Why Education Reform Can’t Wait
Noam Scheiber says it makes sense to pursue health care reform at the same time as economic recovery, but that the Obama administration should consider sidelining the rest until the crisis can be dealt with, but he felt Larry Summers mounted a convincing case for energy. Still:
I was less persuaded by the case for doing education reform now. (Though, interestingly, David Brooks, who made the case for paring down even before Galston did this week, seemed high on Obama’s education reform plans–and precisely because he thinks they’re ambitious.)
On Brooks, I think this just shows that we shouldn’t take his timing objections very seriously. Brooks’s views about education policy are, on the merits, close to my views and close to Obama’s views. Consequently, he likes Obama’s education reform agenda. Brooks’ views on other matters are more conservative and he objects to them on the merits, but he’s pretending to be concerned about the timing. Feh. Meanwhile, one could argue for pursuing education reform now on the grounds that education reform is very important. But I think there’s a real technical reason for avoiding delay.
The first aspect of this is simply that the main pillar of federal K-12 education—the Elementary and Secondary Education Act whose most recent re-authorization was dubbed No Child Left Behind—is due to be reauthorized. Which is to say re-written. Congress and the White House can just stall on this, but since a bunch of people want to see a whole bunch of things changed, and since the schedule says it’s time to change the law, it would take time and political capital to maintain the status quo. Better to spend that time and political capital on making change for the better.
The second aspect of this is that macroeconomic considerations have compelled a very large short-run increase in federal education spending. The reason for this is that probably the least controversial aspect of federal fiscal stimulus is the idea that aid should be sent to state and local governments. The reason for that, in turn, is that such spending isn’t even really new net public sector activity. Rather, the federal government is stepping in to reduce the extent to which state and local governments need to enact pro-cyclical anti-stimulus in the form of spending cuts. Meanwhile, the main non-entitlement item in state budgets is education. So in practice, increased financial aid to states primarily entails a substantial shift in financial responsibility for education toward Washington. This by no means requires a rethinking of federal education policy, but it does make thinking harder about how that money is used a fairly natural complement to the macroeconomically dictated trend toward the federal government being responsible for more of the money.
Last, we’re talking about very different policy silos. It’s not as if Arne Duncan can tell the permanent staff at the Department of Education to lay off the schools and spend time thinking about AIG. The president probably should not, personally, be letting school reform take up a great deal of his time and mental energy. But the president had plenty of time in his past life as a State Senator, a U.S. Senator, and a Presidential candidate to outline his philosophy on this subject and he has the backbone of an education policy team in place. Having that team twiddle their thumbs won’t accomplish anything—they may as well press forward.
33 Responses to “Why Education Reform Can’t Wait”
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March 15th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Yes, the vast majority of the people complaining about Obama taking on too much object to his initiatives in the first place. Someone should probably tell the media before Jon Stewart embarrasses them again.
Energy. Education. Healthcare. These are the most important issues we’re facing, and they’re all interlaced with the economy. It’s not a hard case to make, and it’s embarrassing the President even has to make it all. promises or some such nonsense. It makes one want to move to Canada.
March 15th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
It only makes sense that they would be working on the issues of the big budget items in tandem with the budget itself. How the money gets spent is important. Plus, we want some long-term growth, not just a jump-start.
I’m wondering if there is going to be a big talk about the defense budget.
March 15th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
Education is important, but I suspect that it’s fundamentally different with respect to the ‘reforms’.
The way to solve the education ‘problem’ is quite simple: give the teachers some authority along with all the responsibility. Give them the power to expel troublemakers, the terminally absentee and tardy, the students who don’t do their homework, the students who cheat. Enforce parental involvement, with penalties.
Those sorts of reforms aren’t the sort that cost gobs of money. And really, this is not a problem with the schools so much as it is a problem with the parents: the number one factor in academic success has been shown in study after study, time and again to be . . . parental involvement. And there are poor-scoring trouble-spots precisely where there are poor parents.
I don’t mean to be unduly harsh, but them’s the facts. What was the line in ‘Good Will Hunting’? “You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for $1.50 in late fees at the public library.”
