods of every possible sort, for the first time I felt quite frankly sick with despair for the Soviet people,” Yeltsin later wrote. Yeltsin left the Communist Party, became president and — despite his many obvious flaws — oversaw the end of the totalitarian regime. “You can blame those frozen Jell-O Pudding pops,” according to the Chronicle writer.

At the time, Russian grocery stores had long lines where people waited to buy whatever was available out of brown boxes in dismal stores with empty shelves. I’d guess that there were communist apparatchiks — really smart ones, too — who had reform plans to deal with the problems. The Soviet government could spend more money on grocery stores! They could change the management or create a new inventory system!

We know that’s laughable, right? The problem was the very foundation of it all. You can’t change a bureaucratically controlled, monopoly system sufficiently to assure that it does even a tolerable job providing “customers” with goods and services. For starters, there are no customers, only subjects. You have to trash the entire state-run grocery system and let a market-based alternative do the rest. Even Yeltsin and his colleagues figured that one out. (Pennsylvanians haven’t figured that out regarding their money-losing state-run liquor stores, but I digress.)

I always think of that Chronicle story whenever I write about California’s (and the nation’s) rotten-to-the-core public-school system. The latest lawsuit, filed this week in Los Angeles County Superior Court, describes a system that would be intolerable if the people who suffered from it the most had any real clout — and knew that there was an alternative way of doing things.

Two influential law firms have sued the state on behalf of current and former students and teachers at poor-performing schools in Los Angeles, Stockton, and Inglewood. The lawsuit accuses the government of failing to assure basic literacy levels in California public schools, thus undermining the state constitution’s education guarantees. It offers yet another window into the way many public schools are run. It details classes where around half the students don’t have basic reading skills, examples of fifth graders taught using kindergarten materials, and teachers who “are forced to rely on audio and video content to provide students access to other subjects.” The state has previously identified an urgent need to deal with literacy issues, but has never implemented the plan, per the suit.

“In California, up to one-third of inmates read below the third-grade level, and up to half of all inmates read below the seventh-grade level,” according to the lawsuit. “Such students are pushed out or excluded from school and end up, illiterate, in the criminal justice system. In a cruel irony, it is only while incarcerated that some young people learn to read.”

This public-school-to-prison pipeline is real and is absolutely appalling. But California Democrats, who constantly bray about the plight of the poor, aren’t about to take on the wealthy teachers’ unions that maintain the status quo. The state will never reform its school system even though 43 percent of the state budget (plus massive local bond spending) is earmarked for K-14 spending. The reason is pretty obvious. The schools are publicly funded. All the key decisions are made by bureaucrats and union-owned legislators. I rest my case.

Charter schools are among the few bright spots in the bigger cities. But massive school systems such as Los Angeles Unified School District spend inordinate time and resources tormenting those publicly funded alternative schools, which they view as a competitor for scarce dollars. Charters can only do so much given the poorly educated kids that often are dumped on them. The whole system operates like a giant make-work program and pension provider for teachers and school administrators (and, ultimately, prison guards, it seems). So it lumbers along as is, year after year.

I doubt that anything will change because of the suit, but it’s always worth spotlighting some horrors that few Californians know about. In the 2014 Vergara decision, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Rolf M. Treu put the public-school establishment into a tizzy after he tossed as unconstitutional the state’s system of tenure and other teacher protections. The system “shocks the conscience,” he wrote, by protecting “grossly ineffective” teachers who harm the future prospects of poor kids.

Based on expert testimony in the case, Treu noted that 1 percent to 3 percent of California teachers fit that grossly ineffective description, which means that 2,750 to 8,250 are having “a direct, real, appreciable, and negative impact on a significant number of California students, now and well into the future….” It was an eye-opening case, but the court of appeal overturned Treu’s ruling and the California Supreme Court upheld the reversal. Back to business as usual.

