Fat, Drunk and Stupid is No Way to Go Through Life
- by James Quinn
- August 19, 2009
Dean Wormer: "Did you boys see your grade point averages yet?"
Hoover: "They're not posted yet, sir."
Dean Wormer: "I've seen them. Mr. Kroger, two C's, two D's and an F - that's a 1.2 grade average. Congratulations, Kroger, you're at the top of the Delta pledge class."
[Bluto gives Kroger a congratulatory nudge]
Dean Wormer: "Mr. Dorfman."
Flounder: "Hellooooo."
Dean Wormer: "0.2. Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son. Mr. Hoover, president of Delta House - 1.6. Four C's and an F. A fine example you set. Daniel Simpson Day has no grade point average. All courses incomplete. Mr. Blu- [looks up to see that Bluto has stuck pencils up his nose] Mr. Blutarsky. Zero POINT zero."
─ Scene from Animal House (1978)
Wormer was correct. Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life. An immeasurable swath of America has not heeded his advice. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 66% of adults over the age of 20 are overweight or obese. That is approximately 140 million adults. Somewhere between 15 and 20 million Americans can be classified as alcoholics.
There are 225 million people over 18, and 32 million of them do not have a high school degree. There are 32 million adults – 14% – who are illiterate (23% in California, 22% in New York, 20% in Florida, 17% in New Jersey). The United States’ spending per pupil in public schools at $9,266 is in the top 5 in the world. New York and New Jersey spend $14,000 per pupil and one-fifth of their adults are illiterate.
The American people’s ignorance and disinterest in the governance of this nation have allowed an oligopoly of politicians, bankers, and powerful corporations to seize control of the country and loot its riches for personal gain. By failing to educate themselves, millions of Americans have lost all of their power and are now dictated to by the few with knowledge. The elite who dictate the path of our country do not want the masses to become educated. Their power would be in jeopardy. The American public school system insures the retention of their power and wealth.
The ugly numbers
Educational attainment is the single biggest determinant of lifetime income. As of 2008, 14% of Americans 18 and over haven’t graduated high school, 31% have achieved a high school degree, 27% have earned a bachelor’s degree, and only 9% have earned an advanced degree. Even though 69 million Americans have attained a high school degree, many are functionally illiterate as our public school system has just matriculated them through the system.
If you make the effort and earn a bachelor’s degree or master’s degree, the likelihood of making it into the top 10% to 20% of earners goes up dramatically. Drop out of high school and you guarantee that you will remain in the bottom 25% of earners, making less than $22,500 per year. Of the approximately 111 million households in the United States, only 5.6 million earn more than $167,000. On the other end of the scale, 36.6 million make less than $30,000. The bottom is occupied by high school graduates or dropouts. The top is occupied solely by college graduates.
Liberal waste of money
The United States takes in excess of $500 billion per year from its citizens through income taxes, real estate taxes, and school taxes to educate our young people in the public school system. There is no country on earth that spends close to the amount spent by the United States. With this level of spending, we must have the smartest, best educated, most motivated students on the face of the earth.
Somehow, despite the billions "invested" in our children, millions graduate and can’t add or subtract. Cashiers in most retail stores would not know how to give you change from a dollar if the cash register didn’t tell them. Even then, it is often times a struggle. The mathematics literacy of our 15-year-olds is well below the world average and 10% to 15% below the leading Asian countries. It should be clear even to a high school dropout that our government bureaucrats haven’t spent our tax money efficiently or effectively. Our public schools are either not teaching the right things or not using the right techniques.
The liberals who are clamoring for more money and more government control of education have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that their methods have failed. According to the U.S. Department of Education, per pupil spending in 2005 was $9,266, up 128% since 1971. This means that from the time a child enters 1st grade until he/she graduates from high school (if they graduate), it costs taxpayers $111,000. You would think that with that investment, more than 33% of high school graduates would go to college. A study of public school students from 1991 to 2002 by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research generated disturbing results:
- The national high school graduation rate for all public school students remained flat over the last decade, going from 72% in 1991 to 71% in 2002.
- Nationally, the percentage of all students who left high school with the skills and qualifications necessary to attend college was 34% in 2002.
