Flabby, Inefficient, Outdated
By MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG
December 14, 2006; Page A20
Today a bipartisan commission of high-profile academic, government, business and labor leaders selected by the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE) will release a report that provides a sobering assessment of our nation’s education system: Only 18 out of 100 high-school freshmen will graduate on time, enroll directly in college and earn a two-year degree in three years or a four-year degree in six. Just 18!
It used to be that those without college degrees could count on well-paying jobs in manual labor; those days are long gone. Now, not only are we losing low-skilled jobs to nations with lower wages, but more and more of these nations are developing education systems to compete with us for high-skilled jobs. And as technology and communications make the world a smaller place, they are growing ever more competitive.
For much of the 20th century, the education level of America’s work force was second-to-none. But others have caught up, and even moved past us. Now, unless we take bold action, we risk losing our competitive edge. The problem is not that America doesn’t spend enough money on education — we spend enormous amounts, far more than any other nation. But we’re not getting a sufficient return on our investment. The fact is, our education system looks a lot like the U.S. auto industry in the 1970s — stuck in a flabby, inefficient, outdated production model driven by the needs of employees rather than consumers.
For instance, we have built too many bureaucracies that lack clear lines of accountability, which means that mediocrity and failure are tolerated, and excellence goes unrewarded. We recruit a disproportionate share of teachers from among the bottom third of their college classes. Then we give them lifetime tenure after three years, and we reward them based on longevity, not performance. We fail to help struggling students in the early years, when costs are lower, and then, in the upper grades, we pay for expensive remediation programs which have very limited success. And we allow vast funding inequalities to exist between school districts, with poor students, who are disproportionately black and Hispanic, paying the price.
We can continue to invest enormous sums of money in this failing system — and remain like Detroit in the 1970s, slipping further and further behind our international competitors. Or, we can put our famous American ingenuity to work and build a better system — and become like Silicon Valley today, which is leading the world in innovation and technology.
The choice is clear, but the challenge will not be easy. It will require a top-to-bottom rethinking of our school system, one that insists on a performance-based culture of accountability that is oriented around children, not bureaucracies. It will require us to offer higher teacher salaries to attract more of the best and brightest, and to offer financial rewards to the most successful teachers. It will require us to set and uphold high standards, encourage innovation and competition, and end social promotion — the harmful practice of advancing students to the next grade despite their poor academic performance. And it will require us to invest in early childhood development and distribute funding more equitably.
These are exactly the goals we have been working toward in New York City, and even though we still have a long way to go, the early results are encouraging. These goals are also at the heart of the new NCEE report. Deciding how to achieve them will require tough choices, and not everyone — myself included — will agree with all of the commission’s recommendations. But beyond the specifics of this report, achieving real progress requires all of us to think anew and to challenge conventional ways of doing things.
This means that politicians must show a willingness to stand up to special interests, including unions. School administrators must lead from the front in exploring more innovative, performance-driven ideas. Teachers must be given the tools and support they need to succeed — and be held accountable for results in their classrooms. And parents must recognize that the schools can’t do it by themselves; values and ethics begin in the home.
Nothing less is required to keep the American Dream flourishing in the 21st century. It won’t be easy, but we can do it. And to keep America at the head of the class, we must.
Mr. Bloomberg is the mayor of New York City.
Bob, I tend to agree with you.
<
p>
Other BMGers (MannyG, LightIris, Sunderland) reject the Bob/Bloomberg premise, however.
<
p>
They advocate tweaks, not overhaul. How do you respond?
Numerous comparative international surveys make the deficiency of our current education system clear enough for me. History teaches that the comprehensive overhaul — not a tweak, as I understand the term — adopted after sputnik produced real improvements, especially in science education. We’ve had tweaks for several decades now, and we’re falling farther and farther behind. Dangerously far behind, in my humble opinion. Time for more substantive reform. Unfortunately, without a national crisis like sputnik, it will be hard to generate a consensus for more than tweaks.
First off, I don’t think that the US actually does that poorly in international comparisons – we actually do pretty well, compared to, say, our healthcare stats (which are at the bottom of the developed world).
