by David Safier
Great idea from the Goldwater Institute: cut teachers — only the bad ones — and add their students to the good teachers' classes.
No, I'm not kidding. From Fool's Gold's Matthew Ladner:
Research shows, however, that students would be much better off if schools did let their most ineffective teachers go, and redistributed the students to more effective instructors. Teacher quality has been found to be 10- to 20-times more important than class size in achieving student learning gains. Schools could thereby cut their spending and improve student learning simultaneously.
It's an inspired idea if you think about it. Great teachers love their students, right? So if they have more students, they'll have more to love.
More students to give the individual attention they need to thrive. More papers to go through with the careful, laborious attention necessary to understand students' strengths and weaknesses. More students with behavior problems to give special attention so they become willing, eager learners.
Don't worry about increasing salaries and improving teaching conditions — including lowering class size — to attract the best and the brightest into education. Make teaching harder! That's the way to attract more great teachers.
You can't make this stuff up.
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Mr. Ladner seems to be engaging in a strawman argument with 1960s-era spending as the grassy fiend.
All I’m seeing is a specious argument that funding has little to do with performance. I happen to think that we could do a lot by training or eliminating the lowest performing teachers, but I’m really not seeing much in Mr. Ladner’s argument about what we can actually do to substantially improve school and student performance.
Mr. Ladner:
I’ve been following this dialogue and have a couple of questions:
1. I see that you’ve cited NCES statistics in several places, but when you refer to per-pupil spending, you follow it up with a revenue figure (” In Arizona, total revenue per pupil in public schools in now over $9,000 per pupil”).
Your figure far surpasses not only the most recent NCES statistics but also the April 2008 Census study which shows AZ per pupil spending at $6,472 vs. a national average of $9,138. I have searched other surveys to find data that would back up your claim but haven’t found any other resources that shows AZ K-12 investment anywhere close to $9,000 per child in comparison to other states’ expenditures. Can you please provide a source?
2. You also mention 1960’s NCES data for school spending. Setting aside Mr. Safier’s valid points about demographic changes and population size, I am wondering what acceptable dollar figure you would place on some of the 2008 expenditures that you would not find in your average 1960’s school?
Our schools today – like all businesses in our state – have to account for modern expenses for items such as liability insurance, air conditioning, code compliance (financial, safety, etc.), etc. In addition, there are ‘luxury’ items in our schools: computers, audio-visual equipment and network expenses that my 1970’s principal never would have considered.
My point is that there is more than just inflation to consider when making year-on-year expenditure comparisons. My business does not and would not consider a analysis between our 1950’s expenditures and our operational costs today to be very relevant to our planning…although we are still in the same business; our market, financial regulations, workforce and administative costs have all changed to such a degree that it would be difficult to make a relevant – and informative – comparison.
We would, however, take a close look where we stood in training & investment expenditures – particularily if were lagging far behind our competitors.
I’m curious if you have had a chance to read this month’s report from the ASU Office of the University Economist (http://asu.edu/budgetcuts/documents/Education_Funding_in_Arizona_Constitutional_Requirement_and_the_Empirical_Record.pdf). Many of their findings seem to run contradictory to the figures used by the Goldwater Institute.
Thanks both for your thoughtful discussion on this matter. I appreciate Mr. Ladner taking the time to clarify his thoughts on this forum!
Mr. Ladner, I have to say I’m surprised and amused at two parts of this last comment.
I’m surprised you would resort to a hackneyed phrase like “throwing more money at K-12 schools.” That’s a playground taunt, not part of serious discourse. We “throw money” at defense. And at health (doctors and medicine). And at nutrition (food). And at shelter (housing). And at transportation (cars and trucks and roads). While everyone, including me, knows we can spend money far more wisely in education, the same is true for all the other areas where we spend money. When you limit the pejorative “throw money” to education, you betray your feeling that K-12 public schools are of lower priority than other parts of our society, since it’s the only place where you believe every dollar must be accounted for.
I’m amused that you’re using Einstein’s definition of insanity against me (doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results). That’s usually something my side uses against you folks. Is this “turnaround is fair play?”
Fine. Continuing to underfund education is my definition of insanity. That’s what we keep doing, over and over again.
I, for one, don’t believe we should keep doing the same thing we have been doing in education. We need to figure out ways to do things better. You point to one idea where we both agree — hiring excellent teachers. But my feeling is, if we keep doing the same thing and keep teacher salaries low and class sizes high, we’ll continue to pull teachers from the bottom half of college graduates. And if we simply hire fewer teachers and pay them more money, they will be less effective, and the work load will drive them from the classroom.
I think we need to make lots of changes in our public schools. The best schools are doing a very fine job. They could be better, but they’re good enough to have students graduate and attend the best universities in the nation and compete with the best students from around the world. I taught in one of those schools, and I was astounded by the educational possibilities offered to our students. But our worst schools are a tragedy. We need to make lots of changes to give students in those schools a chance at receiving a quality education. Not surprisingly, those changes will cost money.