- The states with the lowest graduation rate in the nation were South Carolina (53%), followed by Georgia (56%), Tennessee (57%), and Alabama (58%).
- About 40% of white students, 23% of African-American students, and 20% of Hispanic students who started public high school graduated college-ready in 2002.
The bureaucrats who allocate the billions in education spending have decided to concentrate on special education, education for the disadvantaged, and closing the "achievement gap" between white students and minority students. The results of these efforts have been dreadful. While spending per pupil has more than doubled, reading scores have remained relatively flat. And the national high school graduation rate for white students (80.6 percent in 2005-06) has remained significantly higher than the graduation rates of black students (59.1 percent) and Hispanic students (61.4 percent). In many cities, spending per student exceeds $10,000 per year, yet graduation rates are below 50%. In Detroit, per-student spending is $11,100 per year, yet only 25% of Detroit's students are graduating from high school.
Instead of encouraging excellence in our most gifted children, government bureaucrats spend billions experimenting with the latest educational fads and trying to make sure all students are treated equal. This socialist teaching methodology has accomplished mass mediocrity. The devastating combination of mediocre teaching methods, weak curriculum, disinterested or non-existent parental involvement, lazy unmotivated pupils, and self-serving teachers’ unions has led to the poor excuse for a public education system.
More perfect union
The average salary of public school teachers is approximately $53,000. The average salary of public school teachers in California leads the nation at $65,000. This gives the term pay-for-performance a new meaning. A full 32% of all public school students in California don’t graduate high school. Based on information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the following facts can be gleaned:
- The average public school teacher was paid 36% more per hour than the average non-sales white-collar worker and 11% more than the average professional specialty and technical worker.
- Full-time public school teachers work on average 36.5 hours per week during weeks that they are working. By comparison, white-collar workers (excluding sales) work 39.4 hours, and professional specialty and technical workers work 39 hours per week. Private school teachers work 38.3 hours per week.
- Compared with public school teachers, editors and reporters earn 24% less; architects, 11% less; psychologists, 9% less; chemists, 5% less; mechanical engineers, 6% less; and economists, 1% less.
- Public school teachers are paid 61% more per hour than private school teachers, on average nationwide.
- The Detroit metropolitan area has the highest average public school teacher pay among metropolitan areas for which data are available, at $47.28 per hour, followed by the San Francisco metropolitan area at $46.70 per hour, and the New York metropolitan area at $45.79 per hour.
With the highest average salary per teacher, Detroit must be turning out the best and brightest. Does a 75% high school dropout rate merit the highest salaries in the country? The district has 15,000 workers, an annual budget of $1.2 billion, and only graduates 25% of the 94,000 students it matriculates through its horrific system. Well done. I’m sure they will get big union negotiated raises this year. There is absolutely no evidence that average teacher pay is related to high school graduation rates. Due to their strong teachers’ unions, salaries, benefits and tenure are fought for, while the interests of the students are disregarded.
Excellent motivated teachers produce excellent motivated students. Incompetent, unmotivated, burnt out, tenured teachers produce dropouts and functionally illiterate students. Tenure allows bad teachers to stay employed for decades. It is virtually impossible to get fired. In 10 years, only about 47 out of 100,000 teachers were actually terminated from New Jersey’s schools. New York City’s Chancellor has revealed that in that city, only 10 out of 55,000 tenured teachers were terminated in the 2006-2007 school year.
One highly destructive feature of the typical teachers’ union contract is a system that forces principals to hire teachers who transfer from other schools within the district. Since these teachers frequently are transferring because of poor performance in their original schools, the practice is called "the dance of the lemons" or "passing the trash." One problem related to the destructive transfer system is a hiring process that takes too long and/or starts too late, thanks in part to union contracts. Would-be teachers typically cannot be hired until senior teachers have had their pick of the vacancies, and the transfer process makes principals reluctant to post vacancies at all for fear of having a bad teacher fill it instead of a promising new hire.
Another common problem with the union contract is a "bumping" policy that fills schools which are more needy (but less desirable to teach in) with greater numbers of inexperienced teachers. In its report "Teaching Inequality,’’ the Education Trust wrote: "Children in the highest-poverty schools are assigned to novice teachers almost twice as often as children in low-poverty schools. Similarly, students in high-minority schools are assigned to novice teachers at twice the rate as students in schools without many minority students."
