 |
The
Murphy
Commission
An Arkansas Policy Foundation Initiative |
Preface
By Madison Murphy, Chairman
The members of the Murphy Commission's Education
Team have undertaken to offer observations and specific recommendations rooted in
a profound desire to bolster and improve the current public educational system and
the academic performance of our states' children.
From the outset of its work, the
Commission has continually recognized that the public school system employs a cadre
of dedicated individuals who make a positive impact everyday and whose commitment to
our children and dedication to excellence is unassailable. We also note that there
are numerous encumbrances within the system that often can--and do---serve to thwart
their best efforts to provide the degree of academic excellence everyone wishes to
achieve in our schools.
t is acknowledged that vigorous efforts to improve
schools have been undertaken in the past, many meeting with success and many ending
in failure. Despite these past and continuing efforts, Arkansas clearly remains
"a state at risk" educationally, much as our nation is still at risk. Few
would disagree that we have much work to do if we are to achieve a degree of academic
performance in our schools that reflects the hope we all share for the future of our
children and the economic development of our state.
This paper draws from broad observations and
generalities to arrive at twelve specific recommendations intended to enhance academic
performance, all within the confines of our current educational system. There is a
growing body of thought which holds that the "current system" is shielded
from the very force that improves performance and sparks innovation in nearly every
other human endeavor--competition. The Commission carefully condones this concept,
recognizing our public schools, be they traditional or charter, must be given the
ability to effectively compete on a level playing field.
The members of the Commission clearly understand that
when a critical review, such as that embodied in this report, is proffered, some will
raise the inevitable suggestion of efforts to dismantle or discredit our educational
system. Nothing could be more wrong. Our common goal should be to examine our academic
weaknesses, capitalize on our strengths, and fulfill a mission in our public schools to
instill a sound knowledge of science, mathematics, history, geography, literature and
languages, together with the basic skills of comprehension and expression in every
student capable of such assimilation.
Foreword
by Jackson T.
"Steve" Stephens, Jr.
Vice Chairman, Murphy Commission
Chairman,
Education Workgroup
(Editor's note: This foreword parallels remarks Mr.
Stephens delivered at the
1998 Arkansas Summit on Economics sponsored by the
Governor's office)
This report deals with a difficult
and often emotionally charged issue. It addresses public education's
performance--at times in a style that may seem blunt. Therefore, I want everyone
who reads it to understand why we have decided to be so direct. The primary reason,
of course, should be obvious: the lives and futures of children are at stake
whenever education is the issue. Could there be anything more important? Beyond
that, however, the Commission's education team and many other Arkansans are
struggling with two emotions when it comes to our public schools. One is
frustration and the other is fear.
The frustration stems from a
pattern over three decades in which Arkansans have provided substantial
out-of-pocket funds for public education, but have seen little substantial
improvement in a system that has remained, for the most part, academically
depressed. In fact, a de-emphasis of academics has occurred all too often as
social, cultural, and even political agendas have taken root in our classrooms.
And the occasional academic gains that have occurred, have come at an
excruciatingly slow pace and in all too rare minuscule dribbles. While dramatic
improvement in many other states is occurring at an explosive rate now, Arkansas
creeps along, hamstrung by an entrenched resistance to new ideas and proven
programs that work. Clearly, all of these factors, taken together, constitute an
intolerable situation that must change for the sake of children and the state's
economic viability.
|
This paper reflects the
frustrations and fears of many Arkansans, not just the Murphy Commission.
What we will continue to demand from public education in the
future--what we will hold the system accountable for—can be expressed in
four words: high student academic performance. In one word, results.
|
That our education system has
been so slow to change and achieve the student performance gains Arkansans
expect is frustrating beyond measure. It is also the cause of our growing
fear ...an abiding worry that this documented and disturbing pattern of
more money for under-performance in academics will continue with profoundly
limiting consequences for our children. If more money continues to flow into
our public schools--and yet the pace of academic improvement fails to make
appreciable gains, it would turn what is already a crisis in our schools into
a tragedy.
This paper reflects the frustrations and fears of many Arkansans, not just
the Murphy Commission. What we will continue to demand from public education
in the future--what we will hold the system accountable for--can be expressed
in four words: high student academic performance. In one word, results.
|
During that same period--almost 30 years now--Arkansans
watched as the political and school officials comprising this state's public education
establishment systematically captured a system that was once locally and
community driven and reshaped it into a massive state and federal bureaucracy infused
with the pervasive influence of big labor. The National Education Association (NEA)
today is among the world's largest labor unions and includes AFL-CIO representation on
its various boards and committees. The AEA is its Arkansas arm.
When Arkansans ask who is responsible for the creation of their
state's education system and for the academic performance of Arkansas' children---who
is solely accountable--it is this formidable coalition of government and education
unions. Together, they represent America's education monopoly. And it is, in fact, a
monopoly; managed through a top-down federal/state partnership, and profoundly affected
by labor with it's underlying political philosophy and its self-perpetuating agenda. And
make no mistake---theirs is an agenda advanced primarily for purposes of dominating one
of freedom's most vital needs--the education of our children.
When the 1983 presidential report, A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Reform,
was released (documenting the disturbing decline in American student achievement
that began in 1967 and stagnated at all time lows 15 years later) it was these same
controlling education interests who said "we know what to do ...give us the
opportunity and we will restore America's sagging academic performance." Since
then, this coalition of educators, elected leaders, labor officials, and their
lobbyists have joined in lockstep every year subsequently and said give us more money
and we promise...America's children, and by extension the sons and daughters of
Arkansans, will excel academically.
Except, they have not excelled. The words of John Copperman, writing in A
Nation at Risk: The Imperative For Educational Reform still apply:
|
For the first time in
the history of our country, the educational skills of one generation
will not surpass, will not equal,
will not even approach, those of their parents. |
The "imperative for reform" goes largely ignored and we are still
a "nation at risk." And in Arkansas, a continuing pattern of
substandard student academic performance along with the accepted statewide
practice of social promotion (a form of educational malpractice) have combined
to rob this state's children of the education they deserve and the results parents
expect from a system they fund generously.
|
...our children's academic
performance is so grossly imperiled, a crisis should be declared with resources
and energy primarily directed to its resolution, and little else.
|
It must be noted, however, that the
state's education leadership--political and academic-joined the national effort to
improve sagging performance, embracing hundreds of costly federal programs to help
Arkansas' students improve academically; so many programs a UALR study reported 86%
of the state's Department of Education as federalized. They've also led the state
to try every gimmicky and costly program from Goals 2000 to OBE, from Reading
Recovery to Whole Language Learning. Few have worked well; more are on the way.
Education spending will continue to rise. |
For example, federally driven workforce development and
school-to-work programs are currently being expanded in Arkansas' system. Sadly, these
expensive programs—with their skills and workforce orientation--will have little genuine
impact on academic achievement. In fact, they will further dilute an average school day
wherein less than 45% remains devoted to core academics (according to the U.S. Dept. of
Education.) As a result, Arkansans will likely see less academic emphasis rather than
more. And, ironically, this comes at a time when our children's academic performance is
so grossly imperiled, a crisis should be declared with resources and energy primarily
directed to its resolution and little else. Energy and resources, however, have not
been lacking in Arkansas' education system. Since 1970 Arkansas' educators and
politicians have doubled the number of non-teaching personnel (administrators etc.),
more than doubled the number of counselors, doubled the number of librarians, and since
the mid-sixties ...almost doubled the number of teachers.
Moreover, the school establishment added 17 regional
education co-ops staffed with hundreds of employees at a base cost to taxpayers of
$15 million a year (they spend millions more). They structured these entities, all
state funded, to exist outside the purview of state government. And in the last
legislative session, the legislature additionally created yet another
"independent" bureaucratic layer to oversee the co-ops--allocating another
$10 million to fund it. This was done--at least in part--so a term-limited state
legislator could have a high-paying job as its director. And finally, they created an
entirely bureaucracy--in addition to the Department of Education--to handle workforce
education and so-called school-to-work programs.
