The MEAP test has become so secret that teachers are not allowed to look at the test, even after it is given.

This is just brilliant. If teachers don’t know what’s on the test, then how are we supposed to help the students? If the test showed that my students tended to miss questions relating to the Great Depression, then wouldn’t it be helpful for me to know that? That way, I could revise my teaching for next year.

Stupid?

No. On second thought, it is brilliant.

You see, over the last several years, teachers examining the tests have identified questions that were poorly written, off-topic, not aligning with state standards, had no correct answer, or that just plain gave wrong information. A couple of the questions would have been considered by some people as just plain immoral or not appropriate for the particular age group. Those questions were publicized in the newspaper, and the MEAP administrators suffered a great deal of criticism.

What’s the solution? Don’t let those troublesome teachers see the test. That way, when the MEAP administrators screw up, no one will know.

Do you know what was on the MEAP test that your elementary student was given? If you don’t, shouldn’t you?  What agenda is the state pushing on your children?

They don’t want you to know.

I’m taking a step away from serious politics today to share a site that I’ve found: The Tiki Room

I’ve always been kind of a retro guy. When my friends were listening to Led Zeppelin and Fog Hat in high school, I was listening to Frank Sinatra. Bogart was my hero. I wore a white dinner jacket and fedora to the prom. I still think Arnold Palmer is the king.

And ... here’s a frightening confession ... I like Tiki culture.

The Dexter School District must cut $800,000 from its $9 million budget next year. Ann Arbor has a $4.5 million gap. Wayne-Westland Public Schools are facing $6 million in cuts from its $80 million budget. Grand Rapids has to cut $700,000 by next year. Its the same all over the state.

Michigan’s schools are facing a major crisis. While funding has remained flat—actually has been cut—over the past five years, demands on the schools continue to increase. Federal and state requirements demand increased performance, but no funds are offered to help. The number of special education students—who typically demand two to three times the resources of general ed students—continues to skyrocket. In my high school, the special education department is larger than the English, Math and Social Studies departments COMBINED. Yet, as demands increase, no additional funds are forthcoming.

It’s not simply a matter of schools tightening their belts and cutting unnecessary expenses. As a card carrying conservative—I worked at The Heritage Foundation in the 90s—I am in full agreement with the idea of making schools accountable and increasing school performance. I also know that in every bureaucracy, there are places to be cut (beginning with a bloated administration).

But in my school district—and in surrounding districts—things reached that state two years ago. Now they have reached a crisis point. Custodial services have been cut in half, meaning that buildings will deteriorate twice as fast. (And just imagine a school bathroom cleaned every other day.) Supply budgets are non-existent. Textbook and library book purchases are on indefinite hold. Steam heating boilers, which—for safety’s sake—used to be monitored around the clock are now watched only by God.

Now my district proposes to fire 300 bus drivers, custodians, skilled tradesmen and women and food service personnel and outsource their jobs. Instead of paying a skilled tradesman $16 an hour, the contractor claims he can offer workers to do a similar job at $8 an hour—including the contractor’s profit. They may get warm bodies, but there is no way that an $8 temporary worker will have the same skills and dedication. Services will suffer.

The only thing that hasn’t been cut is the number of, and salaries of, administrators. But the administrators are the ones who make the budgets, and they aren’t going to cut their own.

And in this environment, teachers are expected to get more out of their students than ever before. Yet there is no money for teacher training, new programs (or even to refine old programs), smaller classrooms (indeed, the standard of 34 per class will soon increase to 38 or more)

The problem is that the policy makers don’t have a clue as to what really goes on in a school. Here in Michigan, the Mackinac Center argues that one solution to the financial problem is to pay teachers less and reduce their health care benefits. At the same time, however, the Center demands better teachers.

Think about this. If you pay less and offer fewer benefits, the best and brightest will leave the profession, since they can get better pay with less hassle elsewhere. I know that’s what I will do. I teach because I like the kids, but I also have to support a family. I have TWO master’s degrees and expect to be paid like the professional I am. If I’m not appreciated by the schools, I’ll go somewhere where I am (and make twice as much).

So ... if you drive out the best, you are left with 1) those who either love teaching so much that they don’t care what they are paid and 2) those who have no other options. Policymakers are counting on category 1, but anyone with a brain knows that there will be more of category 2.

And with less capable teachers, student performance will fall.

The solution to all of this is one that people don’t want to hear. It’s what I call the “nuclear option.”

First, we outsource the bloated school administrations. Eliminate districts’ accounting and payroll departments and send the work to a private accounting firm. Eliminate benefits offices and send to work to a benefit management company. Get rid of supply departments and send the work to OfficeMax. What’s going to save more money? Squeezing a few more dollars out of a few janitor’s $20,000 a year salary, or completely cutting a $80,000+ assistant superintendent for finance, his district-financed car, his three deputies and their secretaries, all their computers, the office space, supplies, etc. Not to mention the taxpayer financed lunches, junkets and so on.

Or even better: Eliminate individual districts and combine them into county-wide entities with central administrations—which would be run by private firms. There’s no need for twenty districts in a single county with twenty different superintendents, school boards, and all the duplicate apparatus. The cost savings from the bulk supply and book purchases alone could balance the statewide schools deficits.

Next, we cut all non-core classes. The state evaluates students on their English, Math, Science and Social Studies skills. Therefore, all other classes must go. No gym, band, art, chorus or vocational tech. No after school sports or activities. If it doesn’t apply directly to the state tests, it has to go. Schools must be stripped back to the apocryphal “Three Rs”. The taxpayers are going to have to decide what they want. It’s a basic tenet of economics that everything has its tradeoffs. If test performance is the key, then something has to go. If we want more “rounded” students, then the emphasis on test scores has to be reduced.

There simply is not enough money, or time to do everything.

Surely the policy wonks know that.

One of the biggest complaints that teachers seem to have about our high school students it that they don’t seem to be interested in anything other than themselves. So many of them are narcissists of the worst kind.

That’s why I was surprised a week ago when one of my students—one of the “cool” kids—stopped after class and asked me if I’d read The DaVinci Code. I said that yes, I had, and that I enjoyed it. I also mentioned that much of it was based on a non-fiction book I had read about ten years ago called “Holy Blood, Holy Grail. In fact, I said, I don’t know why authors Baigent and Lincoln hadn’t sued Dan Brown for plagiarism.

He told me that he thought the DaVinci Code was a great book.

I thought, good for him. He’s reading instead of watching tv.

Then yesterday, he stopped after class and said. “You’re right. Those guys should have sued that DaVinci guy.”

In his hand, he had a copy of “Holy Blood, Holy Grail.”

My faith in our youth was restored. There is at least one kid who is interested in the larger world.