Education performance | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: Jim Bispo's weekly column appears in the Beaufort Observer.

    As I was poking around the internet the other day, I came across definitive proof that those folks who tell us that we must spend additional money on education if we are ever going to see any improvements in the outcomes may well be right. Hmmm...

    The New America Foundation (a tax exempt self proclaimed non-partisan think tank) has the answer. They publish some truly interesting information (and conclusions) concerning per pupil costs of schooling across the United States.

    For the 2008-2009 school year the Foundation reports that highest per pupil cost in the country is in the District of Columbia at some $19,698 and the lowest is Utah at $6,612. They also point out that places with higher per pupil costs do better on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests than those places with lower per pupil costs. That surely sounds like an astute observation and non-partisan pronouncement.

    "In the 10 states that with the highest spending per pupil, an average of 34 percent of 8th grade students scored proficient in reading on the NAEP and 36 percent scored proficient in math. In the 10 states with the lowest spending per pupil, an average of only 28 percent of 8th grade students scored proficient in reading and 31 percent scored proficient in math." We are led to infer that there is a dependency between the variables. (Surely they know the difference between a dependent variable and an independent variable.)

    They make it sound as though we could improve our kids' performance if only we sprinkled more money on their education. (Actually "poured" may be a more apt description of what is being implied.) Using 2010 costs (I couldn't extract the 2009 figures from the data they presented) against the 2009 NAEP scores leads to some interesting observations which, while not as precise as one might like, would seem to be a fair indicator supporting the Foundation's thesis that educational improvement will result from increased expenditures (i.e. investment??) in education..

    The 10 biggest spenders spent an average of $18,251 with the result that 34 percent of their 8th grade pupils were scored as proficient in reading and 36 percent proficient in math The 10 most frugal folks spent only $9,174 on average and 28 percent of their eight graders were scored as proficient in reading and 31 percent scored proficient in math..

    That, of course leads the Foundation to conclude that "States with higher per pupil expenditures tend to have higher student achievement (as measured by NAEP).".

    Those results would certainly imply that if the frugal folks would almost double their expenditures they could improve their students' performance by somewhere around 6% in reading and 5% in math. It is enough to make one wonder if the folks at the New America Foundation ever heard of the "Law of Diminishing Returns"?? Maybe pouring that much more money on our educational system to achieve those small increases in performance may not be the smartest use of our always scarce funds.

    And by the way, wouldn't you think that someone who is truly interested in the education of our children would cringe at the thought the only 34 % of our 8th grade students are proficient in reading and only 36% are proficient in math?? No, they don't seem to be. They seem to be touting those scores as scores we should strive to achieve. None of the scores reported are worth a darn in my book.

    To see the New America Foundation report, click here.

    Oh, by the way, the organization is headed by Ms. Anne-Marie Slaughter. As a point of reference, she is Princeton/Oxford/Harvard Law educated and has worked in the Obama/Clinton State Department. That pedigree is certainly enough to make one take the organization's non-partisan claim with a grain (or more) of salt. Hmmm...

    In keeping with the great American Ethic that money will buy anything, we have poured more and more money on our schools. People didn't seem to notice for a long time (but they are beginning to now) that the lions's share of the additional money going to the schools seemed to be dedicated to more "watchers" (i.e. curriculum specialists, trainers for the teachers, Administrators, Assistants, program coordinators, and the like) instead of "workers" (i.e. classroom teachers). Excessive numbers of kids in each classroom is one of the problems that we hear about very frequently. Yet, when looked at in a historical context, much larger class sizes didn't seem to keep the kids from learning in days gone by. (The classroom size argument was likely a union invention.) Of course in the olden days there was discipline in the schools and at home and a lot (if not all) of the kids went to school to learn. The group norms were different in the old days. There weren't nearly the number of single parent homes as seems to be common in today's environment. Kids were taught at home to behave - one fewer thing for the teachers to have to be responsible for teaching them.

    We don't seem to hear much about Charter Schools when we talk about improving the quality of education. The opponents frequently argue that with charter schools, the taxpayers lose control over the educational process.. In fact the taxpaying public has a very powerful tool which can (and certainly should) be used to ensure (and control) high quality performance from Charter Schools. They can "fire" any charter school that is not performing as promised. That is called "motivation:".

    Likewise, we don't seem to hear much about "vouchers" as an alternative to state monopolized education. Of course, when vouchers are proposed, we will hear the fallacious "Separation of Church and State" argument. That is about as valid as the argument we heard in favor of the Obama phones we passed out to all and sundry. The phones were originally "justified" as a safety tool to be used in case of an emergency. When someone asked if there wasn't a less expensive way to summon help in an emergency (like the "I've fallen and can't get up" lady uses), the "justification seems to have morphed into "They can also use the phones in their job hunting pursuits.". Give me a break...

    In the meantime our schools continue to graduate kids who are not very adept at reading, writing, or arithmetic. So we invent a new "program" (STEM - Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) to pour money on. And we invent a "new" metric designed to tell us how well we are doing (Common Core).

    And, speaking of common core, the following is the first paragraph of the Introduction to the standards for eighth grade math.

    "In Grade 8, instructional time should focus on three critical areas: (1) formulating and reasoning about expressions and equations, including modeling an association in bivariate data with a linear equation, and solving linear equations and systems of linear equations; (2) grasping the concept of a function and using functions to describe quantitative relationships; (3) analyzing two and three dimensional space and figures using distance, angle, similarity, and congruence, and understanding and applying the Pythagorean Theorem."

    To see the full standards, click here.

    Trust me. They are enlightening.

    Is it any wonder our performance levels leave something to be desired??

    D'ya think??