What is astounding is that all of this occurred
during a three decade period when Arkansas' student enrollment and ADA has remained
essentially static at around 450,000. And it occurred as the number of school
districts fell from 387 to 311. And, most strikingly, it occurred as Arkansas'
student academic performance remained unacceptably low and very slow to change.
In light of these trends, the question must be asked:
After almost 30 years of more building, more spending, more promises, more people,
more new programs, more bureaucracies, more standards, more frameworks, more school
lobbies and associations, more curriculum changes, and more money--have Arkansan's
witnessed the degree of marked improvement in academic performance our state should
have realized? The answer, of course, is no.
Today, America lags so far behind other nations in
academic performance that President Clinton recently told the Delaware legislature
that "our nation must act quickly to save our children." And no where is
the need to save them more acute than in Arkansas where the state trails not only
other nations, but lags behind most states as well. By every currently accepted
measure of academic achievement--from the congressionally mandated National
Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) to the American College Testing entrance
exam (ACT)--Arkansas' students are doing poorly as scores in math, science and
literacy remain substandard and college remediation rates remain at almost 60%. The
cost of that remediation ($27 million this year) is additionally funded by Arkansas'
taxpayers.
Perhaps most telling are the results of the
norm-referenced 1997 SAT9 administered to 90,000 students in grades five, seven,
and ten. Only 16% of all 311 Arkansas school districts exceeded the national average
50th percentile in all grades tested. Another 34% of the 311 districts failed to
achieve the 50th percentile score in any grade tested and more than one in four
districts (26%) failed to achieve the much lower state average for all grades
tested. SAT scores have dropped during the last four years. Additionally, on the
state's own 11th grade exit exam, 87% of Arkansas students failed the math section.
As these trends continue citizen unrest builds
and each year more Arkansans are raising the central issue underlying effective
education reform. Will channeling increasingly larger amounts of taxpayer dollars
into the current model of public education ever restore sagging
academic performance? An answer is found in the 1998 Report Card on American
Education, issued by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)--a
bi-partisan group of 5000 state legislators from across the nation chaired by
Arkansan Bobby Hogue. ALEC's report-card concluded its Executive Summary by stating:
...the lack of a correlation (between education
funding and academic achievement) suggests the system itself is not making effective
use of the financial and staff resources funneled into it. Policy Makers have
suggested that this inherent inefficiency is due to the fact that the public
education system in every state is a government monopoly .. if the system is not
opened up to competition soon, taxpayers will continue to channel increasingly
scarce resources into an educational system that is incapable of using those
resources effectively and is committing a great social disservice by not adequately
educating our children.
The Murphy Commission agrees with Speaker Hogue's
nationally respected organization (the ALEC report is reproduced in this paper). We
must confront, with intellectual honesty and political courage--substantive, cost
effective, reforms tied wholly to performance and guaranteed to get results. Or, in
the alternative, we must not increase the state's education spending until
irrefutable evidence of such reforms is clear and demonstrable. At this moment,
there is little to suggest that meaningful changes needed in the system will happen
soon.
|
We must confront, with
intellectual honesty and political courage—substantive, cost-effective,
reforms tied wholly to performance and guaranteed to get results. Or, in
the alternative, we must not increase the state's education spending until
irrefutable evidence of such reforms is clear and demonstrable. |
Diane Ravitch, a senior fellow
in education policy at the Manhattan Institute, has noted that the U.S. is
the only nation in the world now where a majority (51%) of education workers
are non-teachers. By contrast, three-fourths of all education staff in
Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, Japan and the Netherlands are teachers.
This trend to excessive overhead and administration has held in Arkansas as
well. Before flinging still more funds at a system prone to administrative
excess and characterized by poor student performance there is a pressing
need to:
a) determine where resources are being used inefficiently in the
existing system and end it and
b) examine carefully and thoroughly where identified savings can be
re-directed to direct instructional and classroom support and to better pay
for teachers--but only if that pay is based on merit.
|
Still, even if these actions were to be effectively
accomplished, most Commission members agree they will not be nearly enough to boost
current student performance levels significantly. The problems in our schools are
systemically entrenched and rooted in a culture of excessive bureaucracy and flawed
academic ideology. Only by dramatically restructuring a different system model---by
injecting competition into it through such innovations as charter schools and school
choice--can Arkansans ever hope to restore academic performance to the level of
excellence their children deserve.
As Arkansans work for a new model of education it will require their embracing
several fundamental tenets of meaningful school reform:
1. Monopolies--especially government-run education monopolies--lack incentives to
change. As a result services or products usually become substandard. When
competition is non-existent, systems stagnate.
2. In education, academic performance is the overriding singular goal and that's
where the bulk of the people's resources belong. In the classroom for the child.
Allocated to direct instruction activity. Resourcing an exceptional teacher who is
extraordinarily well-paid. Getting un-compromised results.
3. Standards must be rigorous and tied to basic core academics. Student
academic performance should be regularly assessed and measured ...system-wide,
by districts, and school by school. Academic performance--based on rigorous
measurable standards--should be regularly reported, school by school, to parents and
the public.
4. Parents must be empowered to choose their children's schools based on what they
feel is best for the child. Innovations such as charter schools and vouchers must
be given a chance in pilot programs and thoroughly evaluated. To categorically reject
such concepts--whether through blind ideological fervor or rationalized political
expediency--foolishly risks denying countless children and their parents a possible
opportunity for a better education. Such rejections rule out potentially important
options for parents in a critical time when an academic crisis demands all options
remain open to consideration.
|
...substantive change requires an
ability to "think out of the box" which currently defines public
education's form and content. Some educators and political leaders simply cannot
or will not engage in "thinking beyond the status quo." The problems in
our schools are systemically entrenched and rooted in a culture of excessive
bureaucracy and flawed academic ideology. Only by dramatically restructuring a
different system model---by injecting competition into it through such innovations
as charter schools and school choice--can Arkansans ever hope to restore academic
performance to the level of excellence their children deserve. |
5. Accountability is
everything and should permeate every level ofthe education system--and it is the
system that must take the blame for non-performance. Not society. Not cultural
or ethnic factors. Not parents. Not socio-economic status. Not urban or rural
factors. Only the system. Across the nation there are numerous examples of public
schools--some of them public charter schools--that have wisely and cost-effectively
adapted to deal with these external factors, achieving stunning academic success
in spite of the tough challenges they represent. Using factors outside the
education system as excuses for its failures is no longer valid or acceptable.
6. Reducing and/or redirecting education spending should never be a political
taboo--even in an election year. The reason is clear. Failure to address it
with honesty may do more harm to our children than not addressing it. If funds are
being spent unwisely or inefficiently in our schools--and they are--it needs to be
remedied for our children's sake.
One purpose of this Murphy Commission position paper is to refute the
myth--perpetuated for too long now by political leaders and education
officials--that a virtually automatic annual appropriation of more money for public
schools is sound public policy. It is not--and readers who persevere through the
data and information in this study will discover a host of prominent and respected
sources, all in agreement. |
Readers will also discover that substantive change
requires an ability to "think out of the box" which currently defines
public education's form and content. Some educators and political leaders simply
cannot or will not engage in "thinking beyond the status quo." The notion,
for example, of competition and performance measures as the basis for genuine
reform remains a foreign and threatening concept. Therefore, the toughest
challenge Arkansans face in transforming their academically deficient public
schools into centers of excellence and quality is political. Ultimately it
comes back to action by responsible citizens. Their obligation to the children
of Arkansas is clear:
| In the future, Arkansans
must elect men and women to higher legislative and executive office
positions who possess both the intellect to advance a bold new vision of
education and the courage to make it happen. |
________________
The Murphy Commission position paper that follows examines spending vs.
performance trends in public K-12 education from three perspectives:
a. Education Spending vs. Academic Performance: National Trends
b. Education Spending vs. Academic Performance: Arkansas Trends
c. Education Spending vs. Academic Performance: International Trends
It concludes by offering both short-term and long term ideas to improve
performance. A two page summary of recommendations appears on the next two pages.
