7 Comments

Potkas7
October 1st, 2009 | 11:08 am

Looking at that graph I am reminded of the work of Statistician and Quality Management Guru W. Edwards Deming. Deming said that when the data points of a system fall within range bounded by 2-Sigma limits, then the system was in “Statistical Control” and smoothly functioning as it was designed. As hard as it is to believe that anyone would consciously design a system that promotes failure, that seems to be what we have done.

Deming went on to say that once a system has achieved this stable state it can only be changed from the outside – which is the role of management or, in this case, the politicians in charge of the schools.

Looking at the graph it’s clear since 1970 we’ve spent lavishly on the factories and tools of schooling to little effect. We’ve tried substituting technology for learning, willfully ignoring the fact that, while a computer program can check spelling and grammar, it can’t write an essay for someone who has nothing to say. We’ve talked about gimmicks like “Merit Pay for Teachers” but, as Deming pointed out, such a scheme is little more than a lottery if it doesn’t take into account the raw materials of education, the students themselves..

Maybe the time has to design an educational system that accepts a hierarchical distribution of outcomes, taking into account the common-sense proposition posited by Charles Murray that some students are simply just smarter than others. Maybe we should encourage and reward achievement rather than continue setting the bar at the the lowest common denominator and accepting the resulting, inevitable, mediocrity as good enough for government work.

caroline w
October 1st, 2009 | 12:35 pm

WOW. Having covered education for a local blog, I can tell you that at every level, the system operates according to a perverse logic.

Albert
October 1st, 2009 | 12:45 pm

!!!

Kevin J Jones
October 1st, 2009 | 12:47 pm

If the CATO Institute were a little more savvy, they’d compare the increase in educational spending with increases in patronage network size and in NEA political donations.

Michael Caplow
October 5th, 2009 | 6:45 pm

The 190% increase in 37 years corresponds to an annual increase of only 2.88%/y (19 years for a doubling). The increased spending is indeed tiny relative to the severity of the problem; it’s also less than the mean increase in GDP.

Shepherd
October 6th, 2009 | 1:20 am

Um, Caplow? I think what most of us are taking from the chart is not the total amount of money spent, but the correlation spent money has with text scores. There doesn’t appear to be much of one after you’ve spent a small amount of money to make sure the kids have textbooks, a teacher, and a building to sit them in. Plainly, we need to find out specifically what we can improve on, and improve on that instead of tossing more money into the system (even as states like California go slowly broke).

The education problem is rather like a charging bear. It’s bad, but not insurmoutable. And there are solutions, but throwing money at the problem is not one of them.

Michael Caplow
October 6th, 2009 | 6:32 am

Concerning the comment by Shepherd:

The graph indicates that there has been a nearly negligible increase in spending since 1970. Showing spending as a function of time does not provide sufficient information to judge whether spending money on education can have a favorable outcome. It might just be that the amount spent in 1970 was extremely small so that a 190% increase doesn’t come close to solving the problem.