<
p>
Secondly, we in Massachusetts probably have the best primary and secondary education in the US – our students scored #1 in all four of the most recent nationwide NAEP tests – a pretty amazing feat, I think.
<
p>
That being said, tweaks are always a good thing – in particular, we should learn to use technology better.
Relative to the value we get (or expect to get) from teachers, they are just plain underpaid. Their social status has declined over the last fifty years, too. If we want to attract more people to teaching that has got to change.
<
p>
On the other hand, teachers are not salesmen. From some people you do get better performance by a carefully calibrated system of merit bonuses. Good teaching on the other hand seems to come from the intrinsic reward of teaching well. Until I see empirical studies showing that monetary rewards are great idea for improving teaching, I remain quite dubious that applying systems that work well for very competitive, go-getter types does anytying useful for folks who must be empathetic, patient, and inspiring, and set good boundaries. It’s a management truism that some things done to boost morale turn out to be dumb and simply demotivate.
<
p>
Admittedly, I know very little about this area. For example, I haven’t looked for the empirical studies I’m asking for. I’m saying this to provoke answers from those who know more. Right now it seems to me that all the talk of merit pay is a bad way of dealilng with undercompensating teachers and a mistaken means of motivating teachers.
We all know the US lags behind many other countries in the world…do those other countries employ a merit-based pay system?
<
p>
If they don’t, what is it that makes them more successful than ours, and does that require a huge overhaul or not?
Do other countries, such as India, demand that every child be educated? Or do they simply focus their resources on the children most likely to produce the best results, and they cut the rest off, allowing them to live in an underclass world?
<
p>
I remember my high school math teacher telling me that in China, there is a test, and if you don’t pass, you get to work the fields for life.
<
p>
I’m not advocating that we do the same; I’m pointing out that we need to make sure that we are comparing apples to oranges when we compare across countries.
with universal education. Or else it’s not a good comparison for us.
<
p>
In some countries, like Japan…culture affects their education system. Japanese children get a lot of pressure to excel put on them – but they also have a high teenage suicide rate.
<
p>
I am more thinking about the very successful Norweigian countries, or other western European nations.
Problem is, we’re not competing with first world countries. We’re competing with second world countries — those with a lot of poverty, and people willing to do my job for $5/hour.
<
p>
I’m not so much worried about France, England, Ireland, etc. I’m more worried about China, India, Russia, eastern Europe, etc.
Kate,
<
p>
1. On the issue of whether teachers are underpaid, check out this debate from National Council on Teacher Quality. Good back and forth. Disclosure: I’m on their advisory board.
<
p>
2. As for the merit pay empirical studies you’re asking for, I don’t know of any “home run” studies that will rock your world, pro or con, with definitive data.
<
p>
Instead, supporters and opponents of merit pay each trot out a bunch of very limited studies, and rely more on rhetoric.
<
p>
Also, I think both groups believe teachers, on the whole, generally do not support payment based on raising student performance. Still, there are exceptions, like the teachers in Denver, CO.
(My name is not Kate, by the way. I’m a guy, a guy who produces a lot of typos it seems.)
<
p>
It is possible that teachers are paid fairly if one compares to other professionals who work similar hours and undergo similar training. That’s a sort of descriptive question to which an accurate answer would be useful. Aren’t we ultimately interested in the normative question, viz. How do we increase the competency level of school graduates?
<
p>
The Colorado experience reminds me a bit of decision theory studies. As you probably know, more than 70% of all drivers think they are above average drivers. Likewise, teachers entering a new profession are likely to think that they’d benefit from having their merit made visible. It was also amusing to read that male secondary school teachers would prefer such a system.
<
p>
Do you know how Denver’s schools are doing?
<
p>
2. Denver schools – nothing special. One of the few examples of connecting student gains to merit pay happened in a single Arkansas school, so take with huge grain of salt.
I read through most of that debate, but the comments spoke to me more. The people debating focused on things like benefits, work hours, etc. — things that they couldn’t even agree on how to quantify.