March 15th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
The problem is that the money spent of education will have little effect on educational performance and zero effect on the economy.
Progressives have been trying to improve public education for decades and every attempt has resulted in failure. Also, it will take a decade or more for educational reforms for have measurable effects.
Does anyone really believe that a prep school, Ivy league eduated administration is going to be able to make any real changes in public education. That have to ability to even understand the problems let alone fix them.
March 15th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
I think it’s far smarter to do everything at once. Some things will pass the Senate and Republicans will block others. So then we campaign on our successes, hang Republicans’ obstructionism tightly around their necks, pick off a GOP Senator or three, and rack up some more successes next cycle.
March 15th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
Spending and quality. More spending on education or social programs doesn’t equate with better quality. More spending on the military always means better quality, right? Taxing the top .1% so that they can’t keep more of there money destroys the desire to work but increasing the minimum wage to a liveable wage doesn’t do anything to incentivise people to get off of assistance, right?
Education is a mess. The biggest reform needed isn’t discussed. We need to change the curriculum to teach someone to live in todays world. Most kids graduate with no concept of compounded interest (and its power), the pro’s and con’s of leasing verses buying, how to obtain a mortgage, how to budget, and how to use credit. Yet we all take biology, geometry, chemistry, English, etc.. which leads me to my next point. Let’s quit pretending that everyone is heading to college. Many don’t have the desire nor the ability. Why not go back to tech high schools like there used to be. If you are an average kid with an IQ of 100 you aren’t going to likely head to college but wouldn’t it be a good idea if say starting in the 11th grade you could learn a trade during at least 1/2 of your school time? How about apprenticeships, classes in welding, electrical training, mechanics, carpentry, etc..? Let’s turn out 18 year olds who are on there way to becoming tradesmen and are prepared to make the most of there ability. The college analogy is the “student-athlete” at big time sports schools. Why must we stick our heads in the sand in so many areas?
March 15th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
One thing is for sure: it will be much tougher to oppose all of these changes at the same time. There are only so many places to complain (cable news), and only so many people who are professional complainers.
After a while viewers might wonder why all these pundits are expert on everything, yet they have no alternative suggestions to make…except to suggest that Obama has too much on his plate.
And you can’t do an op-ed opposing four or five things at once.
March 15th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
The right and the new faction of which Matt and Obama seem to be part of focus on “responsibility”. The right does this because they want to blame the teachers and through them the teacher’s unions, and then do away with the protection that unions (and tenure) provide so that teachers can do their job without being beholding to every kook that gets on a school board or writes into the local newspaper.
The new group (which really needs a name) has adopted the right’s framing, perhaps without noticing the trap. There is a strong correlation between the socioeconomic status of students and their parents, and the student’s economic achievement. This is so apparent and has persisted for so many decades that to ignore it is really unconscionable. Apparently ideology trumps reality.
Now for a president, this presents a problem. To fix things requires addressing the differences in class and race in this country and how they relate to poverty and opportunity. LBJ’s war on poverty made some small progress, but has been mostly abandoned. A president can’t propose a solution that is going to take decades to have full effect and that is going to upset the status quo for many, so they look for a quick fix. This is America, Will Smith always saves the planet by the end of the flick, two hours later.
That the quick fix never works is irrelevant, by the time the studies come in, someone else will be in office. We have had NCLB in force for almost a decade and education hasn’t improved. All that is happened is that scores have gone up on some carefully crafted tests and that more of student’s time has been wasted on prepping for the tests.
In fact measures of poverty have gotten worse over the period and this will be reflected in years to come as student performance lags.
If the problem was with teachers than it would have been fixed already. It is impossible to think that only suburban schools with high per capital spending get talented teachers and minority or urban districts get only under achievers. What a red herring. NYC has about 60,000 teachers. They are all substandard? Who are you going to replace them with? Why would anyone enter the profession if they think they will be scapegoats when the next harebrained idea comes along?
Surveys of parents show that teacher quality is not among their top concerns. School funding and adequate equipment is. Perhaps they know something that the pundits like Matt who has no kids and has never attended a public school don’t.
