On September 6, 1976, a fighter pilot from the Soviet Union
named Viktor Belenko flew a MIG-25 fighter jet to Japan and defected. At the
time, the U.S. and the Soviet Union were fully engaged in the Cold War. The MIG-25
was a super top-secret aircraft about which the Pentagon knew only enough to be
frightened. Consequently, the MIG-25 impacted the development of the F-15 Eagle.
Thus, Belenko’s defection had major
implications for America’s national defense, allowing a better look
into the true capabilities of the Soviet Air Force.
But Viktor Belenko’s story is much richer than the fact of his
defection. Belenko had some telling experiences, described in his biography, MIG
Pilot. He related how, while he was stationed at a remote
military base, his superiors were told that a dignitary high in the Communist
Party was to visit. In response, large trees were transplanted to line the road
between the air strip and the base’s living quarters and offices in order to
make the base more attractive. The trees died because it was the wrong time of
year for transplanting. More trees were transplanted. They died. So, it was
decided that the trees would be quickly spray-painted green when the dignitary
was on his way. The dignitary never showed.
This was only one of several examples Belenko witnessed of
how his socialist nation horribly misallocated – wasted – resources. His
military base housing, a large masonry apartment building, was wrapped with
steel straps and his apartment was richly appointed with a steel I-beam running
through it, all retrofitted to keep the building from collapsing. He related
how, when he worked in a factory, a particularly talented worker fulfilled his
quota before noon and then would drink himself into a stupor for the rest of
the day in order to keep from breaking the quota, which would have invited the
ire of coworkers since their quotas would increase.
Belenko was also smart in seeing through the cloud of Soviet
propaganda. When films of American slums were shown and claims were made that
they represented typical life in the U.S., Belenko noticed TV antennas on the
buildings and cars in the streets. He wondered who owned the TVs that went with
the antennas and who owned all the cars, having never seen so many antennas and
cars in the Soviet Union.
So what, you might ask, does any of this have to do with
anything related to the work of a state-based think tank? Well, it’s simple,
really. In most states, the first or second single biggest state-funded
appropriation is public education. Since the definition of socialism is “government
ownership and control of resources,” public education is, in fact, socialistic.
And, where there is socialism, there is misallocation – waste of a not-always-obvious
sort. Belenko saw through the propaganda and what seemed like normal everyday
life to recognize the waste that he saw all around him in the socialist Soviet
Union that others did not see. We need to do the same, right here, right now,
when it comes to our socialist public education system.
Take educationfunding in Oklahoma. We financially reward school districts for
identifying students as eligible for the federal free and reduced-price lunch
program. Consequently, over 60 percent of kids in our public schools are so
identified for funding purposes, implying that Oklahoma is quite poor. But, fewer than half of Oklahoma’s children are in households
with incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty level. Since the
lunch program allows participation only for kids up to 185 percent of poverty,
far fewer than 50 percent of Oklahoma’s school kids should represent extra
funding. Clearly, there is fraud, and school districts getting the extra money
have no incentive to root it out. WASTE
We also reward districts for identifying children as
bilingual. Twelve percent of Oklahoma’s student population is identified as
bilingual, the vast majority of whom are undoubtedly Hispanic. But that implies
two-thirds of our Hispanic children are bilingual. Is it reasonable to believe
this? WASTE
Experts generally agree that between 3 and 10 percent of a
student population can reasonably be considered gifted in some way. Over 12
percent of Oklahoma’s school population is classified as gifted under a
statutory definition that is ridiculously broad. There is every incentive for
school districts to over-identify children as gifted, and Tulsa has answered
the call. That district claims 50 percent more gifted students than Oklahoma
City. WASTE
The state funding formula’s weights for pre-kindergarten,
first, and second grades are at least as high or higher than the high school
weights. Private schools reserve their highest tuitions for high school, which
means we are over-funding education for little kids. For that matter, this is
one of a handful of states that provides universal pre-K, and like them, we’ve
not seen any positive results from spending all that money on free daycare. WASTE
(See this
for a fuller discussion of school funding formula issues.)
I could go on about the number
of non-teachers in the system being as great as the number of
teachers, teachers leaving not because of
pay, but because central offices stress irrelevant testing and
evaluations, and teachers not having access to working copying facilities. Then, there is the
gross spending on new facilities while personnel, maintenance, and other
immediate needs go unmet. WASTE
The solution is not another study. It’s not re-doing the
funding formula (though needed). It’s not teaching teachers to be polite
because kids have had Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). It’s not
technology. It’s not piles more money. And it’s not radically changing
curricula (though that might help).
When states first started building roads in a big way, they
did it socialistically, by having a state agency buy the equipment and hire the
men to use it. The result was corruption and other waste. The solution was to
contract construction and heavy maintenance to private firms.
The solution is to move education away from socialism. It
can still be publicly funded, but we should contract with education
practitioners (teachers) to independently do what they know how to do with
parents choosing which teachers they want, reward the good teachers and cancel
contracts with the bad ones. It’s a radical change from what we have, but it’s
a change that’s badly needed, if only legislators and voters would see through
the fog that the education establishment blows in our faces and see the promise
that a Viktor Belenko might see.
Byron Schlomach is Director of the 1889 Institute and can be reached at bschlomach@1889institute.org.
The
opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author, and do not necessarily
reflect the official position of 1889 Institute.