<
p>
But in the comments section, one person said that we have a job market in force here, so the pay isn’t really low. Another noted that the pay was appropriate given that teachers are typically less academically competent then other professionals — he mentioned something like a 200 point lower difference on SATs, and that people are drawn to the profession due to the summers off.
<
p>
That is the key to the debate, in my opinion. We have reaped what we have sown. If we are satisfied with the current teaching population being drawn from students who are less academically proficient, then teacher pay is fine. But if we believe that being a teacher is on-par with being a scientist, being a computer programmer, being an accountant, being a lawyer, being an investment banker, then we need to elevate salaries to the point where the profession is not seen as a profession just for second-tier talent.
<
p>
My mother was a teacher; she graduated first in her class in high school, and first in her class in college. She begged me to not enter the teaching profession, because by the time I was old enough, the respect wasn’t there, nor was the pay. I’m now earning a lot more than I ever could have if I went on to be a teacher.
<
p>
Would I have been a good teacher? It’s hard to say. But that relates to a larger problem in our current educational system — I could have put in six years of training to become a teacher, and then I could have sucked at it. But I would have gone too far to turn back, and I would have had to simply stick it out because going back to school for 4-6 more years wouldn’t be very practical. That is true of nearly all professions these days — as more “training” and “credentialiing” is required, it becomes harder to make career changes, and more people are stuck doing an average job at something because of a decision they made when they weren’t wise enough to understand its gravity.
<
p>
On the subject of merit pay (or more accurately stated, the “everyone is paid the same” thing), I think that is a hot-button issue because it has been framed as a third rail by unions. I do not believe in using test scores to pay some teachers more than others, but I do not believe that an “everyone is paid the same” method is beneficial to the profession.
<
p>
First, it forces districts to either have low-quality teachers in scarce areas (physics was mentioned in the above debate) or to pay the rest of the teachers more than the market demands (which never happens). I think that districts would be better served if the pay could float by job description, not just by # of years in the system and degrees earned.
<
p>
Second, it makes the assumption that it is impossible to rate teachers based on their value to the district. While I agree that test results are probably the wrong metric to use, I think that a subjective system — with perhaps a lot of public transparency to prevent politics from taking root — could be used. Parents and other teachers seem to know who the valuable teachers are — so why shouldn’t those teachers be appropriately rewarded?
<
p>
Harvard economist Carolyn Hoxby agrees with you, particuarly when it comes to attracting top-notch female talent like your valedictorian mama.
I wonder if college tuitions have anything to do with it too.
<
p>
As the article mentions, why would someone who went to Princeton, or any high-cost private school, choose teaching? If my child wants to be a teacher, why would I waste another $20k/year sending her to an elite private school when the local teachers college would do?
few kids enter college knowing what they want to be “when they grow up.” and among those who THINK they know, they usually change their minds.
<
p>
furthemore, those kids who TRULY know they want to be schoolteachers, they’re perhaps somewhat less like to choose a top private college, since princeton and most others do not offer education as an undergraduate major.
<
p>
however, i think the parent discouragement amps up when their kids are college juniors or seniors and thinking about becoming teachers – either thru Teach For America or a masters program or some alternate certification program.
<
p>
and i agree that sometimes that parent discouragement is expressed in the form of “Why did I pay $200,000 for you to go to Elite U?”
because the performance goals are set by people who have absolutely no idea of what is realistic for a particular child. We are ultimately talking about children here. Not economic competitiveness, not GDP, and not corporate profits – but kids.
I’m in agreement with MB regarding pay for performance. Having taught in highschool, let me offer a couple of insights:
<
p>
It is important to realize that learning involves three parties:
<
p> – student – teacher – parents
<
p>
A motivated, engaged student and teacher will make progress. An engaged parent (or 2) helps get the student motivated and engaged. If the parents don’t set the stage, there’s little the teacher can do. Hence, to base teacher compensation on something that is inherently out of their control is unfair.