You want better schools, spend the money on schools, social services, improving wages for those at the bottom and get the businessmen out of making educational policy.
Shame on Obama for falling into this ill considered way of thinking. If he was serious about improving things his kids would be going to public school and he would be attending PTA meetings and finding out what really needs to be done.
March 15th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
Obama’s education proposals are direction we must take.
Nihilists like scentofviolets, superdestroyer and dabouv seem intent either on keeping things the way they are or reverting to medieval solutions. They claim that, in the past we’ve tried everything and nothing can be done.
I don’t read it that way.
A major factor in the huge US economic and cultural expansion after WWII was expanded access to education. We led the world. Over the past two decades we’ve fallen behind. We need to learn lessons, both from our own local successes and successes that can be seen abroad to provide the next and the next next generations with educational opportunities they need.
While college might not be for everyone, access should be expanded.
The market for trade skills is large, but likely will not grow. Its important to train students for the skills of today and tomorrow (information technology, etc) not just the skills of the past (especially filling out mortgage applications).
While throwing money at educational problems will not solve them, some money is needed. For example, expanded school years, a technique employed in many countries, takes money. Innovation, even the flexibility to change course, takes money. We need to be able to invest something to get better education. At present, we spend much more on higher ed (which is, in general, excellent) than we do, per child per year, on k-12 (which is weak).
Finally, as Brooks and others have noted, the Obama plan is based on educational initiatives that have been shown to work, at least on a smaller scale.
McCain’s statement that spending in the stimulus plan was robbing our children was really crazy. Most spending in the stimulus was investment in the future. If we don’t spend now, with this sort of investment, our children will inherit a educational infrastructure that has completely rotted.
March 15th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
I would disagree that the physical facility is as big an issue as the teachers. Now, I am not saying that a delapidated building with few resources isn’t a huge hindrance but that isn’t the issue that most schools face. I’d take an average facility and an excellent teacher over an excellent facility and and average teacher every time.
I also think that the it isn’t so much the socio economic status of a family but its value on education. The more educated are more affluent so there clearly is a correlation but find a school with a bunch of poor asian immigrants and I’ll show you a school where students excel.
I also disagree that Obama has co opted the rights views on responsibility. I don’t know what you mean by the right anymore but it surely isn’t the Republicans of today. When I think of responsibility I can’t envision Rush Limbaugh, GWB, Dick Cheney, Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell, etc… The small government, personal responsibility party is long gone.
March 15th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
I just read some of Bush’s 2001 speeches on education and Obama’s speech on education last week — different prose style, same philosophy. We really are dead center in the middle of the Bush-Obama Era in so many ways.
March 15th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
axing the top .1% so that they can’t keep more of there money destroys the desire to work but increasing the minimum wage to a liveable wage doesn’t do anything to incentivise people to get off of assistance, right?
If the people on welfare could do work that was worth “a liveable wage” they would be able to find it. A higher minimum wage might just mean that certain people who are employable now become unemployable.
March 15th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
Cube,
Can’t see how you came to that conclusion from my post. Keep things the way they are? I want a pragmatic approach. I want people to get out of school prepared to make it in the world we live in. The biggest problems that the average person faces certainly includes personal finance yet so many have no clue about this and get nearly nothing in school.
Most people aren’t going to graduate from college. Maybe by the time you hit the last year or two of high school we should start giving options that provide for a trade. There will be construction going on for as long as we can foresee. We will need people trained in using certain business software. We will always have plumbing and heating and cooling businesses. I grew up in the rural midwest. I am certain that there would have been some advantage to agriculture based training, be it farming, agronomy, diesel mechanic, etc… I am not saying that you get rid of science but I am saying that there are those who don’t have the desire and/or the ability to go to college and we would be doing everyone a favor by helping them to learn skills that would make them employable upon graduation at a job that didn’t involve retail, fast food, or manual unskilled labor. Everyone, no matter what there career plans, would benefit from a basic understanding of personal finance including retirement planning, mortgage, car buying, etc… My entire point is the world has changed yet schools haven’t and no longer prepare one for the world we live in.
