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PARTISAN REVIEW
conditions. However, politicians often use these ideals we share to push
their own ends, and are unable to do so outside the existing system.
Thomas Sowell has referred to this as "bipartisan baloney." And Chester
Finn, from whom you'll hear in a minute, has described the enormity of
political and institutional obstacles to meaningful change. We'll hear from
him whether-concretely-we are closer to overcoming these hurdles
now than we were a few years ago; and from our European participants
why the implementation of specific laws may be less costly than they are
under our various federal and state legislations. (I don't mean to imply that
other countries don't face problems similar to our own.)
On November 21, 1997, the
FrankfurterAllgemeine Zeitung
reported that
administrators and faculty had trouble hiding their support of students'
strikes in Hessen, since they too were upset about the fact that since 1977,
for instance, the number of students rose by 80 percent, and the number of
professors by only 10 percent; that state support sank by a third between
1975 and 1992; and that money for schooling (German universities are
under the auspices of the state) will be cut even further. Dr. Deppe–
Wolfinger will tell us about the ramifications of all that, and, I expect,
about the allocation of funds.
Over here, we are often led to believe that more money will
fix
most
of the problems of our schools. But can it really help instruct the tenured
teachers in K-12 who themselves had inferior educations and are already
in the system, or the professors in universities who perpetuate their own
narrow training, and/or the poli tical biases they believe they must inculcate?
This is not to say that we don't need adequate funding, but that we
must try to get rid of the waste that goes into administering and oversee–
ing such things as affirmative action, special education, and much of the
other well-intentioned legislation that has little to do with student learn–
ing, but whose implementation by now employs hundreds of thousands,
even millions, of citizens who, in turn, form pressure groups and have too
much to lose to face squarely what is going on.
In any event, it seems to me inadmissable, for instance, that over half
the funds for New York City's public education-the highest in the coun–
try-is spent on administration rather than on books and other materials;
that teachers' accountability is thought to rise with increases in salaries; that
teachers' education often lacks content; that corrupt school boards perpet–
uate nepotism; that neither teachers nor principals may be fired; and that
teachers' organizations are able to prevent meaningful reform-because
politicians who could initiate such reforms don't dare tangle with unions
strong enough to keep them from being re-elected. Does this mean that
we therefore ought to abandon public education, as some argue, and go to
some form of managed education, or support a variety of private educational
