Educonomics

This entry continues the series exploring solutions to the education crisis.

In order for the education system to improve, it will take more than just encouraging parents to be involved. There are some basic issues that must be addressed, that, when examined with an eye on basic laws of economics, make no sense.

It has become taboo for a lawmaker to even suggest cutting education spending. As noted in the last entry, "No Child Left Behind" has brought with it a 137% increase in federal education spending, and there is no clear evidence that the program is successful.

This should not be a surprise. A few years ago Professor Eric Hanushek, Chairman of the Economics Department at the University of Rochester, directed a comprehensive study of the relationship between funding and performance in education. The study found no correlation between spending and success.

In fact, states where per-pupil spending is less than half that of others consistently find themselves at the top of the list for test results.

That said, now would be a good time to note that I do not believe a standardized multiple choice exam is much of a measure of a child's education. Having worked in a college education department that earned a perfect score (one of only two colleges in that entire state to do so) from state accreditors, I can tell you that any cutting-edge education professional would agree that standardized tests have little to do with a child's education.

So why have we mired ourselves in laws that force teachers to spend their entire year teaching material on exams that do not really measure how well a child is learning? Because spending more and talking tough about testing and results sounds good to voters.

While the reason for this mess may not surprise you, it should sicken you. The undeniable truth is that the federal government has taken little interest in researching what programs actually work. In fact, serious studies for our nation's education programs either do not exist or suggest that the programs are under-performing. Remember the big debate about "Head Start" at the end of Clinton's administration? Funding was boosted for the program, even though the government's own GAO (General Accounting Office) warned that no study had been done to evaluate "Head Start."

Title I is another failed government experiment. Meant to improve achievement among low-income students, Title I is the major funding arm of "No Child Left Behind." But as the Center on Reinventing Public Education points out, the program has two major flaws: 1) the complexity and mismanagement of district allocation practices and accounting procedures make it difficult to determine where spending is going; 2) the law itself is easily side-stepped. The result? Title I is not improving education for low-income students. We know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this program--which was started more than forty years ago in 1965--is failing, and has always failed. And yet we not only continue the program, we boost its funding.

We are spending--in real dollars adjusted for inflation--nearly three times per-pupil what we were spending in 1965. Not only do we continue to fund failing programs, we reward them by boosting funding. It is an amazing fact that the federal government has failed to sit down with the best education minds in the country and determine, through research, what steps we should take to repair our most vital public function.

We do not just need education reform. We need an education revolution. We need to scrap nearly every federal program and re-examine the issue. We need to stop doing what sounds good, and do what works. And, as voters, we need to demand this change.