The nonprofit Education Sector found in a 2007 report that nearly 19% of all public education spending in America goes towards such things as seniority-based pay increases and outsized benefits – things that don’t do much to improve teaching quality. If these provisions were done away with, the report found, $77 billion in education money would be freed up for initiatives that could actually improve learning, such as paying high-performing teachers more money.
Success stories
Whenever I read about failure, my immediate reaction is to look for examples of success. Based on the studies I’ve found, Finland finishes at or near the top of every survey in math and science. In describing the Finnish school system, where pre-school begins at age 6, upper secondary or vocational school starts at 16 and students aren’t divided until they reach 16, Education Minister Tuula Haatainen cites "a philosophy of inclusion underlying this system. Widening participation in education is the most effective way of finding the most talented students. It's like ice hockey. We let all the girls and boys play, not only the best ones. With this fair play, we can give everyone the same chance to practice their skills – and this also gives us the way to find the best ones."
Their methods are based on common sense, personal responsibility, financial support and strong families. An important ingredient in Finland's high achievement in reading and writing is a strong culture of reading in the home. In the last international education league tables, produced by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Finland's 15-year-olds were judged to have the highest standards of literacy in the world. School meals are free to all pupils, there are no university fees and students can stay in the upper secondary stage (loosely equivalent to sixth forms) for up to four years. And Finland has made a conscious effort to have highly-qualified teachers throughout the school system.
Other ideas that have worked to improve academic results include private school choice, public school choice, and charter schools. Private school choice policies such as vouchers, scholarships, or education tax credits help parents to enroll their children in a private school of choice. Public school choice allows parents more opportunity to choose the best public school for their children by offering open enrollment within the public education system. Charter schools are publicly funded schools that meet certain performance standards set by the government but are otherwise free from the traditional public school system. It is amazing what happens when free market competition is created by school choice.
In 2001, Harvard University Economics Professor Dr. Caroline Hoxby studied the effect of school choice options on the performance of public schools. She found that public schools that faced a higher degree of competition from private schools improved their performance compared to public schools that faced less competition. Many surveys and focus groups have found that parents are more satisfied with their children's learning environment when they can choose their school. That helps to explain why limited voucher programs are usually over-subscribed, with many kids ending up on long waiting lists. In 1998, the nonprofit Children's Scholarship Fund offered private school scholarships to 40,000 low-income students across the country. In all, more than 1.2 million kids applied. Not exactly a vote of confidence in the public school system.
Implications of failure
After spending trillions on education in the last 40 years, we have absolutely nothing to show for it. SAT scores in reading are lower and math scores are flat with scores in 1972. The general populace is more ignorant, less informed, less curious, and easier to manipulate than they were in 1970.
Public schools spend anywhere from $8,000 to $14,000 per pupil and are able to send only 33% onto college. I pay $6,000 per year to send my oldest son to Catholic high school, where 99% of the recent graduating class went on to college. The teachers are paid less, school spending is half as much per pupil and results are dramatically better. The combination of teachers who are competent and care, parents who are involved and care, and students who work hard and care, leads to success.
The failure of public school education has vast negative implications for our society. Those with education and knowledge have pulled farther ahead of the uneducated. There are 225 million people over 18-years-old and 146 million do not have a college degree. Only 20 million have a master’s degree or better. Those who are educated make more money, send their kids to private schools and continue the cycle. Ignorant teenagers who grow up to be ignorant adults have kids who are brought up ignorant. It is extremely difficult to break this cycle.
This is a free country. No one is going to stop you from reading a book. My parents didn't go to college, but their three kids did. All of my children will go to college. It is expected and encouraged from the day they are born. The encouragement and involvement of two parents is more important than any other factor. The numbers speak for themselves. Asian children succeed the most because 85% of them are brought up in two parent households. White children are more successful in school because 76% of them are brought up in two parent households.
