SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT

Everybody talked about public education but nobody did anything about it

For years, politicians all over Canada and the US have been talking about fixing the public schools - think of all the education presidents and premiers - but nobody has done anything much about it. Or, perhaps more accurately, many have tried but few have succeeded. So lately, all over the US, there has been a spate of fairly radical legislation passed by legislators who have come to the conclusion that drastic measures are called for (see, for example, the new school choice measures listed in our blog plus subsequent similar legislation in several other states). 

In addition to the new school choice programs, however, legislators have been bringing in other types of laws - for example, the elimination of most collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin and a major overhaul of teacher pay and tenure in Florida. Which brings me - finally! - the the news item I have been leading up to all this time: new Oklahoma legislation ending social promotion. The main thrust of the new law is to ensure that primary students master reading. 

While it’s delightful to note that the Oklahoma politicians recognize the importance of reading and I especially like the part about research-based interventions (code for systematic phonics), I’m from Missouri when it comes to how well the new policy will work. Educators have proved amazingly resistant to effective methods of teaching reading - and amazingly ingenious when it comes to finding ways to avoid their use. Show me!

Are teachers underpaid?

The latest addition to our lending library is Special Interest: Teachers Unions and America's public schools, by Terry M. Moe, a Stanford professor of political science whose specialty is the study of government and political institutions. When he set out to find out why American public schools were falling so far short of the mark, he discovered that their administration is characterized by "bizarre forms of organization ... that no one in their right mind would favor if they were simply concerned with what works best for children. The schools are organized mainly to benefit the adults who work there." And the principal reason behind the bizarre organization, according to Professor Moe, is the teachers' unions.

This excerpt (selected paragraphs from pages 162 through 172) asks the question: Are teachers underpaid? Although the author is writing about the US, conditions are very similar in Ontario - except that the average teacher salary in Ontario is now almost $85,000 - considerably higher than the American average.

"According to one widely accepted estimate, the average teacher salary for the 2008-09 school year was $53,910. Whether this figure is considered to be high or low, and thus whether it constitutes evidence that teachers are underpaid, depends in part on what it is compared to. But let's put that aside for the moment, and begin by recognizing what the number itself represents: teachers are paid this 'annual' salary for working much less than a full year. Indeed, their work year averages just thirty-eight weeks - because, unlike almost all other professionals, teachers have their summers off. Many people go into teaching precisely because they want to have free time during the summer. They like it, they value it....

"Another form of compensation arises from the nature of their formally scheduled work day: it is shorter than that of other professionals, roughly 34.9 hours a week as contrasted to thirty-five to forty hours for comparable occupations. This is not to say that teachers ultimately work less than other professionals do, for people in all these occupations may do some of their work at home, and it is unclear (and a matter of dispute) how many hours teachers and other professionals actually work. But in general teachers tend to have more freedom and flexibility during the work day, which they can use for their families, leisure, or whatever they want. This too is a valuable aspect of the job, one that clearly has something to do with why so many women go into teaching. (They currently make up about three-fourths of the public school workforce.) It allows them to juggle career and family in a far more manageable way than other workers can. This is a clear benefit of the job, an additional form of compensation....

"Teachers are members of the pension elite. Some 96 percent of them have access to 'defined-benefit' retirement programs, which provide them with pensions of specified amounts - much larger than Social Security - for the rest of their lives, usually with adjustments for inflation and often with provisions that extend payments to the spouse when the employee dies....In addition - and this cannot be emphasized enough - they do not have to shoulder any of the financial risk.... With defined-benefit programs, the amount of the retirement annuity (usually with inflation safeguards) is 'defined': it is guaranteed. It does not fluctuate with the stock market or the economy and can be counted upon as future income....

"Pensions and health benefits provide valuable types of security for teachers after they retire. But the ultimate security is that, during the years when they are actively teaching, they essentially cannot be fired. They have 'tenure' and - assuming they don't murder someone or molest a child or stop showing up for work - they are assured of being able to continue in their job for as long as they want. This is the case, moreover, regardless of how they perform in the classroom and regardless of how much their students learn. Here again, America's private sector workers can only dream of such a thing: a guaranteed, totally secure job....