In 2015, we learned that some public high schools are so poorly run that they couldn’t even handle basic class scheduling. Kids were often left twiddling their thumbs in “fake” classes. As the Los Angeles Times reported on a legal settlement, problems at one high school “were more widespread, and many students across California have missed days, weeks or months of learning time because they were sitting in courses without academic content or merely let out early.”

Note that it took legal action to get the system to do its most basic job of scheduling students in classes they need to learn and graduate. When is the last time you had to sue your grocery store to force it to provide fresh milk or meats?

Let’s face it, too: Even the best public schools tend to be mediocre at best. My friend Lance Izumi of the Pacific Research Institute produced a fine book explaining why middle-class suburban schools are Not As Good As You Think.

One day, perhaps, America will have a leader who wanders into a private school that serves poor students and sees what can be accomplished — and has Yeltsin-like despair for students who are stuck in horrible schools where they aren’t even getting basic literacy skills. Maybe then we can shut down the current Soviet-like system and let an energetic private market take its place.

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I don’t recall ever knowing that story about the grocery store. A great one, especially if true. All those nukes, the chest thumping, mutually assured destruction, and all it took was one look at a grocery store!

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The Soviet government could spend more money on grocery stores! They could change the management or create a new inventory system!

We know that’s laughable, right? The problem was the very foundation of it all. You can’t change a bureaucratically controlled, monopoly system sufficiently to assure that it does even a tolerable job providing “customers” with goods and services. For starters, there are no customers, only subjects. You have to trash the entire state-run grocery system and let a market-based alternative do the rest.

Just imagine the education system we could have if we weren't so committed, like the Soviet Union, to our socialist system!

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:

Just imagine the education system we could have if we weren't so committed, like the Soviet Union, to our socialist system!

Well, there's one of my all time favorite responses here at SIGforum, thanks.

We could tear down all the public schools in favor of a market driven, private alternative, something I am in favor of, but it wouldn't solve the 'core' problem. Until the feral humans living among us stop breeding like the neighborhood cat, then abandoning all responsibility for the upbringing of their offspring, nothing we do with the educational system will have the desired effect we all want. These kids need stability, direction, and parenting, along with a much better school system, before a majority of them will break the current cycle they're mired in.

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:
We could tear down all the public schools in favor of a market driven, private alternative, something I am in favor of, but it wouldn't solve the 'core' problem. Until the feral humans living among us stop breeding like the neighborhood cat, then abandoning all responsibility for the upbringing of their offspring, nothing we do with the educational system will have the desired effect we all want. These kids need stability, direction, and parenting, along with a much better school system, before a majority of them will break the current cycle they're mired in.

This should be engraved in stone somewhere. Maybe Mt. Rushmore?

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Until the feral humans living among us stop breeding like the neighborhood cat, then abandoning all responsibility for the upbringing of their offspring, nothing we do...

And yet... we pay the feral humans living among us to breed like the neighborhood cat in the form of AFDC welfare "entitlements".
Stop the payments. Both to the feral humans and to the schools.

The Saudis are buying textbook companies and Islamifying the government schools. Slowly.

May 23, 2018
Islamizing the Schools: The Case of West Virginia
By Pamela Geller
https://www.americanthinker.co...f_west_virginia.html

Maybe the idea to remove all safety warnings and let nature run its course isn’t as silly as it first sounds.

My wife is an RN. In the early 80s one of her fellow nurses enrolled in some sort of educational tour to Russia. It involved traveling around the USSR and meeting other medical professionals while visiting hospitals etc. It’s apparently something med pros do and they earn education points for doing it. It’s kind of a touring exchange program. At a party at our house the RN “Ed” told us about the trip. Ed was a military vet (medic). He described how in the military he had developed a mental image of Russia as a large imposing superpower.

Ed was stunned by what he saw. “Russia is a third world country with a first world military.” He said. The state of their medical facilities were 3rd world. He descibed the Russians pride as the demonstrated different medical machines to the visitors as he traveled around to different hospitals. Their machines were things we replaced 20 years ago, he said. Their machines were ancient, and there weren’t enough of them.