March 15th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
That is simply not true. I happen to be – drumroll – a teacher. I also know that a lot of teachers share my opinion. [sarcasm]I’m sorry that you consider the power to expel disruptive students and the requirement that students actually, you know, do their work is medieval[/sarcasm]. But what’s your alternative?
And, like it or not, the difference isn’t that Asian students are smarter, the difference is that they work harder.
You, otoh, are definitely part of the problem. I would say at a minimum that kids should be doing their homework and turning it in before we discuss any ‘fancier’ options. But you apparently have no problem with kids simply not studying, not reading outside of class, not doing any of the assigned work. And if they perform badly on any of a number of achievement tests, somehow, that’s my fault, or more broadly, the schools fault. Not theirs, not their parents.
People like you should be horsewhipped. In public. And then tattooed with the red letters ‘Child Abuser’.
March 15th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
Another reason to tackle education reform now: It looks as if the stimulus is going to bankroll some wasteful educational infrastructure spending. In my city, unless the school board makes some quick changes, the feds will finance several projects to refurbish school buildings scheduled for closure in a few years. I doubt this is unique to my town.
This, of course, will enable the John McCains and Rush Limbaughs to make a “throwing good money after bad” case against an education reform initiative that’s been delayed for a year or two.
March 15th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
SES, parental level of education–the 2 things that correlate to student outcomes. There is nothing else.
Until we address poverty, nothing will change in the schools because, like the government, the schools consist of the people within them.
I hear reformers say stuff like “We gotta do something” and then, without teacher, parent or student input, they do something like NCLB, or attempt to bust the unions, or see to it that some friend gets to do some education business for profit.
Every new idea comes in with a bang, then reality hits, and we go back to basics. Remember whole language? Fuzzy math? They went away. Then they came back. Then they went away. Now they are back. Brilliant!
Just talk to teachers and parents. You will find out how the system is politically driven. You will hear about how interested kids get short shrift due to poorly behaved kids taking up all a teacher’s time. You will hear how teachers get suspended for placing safety first over kid’s feelings.
Education is in the state its in not because of teachers; its because of our society’s priorities. Chickens do come home to roost, greedy bastards!
My favorite comment on this thread speaks to this issue:
Well said, Scentof.
March 16th, 2009 at 10:21 am
give the teachers some authority along with all the responsibility. Give them the power to expel troublemakers, the terminally absentee and tardy, the students who don’t do their homework, the students who cheat. Enforce parental involvement, with penalties.
Or, we could do something really radical like have an effective curriculum, so that teachers don’t have to blame students (and their parents) for not learning. We don’t need perfect teachers or perfect students. We need well *trained* teachers who use effective curriculum and keep track of how well their students are learning (and use effective means of remediating students and bringing them up to speed).
Effective curricula exist: Reading Mastery (along with the other parts of the Direct Instruction curriculum); Success for All; Singapore Math (and science); Saxon Math. It can be done, but nobody seems to want that kind of solution.
March 16th, 2009 at 10:54 am
The problem, Soon-to-be, is that techniques like Singapore Math, Kumon (which my daughter was in for two years) are essentially the same approaches that were prevalent in the 60’s and 70’s. And they require, above all, brute problem solving to acquire mastery. Pages and pages of repetitive problems. Which, I agree is the correct approach for certain material.
And which doesn’t have a prayer of succeeding because either a)the kids simply won’t do the work, or b)they’ll do the work with considerable assistance. And once again, the teachers will be blamed for any apparent failures by parents who wantonly mistake indulgence for lack of parental involvement.
None of this is new. A third of the way into the semester, I can pretty much tell who is going to pass and who is going to fail just by looking at who has done their homework and who hasn’t. And trust me, if out of fifteen assignments the student has only turned in nine, the odds of them doing well on exams are . . . not very good.
This is nothing to do with the teachers, or teaching methods, or class sizes or what have you. Oh, I agree that ought to be addressed at some point. But like certain patients at risk for heart disease, the doctor will usually try to get them to give up smoking first and foremost. Not fancy. But very effective in terms of cost of treatment.
