Why Is Washington’s Public Education So Disappointing?

Last year, when I was lecturing at American University’s Washington College of Law, I found that instructors at the school who have minor children generally lived in Maryland or Virginia. At first I thought it was out of economic concern: In desirable Washington communities, a single-family house costs approximately $1 million, but in Maryland or Virginia, a house of this kind costs half that price. But after asking about the problem, I finally knew that most of them made the choice mainly for the sake of their children. “The quality of Washington’s public education is among the lowest in the U.S. I’m afraid it would affect my children negatively. Since private schools are too expensive, how can I afford to send my children to a private school on my poor salary? Maryland’s public schools have much better quality,” a young instructor told me.

After my son came to the U.S., the most vexing problem was also about school choice. There are two private schools and one public school near my apartment. Since private ones are said to be better, I started off consulting private schools. The first one is near the National Cathedral. When I was there, a teacher was playing soccer with the students, who looked like princes from Eton College in Great Britain. The tuition was $40,000 per year, and I walked away immediately. Then I went to the other one, whose stadium turf is very beautiful. A bunch of girls from wealthy families were playing hockey. After learning about my purpose in visiting, a parent passionately introduced a century-old public school to me — John Eden Primary School. He said that the school was pretty good; his own children were studying there.

The procedure of going to a public school is simple, with no tuition and free breakfasts. The public school has good conditions, but its campus area is 1/10 of that of the private school. Of course, the biggest difference is the teaching quality. It doesn’t matter when kids are going to preschools and primary schools, but when they are going to secondary and high schools, parents dare not to take risks. Saving money will possibly retard their children’s development.

After Obama took office in the White House, Washington educators expected the president to put his children in a public school, in support of public education. However, Obama’s two daughters go to a private school, which naturally depressed the heads of Washington’s Education Department. Obama has given an artistic explanation: The reason for putting his children in private school was that he wanted to depend on the strict security system in private school to keep them from being disturbed.

This is the difference between Washington and Beijing. Beijing is the leading resourceful city, with a large number of prestigious schools, like the middle school affiliated with Renmin University that may be more renowned than the university itself. Abundant middle schools may maintain much better equipment than does the university where I teach. Washington is the capital of the United States, where Congress, the Department of Education and the president are located. Even though several children in my son’s class are children of embassy diplomats, even the children of Chinese embassy diplomats, the public school is truly disappointing.

Couldn’t the government appropriate a special fund to improve public education in the capital?

However, allocating large amount of special funds is not feasible in the U.S. A political science scholar named Liu Yu stated in his article “Earmark” that the U.S. media has revealed corrupt conduct of congressmen on “special funds” in recent years.* The so-called special funds are “related project funds” suggested by congressmen according to the needs of their electoral districts or interest groups, such as constructing a road in the electoral district or building a local school. Without a doubt, this is concomitant of democracy; a congressman who wants to serve another term must please his voters.

But the problem is that these self-interest special fund applications go against the public interest, obviously another kind of corruption. Therefore, U.S. citizens hate these kinds of local-interest oriented vanity projects bitterly, trying to contain them with much effort. In January 2007, the House of Representatives passed a related bill, stipulating that all special funds should publish the names of the congressmen who suggested them, the purposes of the fund and the costs of the projects, and the congressmen need to prove that they have no relevant interests in the special funds. This bill helped to improve the transparency of special funds; “sunshine is the best preservative,” and the transparency benefitted social supervision.

In the United States, the procedure for appropriation for public schools is complicated. I recall that before my son returned to China, his headmaster told me, “If your son wants to study at our school next semester, please fill out a form so that we can apply budget guidelines from the department in charge.”

In China, the situation is totally different. In the Guangdong “Two Conferences,” the Draft Budget for the Provincial Department was submitted to counsel, and the financial subsidy for eight authorized nursery schools was 68.63 million RMB.

*This quote, though accurately translated, could not be verified.