The dumbing down of America has allowed the intelligentsia to retain power and increase their control over the country. Lack of educational achievement doesn’t automatically mean you are easily manipulated, but it sure increases the odds. If you weren’t motivated enough to do well in school, you are unlikely to take your civic duties of voting, understanding national issues, and getting involved in your community seriously.
The saddest part is that an enormous quantity of even the college educated is so intellectually lazy that they choose to trust their leaders without question. With 100 million, ignorant, non-thinking, non-questioning, and intellectually lazy individuals occupying space in this country, continued domination by a few thousand highly educated elite remains quite easy. A highly educated citizenry would endanger their power. By socializing public education, encouraging mediocrity, and not rewarding excellence, government bureaucrats insure that the masses remain ignorant and pliable. For them it is fabulous; for the country it is a disaster. Winston Churchill summed it up succinctly:
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery."
James Quinn is a Philadelphia-based writer specializing in economic analysis.
Views are as of August 19, 2009 and are subject to change based on market conditions and other factors. These views should not be construed as a recommendation for any specific security.
Federated Equity Management Company of Pennsylvania
41034
Disclaimer
The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of www.PrudentBear.com. This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security, commodity or contract.
Featured Commentary 
Fat, Drunk and Stupid is No Way to Go Through Life
Wormer was correct. Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life. An immeasurable swath of America has not heeded his advice. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 66% of adults over the age of 20 are overweight or obese. That is approximately 140 million adults. Somewhere between 15 and 20 million Americans can be classified as alcoholics.
There are 225 million people over 18, and 32 million of them do not have a high school degree. There are 32 million adults – 14% – who are illiterate (23% in California, 22% in New York, 20% in Florida, 17% in New Jersey). The United States’ spending per pupil in public schools at $9,266 is in the top 5 in the world. New York and New Jersey spend $14,000 per pupil and one-fifth of their adults are illiterate.
The American people’s ignorance and disinterest in the governance of this nation have allowed an oligopoly of politicians, bankers, and powerful corporations to seize control of the country and loot its riches for personal gain. By failing to educate themselves, millions of Americans have lost all of their power and are now dictated to by the few with knowledge. The elite who dictate the path of our country do not want the masses to become educated. Their power would be in jeopardy. The American public school system insures the retention of their power and wealth.
The ugly numbers
Educational attainment is the single biggest determinant of lifetime income. As of 2008, 14% of Americans 18 and over haven’t graduated high school, 31% have achieved a high school degree, 27% have earned a bachelor’s degree, and only 9% have earned an advanced degree. Even though 69 million Americans have attained a high school degree, many are functionally illiterate as our public school system has just matriculated them through the system.
If you make the effort and earn a bachelor’s degree or master’s degree, the likelihood of making it into the top 10% to 20% of earners goes up dramatically. Drop out of high school and you guarantee that you will remain in the bottom 25% of earners, making less than $22,500 per year. Of the approximately 111 million households in the United States, only 5.6 million earn more than $167,000. On the other end of the scale, 36.6 million make less than $30,000. The bottom is occupied by high school graduates or dropouts. The top is occupied solely by college graduates.
Liberal waste of money
The United States takes in excess of $500 billion per year from its citizens through income taxes, real estate taxes, and school taxes to educate our young people in the public school system. There is no country on earth that spends close to the amount spent by the United States. With this level of spending, we must have the smartest, best educated, most motivated students on the face of the earth.
Somehow, despite the billions "invested" in our children, millions graduate and can’t add or subtract. Cashiers in most retail stores would not know how to give you change from a dollar if the cash register didn’t tell them. Even then, it is often times a struggle. The mathematics literacy of our 15-year-olds is well below the world average and 10% to 15% below the leading Asian countries. It should be clear even to a high school dropout that our government bureaucrats haven’t spent our tax money efficiently or effectively. Our public schools are either not teaching the right things or not using the right techniques.
