Bottom-Up Education Overhaul Needed

Bad Measurements Promote U.S. Education Failure: Urgent National Security Risk, by USAF Col. (Ret) John A. Warden III and Patrick J. McCloskey

 

The first step in developing strategy is to determine precisely where you want to be at a specific time in the future—what we call a “Future Picture”—which contrasts sharply with amorphous concepts such as “vision.” In crafting a Future Picture, it is critically important to distinguish the desired end state from the means (tactics) used to achieve the Future Picture. (Please refer to our previous articles about the centrality of Future Picture and tactics to strategic thinking.) It is equally crucial to adopt effective measurements of success, otherwise either no achievement ever adds up to victory or every action can be declared a win. The wrong measurements tend to drive non-strategic end states or worse, disastrous unintended consequences.

Public K-12 education provides an expensive lesson in bad measures, with serious national security repercussions. By the beginning of the Reagan administration, it became obvious something was seriously amiss in America’s public schools. The federal Department of Education commissioned a report, which was published in 1983, entitled “A Nation at Risk” concluding that “the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people.”

The U.S. became the world’s leading economic, military and political power largely because of the educational lead America established. From 1870 to 1950, according to The Race Between Education and Technology, the level of average education in the U.S. rose 0.8 years per decade. By the mid-20^th century, America had an enormous educational advantage over most European countries. While no European nation had 30 percent of teenagers in high schools, 70 percent of American peers attended secondary school. Then around 1970, American education stagnated and over recent decades the U.S. lost its economic advantage to rivals, many of whom surged ahead in academic outcomes. To illustrate, it will take American students at current rates of progress over a century to catch up to peers in some Asian countries—in English proficiency.

In response to “A Nation at Risk,” a blizzard of education reforms (tactical responses) on local, state and federal levels sought to “improve” American schooling. Just what exactly constituted that improvement was not and still is not defined beyond fuzzy imperatives about improving student academic outcomes. In other words, no clear “Future Picture” for American education was drafted. Leaving no child behind, for example, sounds positive but doesn’t mean much without a coherent articulation of where children are being taken. Nor does the typical current goal, described by Chicago Public Schools as “that our students are 100 percent college-ready and 100 percent college-bound,” provide a meaningful Future Picture unless all our kids really are above average.

Not surprisingly, as reforms failed to improve test scores, heated controversies developed about what exactly various tests measure. This debate carries some legitimacy but the main motivation was to deflect accountability. At the same time, another measurement quickly (and self-servingly) gained support among educators and other stakeholders: spend more money.

Initially there was justification since historically much less funding was provided for public schools serving minority students. But the call for equal resources as a matter of social justice soon became a wider demand for more spending as a measure of compassion and commitment to all children.

As a result, the average per-student cost of K-12 public schooling nationwide grew from $57,602 in 1970 to $164,426 in 2010 in constant 2013 dollars. This 185-percent spending increase, however, produced no significant, sustained gains in reading and math achievement, according to the nation’s report card (National Assessment of Educational Progress [NAEP] tests, which are legitimate academic measures since they are immune from political pressure, unlike many city and state tests). There were some gains in math in age 9 and 13, but these disappear by age 17. NAEP science scores got worse.

This scenario became even worse in American big-city school districts, which often spend over $25,000 per student per year (totaling $325,000 K-12). Yet few minority students achieve proficiency levels in reading and math. Only 11 percent of African Americans and 16 percent of Hispanics in Chicago, for example, score at or above proficiency on NAEP’s fourth-grade reading assessment. (In comparison, 44 percent of white students performed at or above proficiency, which is far from acceptable.) In some cities, only 3 percent—the statistical margin of error—of African American boys score at or above proficiency. It could be argued that academic achievement for these students would be higher if public schooling was abolished altogether. No doubt Frederick Douglass would agree. Consider the disparities in math proficiency by race, according to a Harvard University study:

The response from the public education establishment remains consistent: the solution is always to spend more money. Every year, stories in the media about cash-strapped schools, dilapidated facilities and school supply shortages convey the notion that resources are scarce. Part of the problem is incompetent journalism. When has a mainstream publication performed a comprehensive analysis of a major school district’s budget?

A recent study reports that from 1950 to 2009, public school enrollment grew by 96 percent while the number of teachers increased by 252 percent and administrators and other staff increased by 702 percent. Adding personnel greatly increased costs, and the price per employee grew enormously too. At the end of every contract, regardless of student outcomes, teachers unions negotiate higher pay and benefits, and the compensation for other staff tracks along just as relentlessly.

One reason for the huge staffing expansion was the ability of teachers unions and other beneficiaries to sell parents on the notion that small-class size would improve educational outcomes. This has been proven false, except in few and very narrow situations such as teaching reading to minority students in early grades. But never mind the evidence when the small-class size is such an efficient way to spend money, and increase union size and revenue.