<
p>
Second, in math & sciences, unless salaries rise significantly (and I mean by a factor of 3 to 4), we will continue to be unable to attract potential teachers with the real world experience that can connect the abstract with the real. Don’t get me wrong, not every mid-career engineer could relate to adolescents. However, for those who can, the pay scale does not allow mid-career switches; unless somehow, one marries into wealth, hits the lottery, etc. Hence, our teachers either get into the profession early or late; and very few in between; where IMO, there is the most potential to bring real world experience and energy to the table.
<
p>
Finally, IMO, the funding mechanism for education doesn’t scale. Relying on property taxes to fund education, with rising health care costs and retiring boomers about to hit fixed income status is a recipe for fiscal disaster. While we might be able to make the system more efficient, there are limits to that efficiency inherent in the education process and we had better be looking at recasting the funding model.
<
p>
Just a couple random thoughts while bored at work.
John Stossel’s 20/20 report was an excellent depiction of what’s wrong with America’s public education system. http://abcnews.go.co…
<
p>
By the way, when you factor in their amazing health benefits, rock solid pension fund and the fact teachers get summers off I would argue public school teachers are simply paid too much. In fact, if we cut teacher salaries, couldn’t we decrease classroom sizes by hiring more teachers with the same money that we just cut?
But your ignorance leaves me speechless. John Stossel is a right-wing goon. Why would you quote him on a Democratic website? And why do you post on Democratic websites if you are so clearly not a Democrat?
<
p>
BTW – I rank among the highest paid teachers in the state of Massachusetts and my wife and I still rent an apartment and drive one car.
<
p>
Before you make comments like this, try shadowing teachers in Boston for a week. Or try substitute teaching in Boston for a week.
<
p>
Or try this: get on a subway in Boston between the hours of 2PM-4PM (preferably the Orange line – because that is the line that services most of the neighborhoods in Boston).
<
p>
When a group of 8+ teenagers get on the train, sit as close to them as you can get and ride with them the entire time. If you get a chance, try engaging them in conversation. Oh, and when they get out of hand – try telling them to please be quiet. But be ready because they are likely to tell you to go f$%^ yourself. They may even threaten to hurt you. If you persist in speaking with them, be aware that they may actually follow through on their threats.
<
p>
Do this five or six times for a week straight, and then ask yourself whether or not you would be able to handle 20 to 30 of these kids in a classroom for anywhere from 40 to 80 minutes – four to seven times a day.
<
p>
Then come back to this website and remind us all again of how overpaid teachers are.
<
p>
“John Stossel is a right-wing goon.”
Do you teach your students to name-call if they should happen to disagree with someone’s point of view? I think John Stossel does excellent and objective work he wouldn’t be on ABC if he was a right wing freak. Maybe you’re just a left wing goon. Damn, now you got me doing it.
<
p>
“And why do you post on Democratic websites if you are so clearly not a Democrat?”
First, I’m an advocate for making our education system better, what does that have to do with being a Democrat or a Republican? Second, its fun, you should go to some Republican websites.
<
p>
“BTW – I rank among the highest paid teachers in the state of Massachusetts and my wife and I still rent an apartment and drive one car.”
With the exception of being high-paid my wife and I rent and drive one car as well.
<
p>
“When a group of 8+ teenagers get on the train, sit as close to them as you can get and ride with them the entire time. If you get a chance, try engaging them in conversation. Oh, and when they get out of hand – try telling them to please be quiet. But be ready because they are likely to tell you to go f$%^ yourself. They may even threaten to hurt you. If you persist in speaking with them, be aware that they may actually follow through on their threats.”
Thanks for proving my point. After reading this rant it’s clear you don’t belong in teaching, why don’t you just quit? I’ll answer that, the pay is too good, the health benefits are unbeatable, the pension fund is rock solid and you get summers off.
<
p>
My point is simple; you public school teachers should be subject to the same laws of supply and demand that everyone in the private sector is obligated to follow.
Anyone who argues that it is okay to charge $20 for a gallon of water in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is an extremist.
<
p>
Also, I have been to plenty of Republican website, but none of them seem to allow visitors the option of posting freely.