The liberals who are clamoring for more money and more government control of education have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that their methods have failed. According to the U.S. Department of Education, per pupil spending in 2005 was $9,266, up 128% since 1971. This means that from the time a child enters 1st grade until he/she graduates from high school (if they graduate), it costs taxpayers $111,000. You would think that with that investment, more than 33% of high school graduates would go to college. A study of public school students from 1991 to 2002 by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research generated disturbing results:
The bureaucrats who allocate the billions in education spending have decided to concentrate on special education, education for the disadvantaged, and closing the "achievement gap" between white students and minority students. The results of these efforts have been dreadful. While spending per pupil has more than doubled, reading scores have remained relatively flat. And the national high school graduation rate for white students (80.6 percent in 2005-06) has remained significantly higher than the graduation rates of black students (59.1 percent) and Hispanic students (61.4 percent). In many cities, spending per student exceeds $10,000 per year, yet graduation rates are below 50%. In Detroit, per-student spending is $11,100 per year, yet only 25% of Detroit's students are graduating from high school.
Instead of encouraging excellence in our most gifted children, government bureaucrats spend billions experimenting with the latest educational fads and trying to make sure all students are treated equal. This socialist teaching methodology has accomplished mass mediocrity. The devastating combination of mediocre teaching methods, weak curriculum, disinterested or non-existent parental involvement, lazy unmotivated pupils, and self-serving teachers’ unions has led to the poor excuse for a public education system.
More perfect union
The average salary of public school teachers is approximately $53,000. The average salary of public school teachers in California leads the nation at $65,000. This gives the term pay-for-performance a new meaning. A full 32% of all public school students in California don’t graduate high school. Based on information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the following facts can be gleaned:
With the highest average salary per teacher, Detroit must be turning out the best and brightest. Does a 75% high school dropout rate merit the highest salaries in the country? The district has 15,000 workers, an annual budget of $1.2 billion, and only graduates 25% of the 94,000 students it matriculates through its horrific system. Well done. I’m sure they will get big union negotiated raises this year. There is absolutely no evidence that average teacher pay is related to high school graduation rates. Due to their strong teachers’ unions, salaries, benefits and tenure are fought for, while the interests of the students are disregarded.
Excellent motivated teachers produce excellent motivated students. Incompetent, unmotivated, burnt out, tenured teachers produce dropouts and functionally illiterate students. Tenure allows bad teachers to stay employed for decades. It is virtually impossible to get fired. In 10 years, only about 47 out of 100,000 teachers were actually terminated from New Jersey’s schools. New York City’s Chancellor has revealed that in that city, only 10 out of 55,000 tenured teachers were terminated in the 2006-2007 school year.
One highly destructive feature of the typical teachers’ union contract is a system that forces principals to hire teachers who transfer from other schools within the district. Since these teachers frequently are transferring because of poor performance in their original schools, the practice is called "the dance of the lemons" or "passing the trash." One problem related to the destructive transfer system is a hiring process that takes too long and/or starts too late, thanks in part to union contracts. Would-be teachers typically cannot be hired until senior teachers have had their pick of the vacancies, and the transfer process makes principals reluctant to post vacancies at all for fear of having a bad teacher fill it instead of a promising new hire.
Another common problem with the union contract is a "bumping" policy that fills schools which are more needy (but less desirable to teach in) with greater numbers of inexperienced teachers. In its report "Teaching Inequality,’’ the Education Trust wrote: "Children in the highest-poverty schools are assigned to novice teachers almost twice as often as children in low-poverty schools. Similarly, students in high-minority schools are assigned to novice teachers at twice the rate as students in schools without many minority students."
The nonprofit Education Sector found in a 2007 report that nearly 19% of all public education spending in America goes towards such things as seniority-based pay increases and outsized benefits – things that don’t do much to improve teaching quality. If these provisions were done away with, the report found, $77 billion in education money would be freed up for initiatives that could actually improve learning, such as paying high-performing teachers more money.
Success stories
Whenever I read about failure, my immediate reaction is to look for examples of success. Based on the studies I’ve found, Finland finishes at or near the top of every survey in math and science. In describing the Finnish school system, where pre-school begins at age 6, upper secondary or vocational school starts at 16 and students aren’t divided until they reach 16, Education Minister Tuula Haatainen cites "a philosophy of inclusion underlying this system. Widening participation in education is the most effective way of finding the most talented students. It's like ice hockey. We let all the girls and boys play, not only the best ones. With this fair play, we can give everyone the same chance to practice their skills – and this also gives us the way to find the best ones."