Good reading.
Twelve Recommendations to improve
student academic performance
in
Arkansas' Public Schools
This is a brief summary of
recommendations which are more fully detailed
at the conclusion of the
paper. Readers seeking background, arguments,
and data supporting these
recommendations will find much to
consider there as well as in other
Murphy Commission reports.
|
Performance Recommendations
targeted
to the education system as it is currently structured
|
|
| Intellectual honesty
in reporting academic progress and "the state" of public education
|
| 1.
The education establishment must be relentlessly
open and honest in reporting to parents and the public about the academic quality
and performance of Arkansas' public K-12 schools. A sustained flow of accurate
performance and accountability information designed to fully engage and spur the
public interest in meaningful school reform is--or should be--the goal.
|
| Sub-recommendation:
The Governor's "Education Performance and Accountability"
Address to the state |
| As a first step toward
this goal, the Governor of Arkansas should annually present to the public a
jointly televised "public school performance" address. This "state
of education" review should also include an "accountability"
response from the director of the State Department of Education and a
representative of the state's superintendents.
|
|
School by school performance
"report cards" to parents and the public |
|
| 2. Provide
parents--and make accessible to the public---school by school performance report
cards such as those used by Texas and other states. Arkansas remains the only
Southern state that does not provide this service according to the Southern
Regional Education Board (a group that is taxpayer funded by states to assist
Departments of Education with common regional issues).
|
|
Constrain current education
spending; redirect savings and current expenditures to enhancing the state's
substandard academic performance |
|
| 3.
Identify resources (money, people, programs) within
the current education system that can cut or scaled back and redirect the savings
to more effectively address Arkansas' current academic crisis. Consider using
dollars saved, for example, to hire the highest quality teachers, to pay deserving
teachers exceptionally well, and to provide more classroom and instructional
support.
|
|
Rigorous academic standards
based on proven "best practices" from other states |
|
| 4. Establish
demanding, rigorous academic standards modeled after those states with proven
records of high academic performance. Arkansas is one of only nine states
receiving all Fs in the quality of its academic standards as reported this year
by the Fordham Foundation.
|
|
Adoption of proven curriculums
and teaching methodologies and the formation of a best practices council
|
|
| 5. In striving to
meet education standards, Arkansas must choose academic programs, curriculums, and
methodologies that represent the "best practices" across the nation with
a demonstrated record of exceptional results in core academics. To augment
this, the state should form a "best practices" council peopled with
members representing a diversity of education and political philosophies.
|
|
Continued use of exit
exams and norm-referenced tests |
|
| 6. Arkansas may be
considering the abandonment of high school exit exams (ACTAP) and the
norm-referenced Standard Achievement Test (SAT9). It is imperative these academic
performance measures be continued as a matter of public policy and public
information. |
|
Ending the practice of social
promotion---a form of educational malpractice |
|
|
7. Every Arkansas district
should adopt a policy ending the practice of repeatedly promoting students up the
grade ladder when they consistently demonstrate a general lack of knowledge on
content for a given grade. |
|
Paying teachers and their
supervisors on the basis of defined performance measures |
|
| 8. Bold teachers
accountable by providing for their being paid on the basis of achieving defined
academic performance goals that are clearly understood by students, parents, and
the public. |
|
Ridding the system of
ineffective teachers while protecting education managers (principals and
superintendents) from unwarranted litigation |
|
| 9. Enact
legislation that empowers education managers--principles and superintendents--to
terminate poorly performing or ineffective teachers. Protect schools and the
system from unwarranted litigation by enacting a "loser pay" rule
applied specifically to educators. Establish litigation funds.
|
|
Require appropriate degrees for
subjects taught and permit qualified non-certified individuals to be retained
as teachers |
|
| 10. Provide
education managers the option of hiring qualified individuals who are
educated or formally trained in their teaching field whether certified to
teach or not. |
|
Install a uniform cost
accounting system common to all schools |
|
| 11. Require schools
in Arkansas to use a uniform cost accounting system such as the In$ite program
developed by Coopers Lybrand and Fox River. |
|
Broaden Arkansas' inadequate
charter school law |
|
| 12. Arkansas'
charter school law--on the books since 1995--is so restrictive it inhibits charter
school formation. Florida, for example, passed their law a year later and now
has more than 70 charter schools. Arkansas should take steps to make its charter
school law more flexible and conducive to the creation of these innovative public
schools. |
|
Looking ahead (this to be the
subject of an upcoming full length report.) |
|
|
Provide for education vouchers
with which all Arkansans, not just those of means, can choose their children's
schools from an array of options designed to meet children's' unique needs.
|
Perceptions of
an American Public Education Crisis
Observations from the Front
This year, more than 52 million children will enter America's classrooms.
American taxpayers will spend more than a quarter-trillion dollars to educate them.
This largest infusion of dollars ever will have little or no impact on improving
student academic performance if past trends hold true. It will illustrate once again
that growth in tax dollars allocated to a flawed system incapable of meaningful reform
is senseless and represents a form of continuing educational malpractice. The victims
of this senseless waste are children deprived, again and again, of that basic core of
knowledge needed to succeed in life. As a public policy, nothing could be more
unsound or damaging to a nation still at risk.
To set the stage for the "spending versus performance" analysis that
follows, the Murphy Commission collected and condensed commentaries from a number of
respected sources across the nation. Their observations and thoughts on America's
public education system are offered here to amplify the complex issues surrounding
education reform and further enlighten readers.
Learning-Free Zones by Chester Finn
Chester Finn is the president of the Thomas B. Fordham
Foundation, a Washington-based
education reform organization. He is also a former
Assistant U.S. Secretary of Education.
|
The percentage of the public-school
Budget devoted to "regular instruction" Declined from 61 percent in 1960
to 46 Percent in 1990. The system channels almost all of its money into salaries,
treats every change as an added cost, and has little freedom to substitute one use
of funds for another. A simple calculation makes the point more vividly. A
classroom of 24 children accounted for an average total public expenditure of about
$150,000 in the 1995-96 school year. Yet the average public-school teacher cost not
quite $50,000, including benefits. That suggests that some two-thirds of the public
funds spent on behalf of those youngsters are not going to their primary teacher.
Chester Finn
Former Asst. U.S.
Secretary of Education |
American education is awash in faddish
innovations that regularly sweep through the profession like tropical storms:
"whole-language reading," "constructivist math,"
"mixed-ability grouping," "multi-age grouping,"
"multiculturalism," and so on. This faddishness gives the education
system the appearance of ceaseless change. Yet few of these innovations improve
academic performance. And nearly all of them are being undertaken within the
organizational framework of a rigid, governmentalist monopoly centered on an
archaic concept of schooling, a concept developed for a 19th-century agrarian
society with little technology and scant awareness of how children learn.
Advocates for the bold reforms America needs must confront an unpleasant truth:
We have a pretty clear understanding of what would work better, yet old-fashioned
bureaucratic monopolies continue to insulate most U.S. public schools from change.
