Six Easy Steps to School Productivity Here are six technically simple (though politically controversial) reforms that the states could implement right now.
Over the past few decades, the American economy has made remarkable productivity gains that have fueled GDP growth and raised living standards. Unfortunately, the American public-education system has been moving in the opposite direction: Schools spend ever-larger sums of money per pupil, yet they are plagued by stagnant student achievement, declining output per teacher, and massive unfunded pension liabilities.
The chief obstacle to greater productivity in the education sector is a stubborn adherence to antiquated operational procedures that were designed for a past era. Attempts at genuine innovation are blunted by the absence of a profit motive, the existence of a virtual market monopoly, and inadequate accountability mechanisms. These factors are now blocking an urgently needed administrative overhaul.
Advertisement
While the status quo often seems impervious to change, here are six technically simple (though politically controversial) management reforms that could dramatically increase education productivity. (I’ve listed them in order of their estimated impact, from greatest to smallest.)
1. Empower principals as school CEOs. The typical public-school principal enjoys only a modicum of prestige and even less power. Unless principals can readily access data on student performance, select and evaluate their own teachers, exercise influence over teachers’ salaries, and make teacher assignments, they will be hamstrung as managers. Their relative lack of power makes it unfair to hold them accountable for the dismal performance of so many American schools. Moreover, the absence of real managerial authority detracts from the prestige of their position and discourages talented individuals from entering the leadership field.
2. Measure academic progress through “value added” testing. In order to guide school instruction and reinforce accountability, each student must be appropriately tested. The key word there is “appropriately.” Academic achievement should be measured annually against a baseline of conventional expectations. In other words, we should attempt to calculate how much value a given teacher and school have added. This idea causes plenty of handwringing in professional education circles. Yet value-added testing would give us a better sense of the contribution made by individual instructors and institutions. By measuring each student’s progress from one year to the next, we would no longer be unfairly penalizing teachers and schools that work with the neediest students or unfairly rewarding those that work with the most advantaged students. Teacher performance would become relatively easier to calibrate.
3. Reward effective teachers, and fire ineffective ones. This dictum is reinforced by both common sense and empirical research. Economists have demonstrated that effective teachers play a significant role in boosting student achievement, while ineffective teachers impose a substantial drag on achievement. It is critically important to reward the best teachers and replace the bottom 10 percent.
4. Distribute money based on student characteristics. States allocate money to districts based on numbers and characteristics of students. Districts should follow suit when distributing funds to their individual schools, but they do not. Instead, the superintendent’s office makes decisions formulaically, which means that schools have very little control over personnel assignments, teachers’ salaries, and non-personnel budgets. This weakens principals, dilutes accountability, and often leads to a misallocation of resources intended to help low-income children. If school principals were authorized to purchase the services provided by their districts, inefficient central-office programs and personnel would quickly be eliminated.
5. Designate the classroom as the fundamental financial accounting unit. How much is spent annually on reading or mathematics instruction? What specific achievement gains does this spending produce? Virtually no school district in America can answer such simple questions. Wal-Mart store managers know more about their daily profits than principals know about their students’ performance. States could easily alter their accounting regulations to determine the amount of money spent per classroom or course. Districts that already undertake such analyses have uncovered startling imbalances.
6. Rank schools and classrooms by both student achievement and productivity. The 2002 No Child Left Behind Act pioneered widespread appraisals of schools based on student performance. New data systems now allow us to expand this metric by combining pupil performance with per-pupil spending. Thus, we can establish not only which schools generate high levels of achievement, but which schools provide the most bang for the buck. Productivity begins at the smallest organizational unit. Detailed classroom-level information will enable principals to identify the personnel and practices that yield efficient achievement gains.
Each of the reforms outlined above is within the purview of state officials, and each can be implemented right away. These changes do not require daunting scientific breakthroughs. They simply require vision and political will.
— James W. Guthrie is a senior fellow and director of education-policy studies at the George W. Bush Institute in Dallas, and a professor of education at Southern Methodist University.