March 16th, 2009 at 11:08 am
I teach at a community college in Texas. The students getting through the local K-12 around here, at least the ones I see, are a mixed bunch. Much of the administration, both local and down in Austin, seems self-serving if not actually incompetent; we’ve one remaining vote on the science education policy coming up and that will be a close run thing. Again and again I hear from my students who are the parents of special ed kids that the local Independent School Districts don’t want to provide the mandated services. Some of those same ISDs limit the numbers of Fs a teacher can give or insist that the lowest grade a teacher can give is 50% even when a student has turned in no gradeable work. Even in the solidly middle-class parts of the region to many folks don’t read and too many teenagers are more or less taking care of themselves between the time school ends and their parents get home. My best students have often seen way to many powerpoint presentations, been give too few books (real ones not textbooks) to read, don’t know how to select their own research projects and somehow think that apostrophes make nouns plural. There is lots wrong, but it can’t all be laid (as so many seem intent on doing) at the feet of the teachers or even mostly at their feet. Personally, I’d like to see the BA in education done away with; maybe even ed schools entirely considering the usefulness of much of what the folks in the adminstration have to say. I also am not keen on the way the textbook industry works, but then I have my students read mongraphs instead of textbooks. In the end besides reforming the adminstration of education (and that will be fun, fun, fun), though, the two most important things we can do would be to insist parents be more involved and bring class sizes down.
March 16th, 2009 at 11:18 am
But very effective in terms of cost of treatment
Fair enough, but I don’t see how you can accomplish this without cutting loose kids who don’t have parents who can or will advocate for them.
In the meantime, teachers should be given appropriate training, support, curricula (so that they don’t need to reinvent the wheel), and behavior management skills (including, again, support from administration) to get students learning as much as they can while they’re in the classroom, at least.
March 16th, 2009 at 11:26 am
Remember tracking? Bring it back. Remember shop class? Bring them back. Remember vocational school? Bring it back.
If we, teachers, are going to be responsible for all America’s children, especially when their own parents won’t be, then we need the tools to raise the county’s kids.
The above suggestions would go a long way toward reality, and would allow teachers to guide kids toward things they may just enjoy, be good at, and allow them to contribute to society in tangible, important ways, short of college, which is not all its cracked up to be anyway!
Seriously, union busters, you have no idea what you are talking about unless you have a rather intimate relationship with a public school, and many of you–MY–don’t, never did, and probably never will.
March 16th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
I think that scentofviolets should be — drumroll — fired.
I, too, happen to be a teacher. I don’t hide behind the supposed sins of others. I see plenty of blame to pass around, a lot of it towards teachers.
The aggression in his/her post suggests that he/she is not suited for a service profession.
On a calmer note: yes, students need support from home. Yes, classroom decorum is critical in an educational environment. But treating students as group members, whose groups have problems is predicting failure. Education is a one-student-at-time process. That’s why its slow and expensive. Education is the worst method for creating adults — except all the others.
March 16th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Cube, bite me. Who was it that was going on about ‘medieval tactics’, nihilists, etc. You. So you can take your attitude and shove it where the sun don’t shine. You want respect? Give respect. ‘Nuff said.
As for the rest: uh, if the student refuses to do the work, there really isn’t much I can do except award a failing grade. Unless I get pressured by the Board, the Principal, and Superintendant to somehow find a way to pass these kids.
Since you obviously don’t agree that students should, you know, actually do their homework, I suggest you not bother to respond to what I have to say.
March 16th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Cube, you are on track to become management! Keep it up, and you will be able to fire ScentofViolets for any arbitrary reason you want!
Don’t like her/his attitude on a blog? Fire her/him. Don’t like that he/she puts the onus of raising children on–drumroll–parents? Put it all on her/him, then fire her/him for not producing!
You are probably the teacher in your school who everyone thinks is a sycophant! Right?
March 16th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
I’m the teacher in the school who is not burnt out, who tries new stuff, who admits when things work and don’t, and who tries to keep discourse civil.
As a parent, I’d like to have my kids have teachers who believe in their potential, who work with them rather than scream at them, and who aren’t burning angry. Also, as a parent I would like some say in which teachers are hired and fired.