The percentage of the public-school budget devoted to "regular
instruction" declined from 61 percent in 1960 to 46 percent in 1990. The
system channels almost all of its money into salaries, treats every change as an
added cost, and has little freedom to substitute one use of funds for another. A
simple calculation makes the point more vividly. A classroom of 24 children
accounted for an average total public expenditure of about $150,000 in the
1995-96 school year. Yet the average public-school teacher cost not quite $50,000,
including benefits. That suggests that some two-thirds of the public funds spent
on behalf of those youngsters are not going to their primary teacher. Where, then,
is it going? Nearly all is locked up in salaries to |
specialists, administrators, and non-teaching personnel and kept there
by collective bargaining and bureaucratic inertia.
Challenging The
Monopoly by Diane Ravitch
Diane Ravitch is a Fellow in education policy at the Manhattan
Institute and regular contributor to "Forbes Magazine"
|
In 1992 the Organization of Economic
Cooperation & Development published a study of schooling in ten nations that
showed our own system to be top-heavy with administrators and support staff. The
U.S. was the only nation in which a majority (51%) of education workers were not
teachers. By contrast three-fourths of all education staff in Australia, Belgium,
France Germany, Japan and the Netherlands teach children.
Diane Ravitch
Fellow, The Manhattan Institute |
Our school systems are a relic of
state socialism in the midst of a dynamic free market economy. They thrive by
operating as a government monopoly, free of any meaningful standards or
accountability for performance. They are managed by their employees, for the
benefit of their employees, with minimal concern for "customer"
satisfaction.
All of the incentives in the school system are backward. The more students in
a school who fail, the larger the level of public subsidies to the school. The
larger the number of students who can be labeled "special education" or
"learning disabled" or bilingual, the greater the flow of public funds.
There are no rewards for schools that educate their students well or reduce the
number of students needing special programs.
Being a government monopoly, the school system abhors competition and choice.
Superintendents and school boards stand together in opposition to any challenge to
their hegemonic control over public funds for education. They adamantly refuse to
permit any experiments that might demonstrate a better way to educate
|
children. In 1992 the Organization of Economic Cooperation &
Development published a study of schooling in ten nations that showed our own
system to be top-heavy with administrators and support staff. The U.S. was the
only nation in which a majority (51%) of education workers were not teachers. By
contrast, three-fourths of all education staff in Australia, Belgium, France,
Germany, Japan and the Netherlands teach children.
Any effort to shake up the status quo is called an attack on public
education, as though the Founding Fathers meant to create the cumbersome
bureaucracies that run our big-city schools and state departments of education. Any
effort to provide poor children with a scholarship to leave the public sector (as
college students regularly do) evokes claims that money is being diverted from the
public schools.
Public
Schools Produce "Most Illiterate"Generation Ever
From Nation
Magazine
In 1940, the U.S. had a literacy rate of 97 percent,
even though most white students attended school for only eight years, and most
blacks for only four. Today, despite having the most expensive public schools and
colleges in the world, the U.S. has a Third-World work force, with a literacy rate
of below 76 percent. A new analysis faults U.S. education policy since 1940 for the
decline in literacy, placing much of the blame on "whole language" reading
instruction.
In her report, An Analysis of Crucial U.S.
Education Legislation: 1940-1996, Regna Lee Wood, director of research for the
National Right to Read Foundation, points out that in 1940, the 3 percent of the
population who could not read were mostly elderly blacks who had received little or
no schooling. The 97 percent of the population who were literate were taught to read
at school.
Since 1940, relates Wood, the federal government has
spent billions of dollars on subsidies to train math and science teachers, one
hundred thousand Title I teachers, over three hundred thousand special education
teachers, and medical education teachers. If the nation's education spending is
figured in 1996 dollars, the U.S. has spent $902 billion since 1958, over 40
percent of that on special education alone.
The U.S. can boast of the most expensive public
schools and colleges in the world. In 1995 alone, we spent as a nation $280 billion
on K-12 public schools. In 1994, we spent $110 billion on our two-and four-year
public colleges. The estimated total for both in 1997 is $530 billion.
"What is the result of this enormous federal
expenditure for education?" asks Wood. A 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey
indicated that the U.S. is one of seven nations out of forty in the Western
Hemisphere with an adult literacy rate of below 80 percent. The other six are Haiti,
Guatemala, Nicaragua, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador.
Public Schools: Change
or Die?
From Investor's Business
Daily
With hard-pressed taxpayers wondering why school
children can't read, President Clinton says the answer is more money for education:
$2.75 billion over five years to ensure that third graders are sufficiently
proficient in reading skills. But frustrated parents contend they are already
paying for something their children aren't getting.
| • Over the past 25 years,
inflation-adjusted, per-pupil spending for grades kindergarten through 12 has
climbed 88 percent. |
| • In 1994, 40 percent of fourth
graders failed to demonstrate basic reading skills-- with just 30 percent
testing as proficient. |
| • Yet public-school teachers' pay
rose 7.4 percent after inflation from 1970 through 1993--compared to a real
gain of only 1 percent for all private-sector wages. |
| • While enrollments were
falling, the number of teachers rose 24.2 percent from 1974 to 1994.
|
Nonproductive growth aside, concerned experts say that an
educational establishment which cannot resist faddish and damaging educational
experiments--ignoring spelling, stressing self-esteem over basics--bears a large
share of the blame for illiterate third graders.
The Key to
Better Schools by Robert Lutz and Clark Durant
Mr. Lutz is president and CEO of the Chrysler Corporation and
Mr. Durant served as president of Michigan's State board of Education
Why do we need to enlist volunteers to help kids learn to read? Isn't that what
taxpayers pay teachers to do? Public schools too often fail because they are
shielded from the very force that improves performance and sparks innovation in
nearly every other human enterprise--competition. Only competition- by creating
high, customer-driven standards of performance - can elevate the stature of the
teaching profession.
To create a competitive education marketplace, dramatic reforms are necessary.
Charter schools, vouchers and other "choice" strategies are useful steps,
but we need to explore wholly new solutions to the question of how we can provide
universal access to quality education-a goal we all share.
Today, a public school is one that is owned and operated by the government. We
need a fresh definition of public: education, one defined by who is served rather
than by who provides the service. We should open the education market, like our
university and college system, to diverse providers--for profit, not-for-profit
and governmental. This would attract enormous amounts of new capital to education.
It would also reward teachers and students for focusing more on results. Schools,
like other enterprises, would be accountable because there would be no guaranteed
customers.
The Cost of
Dumbness by Charles J. Sykes
Charles J. Sykes is the author of Dumbing Down Our Kids:
Why America's Children Feel
Good About Themselves But Can't Read. Write or
Spell. He is an educator and journalist
frequently contributing to the
"New York Times";"USA Today"; and the "Wall Street
Journal. ".
[Editors Note: More from Mr. Sykes' landmark study is
condensed in
Appendix B. Sykes succinctly outlines the reasons underlying
America's education crisis]
|
If test scores had
continued to grow after 1967 at the same rate as they had the previous
quarter century, Bishop estimated that the nation's gross national
product would have been $86 billion higher than it was in 1988 and $334
billion higher in the year 2010.
Charles J. Sykes,
author of Dumbing Down Our Kids:
|
It is hard to put an exact number
on what the dumbing down of American education costs the economy, but it is
possible to make some approximations. One recent study of job skill
requirements found that the average twenty-one to twenty-five-year-old
American was "reading at a level significantly below that demanded by
the average job available in 1984 and are even further below the requirements
of jobs expected to be created between 1984 and the year 2000." The
researchers ranked language skills required for various jobs on a scale of
one to six, with a level of six required for scientists, lawyers, and engineers.
The vast majority of jobs required a reading skill level of three and four, the
requirement for sales and marketing positions. But the study found that 97
percent of young adults had skills only at the two and three levels, suitable
for farming and transportation work. |
Economist John Kendrick of George Washington University argues that "the
knowledge factor" may account for as much as 70 percent of a nation's
productivity trends, either up or down. The skills of our workforce, and their
ability to adapt to a knowledge-based economy seem certain to be critical factors
in our ability to compete. Kendrick's thesis argues that much of the decline in
productivity in American society can be linked to the decline in education and to
the resulting gap between the requirements of the economy and the reality of the
workforce.