Number one must be elimination of the Department of Education (can you say Jimmy "malaise" Carter) otherwise your six suggestions are doomed to never see the light of day!!!
The underutilization, or poor utilization, of technology is another area for improvement.
Guided learning systems, whereby students can pace themselves, get immediate feedback and automatically report to teachers when conceptual bottlenecks occur for narrowly targeted one on one interventions, would dramatically improve learning productivity, particularly for motivated, responsible students.
In most classroom settings, it is the weaker links that contol the pace and content of learning. Individualized, computer guided instruction from the earliest grades would allow all students to move at their own pace, free up valuable teacher time for more face to face interaction, and probably increase the span of control of good teachers, thereby increasing productivity by using the most expensive variable cost component more efficiently.
Here goes...(I’m from Detroit so this hits me hard)
Recent eval reveals functional literacy in Detroit proper is estimated at 47%. This is a travesty beyond imagination. Many are recommending more money must be given to fix the broken schools of Detroit.
OK - Average Detroit teacher salary is 77,000. City spends slightly over the national average per pupil for education. Detroit just spent 50 million dollar to renovate its library including >100,000 dollars on 12 artistic chairs.
The only consistency in Detroit over the past 50 years besides the Lions not making the playoffs is continuous democratic leadership. And it’s a liberal democratic leadership that has promised and provided more and more into the pockets of Detroiters, so much so that they are completely complacent to receive and dependent on this expected and seemingly guaranteed handout. The ability to read, work, and think seems no longer necessary. Well...you do need to be able to read the letter “D” to vote blanket democratic ticket to ensure those checks keep coming with cost of living adjustments.
Socially engineering a better society only engineers a bankrupt (fiscally, intellectually and culturally) society. Can we finally have a serious social discussion on the effect Social Programs have on society (and please let’s debate openly, without charges of racism, social programs and their effect on society)? For starters I’ll settle for on an education discussion.
OK diatribe over...back to MAFV.
Yes end the Department of education but also eliminate unionism from education system – this will break the politician-union self-promote/sustainment cycle hopefully leading to increased transparency, authority and accountability in the system.
Ultimately, the consumers wants and needs and overall receptiveness are what need to be explored. Find an effective way to reach them and hopefully the ineffective ways will fall by the wayside.
The consumer in this case is, of course, the student. An immature and rather uninformed consumer at that. What is it that they want and need (even if they dont know it)?
First, the student consumer needs to focus on the education being presented. These young minds are easily distracted! Having them Check Their Cellphones At The Door would do more for education than any policy change outlined above. When the inevitable thriving social network that is School is put on the back burner, through even facing discipline (!!!) for talking in class, well then suddenly the words these teachers are saying will actually matter.
Secondly, class size cannot be a primary focus. There are other characteristics that are equally if not more important to the students perception. How are the chairs arranged? Is actively listening or just robotically taking notes more encouraged? Could this all be taught better out on the grass on a beautiful day rather than in a windowless, drab, flourescent-lit, prison-like classroom? These things might be important.
Finally, what is being taught, and when, and to whom? Ill draw from personal experience here. I learned a great deal about America and the Presidents in Elementary and Junior High. High School was more focused on Civics and International affairs. As a result, I retained very little BASIC knowledge about America and the Presidents! For the same reasons I know very few actual names of trees, but much more about their molecules. This seems backwards to me. Especially since I love Nature but have very little interest in Biology, per se.
The basics arent stressed enough today. Specifics are taught to everyone in the name of competing with China and so on. Well, I'll never be interested or proficient in Calculus whatever the reasons we were all made to take it-- and I think that point should be explored. This is America the Free--- why cant we learn what we want to a certain degree, at least in high school? I'm more of a literature type, Susie excels at Physics, John is a history buff.... but everyones on the same boring programme clear thru their second year of college. Why?