I’m also a believer in charter schools and in alternative approaches to education. I think we need serious reform of our charter school system in Arizona, but if I were starting out teaching today, I would look very seriously at teaching at a small charter school with a principal who is passionate about education and an intelligent, dedicated staff of teachers.
I think many aspects of positive educational change take money. If anyone can show me an example of a group of schools spending considerably less money and getting superior results (not just one school, but a number of them), I’d be very, very interested. I have yet to hear about those schools.
If we’re going to throw around cliches, here’s a paraphrase of an old quote from the Vietnam War. You seem to believe we need to destroy education in order to save it. I think we have to build on what we have and make it better, focusing most on improving the weakest parts of our educational system.
I honestly can’t carry on an argument with you about the amount of money spent on schools. I simply don’t have the knowledge of the figures you use to be able to answer your statements. It’s a deficiency in my knowledge, pure and simple.
However, I do know that The Goldwater Institute, and similar groups in Oregon where I taught, always come up with per student spending figures that are far higher than what everyone else uses. Then you compare those higher figures with the lower figures others use. That’s scholarly sleight of hand. But I have to be honest and say I can’t go head to head with you on this topic. Maybe someone else reading the blog is more familiar with the figures than I am.
Mr. Saifer-
Although a larger portion of students are being educated today than in the distant past, it isn’t clear to me that distant past stretches includes the 1960s. You refer to it being cheaper to educate kids without the bottom 20 percent of performers, but in fact only half of Hispanic and African American students graduate from high school today.
Arizona has more than tripled spending per pupil since 1960 per student and after inflation. That sounds like a level of spending that would have been beyond the dreams of avarice of a public school administrator in 1960. Imagine that school principal in 1960 operating his school on $404 per student per year suddenly being offered $1212 per student per year. He would have wept for joy.
And yet, 44% of Arizona 4th graders can’t read, 30% don’t graduate, and we have some of the lowest NAEP scores in the country. The evidence sadly points strongly in the direction that merely throwing more money at K-12 schools is not a solution to improving student learning outcomes.
How could we have tripled spending but still see horrible outcomes? It’s long past time to ask fundamental questions about how K-12 funds are spent. Spending is way up, average class sizes are way down, and test scores are still terribly low. If your answer about what to do about this is more of what we’ve been doing for the last 40 years, I invite you to google Albert Einstein’s defintion of insanity.
Mr. Ladner.
I didn’t say “students are profoundly more difficult to educate today than in the 1960s.” What I said was, a larger portion of school aged children are in school now than in the 60s, or the 50s, 40s, 30s etc. The added students who are in our schools are the hardest to reach and to teach, by definition. They’re the ones who were allowed to slip by the wayside in past decades, who we now fight to keep in school.
The more reluctant students are, the more funds it takes to educate them. We could save a whole lot of money in education by letting the bottom 20% of our student population drop out. And instantly, our test scores would soar, because the lowest scores would be removed. I doubt that you would recommend we get rid of our most difficult students, yet that, in essence, was the situation in decades past.
We also spend huge amounts of money on special education students, far more than we used to. And physically handicapped students get a phenomenal amount of help as well. Those students cost an incredible amount of money and raise the cost of education considerably. Again, we have the option of telling those students and their families, “Sorry, we can’t afford you. You’re on your own,” but I don’t advocate that, and I hope you don’t either.
I’m not enough of a scholar to know how many other “apples and oranges” false comparisons there are in the educational funding between now and earlier decades — free lunches? technology costs? utilities? transportation? — but I know there are many reasons why a straight-across-the-board comparison doesn’t make sense.
As for what you call my “infinite pot of money” theory. It’s more my “spending priorities” theory. Somehow, when we think we have to fight a war in, say, Iraq, we come up with the money, even when we don’t have it. Whenever a natural disaster strikes — flood, fires, hurricanes — we come up with funds, even if it stretches our budgets to the breaking point. But when it comes to educating our students, some people like yourself don’t feel the same urgency. I do. If we keep our education funding low — or decrease it further as Pearce and Kavanagh have proposed — we are creating a slow motion disaster. No, money isn’t infinite. It’s just a question of which funding we consider essential in a civilized, enlightened society. I put education somewhere near the top as one of the absolute essentials, so I would put as much money and effort in that sector of our society and our economy as is humanly possible.
“there can be no excuse for not seeking the biggest bang for the buck possible”… I agree, but what exactly is the “bang”? I can eat boiled potatoes three time a day and feel full for about 50 cents/day. However, my body is telling me I also need a glass of milk, an apple, some veggies, maybe a small piece of chicken. Not much, but it multiplies my food budget by at least 3; it also cuts my visits to the doctor’s office (that I cannot afford anyway). Bang!
Mr. Saifer-
The funding figures I refered to were per pupil inflation adjusted figures. In 1960, Arizona schools spent $404 per pupil. No need to trust me, look at the NCES data yourself:
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d06/tables/dt06_171.asp
Put that $404 figure in an inflation calculator (readily available online) and you get a figure of around $2,800 per student.