Cornell University Economist John H. Bishop does not. go quite as far as
Kendrick, but confirms the link between economic growth and the "knowledge
factor." At least 10 percent of the "unexplained" slowdown in
productivity in the 1970s can be attributed to the decline in achievement scores
that began in 1967, Bishop concluded. But the effects of dumbing down will
accelerate over time. He projected that the decline in what he called the
General Intellectual Achievement (GIA) accounted for 20 percent of the decline
in the 1980s and a full 40 percent of the decline in the 1990s. Writing in the
American Economic Review, Bishop noted that productivity growth and the
test scores dropped almost simultaneously.
That decline, which was severe and unprecedented, meant that students
graduating in 1980 were more than a full grade level behind graduates of twenty
years earlier. Our schools had produced lower quality workers, which in turn
depressed both wages and productivity. If test scores had continued to grow
after 1967 at the same rate as they had the previous quarter century, Bishop
estimated that the nation's gross national product would have been $86 billion
higher than it was in 1988 and $334 billion higher in the year 2010.
This would seem to make a compelling case for spending more money on
education, if any link could be shown between higher spending and higher
achievement. But national education spending rose more than 25 percent in real
terms in the 1980s. And since 1967--when the decline in test scores began in
earnest--spending per student had risen faster than it had in the twenty years
prior to 1967 (4 percent a year in real terms versus 3.3 percent). In the lower
spending years prior to 1967, as Bishop notes, "student test scores had
been rising steadily for more than 50 years."
|
Since 1965...there has been a
75% decline in the absolute number of students who score above 650 in verbal
and math entrance tests. All of our most difficult to enter universities must
now maintain remedial centers for writing and mathematics, and in some cases
reading. It is an inherently unstable situation and must lead to the decline
of standards at all American Universities, and has probably already done
so.
The very existence of this
quality gap is presumptive evidence that the slogans dominating our K-12
system and the efforts to reform it are defective and do not deserve the
benefit of the doubt. The controlling theories and the people who propound them
have, with the best of intentions, served the nation ill.
E.D. Hirsch Jr. is a Professor
of Education and Humanities at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville and
President of the Core Knowledge Foundation |
Why America's Universities Are Better Than Its Public Schools by E.D.
Hirsch.
E.D. Hirsch Jr. is Professor
at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville and President of the Core
Knowledge
Foundation. He is the Author of The Schools We Need:
Why We Don't Have Them
The influence of educational orthodoxy that controls our public schooling and
its reformers may partly be gauged by contrasting our K-12 system with an
education domain not controlled by the educationists point of view--our public
colleges and universities. There is wide agreement in the international
community that the United States has created the best public universities and
the worst public schools of the developed world.
What causes this startling contrast in quality between America's public
schools and America's universities? Open discussion and iconoclasm create the
sort of atmosphere in which intellectual excellence can flourish. That conception
is a universe away from the intolerant conformist atmosphere of the public
education community.
But there is another difference, in addition to their openness and
competitiveness and I think it may be the most critical difference of all.
Our colleges and universities, and the scholars who control their destinies, place
great value on depth, breadth, and accuracy of knowledge, as well as on
independence of thought. But depth, breadth, and accuracy of knowledge are the
very things that our K-12 system tends to disparage as belonging to the
"banking theory of schooling." Knowledge is considered less desirable
than more practical all-purpose goals such as :higher order skills",
"self-esteem", "metacognitive skills", and "critical
thinking skills." Mere facts are conceived to be indissolubly connected to
"rote learning," which may be the most disparaging phrase in the
educationists glossary.
|
It is unclear how long our best universities can maintain their excellence
when the students who enter them and who will subsequently staff them are
ill-prepared. Since 1965, for example, there has been a 75% decline in the
absolute number of students who score above 650 in verbal and math entrance
tests. All of our most difficult to enter universities must now maintain
remedial centers for writing and mathematics, and in some cases reading. It is
disconcerting to see these centers pop up everywhere. It is an inherently
unstable situation and must lead to the decline of standards at all American
Universities, and has probably already done so.
The very existence of this quality gap [between America's public schools and
its colleges] is presumptive evidence that the slogans dominating our K-12
system and the efforts to reform it are defective and do not deserve the benefit
of the doubt. The controlling theories and the people who propound them have,
with the best of intentions, served the nation ill.
Education
Spending Fails To Drive Education Performance by Dr. Julian R Betts
Dr. Betts, who prepared these
comments in a report to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York
is a Professor
of Economics at the University of California at San Diego.
Two of the most important reforms to American public schooling in this
century have been an increase in the minimum school-leaving age and a dramatic
increase in expenditures per pupil. The former reform has generally been hailed
as a success, given evidence that an extra year of schooling significantly
boosts students' earnings later in life. However, evidence on the effectiveness
of the trend toward higher spending per pupil, smaller class sizes, and more
highly educated and trained teachers is much more mixed.
|
...a recent review found that of
163 estimates of how spending per pupil affects student performance, only 27
percent found a positive and significant relationship. Similarly, of 277
reported estimates of the impact of the teacher-pupil ratio on student
performance, only 15 percent found a positive and significant link, while 13
percent reported a negative and significant link. In American schools, at least
as they have operated in the past, spending has not had large or systematic
effects on student achievement.
Dr. Julian Betts, Professor of
Economics at the
University of California at San Diego |
A host of studies on the link
between school finances and test scores has not shown a systematic link between
spending and achievement. Another set of studies tests whether higher school
spending leads to higher earnings for students later in life. The findings in
this body of work are also mixed; even the most optimistic results suggest a
very low rate of return to increased school expenditures.
In a recent review, Dr. Eric A. Hanushek, Professor of economics at the
University of Rochester, found that of 163 estimates of how spending per pupil
affects student performance, only 27 percent found a positive and significant
relationship. Similarly, of 277 reported estimates of the impact of the
teacher-pupil ratio on student performance, only 15 percent found a positive
and significant link, while 13 percent reported a negative and significant link.
In American schools, at least as they have operated in the past, spending has
not had large or systematic effects on student achievement.
The conclusion drawn from the statistical research is supported by aggregate
trends in school spending and in student achievement. The financial resources
spent on public school students have risen markedly over the last three
decades. Yet during the same period, student achievement has hardly changed,
and by one measure it |
may even have fallen. Test scores on the
National Assessment of Educational Progress, a test given to a random sample of
students in various grades since the early 1970s, have changed little over the 1970s
and 1980s. Trends in the Scholastic Aptitude Test show a sharp decline in the late
1960s, a more gradual decline during the 1970s, and a statistically insignificant
recovery since then.
The most important determinant of how quickly
students learn is the effort of students themselves. It follows that an
increase in schools' expectations of students could have important effects on
the quality of public schooling. By establishing a rigorous set of educational
standards, schools can create a set of incentives and rewards to promote student
learning.
Education Spending
vs. Academic Performance:
The National Trends
Dr. Eric A. Hanushek, Professor of economics at
the University of Rochester, has spent more than a decade studying the relationship
between spending and academic achievement both from a national and international
perspective. He has also tracked, as an adjunct project, the findings of similar
studies by other experts and analysts. In the process, he created the largest
collection of literature refuting one of the central dogmas of the educationist
establishment; namely that education spending in America's schools--as they are
currently structured and managed--can improve student performance.