"The salary numbers the unions roll out are invariably based on annual salaries, and they conveniently ignore the other components of the compensation package. The fact is, teachers are compensated in many ways: through salaries, yes, but also through defined-benefit pension programs, health care insurance for active employees, health care insurance for retirees, tenure, summers off, flexible work schedules, health care buy-outs, and more. Taken together, these components add up to a compensation package that is clearly very valuable."

Beware the True Believers

As a follow-up to the two disturbing intrusions of governments into family affairs that we blogged about recently (the jailing of a homeless Connecticut woman for lying about her place of residence in order to get her son into a better school and the forced enrollment in state daycare of two Quebec preschoolers), I offer the perspective of John Taylor Gatto as laid out in his magnum opus Underground History of American Education: An intimate investigation into the prison of modern schooling.

Mr. Gatto, former New York State and New York City Teacher of the Year, explains that the concept of universal public schooling arose from a utopian strain of thought that was dominant about 150 years ago. Pointing out that America was susceptible to utopian thought from early on, he writes "The very thinness of constituted authority, the high percentage of males as colonists - homeless, orphaned, discareded, marginally attached, uprooted males - encouraged dreams of a better time to come." As Mr. Gatto points out, "the overwhelming number of prominent social reformers since Plato have been childless, usually childless men".

Between 1830 and 1900, there were more than 1000 utopian colonies in the US, all of which sought to break with the past by isolating their children and inculcating in them the correct new way of things. None of these utopian colonies succeeded, by the way, which says something.

Anyway, Mr. Gatto goes on to warn of true believers who, he writes, "are all around the history of schooling, thick as gulls at a garbage dump." Quoting an Atlanta elementary school principal who said, "I'm not sure you ever get to the point you have enough technology; we just believe so fervently in it", he warns "It's that panting excitement you want to keep an eye out for, that exaggerated belief in human perfectibility". 

The tie that binds

Most of the time when you want a service for your child (or yourself), you can shop around for the one that is best for your family. This is obviously true for private sector services, like restaurants or insurance or daycare, but also mostly true even for public sector services - like medical services or universities or libraries. I think you can guess where this is going.

When it comes to the portion of your child's education that falls between nursery school and university, most people have to accept the school assigned by their school board - even when that school is horrible. If you're affluent, you can get around the problem, by moving to another house or sending your kid to private school. Poor people, on the other hand, are stuck for the most part. And even when, as in this case, one such parent tries to get around the problem by lying about her place of residence, the state has the ability to send her to jail for her pains.

Most people would sympathize with - even applaud - a parent's determination to do right by her child. But in Connecticut, apparently administrative (in)convenience is more important. 

Value-Added Stats revealed in LA

There’s an interesting battle taking place in Los Angeles that centres on using value-added statistics to evaluate teacher performance. The LA Times, despite pleas from the school board and others, has released the figures and that’s truly sad, but not for the reasons (such as the unfortunate invasion of individual teacher privacy) that the opponents of this move are stating.

If the LA public school system was working in the best interest of the students, these types of statistics would be gathered annually and disseminated to school principals. That way teachers under-performing, but still retrievable, could be given the help they need, while those found irretrievably incompetent could be removed from the teaching profession.

However, no one in Los Angeles, (or Toronto, or Winnipeg, or Vancouver for that matter) believes that either of these things is being done or can be done in an environment where the board staff and teacher unions are hostile to any objective measures of student – and by extension – teacher performance.

That in turn forces the LA Times to do the right thing which is to provide the numbers to the public so they can see for themselves the incredible variability in learning outcomes that can’t be explained away by the socioeconomic excuses so dear to virtually all public school systems. As the article points out:

“But there were often large disparities among instructors who taught similar students in similar schools — even within the same schools. The differences among teachers were more than three times as great as those among schools.”