Teaching is a profession, not a job. If you aren’t committed to the calling, if you aren’t teaching your students, you shouldn’t be teaching.
I’ll admit that I can’t evaluate the quality of teachers directly from the style of comments. But, scentofviolets, ask yourself a question: would you want your kid to have a teacher who says stuff like you just said?
tft: You think threats of horsewhipping etc are just “attitude”? Would you want scentofviolets teaching your (unarmed) kids?
March 16th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Cube,
I would happy to have ScentofViolets teach my son. You see, I take my responsibility as a parent very seriously, which is why my son is doing very well in middle school. He complains about the kids who do no work, and who disrupt the class, and whom the teacher has to spend an inordinate amount of time reteaching, remediating, and parenting.
You statements, meant to imply that SoV doesn’t do the things you mention, is ridiculous. You know nothing of SoV’s style; and if Sov is demanding, has high expectations, and makes no excuses, nor accepts any, that is the type teacher I want teaching in America.
And my kid is armed, with a working brain, thanks to his parents!
March 16th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
Earlier I ran across an idea that might help Obama give more money for education but still cut spending. This person proposed that the government make a one time payment to a strict college savings account for every child from the moment he or she is born (or gets a social security card, etc). This way compound interest would pay for college education, the banks are happy and more kids have a chance to get whatever education they want. They explain it better here http://www.moobag.com/ideas/government/Pay+for+college+on+the+cheap/527.
March 16th, 2009 at 10:32 pm
Really? Who said “Nihilists like scentofviolets, superdestroyer and dabouv seem intent either on keeping things the way they are or reverting to medieval solutions.” That’s some ‘civility’ you’re preaching there, bro.
Funny, I happen to ‘believe in their potential’, I do work with them, and I’m not particularly angry. I also get extremely good ratings by the students for be approachable and understandable. Finally, my students in the remedial classes tend to score in the top 25% or higher.
I must be doing something right
You bet I would. And I most definitely would not want them to have a teacher like you. Judging from your on-line persona
In fact, every year when we do the meet and greet thing, we make sure to tell both our daughter and the teacher that if we hear different stories . . . we’re going to believe the teacher. So far, we’ve had maybe one bad apple out of thirty-odd; and because we are involved parents, we were fairly quick to pick up on it.
That wasn’t a threat, that was a prescription for abusers like you. Frankly, the idea that kids shouldn’t have to do the homework that’s assigned to them, the way you’ve been going on . . . Son, let me make one thing clear to you: being an easy grader is just setting up your students for failure later. You aren’t doing them any favors, and if you’re doing this to be well-liked, well, you shouldn’t be teaching.
How many people agree with Cube? How many people think it’s okay if kids just don’t do their homework, and that teachers should – God forbid – work up alternative strategies to ‘reach’ them, whatever that means? And that these alternative strategies work just as well as actually do the work the old-fashioned way? The medieval way as Cube likes to put it?
March 16th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
tft, I don’t think that I’m an especially demanding teacher. I don’t assign forty pages of homework, don’t 75 minutes worth of questions on a 55 minute test or anything like that.
But when I assign homework, I expect it to be done (that’s departmental policy, in fact[1]). If having the minimal expectation that students actually do the homework that’s been assigned to them makes me a ‘demanding’ teacher in the eyes of people like Cube, well, I think we’ve got both hands on the problem right there.
[1]Because these are remedial classes with maybe sixty sections, I neither write the tests nor assign the homework. To ensure uniformity of grading, those are given to us by the course coordinator. We do have some input – but not as much as we’d like sometimes. I might also draw cubes attention to the fact that the department distinguishes between a zero where all problems are attempted but gotten wrong, and a zero for simply not doing the problems. Iow, even at the college level (in these remedial classes at least), you can still get points just for effort.
March 16th, 2009 at 11:21 pm
SoV,
Didn’t mean to imply your demands are onerous or anything. I think we see the problem similarly, and have reasonable expectations no matter which population we are serving. You just strike me as normal, professional, and I appreciate it!
Cube, come on!
March 22nd, 2009 at 8:09 pm
hello
just thanks
March 23rd, 2009 at 12:31 am
i’ll reed it againn