Since the mid-Sixties, according to Hanushek, there
have been around 200 studies looking at the relationship between the inputs to
schools, the resources spent on schools, and the performance of students. These
studies, with few exceptions, tell a consistent and rather dramatic story.
|
Result 1 is that there is no
systematic relationship between expenditures on schools and students'
performance. |
|
Result 2 is that there is no
systematic relationship between the major ingredients of instructional
expenditures per student--chiefly teacher education and teacher experience,
which informally drive teacher salaries, and class size, per pupil expenditures,
and student performance. |
In a recent report prepared at the request of the
Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Dr. Hanushek traced America's education
spending history in revealing terms. It is condensed below, with our gracious
acknowledgment to both FRBNY and to Dr. Hanushek.
|
If we divide per student
Expenditure into salaries for Instructional staff (teachers and principals) and
then into all other expenditures, the unmistakable pattern is the relative high
growth of expenditures outside of instructional staff salaries. Such spending
went from 25 Percent of total current expenditure in 1890 to 33 percent in
1940, and to 54 Percent in 1990.
Eric A. Hanushek Professor of
Economics,
Rochester
University |
A Brief
History of U.S. Spending Growth
by Eric A. Hanushek Professor of Economics, Rochester University
The United States has had a consistent focus on
education over a long period of time. This fact surprises many people in the
United States. Statements about "how important it is that President Clinton has
recently focused attention on education" are common. Implicit or explicit in
such discussions is the sentiment that we have been shortchanging the educational
system. It may be that the President can get the attention of the population
better than anybody else, but a steady policy thrust and heavy weight have been
given to education and human capital investment for a long time.
This focus on education, however, has not always
been at the federal government level. Taking the long view, between 1890 and
1990, we note that real public expenditure on primary and secondary education in
the United States rose from $2 billion to more than $817 billion. Significantly,
this almost hundredfold
|
increase is more than triple the growth rate of GNP
during the same period: current educational expenditure increased from less than 1
percent of GNP in 1890 to 3.4 percent of GNP in 1990.
While increasing enrollment accounts for a portion
of the rise in spending, the rise in per student expenditure explains the bulk of
the change in educational outlays (see Illustration 1). Real per student
expenditure roughly quintupled in each fifty-year period between 1890 and 1980:
it went from $164 in 1890 to $772 in 1940, and to $4,622 in 1990. If we divide per
student expenditure into salaries for instructional staff (teachers and principals)
and then into all other expenditures, the unmistakable pattern is the relative high
growth of expenditures outside of instructional staff salaries. Such spending went
from 25 percent of total current expenditure in 1890 to 33 percent in 1940, and to
54 percent in 1990.
Two factors stand out as being of primary importance
is explaining total instructional salary spending over the entire 100-year period:
the rising price of instructional staff and the declining pupil-staff ratio. Rising
teacher salaries were clearly a consequence of economywide labor productivity growth,
although the extent to which teacher salaries changed relative to those of other
workers is an important issue.
By contrast, the decisions leading to reductions in
the pupil-teacher ratio despite the rise in teacher costs suggest a long-term policy
of attempting to raise school quality by reducing the pupil-teacher ratio. There is
substantial debate over the extent to which external changes, notably the expansion
of special education, contributed to the decline in the pupil-teacher ratio during
the 1970s and 1980s. The analysis by Hanushek and Rivkin (1977) indicates that special
education has been important but is still not the largest influence.
The growth in special education over the 1980s
may have accounted for one-fifth of the growth in spending. (Yet, because of the
smaller overall spending growth in the 1990s, this percentage has almost
certainly gone up.
Other Observations About School Efficiency
ILLUSTRATION 1: PUBLIC SCHOOL RESOURCES IN THE
UNITED STATES, 1961-91.
|
Resource |
1960-6 |
1965-66 |
1970-71 |
1975-76 |
1980-8 |
1985-86 |
1990-91 |
| |
|
Pupil-teacher ratio |
25.6 |
24.1 |
22.3 |
20.1 |
18.8 |
17.7 |
17.3 |
| |
|
% teachers with master's degree |
23.1 |
23.2 |
27.1 |
37.1 |
49.3 |
50.7 |
52.6 |
| |
|
Median years of teacher experience |
11 |
8 |
8 |
8 |
12 |
15 |
15 |
| |
|
Current expenditure per pupil
(1992-93 dollars) |
1,903 |
2,402 |
3,269 |
3,864 |
4,116 |
4,919 |
5,582 |
Source:U.S. Department of Education
(1996)
Note: Per Pupil expenditures are based on students' average daily
attendance.
Over the past thirty years, a steady stream of
analyses has built up a consistent picture of the educational process. Studies
of educational performance, generally following statistical analyses of the
determinants of student achievement, include a variety of different measures of
resources devoted to schools. Commonly employed measures include (1) the real
resources of the classroom (teacher education, teacher experience, and
teacher-pupil ratio); (2) financial aggregates of resources (expenditure per
student and teacher salary); and (3) measures of other resources in schools
(specific teacher characteristics, administrative inputs, and facilities).
The real resource category receives the bulk of
attention for several reasons. First, this category best summarizes variations
in resources at the classroom level. Teacher education and teacher experience
are the primary determinants of teacher salaries. When combined with teachers
per pupil, these variables describe variations in the instructional resources
across classrooms. Second, these measures are readily available and well
measured. Third, they relate to the largest changes in schools over the past
three decades.
Illustration 1 displays the dramatic increase
in these school inputs, with pupil-teacher ratios falling steadily, teacher
experience increasing, and the percentage of teachers with a master's degree
actually doubling between 1960 and 1990. Fourth, studies of growth in performance
at the individual classroom level, commonly thought to represent the superior
analytical design, frequently have these resource measures, but not the others,
available.
These studies yield a simple conclusion: there
is no strong or consistent relationship between school resources and student
performance. In other words, there is little reason to be confident that simply
adding more resources to schools, as they are currently constituted, will
yield performance gains among students. Numerous studies of class size and
pupil-teacher ratios, of teacher education, and of teacher experience give little
if any support to policies of expanding these resources. This finding has obvious
policy implications.
Policy Implications Nonetheless, as shown in
Illustration 1, real spending per student increased by more than 70 percent
between 1970 and 1991, even though student performance appears to have been
essentially unchanged.
This policy conundrum is precisely what led the
Panel on the Economics of Education Reform to concentrate not on the
specific resources and policies of schools but on the incentive structure.
Its report, Making Schools Work, emphasizes the need to alter current
incentives in schools radically. The simple premise is that the unresponsiveness
of performance to resources largely reflects the fact that very little rests on
student performance. Because good and bad teachers or good and bad administrators
can expect about the same career progression, pay, and other outcomes, the choice
of programs, organization, and behaviors is less dependent on student outcomes
than on other things that directly affect the actors in schools.
The existing work does not suggest that resources
never matter. Nor does it suggest that resources could not matter. It only
indicates that the current organization and incentives of schools do little to
ensure that any added resources will be used effectively.
_____________________________
Congressional Civil Rights Report: No Correlation
Between Spending and
Academic Achievement
by Michael Watson,
President, Arkansas Policy Foundation
Eric Hanushek's history of education spending and his
more recent conclusions that America's public education system, as currently
structured, will not improve results simply as the result of spending more tax
dollars was foreshadowed by a massive congressional study that grew out of the
1960's civil rights movement.
Well before the 1983 release of A
Nation at Risk chronicled public education's disturbing academic 20 year
decline from the mid 1960s, Congress, in connection with the Civil Rights Act
of 1964, mandated a national study on equal educational opportunity be
conducted. The renowned sociologist Dr. James S. Coleman, Johns Hopkins
University, was selected to lead the study team, supported by generous
funding from a Congress committed to the ideals of President Lyndon Johnson's
Great Society.
Many congressmen of that era were certain their
own congressionally sponsored study by a learned scholar, Coleman, would
document a widespread deficiency of equal educational opportunity, especially
among minorities. Moreover, they believed it would establish a need to pour
greater amounts of revenue into America's schools, thus making more equal the
important process of learning. Money and lots of it, they were sure, would be
the great equalizer.
