Lack of money ain't the problem with education:
"Spending More While Learning Less: U.S. School Productivity in International Perspective," by Herbert J. Walberg, July 1998. In the latest Fordham Report, Dr. Walberg examines U.S. school productivity through the lenses of international assessments. Using "value-added" techniques, Walberg shows that American students learn less each year than do their international peers. At the same time, the U.S. spends more than almost any other nation on its schools. In other words, we're getting a little for a lot.
edexcellence.net
June 22, 1998
The World's Least Efficient Schools
By CHESTER E. FINN JR. and HERBERT J. WALBERG
It's a pity American kids aren't as good at math and science as the
education establishment is at making excuses. The establishment's favorite
line is that the schools aren't to blame for poor academic performance;
rather, kids fail because of factors beyond their teachers' control, such as
poverty or deteriorating families. The second-favorite rationalization:
Americans are stingy with their tax dollars and refuse to pay the price for
excellent schools.
No doubt these arguments are comforting to those
who make them. But recent analyses by the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development demonstrate that both claims are
false. Indeed, the OECD's data make it painfully
clear that U.S. schools are the least efficient in the
industrial world: This country spends more per
pupil than almost any other nation, yet its
year-to-year gains in student academic achievement
are among the smallest. U.S. schools add less value
than the schools of other lands, and do so at
greater cost.
Consider reading, the most basic of subjects. Until
children start school around age six, families, mass media and other
nonschool factors influence their initial vocabulary and comprehension.
Comparisons that do not account for these factors would be incomplete.
The big question about the impact of schools, then, is not how much
students know at one point in time, but how much progress they make as
the years go by.
Thanks to the OECD, it is possible to compare gains made by students
between the ages of nine and 14 across many nations. It turns out that U.S.
students gain the least; on average, they make just 78% of the progress of
students in 15 other lands.
The news is similar in math and science. On the math exams in the Third
International Mathematics and Science Study, U.S. students made the least
progress of 17 OECD nations between the fourth and eighth grades, gaining
just 73% as much ground as their foreign counterparts. In science, U.S.
progress ranked second to last, covering 78% of the average gains of the
17 nations.
In all three subjects American students finished further back in the
international pack than they began. Is this because Americans are cheap?
Hardly. The OECD data show U.S. school expenditures to be third highest
of 22 countries, lagging behind only Switzerland and Austria. At $5,300 per
student (in the most recent year for which comparable data were available),
U.S. primary schools spent 75% more than the international average of
$3,033. U.S. secondary schools expended 54% more money than the
international average.
So the U.S. is near the top in education spending but close to last in
achievement gains. Most people would call this miserably low
productivity--but that is a concept practically unknown in education-policy
circles. If U.S. schools were a business, they would be in serious
competitive peril and probably headed for bankruptcy.
Mr. Finn is president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, a
Washington-based education-reform organization. Mr. Walberg, who
analyzed the OECD data, is research professor of education and
psychology at the University of Illinois, Chicago. His study is available
on-line at
edexcellence.net
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