Their methods are based on common sense, personal responsibility, financial support and strong families. An important ingredient in Finland's high achievement in reading and writing is a strong culture of reading in the home. In the last international education league tables, produced by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Finland's 15-year-olds were judged to have the highest standards of literacy in the world. School meals are free to all pupils, there are no university fees and students can stay in the upper secondary stage (loosely equivalent to sixth forms) for up to four years. And Finland has made a conscious effort to have highly-qualified teachers throughout the school system.
Other ideas that have worked to improve academic results include private school choice, public school choice, and charter schools. Private school choice policies such as vouchers, scholarships, or education tax credits help parents to enroll their children in a private school of choice. Public school choice allows parents more opportunity to choose the best public school for their children by offering open enrollment within the public education system. Charter schools are publicly funded schools that meet certain performance standards set by the government but are otherwise free from the traditional public school system. It is amazing what happens when free market competition is created by school choice.
In 2001, Harvard University Economics Professor Dr. Caroline Hoxby studied the effect of school choice options on the performance of public schools. She found that public schools that faced a higher degree of competition from private schools improved their performance compared to public schools that faced less competition. Many surveys and focus groups have found that parents are more satisfied with their children's learning environment when they can choose their school. That helps to explain why limited voucher programs are usually over-subscribed, with many kids ending up on long waiting lists. In 1998, the nonprofit Children's Scholarship Fund offered private school scholarships to 40,000 low-income students across the country. In all, more than 1.2 million kids applied. Not exactly a vote of confidence in the public school system.
Implications of failure
After spending trillions on education in the last 40 years, we have absolutely nothing to show for it. SAT scores in reading are lower and math scores are flat with scores in 1972. The general populace is more ignorant, less informed, less curious, and easier to manipulate than they were in 1970.
Public schools spend anywhere from $8,000 to $14,000 per pupil and are able to send only 33% onto college. I pay $6,000 per year to send my oldest son to Catholic high school, where 99% of the recent graduating class went on to college. The teachers are paid less, school spending is half as much per pupil and results are dramatically better. The combination of teachers who are competent and care, parents who are involved and care, and students who work hard and care, leads to success.
The failure of public school education has vast negative implications for our society. Those with education and knowledge have pulled farther ahead of the uneducated. There are 225 million people over 18-years-old and 146 million do not have a college degree. Only 20 million have a master’s degree or better. Those who are educated make more money, send their kids to private schools and continue the cycle. Ignorant teenagers who grow up to be ignorant adults have kids who are brought up ignorant. It is extremely difficult to break this cycle.
This is a free country. No one is going to stop you from reading a book. My parents didn't go to college, but their three kids did. All of my children will go to college. It is expected and encouraged from the day they are born. The encouragement and involvement of two parents is more important than any other factor. The numbers speak for themselves. Asian children succeed the most because 85% of them are brought up in two parent households. White children are more successful in school because 76% of them are brought up in two parent households.
The dumbing down of America has allowed the intelligentsia to retain power and increase their control over the country. Lack of educational achievement doesn’t automatically mean you are easily manipulated, but it sure increases the odds. If you weren’t motivated enough to do well in school, you are unlikely to take your civic duties of voting, understanding national issues, and getting involved in your community seriously.
The saddest part is that an enormous quantity of even the college educated is so intellectually lazy that they choose to trust their leaders without question. With 100 million, ignorant, non-thinking, non-questioning, and intellectually lazy individuals occupying space in this country, continued domination by a few thousand highly educated elite remains quite easy. A highly educated citizenry would endanger their power. By socializing public education, encouraging mediocrity, and not rewarding excellence, government bureaucrats insure that the masses remain ignorant and pliable. For them it is fabulous; for the country it is a disaster. Winston Churchill summed it up succinctly:
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery."
James Quinn is a Philadelphia-based writer specializing in economic analysis.
Views are as of August 19, 2009 and are subject to change based on market conditions and other factors. These views should not be construed as a recommendation for any specific security.
Federated Equity Management Company of Pennsylvania
41034
Disclaimer
The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of www.PrudentBear.com. This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security, commodity or contract.