Won't Somebody Please Think Of The Children!
Slate is reporting that the news from California's schools isn't so good. Two-thirds of the state's public schools have just been deemed deficient under California educational standards. You might say, "California, who cares!", but in reality this is bad news to the rest of us because California's school-standards criteria closely track those of No Child Left Behind, implying that some 66% of the nation's schools could potentially receive failing grades next year when the first round of grades and sanctions hit.
I'm of the opinion that No Child Left Behind is full of holes anyway, and fails to take into account the full collateral effects and implications its policies and mandates could produce. For example, see this paper by economist David Figlio. Although the conclusions and conjectures are ultimately a bit more polemical than I might wish, Figlio uses data from Florida schools to suggest that the schools at greatest risk for year-to-year Federal sanctions are the very schools whose operating budgets most depend (in dollars and in percentage terms) on Federal funding to remain open. This means that when the Federal government withholds money from such a school, as a part of NCLB sanctions, the school sinks further into a spiral of debt and failure. Where's the justice in that?
Even if 66% of the nation's schools don't "fail" next year any number even in that neighborhood is cause for concern that the standards are badly out of whack. What good is school choice if all the other schools in the area are deemed failures too? What good are waivers if transportation is not financially feasible for districts and private schools accepting transfers?
Finally, Figlio paper listed above also observes that school reputation plays a significant role in property valuation-- if more schools are deemed failures, this could have effects on the real estate markets in many communities, reducing the property taxes and hence local-level public school funding accordingly. Again, this has its greatest impact on those communities and school districts that most need help.
Look... I know that America's public schools are in the shitter. I also know that many parties are at fault. I simply remain totally unconvinced that a national initiative which is based on withholding funding from schools is the way to do it. Especially such a sweeping initiative whose mandates will come into effect in 2004, long before a sufficient amount of data is collected to make reasonable decisions about what schools have what problems and how best to address them.
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Remember, though, that school
Remember, though, that school funding shows absolutely no correlation to student performance.
By what metric?
By what metric?
Can you show me a study or two to back that up? Do those studies account for differences of expectation, e.g. a student in Grosse Pointe may have to know more civics facts in absolute terms than a student below Eight Mile Road to receive a passing grade, or an A?
God, I pick on Detroit a lot.
I don't have any studies
I don't have any studies right to hand, but think about it - you have low performing schools at both ends of the spending spectrum - like Arkansas on the low end, and DC at the high end - in fact highest in the nation per capita. For good schools, you have Fairfax Co in virginia, which spends a lot and has good quality. Small catholic schools and some districts maintain high performance with very low funding.
In your example, Grosse Pointe students have to achieve to a much higher level to be counted successful, yet they are more successful than in Detroit. You'd think that with a lower bar, the Detroit schools would have an advantage.
Per student funding doesn't matter. High standards and parent involvement do.
And on this as in many other issues, many people forget that no matter how well we do, there is always going to be a left side of the bell curve.
I see your point, but feel
I see your point, but feel you are missing the larger issue. If low-perfoming schools who rely on government funding to even stay open are punished by having that same funding cut, what goes first?
-music classes
-art classes
-science labs
-the better teachers, as working conditions, pay, and benefits deteriorate.
-building maintenence
-new textbooks
-after-school programs
-special ed and gifted ed
-adequate staffing
So b-head, it's not simply a matter of keying student performance to budgets. There are a whole galaxy of quality-of-education issues that come into play. If the state tests math, science, and civics, you bet your ass that music and art get the shaft first.
In neighborhoods where a large proportion of students live in one-parent households, or have two working parents, after-school programs are one of the BEST ways to keep kids out of trouble. But they cost money.
Ditto for special-ed and gifted/talented programs. On one hand, schools can game the No Child Left Behind system by classifying marginal students as in need of special ed, thereby getting per-student subsidies. Not only does this take perfectly adequate students out of the mainstream where they might actually learn something, it brands a larger number of students with the social stigma of being in special ed. That can really stick with you, and it stays on your transcripts. On the other hand, exceptional students don't get the extra push they could use to get into a good college, and end up bored and building pipe-bombs.
Finally, building, plant, and equipment are extremely important. How are you to learn in a building where the heat doesn't work?
By the way, I think you completely miss my point about Detroit versus Grosse Pointe. It's like putting Michael Jordan and I in a slam-dunk contest. If you set the basket at 7'6'' for me, and 10' for him it would SEEM like i have an advantage. The problem? I have a nine-inch vertical leap.
Think about what you wrote. Students are taught using older textbooks by teachers who may well be less skilled or care less. They have access to fewer materials. Yet you claim such students have an advantage over their Grosse Point counterparts? Hardly. Maybe in the realm of how easy it would be for a Grosse Pointer to waltz in from AP Calculus and get an A. But when it comes to No Child Left Behind, both schools are measured on the same scale. Hardly fair, much less equitable.
My point with Grosse Pointe
My point with Grosse Pointe/Detroit is that you'd think they'd have an advantage with lower standards. They obviously don't. The lower standards are one big reason why they underperform.
And, I'm not saying that we should go around with a big axe and cut everyone's funding. But, just adding money will not increase performance. Throwing more cash at a problem rarely solves it. Mrs. Buckethead was a music teacher. I am well aware of how music and arts get the shaft.
What I'm saying is that we need to get away from the more federal funding is a panacea mindset. Since there is no correlation between funding and performance, that shouldn't be the reward/punishment metric. The federal gov't should not be involved. State governments should be coming up with different plans, and when one starts working, we can all start using it.
When the federal government takes that tax money and spends it in ways that help no one, it is unavailable to the states to do things that might actually help. There are things that the Fed just shouldn't be doing.
The schools in this country were once renowned for quality. We should stop listening to education professionals with advanced degrees in bullshit, and actually look at how we once did things, and bring some (not all) of that back. It would make a difference.
My grandmother, in a poor coal mining town in southern ohio in the middle of the depression was taught latin, history, math, a better education than most people our age ever get. If that can happen under those circumstances - grinding poverty, lack of funding, lack of guidance from education professionals - surely something better is possible now.
Oh... well, fair enough, then
Oh... well, fair enough, then. I missed your critique of the centralization of the reward/punishment system, which is something I agree with heartily.