Dr. Coleman and his team
ultimately produced one of the most extensive research studies in the history of
the social sciences. It included a performance review of 570,000 school
children, 60,000 teachers, and 4000 primary and secondary schools. The
teams' data gathering was exhaustive and filled volumes. But when Coleman
released his findings in a stunningly thorough report, aptly entitled Equality
of Educational Opportunity, its conclusions surprised a waiting Congress,
many political leaders, and much of the education establishment.
The Coleman Report, as it came to be
known, asserted that "educational outcomes"--what students actually
learn--could certainly be affected by factors such as family home life, but
education spending showed no significant correlation to student academic
performance. Neither, the report concluded, did class size, teacher pay, per
pupil expenditures, spending on libraries, and spending on laboratories.
as it came to be
known, asserted that "educational outcomes"--what students actually
learn--could certainly be affected by factors such as family home life, but
education spending showed no significant correlation to student academic
performance. Neither, the report concluded, did class size, teacher pay, per
pupil expenditures, spending on libraries, and spending on laboratories.
For many Americans the idea that learning is
not a function of money--and that more money does not necessarily equate to
more learning--remains difficult to grasp. Twentieth century American culture is
materialistic and thus the notion that spending more buys more is ingrained. But
the process of teaching and learning has little to do with the material world
and a great deal to do with young minds, a core of essential knowledge, and a
demonstrated ability to effectively merge the two.
San Antonio Express News columnist Roddy
Stinson once shared the story of a great teacher who said "give me some
children, some writing/drawing tools, a few good books, and a tree we can
all sit under---and I promise that the children will be taught well."
Perhaps the story over-simplifies the teaching/learning process and certainly we
all want comfortable, safe, well-equiped schools. But in Stinson's elegant
simplification, there is a certain truth. America's taxpayers can buy the
accouterments of education--buildings, computers, labs, books, personnel--but no
amount of dollars can categorically assure that learning occurs. That depends on
1) the child, 2) the parent, 3) the teacher, and 4) a zealous devotion to
rigorous academics.
|
Coleman would reveal a system
where poor teaching is tolerated and rising, academic emphasis is declining,
administrative excess is escalating, and innovation and change is stifled
and rejected by an education establishment bent on preserving its control
both structurally and programmatically.
" ....equal educational
opportunity"... is not a product of more money and people hurled into
a vast bureaucracy characterized by out-of-control growth and driven by
educrats and unions armed with political, social, and ideological agendas.
|
If James Coleman were to conduct
a similar study today he would undoubtedly look at the public education system
in the light of these four elements and draw the same conclusions as his
report 32 years ago. He would look at America's children, shaped by a mounting
culture of violence and materialism, and lament their preoccupation with self
above goodness and compassion in their daily lives. He would look at the
important role parents play in preparing their children to learn and
reinforcing their education at home--and would sadly mark the increasing
parental default of that responsibility as well. But it would be his
examination of teachers and the public system itself that would most
disappoint Coleman.
Here the sociologist would discover a
system unable--even unwilling--to prune its bad teachers, much of this due
to the increasing dominance of big labor through America's powerful education
unions. Moreover, he would find a system wherein the academic mission
has been so diluted that 45% or less of a typical school day is focused on
that mission. He would see administrative excess so rampant that 51% or more of
all education workers are non-teaching or direct instruction related.
|
In short, Coleman would reveal a system where poor
teaching is tolerated and rising, academic emphasis is declining, administrative
excess is escalating, and innovation and change is stifled and rejected by an
education establishment bent on preserving its control both structurally and
programmatically. Many educationists and a host of sympathetic elected officials
would argue that family erosion and community social conditions have driven
schools to justifiable excesses in both spending and support personnel such as
counselors and assistant superintendents. But decades of experience clearly
document that this expansion in our schools has had little impact in mitigating
external social and cultural factors.
By contrast, in those remarkable instances where
public schools have excelled in teaching disadvantaged students, the solutions
that work--those that achieve extraordinary performance gains--always relate
directly to the classroom, to the quality of teachers, and most importantly to
how teachers teach (effective methodologies and classroom discipline), and to
what teachers teach (fact and content filled curriculums). The proven success
formula is clear: relentless devotion to core knowledge with emphasis on
"fact and content" learning, back to basics methodologies such as
systematic phonics, high expectations combined frequent testing, and tough love.
This is the success formula that transcends race,
gender, socio-economic status, cultural barriers, and social conditions both at
home and in communities. This is the true formula of "equal educational
opportunity" and it is the product of vision, commitment, and common-sense.
It is not a product of more money and people hurled into a vast bureaucracy
characterized by out-of-control growth and driven by educrats and unions armed
with political, social, and ideological agendas.
Coleman, would almost certainly agree and
therefore conclude again that pouring billions into this kind of system would be
futile. He would--of course--be right. The system must first be structurally
reshaped for results and that, ultimately, will require breaking the
monopolistic control of those who work for and in the system.
___________________________
Findings of
the American Legislative Exchange Council
(ALEC is currently chaired by Rep. Bobby Hogue of
Arkansas)
During the last two decades, there has been no
more thorough national review and tracking of education performance vs.
education spending than that of the non-profit and non-partisan American
Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an organization comprising more than 5000
state legislators. It is a group chaired this year by Bobby Hogue of
Arkansas who has served on its board for several years.
Each year, ALEC releases a Report Card on
American Education. It summarizes national trends in spending and performance
and offers up one of the most comprehensive comparisons of public education
inputs to outputs in the country today--offering state by state rankings in a
number of performance categories. It's analysis of trends is unparalleled and
its reform recommendations are squarely on target as exhibited by these
conclusions taken from several ALEC education report cards issued in previous
years just in this decade:
From ALEC's Report Card on
American Education, 1993
There is no direct correlation between higher
spending and student performance.Of the ten states that dominate the highest
student achievement rankings, only one ranks among the top ten in per pupil
spending (Wisconsin). None rank in the top ten in average teacher salaries.
Our investment in public education may be
building a bigger bureaucracy rather than improving education in the classroom.
One clue is the huge 40% increase in the number of non-teaching school employees
hired over the last 20 years. The data in the Report Card indicates that
America's extraordinary investment in education may have been squandered on
expanding the non-teaching education bureaucracy rather than on improving the
quality of education provided in the classroom.
From ALEC's Report Card on
American Education, 1994
The Report Card's data indicates that there is
virtually no relationship between the amount of money spent on education and
student performance.
None of the states that rank in the top 10 in student
performance (Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota,
Utah, Wisconsin and Wyoming) rank in the top 10 states in per public expenditures.
In fact, most of these states spent less than the national average. We need to avoid,
at all costs, returning to antiquated notions that we should judge education by what
goes into it rather than by what it produces.
We already know more money will not solve our
education problems. What we need are meaningful reforms, and there are solutions
available. We've learned that the three key qualities found in successful
schools are: schools that believe all children can learn and challenge their students
academically with core academic classes; small schools with less administrative
overhead; and high levels of parental involvement. These are things that money
cannot buy, but that concerned communities can provide. Ultimately, we will
pay both economically and educationally, if we do not take the necessary steps to
improve our current system.
While this report indicates that some of the
increased spending has been used to raise teacher pay, the data continues
to show an enormous expansion in non-teaching staff. Education spending for
all expenses other than teacher salaries increased more that 80% between 1972-73
and 1993-94, while average salaries increased 3/5% during that time.
We've learned that the three key qualities found in successful
schools are: schools that believe all children can learn and challenge their students
academically with core academic classes; small schools with less administrative
overhead; and high levels of parental involvement. These are things that money
cannot buy, but that concerned communities can provide. Ultimately, we will
pay both economically and educationally, if we do not take the necessary steps to
improve our current system.