In Arizona, total revenue per pupil in public schools in now over $9,000 per pupil. How do you explain a tripling of spending per pupil after inflation and stagnant NAEP scores.
Your previous response indicates that you hold that students are profoundly more difficult to educate today than in the 1960s. In some ways there can be no doubt that students are more difficult today. In other ways however, they are less so. Over the past 50 years, we’ve seen dramatic reductions in childhood poverty. For example, between the 1990 and 2000 Census, childhood poverty fell by 12.1% in Arizona. The use of lead paint has been greatly curtailed, and leaded gasoline eliminated.
You of course can counter that we have a higher percentage on ELL children, which is certainly the case, but again, after inflation funding per pupil has tripled.
I’m also struck by your infinite pot of money theory. You are correct- I do ultimately believe a finite amount of resources we have to devote to K-12 education. We do have roads, prisons, colleges, universities etc. Regardless of what level of spending you prefer, there can be no excuse for not seeking the biggest bang for the buck possible.
Mr.Ladner, your comment is full of false choices. You imply we either have smaller class sizes or high quality teachers. If we’re playing a zero sum game — keeping funding constant — then you’re right. But tax-and-spend liberals like me consider it an investment to put more money into schools — in a thoughtful, systematic way — so we raise the quality and quantity of teachers,giving excellent teachers manageable sized classrooms.
I’m glad, by the way, that you didn’t say something foolish like, class size makes no difference. You implied it, but what you actually said was, class size makes less difference than the quality of teachers. However, if you combine low class size with excellent teachers, you get the greatest benefit. I think you’ll agree. Your point is that doing both costs too much.
At the end, you say “showering more money on ineffective administrators and teachers” is a bad idea. The implied false choice is, either we cut spending and pay fewer teachers more money, or we spend more to fund lousy teachers and lousy administrators. I’ll go with option c, that we use more education funding to find more and better administrators and teachers, improve our teaching models, increase parent involvement in their children’s education,etc. Again, you’re beginning with the assumption that we have a fixed amount of money for education. I disagree.
I’m surprised you would use an obvious ploy like comparing schools in the baby boomer years (1950s, I imagine you’re referring to, not the raucous 60s) with schools today and assume you’re dealing with equivalent situations. In fact, far fewer students were in school in the 50s and 60s. The number of school-aged children actually in school has increased measurably every decade until very recently. So to make a reasonable comparison, you would have to remove the bottom 20-30% of today’s students from any study and see what you have after that by way of comparison. If you’re going to adopt the guise of an honest researcher or honest scholar, you should be honest enough to deal with equivalent situations.
Mr. Saifer-
The myth makers are those who would have you believe that smaller class sizes are the key to education reform. The statistical studies on the subject tell a much different tale:
http://www.wallis.rochester.edu/WallisPapers/wallis_10.pdf
One doesn’t need to be adept at regression analysis to see this to be the case. Average class sizes were much higher in American schools, for instance, when the baby boomers went through the public school system. Since then, class sizes have declined, public school spending increased, and student achievement stagnated.
The research that I alluded to regarding the relative importance of teacher quality and class size wasn’t conducted by think tanks, but by a variety of academics looking at student learning gains over time over the last fifteen years.
The findings of that research have been clear: within the observable range of classroom variation (a crucial caveat: probably from the low teens into the thirties) that individual teacher effectiveness completely trumps any effect of class size on student learning gains.
If schools were using value added analysis to identify their most effective teachers, students would profit greatly from getting to learn from them. Considerable resources would be made available to pay those teachers much higher salaries (reducing the temptation to leave the profession or become an administrator) and the kids would learn more.
We’ve tried things the other way, and the result is that 44% of Arizona 4th graders scored below basic on reading on the 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress exam. Again, these numbers are from the National Center for Education Statistics, not the Goldwater Institute:
http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/states/
If progressives are truly interested in the welfare of children, especially economically disadvantaged children, it will be necessary to show the intellectual honesty to follow the evidence where it leads. I’m happy to pay rock star teachers six figure salaries and give more students the opportunity to learn from them.
I’m profoundly uncomfortable however with showering more money on ineffective administrators and teachers and hoping for the best. You should be as well.
Berliner does some great work, cutting through the B.S. to figure out what’s really going on. A terrific myth buster.
When I took a grad school ed course years back, I studied the research by people who said class size doesn’t matter, a theme conservatives are reviving. All of the papers were written by a small group of people using one basic data set, citing each other as experts– circular scholarship. Then someone else took the same research and said, “If you look at the numbers differently, they prove that class size does makes a difference.”
These folks begin with the conclusion they’re looking for, then work backwards to “prove” it. It makes for excellent propaganda but lousy research.
One of the things that I learned from my Ed Psych prof, Dr David Berliner, was that one of the single most effective thing that schools can do to improve student learning is to reduce class sizes. (provided that you have quality teacher). As I recall from his lecture, the correlation between smaller class size and improved student learning was greater than the link between smoking and lung cancer.
But, like much of what has been done under the guise of NCLB, this particular piece of research will be ignore because it doesn’t fit their vision of what schools should be.