You Don’t Have to Be a Nuclear Engineer to…

Posted by Andrew J. Coulson

…support market solutions in education, but apparently it helps.

Keith Yost, a grad student in MIT’s Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering and the Engineering Systems Division, has a great piece in his school’s newspaper. He explains that public schools have enjoyed a dramatic increase in per-pupil resources over the past 40 years, but ultimately failed to improve student achievement. He also explains why: resources are misallocated because of a lack of systemic incentives for their proper allocation — incentives that are inherent in the free enterprise system.

Unfortunately, Yost’s rationalist, systems approach is very different from that of most policymakers — perhaps because so few policymakers were trained as engineers. So maybe one way to accelerate the process of effective reform of American schools is to encourage more of our engineers to go into state politics. Think about it, Keith.

Alternatively, as Mothers’ Day is around the corner, perhaps the trick is for moms to encourage their kids to pursue science and engineering rather than go into that one career field that produces so many of our politicians (apologies to Waylon Jennings):

Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be lawyers.
Don’t let ‘em pick gavels or watch 12 Angry Men.
Buy ‘em some Lego and a protector for pens…

Educational Productivity Has Collapsed — NAEP

Posted by Andrew J. Coulson

The latest Long Term Trends results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress are out. They reveal a productivity collapse unparalleled in any other sector of the economy.

At the end of high school, students perform no better today than they did nearly 40 years ago, and yet we spend more than twice as much per pupil in real, inflation-adjusted terms. I can’t think of any other service that has gotten worse during my lifetime. Our school system has failed alone.

While the stagnation in overall achievement masks a 3 to 5 percent gain in the achievement of African American 17-year-olds since 1970, the scores for whites at the end of high school are virtually unchanged.

Anyone who points to the slightly higher scores in the early grades as cause for celebration is missing the point. What parents care about is that their children are well prepared for higher education and future careers at the end of their secondary education. The fact that scores have risen somewhat in the early grades means little since those gains evaporate for the vast majority of students by the time they graduate.

Update: The Associated Press story is now out on the Long Term Trends NAEP results… and it doesn’t mention the long term trends. The story only reports changes in achievement over the most recent 4 year interval of a test whose raison d’être is to reach back to the early 1970s. I wonder why…. Fortunately, the Detroit Free Press does a better job.