While this report indicates that some of the
increased spending has been used to raise teacher pay, the data continues
to show an enormous expansion in non-teaching staff. Education spending for
all expenses other than teacher salaries increased more that 80% between 1972-73
and 1993-94, while average salaries increased 3/5% during that time.
From The Report Card on American
Education, 1995
The same two conclusions can be drawn from the
1995 ALEC’s Report Card on American Education as were drawn from our previous
two Report Cards:
1) America's public school students continue to
leave school unprepared to compete in an increasingly competitive international
labor market; and
2) The inputs expected to contribute to school
effectiveness, particularly per pupil spending, do not display any significant
correlation with outputs (i.e. student achievement).
_____________________________
The themes reflected in ALEC's Report Cards on
American Education, echo those of many other political organizations, policy
experts, business leaders, and even elected officials, all who have taken the
time to seriously think through the issues surrounding our schools. As a result,
they no longer buy into the promise that more money is the answer to lasting or
meaningful education reform.
The Murphy Commission Education Workgroup believes
there is no better indicator of national trends than ALEC's "Report
Cards." Therefore, we've condensed and reproduced below (beginning this page
through page 29) the key sections of their 1997 report. It chronicles their
findings for the latest data collected which was for school year 1996. The ALEC
Report Card:
Report Card on American Education
1996:
A State-by State Analysis
American Legislative Exchange
Council,
Bobby Hogue, Chairman
Foreword
While the data and analysis in the American
Legislative Exchange Council's (ALEC) 1996 Report Card on American Education
show that modest progress has been made on some measures of student achievement,
the progress has been slow. More importantly, achievement has not returned to
the levels America's children realized in 1970. We are losing the battle to
regain the ground lost over the last 26 years, while our investment in education
has soared to unprecedented heights. Nearly 15 years ago President Reagan's
National Commission on Excellence in Education issued its landmark report: A
Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform.
That report sounded an alarm about the decline
of American education louder than any other report in our history. The most
sobering statement in A Nation at Risk was from Paul Copperman, who
wrote:
For the first time in the history
of our country, the educational skills of one generation will not
surpass,
will not equal, will not even approach, those of their parents.
The children who were born when a Nation at
Risk was issued are in high school today. And even though education is near
the top of the agenda at the national, state and local levels today, the
question remains, are we still a nation at risk? The answer, based on the data
found in the 1996 Report Card on American Education, is yes.
|
The children who were born when a
Nation at Risk was issued are in high school today. And even though education
is near the top of the agenda at the national, state and local levels today,
the question remains, are we still a nation at risk? The answer, based on the
data found in the 1996 Report Card on American Education, is yes.
...achievement has not returned
to the levels America's children realized in 1970. We are losing the battle to
regain the ground lost over the last 26 years, while our investment in education
has soared to unprecedented heights.
ALEC's 1996 Report Card
|
Though there are many reforms that
offer hope for the future, such as vouchers, charter schools and educational
savings accounts, the fact remains that the problems with American education run
far deeper than just what goes on in the classroom.
The first priority in education reform must be
a new commitment, a new understanding and respect, for the central role education
plays in our society, culture and nation.
No law, no policy, no report can create this
commitment. It must be a revolution in the way that we, as Americans, view,
structure and support education and our schools. The data from ALEC's Report
Cards over the last four years, as well as the results of countless other studies
of American public education over the last decade, point to one inescapable
conclusion: the time of tinkering is over. Bold reforms must be embraced,
promoted, nurtured and supported. The time of fearing change is over; it is not
changing that we must now learn to fear.
Executive Summary
The Report Card on American Education
1996---a state-by-state analysis---is a comprehensive overview of the condition
of America's K-12 public schools.
|
It consists of indicators that
review inputs, performance outcomes, and rankings of all 50 states plus the
District of Columbia. It is a useful survey for those who wish to study
long--term educational trends, such as tracking student achievement levels from
1970 until 1996.
Unfortunately, many of the findings and
directions are not encouraging.
Generally, the facts presented in this year's
report display a similarity to many of last year's trends and results. Most
notably, the increase in educational
spending in most of our 94,000 public school has not shown a comprehensive
improvement in student performance.
Since 1970, for example, inflation-adjusted
per-pupil expenditures (which currently average $5,719) increased more that 88%
nationally, yet graduation rates have declined 4.6% since 1980 and 3.4% since
1990. In 1980, the U.S. had a graduation rate of 72.1 %. By 1996, it was 68.8%.
In 1996, South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, New Jersey and Iowa had the
highest graduation rates. Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Georgia and South
Carolina had the lowest graduation rates. Since last year, only 16 states
evidenced a percent increase in graduation rates, while 34 declined.
There is some news to be encouraged about:
American students upgraded their math skills over the past four years. However,
these promising numbers are illusory; 40% of our eighth-graders still cannot
perform mathematics at the Basic level of achievement. That disappointment is
further evident when considering college entrance exams and the graduation
rates mentioned above.
|
What we can determine,
however, is that there is little correlation between high spending and
capable student performance. That suggests an inefficiency within the
system, a condition certainly due to the government monopoly that controls
education and spends far too much effort entrenching itself. As is the
conventional wisdom, the only antidote to monopoly is competition.
ALEC's 1996 Report Card
|
Most glaring, though, is the
education establishment's failure to institute reliable indicators of student
performance. This study uses three standard criteria to judge education output.
Yet even they fail to provide enough information to conduct a deep statistical
analysis. What we can determine, however, is that there is little correlation
between high spending and capable student performance. That suggests an
inefficiency within the system, a condition certainly due to the government
monopoly that controls education and spends far too much effort entrenching
itself. As is the conventional wisdom, the only antidote to monopoly is
competition.
Any delusions of adequacy need to be quashed
anon. We are still a nation at risk educationally. We are still very average in
too many areas. Our 1,200 schools of education with their 35,000 professors of
education need to do a much better job. We need discipline in our schools, zero
tolerance for drugs and weapons, and a commitment to higher, tougher standards.
|
Report Card 1996: Public School
Outputs
Education Performance in America
Once again, the data show that
improvements are needed in American educational performance and adult literacy.
The collective performance of U.S. public schools does not turn out enough students
who can ably compete in the global marketplace. For example, American students
have continued to upgrade their math skills over the past four years, due in some
part to state efforts to implement academic standards. However, almost 40% of
eighth-graders still cannot perform at the basic level of achievement (identified
by their command of challenging subject matter and scoring from 299-332 on the
National Assessment of Educational Progress). This report shows that we have made
gains, but that we cannot be satisfied. Twenty percent of eighth-graders nationally
now take algebra by the end of the eighth grade. Yet, very troubling is the fact
that in too many urban schools as 80% are below grade, below the basic (262)
level of achievement on the NAEP test.
This is a clear indication that students are not
as prepared as they should be. And this is not the only concern. College entrance
exams are not demonstrating improvement nor are graduation rates. This edition of
ALEC's Report Card on American Education will track these three criteria to measure
educational outputs:
| • 1996 National Assessment for
Educational Progress (NAEP) Eighth Grade Math Test |
| • 1996 College Entrance Examinations
(i.e. the SAT and ACT) |
| • 1996 High School Graduation Rates
|
The Most Successful States
(Academic Output)
High rankings by states on multiple indicators would
tend to indicate above-average performance. The following states scored the highest
on the three indicators (NAEP 1996 eighth-grade math test, the appropriate 1996
college entrance examinations and graduation rates). The 10 most successful states
in 1996 were (in alphabetical order):
Iowa, Massachusetts, Minnesota,
Montana, Nebraska,
North Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
These ten states ranked among the top one-fifth in
at least two of the three output measures of academic achievement described above.
Minnesota is lis |