All we hear are the same acceptable solutions from both sides of the aisle. But can anyone see this debate from the point of view of the Student Brain?
All these are great suggestion, provided teaching the students is the number one goal. In today's public education system that is obviously not the case.
Like other commenters before me have said--the Dept of Education and the teacher's unions have to go before any progress can be made. The Dept's job is to expand itself, while the union's job is to pay the max benefit to the most people with the least amount of work.
I don't see "making kids smarter and productive members of society" anywhere in there.
A clean sweep in 2012 would help get us closer, but even Reagan didn't shut down the Dept of Education.
The comments by john and joe got me to thinking about my own experiences with the public education system as a non-student. During my recent unemployed stretch, I worked as a sub at the local school district. There were a LOT of resources put towards technology, most notably Smart boards in elementary schools and laptops for every junior high student. I'm convinced that both were poor investments.
The Smart boards were neat, and could do some pretty cool stuff, but I didn't see any noticeable improvement in student learning. There were mostly fun toys, but not instructive tools. They might be useful, but I never saw them used in a way that enhanced student learning. The cost of putting them in every classroom must have been huge, and without a corresponding improvement classroom instruction, it's a waste.
The laptops were another story completely. Whenever I subbed any classes at the junior high, I immediately told the kids to put it away. The computer was NEVER anything more than a distraction, and I'm not exaggerating. On the rare occasion that a teacher tried to go "paperless" by having the assignments or instructions online, it inevitably took 3x as long for them to find, read, and comprehend the instructions.
I later found out that the laptops were a private donation to the school district, and that's why the students had them. Even free, the laptops were a poor investment, due to the loss of student productivity and additional resources the school had to dish out to support, filter and maintain the machines.
One final note. My dad is a HS math and physics teacher, and he has banned graphic calculators in his class. They are pointless distractions. They don't perform any functions useful to the students except providing shortcuts and games.
My point with all these anecdotes is this: technology can often be overrated in K-12 settings. As an engineer, I am always looking for a faster, more efficient way to do my work. Calculators, spreadsheets, models, etc. make my life easier by doing what I know how to do so much faster. But I still had to learn how to do them, otherwise it becomes a black box: Enter Input, Receive Output. Too much technology in schools turns students into a black box operators and does not develop their minds. It's "fools gold" (my capcha).
RE: Previous comments about using technology.
The mere existence of computers in the classroom does not necessarily translate into more productive learning. However, guided learning software, consisting of short lessons followed by questions to verify the comprehension of the material can significantly improve learning productivity in many subjects if properly designed and utilized.
It can never be a complete substitute for the give and take of a stimulating classroom environment with a good teacher, but one would have be be in an induced coma to not see that the old classroom model simply isn't working any more for more and more students.
When 40% of the adults in a city like Detroit are functionally illiterate, it's clearly become time to radically change the way we "manufacture" learning.
I agree that using appropriate software/technology to supplement learning can be effective. I've seen this principle well applied in my college education. However, I'm not convinced that that is the approach taken in K-12 settings. From what I've seen as a sub, the attitude seems to have been very Field-of-Dreams-esque: If you build a sparkly new computer room, the kids will learn.
Regarding your statement that "the old classroom model simply isn't working any more for more and more students." I would respond that the old classroom model simply isn't being used anymore. What I understand the "old classroom model" to be was that the teacher was a subject matter expert and instructor, the student would diligently study and complete assignments, and the parents would provide motivation, encouragement and discipline.
Now, it seems that teachers have abrogated their responsibility to understand the material and instruct because the computer will do it, while simultaneously trying to assume the parents role. In the meantime, students apply their astonishing capacity to learn and solve problems at manipulating the system and by-passing the safeties on the technology provided them.
As a future father, I'm seriously considering several alternatives to traditional public schools, and one of the biggest reasons is that I've seen how schools have become less and less places of learning. The quest for better and better technology is a siren song that feeds the dysfunction because it makes it look like they're doing SOMETHING to improve things even as things get worse. If it were up to me I would remove electronics from the classroom completely: Phones, calculators, computers, etc. They just end up becoming toys, and they're not needed at that level. After all, we sent a man to the moon and back with slide rulers.