The S Word

Those of us who have home-schooled are all-too-familiar with the socialization question. For some reason, most people appear to think that children need to spend several hours a day together in a classroom with other children of the same age in order to learn how to get along with other children. Now comes this story from Quebec wherein "a judge has ordered a three-year-old and a five-year-old to attend state-funded daycare following claims that the children lacked proper 'socialization'".

There are eight million stories in the Naked City: this is one of them.

The year that I home-schooled my daughter (grade 6) had one expected benefit and three unexpected side benefits. The expected benefit - that she would learn a lot - was achieved (in spades). The first unexpected benefit was how happy she was. The second unexpected benefit was how healthy she (and the rest of the family) was - not one cold or flu all year. And the third unexpected benefit was how she blossomed in her interaction with other children.

Home-schoolers, as a group, are terrific. They provide tremendous support for one another, and they arrange wonderful outings and group experiences for their kids. My daughter went roller-skating and bowling, took swimming and baby-sitting lessons, enjoyed science demonstrations and a visit from William Shakespeare, participated in a French conversation group, and on and on. In the course of these activities, my daughter came to interact happily and confidently with other home-schooled children of all ages. These kids are great! They are kind and welcoming, and a bit unsophisticated in a charming way. Away from the cliquish, dog-eat-dog atmosphere of her public school, my daughter was able to relax and enjoy herself.

Read my lips: in terms of socialization, home-schooled kids are on average better off than public-schooled kids.

Sunday at the Movies (Union Power)

This video is about how American public sector unions have used their immense power to hold taxpayers to ransom and push governments deeply into debt. The same thing is happening in Ontario, as this National Post editorial attests. It has recently come to light that, in a particularly distasteful maneuver, the Ontario government negotiated "only" a 2% annual raise with the province's largest public sector union, bragged about its acumen in bargaining - all the while concealing a secret agreement to pay the union an extra percentage point raise in 2012 after the next provincial election. As the editorial points out, the Ontario government has increased its spending by 50% since it took office in 2003, leaving the province $200 billion in debt and reducing it to "have-not" status.

The New Face of Educational Competition

This week’s The Economist has an interesting article on Malaysia’s plans to become an Asian hub for Western education. In a nutshell, Malaysia has managed to get a number of prestigious Western schools and universities to come and set up branch campuses there. These new educational institutions will turn out hundreds of thousands of very well educated, English-speaking graduates.

This is the new face of competition in a global world. Not only will the educational institutions be competing with one another - and with educational institutions all over the world, but also their graduates will be competing in a very real way with other graduates all around the world. May the fittest survive!

Public Education - A Right or a Privilege?

Nobody seems to be paying much attention to the trend in public schools towards worse and worse student behaviour in class. We have blogged on it a few times - for example, this posting. 

The elephant in the room, rarely discussed, is schools' inability to expel - or even discipline in any meaningful way - misbehaving students. Here's a commentary that tackles the issue head on, blaming "the Left" for ensuring that chronically-disruptive students remain in classrooms, even when they are "plunging classrooms into chaos and preventing dozens of students from learning". The commentator believes that schools should be able to expel badly-behaved students.

Such a philosophy would beg the question of whether attendance in public schools is a right or a privilege. Piranhas - feel free to attack this question!

Who will bell the cat?

Although everybody knows that good teachers matter, most educational administrators profess helplessness when it comes to identifying who they are. The Blob (a newly-coined name for the thousands of institutions, boards, companies, federations, alliances, departments, faculties, councils, commissions, panels, offices, and colleges that control public education) resists the use of test scores to separate the sheep from the goats, and somehow they just can't seem to come up with any other way to identify good teachers.

It shouldn't be this hard! After all, private enterprises (including private schools) routinely identify and reward good employees.

Be that as it may, here's a modest proposal, recently published in the New York Times, for an objective way to assess teacher performance. The author cites research showing that the amount of time teachers spend delivering relevant instruction is strongly correlated with how much students learn, and suggests that we evaluate teachers on the basis of how much relevant instruction they deliver.

But how can we find out how much time teachers are spending on relevant instruction you ask. The author proposes that administrators simply videotape a few minutes of instruction a day and evaluate the results. 

Surely the Blob could have no possible objection to this notion!