<
p>
As for my “rant”, it isn’t a rant at all. Ask any of the thousands of committed, caring, intelligent, underpaid and overworked teachers in the BPS – and they will tell you that my description of teen age behavior is actually quite accurate.
<
p>
As for charge that I am unfit for teaching, I would say this. The key to being an effective urban teacher is to love the children in spite of their sometime obnoxious, anti-social and occasionally criminal behavior. One has to endure the slings and arrows in order to achieve those teachable moments where real learning can happen.
<
p>
I do not teach my students to call people names. But I do teach them to stand up to ignorance. For all I know, you are a kind and decent human being, but your comments about teachers and the status of our working lives are completely uninformed.
<
p>
I have merely challenged you to walk a mile in our shoes, and you have chosen to punt.
<
p>
After Katrina, what was the legal price?
Let’s leave the personal insults out of this. I’ll assume you are an excellent teacher and you can assume I am kind and decent but simply saw a convincing show on television. Having said that, please tell me what was incorrect about John Stossel’s report? Also, explain why it’s OK for you to be immune from the laws of supply and demand and for us “private sector” workers have to deal with those laws everyday? Spare me the walk in my shoes garbage, you want my pension? Sorry I don’t have one. How about my job security? Sorry, I could be fired at any time. I could continue but I think you get my point, without the union, most BPS teachers would have been fired for poor performance long ago.
I’m skeptical of Bloomberg’s notion of a “top to bottom” reorganization. Many are using “accountability” as an excuse to centralize school administration; state-supervised standardized testing encourages such a shift, particularly given the rising proficiency bar and failure labels attached to rising score expectations.
<
p>
Our outgoing commissioner of Ed also spoke at this same conference and the AP newswire on his speech was somewhat suprising to me, because Driscoll has supported “staying the course” on our accountability-based restructuring in the past – and I’ve calculated that might label 98% of our schools as failing by 2014, that is, only about two out of 100 Mass schools scored high enough in 2005 that they would be considered “adequate” by 2014. Another group did a more formal study assuming test scores will continue to rise; and they reached a somewhat less shocking conclusion that only about three out of four schools will be labeled failures by 2014. But in either case, the background information is that the state plans to label most of our schools as failures, more or less regardless of how they perform.
<
p>
Driscoll suggested that Massachusetts shift its focus to setting a higher standard for college entrance – crafting new tests to replace the MCAS, and using them ONLY in grades 4,7,and 10; with broader subject mattter. Then, instead of setting a minimum score for passing high school, a higher threshold would be set for entering any public state college.
<
p>
I’d have to see the details of what Driscoll intends to do to form an educated opinion about it. But I’d be happy to see state-supervised testing shift away from an annual exercise back to once every three years, and happy to see a shift of focus so that the burden of testing is not disproportionately placed upon disadvantaged kids and schools. I see Driscoll saying we want to have the best schools in the world – rather than the past four year’s No-Child-Left-Behind focus on punishing underperforming schools. Perhaps he’s been freed from Romney’s noose.
You are correct. By 2014 – a gigantic percentage of Mass schools will be labelled as underpeforming according to current standards.
<
p>
So are they really “underperforming”, or is this simply a ruse to ram a particular political agenda and philosophy down the throats of teachers, school administrators, parents and the general public?
Some interesting stuff in there. But could we start to drop this international comparison myth (“the United States trailed Freedonia and Bwana-Bwana in math scores…”)
<
p>
The American and Canadian systems are nearly unique in the fact that the overwhelming majority of teenagers are in general education/”academy” settings. We do have a small aggie and voke network that is dwarfed by general education public high schools. In other countries, the proportion is often reversed.
<
p>
So these “international comparisons”, led by the notorious TIMMS, test the tiny fraction of European and Asian students who are on the gen.ed. track and none of the vocational students. In cases like Latvia and Hungary, they test only in the most organized, rich educational institutions. Against this is an average drawn from the preponderance of American students. It’s like having a football game between the AFC All-Pro squad and the Rhein Fire of NFLEurope, and saying that it’s a fair competition because both teams have football players on them, and both play football in football facilities.