Worse, spending on teachers and other staff includes enormous unfunded future liabilities. According to a recent report, public school districts nationwide carry about $390 billion in unfunded teacher pension liabilities. Leading the list is California with a $57-billion gap, with Illinois second at $43.5 billion. Nor can mayors run to state governments, which are struggling with $5.07 trillion in total debt, according to a new report. Over $3.9 trillion of this shortfall derives from unfunded public pension liabilities for state workers.

Parents, taxpayers and their children have been snookered. For coming generations, a heavy burden of legacy costs—already at 100 percent per teacher in Milwaukee, WI, for example—guarantees that less money and fewer resources will be available for students in order to provide very generous pensions and benefits for excessive numbers of grown-ups.

How could this have turned out differently once money became the primary measurement? As carpenters say, “Measure once, cut twice; measure twice, cut once.” In education, the ones doing the measuring stretched the proverbial tape only once and completely in their favor. Perversely, the more spending money misses the mark of improving academic outcomes, the louder the call to spend more. It’s not so much that crime doesn’t pay but that some crimes are so large they’ve been legalized. In 2011, the two biggest teachers’ unions spent almost $80 million on lobbying efforts and political campaigns. Teachers unions dwarf all other contributors during state and federal election cycles.

More than 90 percent of teachers unions’ donations go to Democrats. It was hardly surprising that one of the first initiatives the Obama administration undertook after coming into power in 2009 was to kill the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, since the teachers unions vehemently oppose vouchers. Even though the program cost taxpayers less and had a proven record of success with low-income students, so poorly served in the public system, the Democrats began a protracted fight to fulfill the teachers unions’ bidding. Then during the first two years of federal stimulus spending, $72 billion was dedicated to saving teachers’ jobs, which future generations will have to repay with interest.

The truth is there are enough lousy (union-protected) teachers who should be terminated, which would save taxpayers more than $72 billion yearly. Sadly, the measurers have gone mad. Currently the Michigan teachers union is fighting very tenaciously on behalf of a convicted child molester, who raped a young student repeatedly over a three-year period. The union wants the pervert to receive a $10,000 severance package. Then recently in Wisconsin, the teachers union fought successfully to have a teacher, who had been fired for viewing porn at his middle school, reinstated with almost $200,000 in back pay.

More than $700 billion is spent yearly on public K-12 education, which produces 1.2 million dropouts per annum. The net lifetime benefit of a student graduating high school (let alone college) is $127,000, which means lousy schools cost taxpayers over $100 billion in lost revenue yearly.

“Educational failure puts the United States’ future economic prosperity, global position, and physical safety at risk. Leaving large swaths of the population unprepared also threatens to divide Americans and undermine the country’s cohesion, confidence, and ability to serve as a global leader,” warned an independent task force for the Council on Foreign Relations, which was chaired by Joel I. Klein, former head of New York City public schools, and Condoleezza Rice, former U.S. secretary of state. “The United States will not be able to keep pace—much less lead—globally unless it moves to fix the problems it has allowed to fester for too long.”

Despite far outspending other industrialized countries, the U.S. continues to perform miserably on international tests. In the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), American students scored 17^th in reading, 31^st in math and 23^rd in science. Meanwhile, Finland, which was once at the bottom of the PISA rankings, transformed its education system and now ranks 3^rd in reading, 6^th in math and 2^nd in science.

In a report published by OECD, Stanford University economist Eric Hanushek calculated that if the U.S. raised its PISA scores to Finland’s average score, America’s GDP would increase its present value six-fold by over $100 trillion over the lifetime of children born at the time of calculation (2010). Even policy-makers might notice that number.

Ironically, spending money on American education so aimlessly has hampered the ability of citizens to make money—which would allow educators and others in public service to spend much more on public programs.

If educators measured twice, meaning with exact precision and in accordance with the blueprint (the tactical campaign properly aligned with a realistic Future Picture), then meaningful measurements could be adopted without becoming ends in themselves.

Perhaps Finland could serve as a model for U.S. public education, at least in part. Interestingly, Finnish education experts identified teachers as the most important center of gravity, and then set out to recruit best-qualified college graduates into the teaching profession and pay them well. Still, more education dollars are disbursed in Finnish than American classrooms since administrators are compensated on par with teachers.

Future articles will deal with the important role centers of gravity play in systematic strategic thinking. Here, we strived to show how bad measurements undermine tactical solutions and sabotage the end goal, in this case producing potentially catastrophic risks to national security.

USAF Col. (Ret) John A. Warden III was the strategic architect of the U.S. air campaign in Gulf War I, co-authored “Winning in Fast Time,” and is now the president of Venturist, Inc., a strategic planning, consulting and executive training firm. Mr. McCloskey, a journalist the author of “The Street Stops Here: A Year at a Catholic High School in Harlem” (University of California, 2010), serves as the director of Funding Solutions for Catholic Schools. Warden and McCloskey serve on the advisory board for Reilly Center for Science, Technology and Values at the University of Notre Dame. World Affairs 2/11/2014 @ 12:16PM 1,339 views

Source:http://www.forbes.com/sites/mccloskeywarden/2014/02/11/bad-measurements-promote-u-s-education-failure-urgent-national-security-risk/2/