The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an international comparison of 15-year-olds conducted by The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) that measures applied learning and problem-solving ability.
In 2006 U.S. students ranked 25th of 30 advanced nations in math and 24th in science. McKinsey & Company in releasing its report The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in Americas Schools (April 2009) said Several other facts paint a worrisome picture.
First the longer American children are in school the worse they perform compared to their international peers. In recent cross-country comparisons of fourth grade reading math and science US students scored in the top quarter or top half of advanced nations. By age 15 these rankings drop to the bottom half.
In other words American students are farthest behind just as they are about to enter higher education or the workforce. Thats a sobering thought. The longer kids are in school and the more money we spend on them the further behind they get.
While the academic performance of white students is grossly inferior that of black and Latino students is a national disgrace. The McKinsey report says On average black and Latino students are roughly two to three years of learning behind white students of the same age. This racial gap exists regardless of how it is measured including both achievement (e.g. test score) and attainment (e.g. graduation rate) measures.
Taking the average National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores for math and reading across the fourth and eighth grades for example 48 percent of blacks and 43 percent of Latinos are below basic while only 17 percent of whites are and this gap exists in every state. A more pronounced racial achievement gap exists in most large urban school districts. Below basic is the category the NAEP uses for students unable to display even partial mastery of knowledge and skills fundamental for proficient work at their grade level.
The teaching establishment and politicians have hoodwinked taxpayers into believing that more money is needed to improve education. The Washington D.C. school budget is about the nations costliest spending about $15000 per pupil. Its student/teacher ratio at 15.2 to 1 is lower than the nations average. Yet student achievement is just about the lowest in the nation. Whats so callous about the Washington situation is about 1700 children in kindergarten through 12th grade receive the $7500 annual scholarships in order to escape rotten D.C. public schools and four times as many apply for the scholarships yet Congress beholden to the education establishment will end funding the school voucher program.
Any long-term solution to our education problems requires the decentralization that can come from competition. Centralization has been massive. In 1930 there were 119000 school districts across the U.S; today there are less than 15000. Control has moved from local communities to the school district to the state and to the federal government.
Public education has become a highly centralized government-backed monopoly and we shouldnt be surprised by the results. Its a no-brainer that the areas of our lives with the greatest innovation tailoring of services to individual wants and falling prices are the areas where there is ruthless competition such as computers food telephone and clothing industries and delivery companies such as UPS Federal Express and electronic bill payments that have begun to undermine the postal monopoly in first-class mail.
At a Washington press conference launching the McKinsey report Al Sharpton called school reform the civil rights challenge of our time. He said that the enemy of opportunity for blacks in the U.S. was once Jim Crow; today in a slap at the educational establishment he said it was Professor James Crow. Sharpton is only partly correct. School reform is not solely a racial issue; its a vital issue for the entire nation.
Dr. Williams serves on the faculty of George Mason University as John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics and is the author of More Liberty Means Less Government: Our Founders Knew This Well.
The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an international comparison of 15-year-olds conducted by The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) that measures applied learning and problem-solving ability.
In 2006 U.S. students ranked 25th of 30 advanced nations in math and 24th in science. McKinsey & Company in releasing its report The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in Americas Schools (April 2009) said Several other facts paint a worrisome picture.
First the longer American children are in school the worse they perform compared to their international peers. In recent cross-country comparisons of fourth grade reading math and science US students scored in the top quarter or top half of advanced nations. By age 15 these rankings drop to the bottom half.
In other words American students are farthest behind just as they are about to enter higher education or the workforce. Thats a sobering thought. The longer kids are in school and the more money we spend on them the further behind they get.
While the academic performance of white students is grossly inferior that of black and Latino students is a national disgrace. The McKinsey report says On average black and Latino students are roughly two to three years of learning behind white students of the same age. This racial gap exists regardless of how it is measured including both achievement (e.g. test score) and attainment (e.g. graduation rate) measures.
Taking the average National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores for math and reading across the fourth and eighth grades for example 48 percent of blacks and 43 percent of Latinos are below basic while only 17 percent of whites are and this gap exists in every state. A more pronounced racial achievement gap exists in most large urban school districts. Below basic is the category the NAEP uses for students unable to display even partial mastery of knowledge and skills fundamental for proficient work at their grade level.
The teaching establishment and politicians have hoodwinked taxpayers into believing that more money is needed to improve education. The Washington D.C. school budget is about the nations costliest spending about $15000 per pupil. Its student/teacher ratio at 15.2 to 1 is lower than the nations average. Yet student achievement is just about the lowest in the nation. Whats so callous about the Washington situation is about 1700 children in kindergarten through 12th grade receive the $7500 annual scholarships in order to escape rotten D.C. public schools and four times as many apply for the scholarships yet Congress beholden to the education establishment will end funding the school voucher program.
Any long-term solution to our education problems requires the decentralization that can come from competition. Centralization has been massive. In 1930 there were 119000 school districts across the U.S; today there are less than 15000. Control has moved from local communities to the school district to the state and to the federal government.
Public education has become a highly centralized government-backed monopoly and we shouldnt be surprised by the results. Its a no-brainer that the areas of our lives with the greatest innovation tailoring of services to individual wants and falling prices are the areas where there is ruthless competition such as computers food telephone and clothing industries and delivery companies such as UPS Federal Express and electronic bill payments that have begun to undermine the postal monopoly in first-class mail.
At a Washington press conference launching the McKinsey report Al Sharpton called school reform the civil rights challenge of our time. He said that the enemy of opportunity for blacks in the U.S. was once Jim Crow; today in a slap at the educational establishment he said it was Professor James Crow. Sharpton is only partly correct. School reform is not solely a racial issue; its a vital issue for the entire nation.
Dr. Williams serves on the faculty of George Mason University as John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics and is the author of More Liberty Means Less Government: Our Founders Knew This Well.