Do you have a cite on that?
<
p>
TIMMS is run out of — Boston College.
<
p>
They’ve always said that they randomly sample ALL schools in a country, and then randomly sample classrooms in those schools.
snork BC sends a bunch of surveys to the education ministry of a foreign country, and awaits the return envelope. To give an example of how it’s handled in the Third World, Armenia believes that the TIMMS is a “competition”. This program is purchase-only, but my colleague has it and there is great detail in there of the TIMMS’s methodological failures.
<
p>
We were given information about the TIMMS in my introductory ed courses at BSC. I’ll have to root that stuff out of the basement (where it resides). I do rmeember that the articles on TIMMS methodology came out of UNESCO and the World Bank.
If corporate America needs better trained workers, then let corporate America pick up more of the tab. The purpose of public education in a democratic society is not merely to increase economic competitiveness and corporate profits. It is to help people achieve self-actualization and some level of self-fulfillment.
<
p>
And if we are going to start citing history as an example, then let’s point out that Big Business (and their allies) have been using the threat of foreign economic competition as a ‘boogey man’ to whipsaw public education and school administrators since at least the 1890’s.
<
p>
And it has always been the same tired line – teachers (a mostly underpaid female workforce) need to submit to the will of men (mostly white and wealthy) in suits who insist on telling everyone else what is good for employees and for children.
<
p>
It is utterly amazing to come to this site, and time and again see postings here that completely embrace Big Business and Republican/conservative policy positions regarding public schools and public education.
<
p>
How can any of you believe that the very same people who, for the last twenty years, have been pushing for elimination of Art, music, recess and phys ed now claim to care about the needs of children?
<
p>
And how can you believe that the same people who have been shipping millions of American jobs over-sees now care about the needs of newer and younger teachers who are leaving the profession and droves?
<
p>
And how can you agree with big business leaders who laughably gush about ed reform as ‘civil rights issue’ when they are fighting tooth and nail to keep the Federal Minimum wage at a criminal level of $5.15 per hour?
<
p>
Puh-lease.
<
p>
Over the last hundred years or so, the US has become the wealthiest nation that ever existed in the history of human civilization. And even today, our GDP is matched only by the collective might of the European Union – and still dwarfts India and China.
<
p>
The US owes it’s economic growth to many factors – and one of those is the existence of free, universal public education system. It is startling to see so many postings here – on a Democratic website – that embrace policy positions that are anti-child, anti-worker and anti-democratic.
<
p>
How can the Democratic Party survive if it continues to embrace right-wing, corporatists policies that force it to canablize its’ own electoral base?
<
p>
Interesting perspective. You could say that the society we have is based on the education system we’ve histrically promoted. And, we should continue with the same because it’s “worked”. Your perpective is arguably downright … conservative.
I would say this:
<
p>
It is completely acceptable to talk about reforming public schools. We should. And as a matter of fact, teachers and our unions have fully embraced such discussions about change and reform.
<
p>
But with most Republican/conservative ‘reform’ initiatives, the MO is to attack the status quo as inherently broken and utterly failing….and then offer up some completely right-wing solution that screws working people and communities but is good for big business and conservatives.
<
p>
My mentioning the connection between public schools and the status quo of the US as the only superpower is not to deny any attempts at reforming schools, but to defend against the right-wing argument that somehow the notion of free and equal education for all hasn’t worked. It has.
<
p>
The meme that foreign economic competition means we have to dismantle teachers unions is just complete and utter BS. It is literally the same exact line that the business community has been using on public schools and school officials since the 1890’s. No kidding.
<
p>
And as we move into a post-industrial economy, we should make changes to public schools. But we should not look to the GOP and the right-wing think tanks to guide our thinking on how to reform public schools or any other public institutions. We should be talking with the people on the ground (teachers) and the other stake holders (administrators, parents, etc.,).
<
p>
Thank you though for your insightful questions and comments. I do enjoy the back-and-forth.