The Biggest Loser

by Robert Pondiscio
September 4th, 2008

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Posted in Educational Policy | 1 Comment »

Who you callin’ a loser?  You’re not a loser.  I’m the loser! 

That’s the upshot of Mike Petrilli’s post over at Flypaper on who’s doing a worse job on education, the Dems or the GOP.  Ed Sector’s Kevin Carey has written a piece for the American Prospect titled “How the Dems Lost on Education,” which per Petrilli, ”is a call for Democrats to get on board the school reform train, particularly when it comes to NCLB-style accountability, charter schools, and public school choice.”

Not so fast, says Mike.  “I don’t mean to be ungracious, but if we’re talking about winners and losers, there’s a strong case to be made that NCLB has been a boon to the left and an embarrassment to the right.”

What with its race-based accountability system, Great Society-style aspiration for “universal proficiency,” disdain for the needs of high-achieving students (not to mention white and middle class kids), and enthusiastic expansion of the federal role in education, it looks to me that the Dems are winning big on education lately. And here’s the kicker: they get to promote progressive policies and regain their historical political advantage on the issue to boot. Compare that to the “Republican” scorecard. How are we doing on promoting educational excellence? Cutting red tape? Promoting private school choice? Making the public schools system more efficient? Getting rid of terrible teachers?

Petrilli says he’s going to write a piece on “How the GOP Lost on Education.”  I think he’s kidding.  Maybe.

More questioning of assumptions:  Eduflack wonders why accountability is seen as a Republican idea.  And why supporting teachers is associated with Democrats.

Degrees? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Degrees!

by Robert Pondiscio
September 4th, 2008

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Posted in Higher Education | 2 Comments »

The importance of a bachelor’s degree has been wildly oversold, says Walt Gardner.  More than 90 percent of high school students are steered toward a college-prep curriculum, notes the former L.A. high school teacher and inveterate edupundit in an iconoclastic Christian Science Monitor essay. 

The usual argument put forth in defense of a four-year degree is that it contains a decided wage premium…[But] if Alan Blinder, former vice chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, is correct, the only jobs that will be secure in the next decade will those that cannot be sent abroad electronically. That means plumbers, electricians, and auto mechanics, for example, will be working steadily while many of their degreed classmates will be collecting unemployment checks. Moreover, since wages vary within any occupation, degree holders who are still employed will not necessarily be earning top salaries.

The Wall Street Journal reported last month that some unionized craft workers already earn more than the average college graduate, Gardner notes, and do so without carrying the heavy burden of student debt.

“The total damage inflicted on students by the college-is-for-everyone mentality is incalculable. Students who cannot measure up to the demands for a college curriculum are made to feel like failures,” Gardner concludes. ”What Americans ultimately need to learn is that college is merely the most convenient place to learn how to learn. It is not an absolute determinant.”

Up until the day I left for college, my father, a blue-collar, Depression-era product, tried to convince me to “learn a trade” like TV repair or air conditioning so I would have “a skill to fall back on.”  Gardner would approve.

Strong Parents, Strong Performance

by Robert Pondiscio
September 4th, 2008

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Posted in Parents, Research and Reports | No Comments »

Want to see improvements in education?  Start insisting that your children fully apply themselves in school, counsels Daniel Akst in the Wall Street Journal, in an essay that will surely be clipped, copied and passed out on curriculum nights and at parent teacher conferences.  “Let’s face it,” he writes, “more than budgets or bureaucrats, more than textbooks or teachers, parents are the reason that kids perform as they do in school.”

Citing a summary of research by the Michigan Department of Education, Akst notes “the most consistent predictors of children’s academic achievement and social adjustment are parent expectations of the child’s academic attainment and satisfaction with their child’s education at school. Parents of high-achieving students set higher standards for their children’s educational activities.”

He also shoots down the stereotype of the overachieving, upper-middle-class parent “bombarding their precious little ones in utero with Mozart and then hectoring teachers and hiring tutors right up until the Harvard application essay.”

Researchers at Brigham Young and the University of Michigan found that parents preferred teachers who make their children happy over those who emphasize academic achievement. My experience in a nonobsessive school district is consistent with this. Our family’s intense focus on learning is regarded warily by some parents, whose dissatisfactions with school are mostly about testing and creativity but never about a lack of foreign-language instruction or overall academic rigor. Indeed, teachers have reported watering down the public middle-school curriculum in response to parental complaints that it was too difficult.

The lack of demand for serious schooling is the least of it, writes Akst. Too many kids are growing up in homes with little emphasis on reading, learning or culture.  “Kids form lots of habits over the years, some good and some bad,” he concludes.  “What a nice surprise that doing well in school can be one of them.”

I suspect a lot of teachers will hurt their necks vigorously nodding in agreement with Akst’s essay.  There may not always be a cause-and-effect relationship between engaged parents and student performance.  But like the race going to the swift and the fight to the strong, it is the way to bet.