Studies show that there is probably a minimum per pupil below which education results fall, but above that minimum there is little to no correlation between how much is spent and education results. Demanding results is the primary way to get them.
Most education research funds excuses for failure. I wrote that sentence in 1972, and it is still the case. Federally funded education research is responsible for most of the excuses now given for why the schools don't work. I wrote that in 1980. And so it goes.
Before you give schools more money, demand some results, and only given them more when you get results. That seems to work in every other profession. Why is education an exception?
Of course it's also complicated by the lack of discipline. Teachers ought to have the presumption of being correct in disciplinary measures: they should be able to act to exclude rowdy students from their classes, and principals the right to exclude them from school property, until the parents come in with the kid and discuss the situation. Without discipline the students who want to learn have to pay a tax: they have to put up with the undisciplined students and the teacher's growing discontent and feeling of helplessness.
Yes, some teachers and principals will abuse arbitrary authority; but the abuses will harm far fewer who don't deserve it than does the present system of hearings and presumption of innocence.
In 1983 the National Commission on Education, Glenn T. Seaborg, Chairman, wrote "If a foreign nation had imposed this system of education on the United States we would rightly consider it an act of war."
Things are worse now.
And see below and for Greg Cochran's comment, go here.
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/archives2/archives2mail/mail263.html#education
Gregory Cochran on Education Seaborg didn't know what he was talking about. The US educational system is not significantly less effective than it ever was - it is, however, significantly less efficient. We spend more money than we used and get nothing for it.
Education, the way _anyone_ knows how to do it, is pushing a rope: variation in inputs, past a bare minimum, have almost no effect on outputs. And so, even when something ridiculous is tried, long-term effects are usually small. Nor is there any reason to think that getting rigorous does any good: it's still a rope.
Reading skills have not gone down, at least on average. There is some reason to think that the fraction of people with very high reading skills ( ~ top 1% type numbers) may have decreased some, but I personally blame TV, which is a far bigger influence than any educational tactic. Demographic change plays a part too. In fact, in most of the examples people talk about in which some educational system has supposedly gone to the dogs, demographic change - local replacement of a smart ethnic group by a not-smart one - is the real and unsayable explanation.
On the other hand, math skills have undoubtedly improved.
Generally speaking, everyoine depends on the pupil's talents, almost nothing on the school.
All the existing quantitative data supports my position on this. Want me to to dig it all up again? It won't be difficult - I save everything.
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