“They must put all of their money into the military”, he said. “There must be little left over for medical care.” Ed concluded that the image we have of Russia is wrong. They were way behind the world in technology except for their military. The other elements of their society was just as far behind. Grocery stores, clothing stores, everything was suffering from shortages and bungling. It’s no wonder that Russian officials were amazed at Randalls.

Bear in mind this was the 80s when the Stalinist model communist state was still in effect. A lot has changed since then I suppose. I’m sure they are still way behind the West.

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I don’t recall ever knowing that story about the grocery store.

I had heard a much abbreviated version of this long ago. I'd never heard where the store was, just that Yeltzin had visited a store and said there would be a revolution if anyone saw the abundance. Pretty cool to hear where the store was.

Great article. Teachers unions....

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:

quote:

The Soviet government could spend more money on grocery stores! They could change the management or create a new inventory system!

We know that’s laughable, right? The problem was the very foundation of it all. You can’t change a bureaucratically controlled, monopoly system sufficiently to assure that it does even a tolerable job providing “customers” with goods and services. For starters, there are no customers, only subjects. You have to trash the entire state-run grocery system and let a market-based alternative do the rest.

Just imagine the education system we could have if we weren't so committed, like the Soviet Union, to our socialist system!

The Soviet Union, or California, mostly the same thing.

quote:

Originally posted by Scoutmaster:

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:

quote:

The Soviet government could spend more money on grocery stores! They could change the management or create a new inventory system!

We know that’s laughable, right? The problem was the very foundation of it all. You can’t change a bureaucratically controlled, monopoly system sufficiently to assure that it does even a tolerable job providing “customers” with goods and services. For starters, there are no customers, only subjects. You have to trash the entire state-run grocery system and let a market-based alternative do the rest.

Just imagine the education system we could have if we weren't so committed, like the Soviet Union, to our socialist system!

The Soviet Union, or California, mostly the same thing.

Better beaches. More sun. Fewer clothes.

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:
We could tear down all the public schools in favor of a market driven, private alternative, something I am in favor of, but it wouldn't solve the 'core' problem. Until the feral humans living among us stop breeding like the neighborhood cat, then abandoning all responsibility for the upbringing of their offspring, nothing we do with the educational system will have the desired effect we all want. These kids need stability, direction, and parenting, along with a much better school system, before a majority of them will break the current cycle they're mired in.

When GW Bush ran in 2000, I researched his political career. I was impressed with what he'd done for Texans during his terms as governor there. I was especially impressed with his idea concerning schools during his campaign trail. He wanted to privatize schools, and provide vouchers to parents so that they could pick and choose which schools their children would attend. It was his way of introducing competition back into the business of educating our youth.

The media/Democrat/union cabal sure didn't cotton to this idea - not one bit! So, the media lied and said the idea was racist, and that Blacks were offended by the very idea. This was proven to be a big lie when pollsters discovered that the vast majority of Blacks were totally behind the idea. The teachers unions mortgaged most of their property in order to raise funds to fight it.

Sadly, even though GW won, he was unable to get it done.

Just imagine if schools' funding was actually affected by the outcome of their work! What would happen to a school if the majority of its students couldn't pass the SATs versus the school whose students aced the SAT?

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He wanted to privatize schools, and provide vouchers to parents so that they could pick and choose which schools their children would attend.

GWB also wanted to privatize social security. He didn't really push too hard for either. Some say it's because 9/11 changed the course of his Presidency. I'm afraid it was because he was never really the conservative he pretended to be when he campaigned.

quote:

Originally posted by synthplayer:
Just imagine if schools' funding was actually affected by the outcome of their work! What would happen to a school if the majority of its students couldn't pass the SATs versus the school whose students aced the SAT?

A noble idea, but one destined to fail miserably in the current environment. Again, if we can't get a handle on society in general and create some form of stability and direction in the lives of low income children, nothing we do with schools is going to significantly change the current paradigm. Its a far more difficult issue to solve than just fixing the schools.