Ed. Feds to Reinvent Wheel, Ignoring Pi
Education secretary Arne Duncan testified before Congress today on the president’s 2010 budget for the Department of Education. One of the first things he said was this:
We also plan to work very hard at scaling up success in our education system. Under our 2010 budget, the Department would continue to use the Innovation Fund created by the Recovery Act to identify and replicate successful models and strategies that raise student achievement. We know that there are many school systems and non-profit organizations across the country with demonstrated track records of success in raising student achievement, and our 2010 request would help bring their success to scale.
Duncan and President Obama are so, so right to focus on this challenge. Sadly, their efforts will so, so utterly fail, just as those of all their predecessors. Here’s why:
For a long time, observers of U.S. public schooling have wrung their hands over a pernicious problem: there are many isolated and transitory examples of excellence within the system (think “Stand and Deliver“), but efforts to scale these models up on a lasting, nationwide basis have always failed.
One early and notorious example was the federal Follow Through experiment of the late 1960s and early ’70s. At a cost of over a billion dollars, it demonstrated that one instruction method, “Distar,” clearly outperformed 21 others. Distar was #1 not just overall, but in each of the subcategories of reading, arithmetic, spelling and language. It placed a close second in promoting advanced conceptual skills, and was even the most effective at boosting students’ self-esteem and responsibility toward their work. Nothing else came close.
Ed Secretary: DC Schools Have ‘More Money than God,’ But They’re Still Lousy
You know, I might not agree with federal education secretary Arne Duncan on a lot of things, but I could really get to like this guy if he keeps talking like this:
History has shown that money alone does not drive school improvement, Duncan said, pointing to the District of Columbia, where public school students consistently score near the bottom on national reading and math tests even though the school system spends more per pupil than its suburban counterparts do.
“D.C. has had more money than God for a long time, but the outcomes are still disastrous,” Duncan said in an interview with Washington Post editors and reporters.
January Op-Eds of the Month
Congratulations to Jonathan Slemrod and Charles Johnson for winning the January Op-Eds of the Month contest.
Jonathan Slemrod is a junior at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His op-ed in the Michigan Daily, “Cap-and-Trade Fantasies,” cites Patrick J. Michaels (who also spoke at the University of Michigan) to argue that Obama’s plan to impose cap-and-trade regulations to protect the environment will not provide the many benefits its supporters claim and will only further harm the U.S. economy. Jonathan received an autographed copy of Chris Edwards and Daniel J. Mitchell‘s book, Global Tax Revolution.
Charles Johnson is a sophomore at Claremont McKenna. His op-ed in the Claremont Independent, “FIRE and Free Speech on Campus: Are the Claremont Colleges Violating the California Constitution?,” takes a look at several historical examples where Claremont Colleges limited student free speech and the role that outside organizations like the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education have played in checking the university’s actions. He blogs at The Claremont Conservative. Charles received an autographed copy of The Dirty Dozen by Robert A. Levy and William Mellor.
Both Jonathan and Charles’s op-eds will also be considered for the Cato on Campus Op-Ed of the Year, with a chance of receiving a full scholarship to Cato University.
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