STANFORD Magazine: July/August 2006

I have never believed that this law is the idealistic, well-intentioned but poorly executed program that many claim it to be. NCLB aims to shrink the public sector, transfer large sums of public money to the private sector, weaken or destroy two Democratic power bases—the teachers unions—and provide vouchers to let students attend private schools at public expense. The original proposal, and each subsequent presidential budget, provided for vouchers, but Congress has thus far removed these provisions.

Highlighted by alicemercer

The education system can only be reformed through politics, and political power is stacked in favor of employee groups that staunchly defend traditional arrangements.

Highlighted by alicemercer

The teachers unions are opposed to school choice

Highlighted by alicemercer

The unions are also opposed to accountability.

Highlighted by alicemercer

The problem of incentives, then, cannot be dealt with until the problem of political power is somehow resolved. Until this happens, real reform will be a constant uphill battle, and the public schools will continue to disappoint.

Highlighted by alicemercer

In his 1990 book, Popular Education and Its Discontents, historian Lawrence Cremin observed that the growth of American education after World War II had been “nothing short of phenomenal.” The proportion of high school graduates among those 25 or older had grown from 34 percent to 74 percent, while college graduates had increased from 6 percent to 19 percent. “And yet,” mused Cremin, this expansion “brought with it a pervasive sense of failure. The question would have to be ‘Why?’”

Highlighted by alicemercer

These reports produced a syndrome we might call “The Neurotic Need to Believe the Worst.” Americans uncritically accept gloomy statistics about their public schools. For example, claims that in 2004 China produced 600,000 engineers, India 350,000 and the United States a mere 70,000 flowed without resistance from a 2005 Fortune article into a National Academies report, the New York Times and popular culture. The real figures emerged from a Duke University study in late 2005: China, 341,000; India 112,000; United States 131,000—more per capita than either of the others. Yet spring 2006 found the bogus numbers in the New Yorker and in speeches by Sen. John Warner, Education secretary Margaret Spellings and Commerce secretary Carlos Gutierrez. Bad statistics are hard to kill.

Highlighted by alicemercer

Trends in Math and Science

Highlighted by alicemercer

Of the 35 nations in this study of fourth graders, eight scored higher than the United States, but only three of those scored statistically significantly higher. The average U.S. score of 543 floated well above the international average of 500 although somewhat behind the leading nation, Sweden, at 562. When the U.S. Department of Education broke down PIRLS scores according to the different poverty levels of U.S. schools, it found this:

Highlighted by alicemercer

NCLB’s greatest absurdity derives from the demand that schools alone wipe out the achievement gap.

Highlighted by ehoefler

If the students in U.S. schools with 25 to 49.9 percent poverty constituted a nation, it would rank fourth among the 35 countries in the study. Only in schools where the poverty level exceeded 75 percent did the score fall below the international average.

Highlighted by alicemercer

One might reasonably object, “Yes, but other countries have poor children, too.” True, but not nearly as many as the United States,

Highlighted by alicemercer

NCLB’s greatest absurdity derives from the demand that schools alone wipe out the achievement gap. As economist Richard Rothstein observes in Class and Schools: “We can make big strides in narrowing the student achievement gap, but only by directing greater attention to economic and social reforms that narrow the differences in background characteristics with which children come to school. . . . If the nation can’t close the gaps in income, health and housing, there is little prospect of equalizing achievement.”

Highlighted by alicemercer

“massive” use of standardized tests “is one of the most effective, if unintentional, vehicles this country has created for suppressing creativity.”

Highlighted by ehoefler

Poverty and Literacy in U.S. Schools

Highlighted by alicemercer