There is a lot to chew on in this post, but I'll just add a bit to the technology debate. Even with "guided-learning" modules, technology is itself a terrible investment in terms of the allocation of limited education dollars. I have not seen the return in student performance.
As johnqpublius points out, even a guided-learning approach cannot substitute "for the give and take of a stimulating classroom environment with a good teacher". To my eyes, that would seem to be call for finding better ways of producing a stimulating classroom environment, rather than simply kicking more "education" online.
Now, there are ways we could do that, and eliminating the Federal Dept of Education would be a great place to start, but I suspect most of the ideas for how to bring back that stimulating classroom environment would not meet approval here. The best, easiest, and probably most effective would be let teachers do what they were trained to do and actually, I dunno, teach. That means:
1) taking OFF curriculum requirements, not constructing new ones
2) reducing state oversight, not enhancing it
3) giving far more autonomy to teachers and schools to set curricula and assessment standards.
Just a few thoughts off the top of my head. I have noticed that we conservatives generally abhor top-down, government-imposed solutions...except when it comes to Education.
I am a huge proponent of vouchers. I think the solution to education revolves mostly around parental choice mixed with monitoring of the outcome.
I home schooled my children. My son is an engineer and my daughter was just accepted to an engineering program at MIT so it works. There are other ways that work too, including public and private schools, co-ops, early college entry, etc. One positive development I see in my state is the availability of state sponsored online high school with five different curriculum tracks. Great idea for some people.
While believing in educational choice, I also believe in standardized testing. I made both of my children take our state's 11th grade standardized test although they were not required to. I wanted an external check on their performance to make sure we were doing OK. They both did well.
In short, test the outcome periodically through children's academic careers and if the outcome is OK leave the process to the parents. If you are going to tax the parents for education (which appears to be a given), give them vouchers to fund the process as they see fit.
Some thoughts from the finance director of a school district in Florida:
Number 1 is a great idea our principals are limited greatly by the boundaries placed on them. Unions, Political board members, a dictated salary schedule where a home economics teacher can demand more $ than a science or math teacher with the only factor being experience. Depending on the management model adopted by the district the principal does have control over classroom spending for non-staff resources.
2. AYP (adequate yearly progress) is a federal measure that
George Bush's NCLB put into place and helps to determine if a school is succeeding or failing in advancing the students. This is a measure of a specific students growth. When a teacher receives a student they have historical data that shows where they are currently and if the teacher is doing their job they use this data to differentiate instruction for that student to make adequate yearly progress. AYP is measured by the standardized tests given later in the year. I am surprised the author didn't mention this in section 2. Again the teachers effectiveness is the issue and the data is there to hold them
accountable the difficulty is having a mechanism and enough
control to do so.
3. Is understated. A poor teacher can cause a child to become
exponentially behind. If a child doesn't make AYP more than
likely they will continue to drag behind. This is where home schooling, involved parents or one on one tutoring can help because of the ability to focus on the weak area and "catch them up". Unfortunately this requires a parent to share the responsibility and too often this doesn't happen.
4. This section is correct for the most part. Except the state of
Florida doesn't differentiate the amount of money for students
as much as one would think. The differences are typically 1/100 of a percent and the only differentiation is grade groupings and special education. And again it is only 1/100 of a percent. However, a formula is used in allocating the school budgets. In my experience though once the curriculum is purchased there is really not much to pay for other than the facility and the teacher. For example out of our 19,000,000 general fund budget $300,000 is spent on consumables. The true differentiation should be in teacher pay.
5. Florida does this in one our required reports. It is called a
"cost report" however the method is so complicated and under used it is mostly ineffective.
6. Is exactly right.
The only thing I would add to this article is that the author makes
assumptions that some of his suggestions are not happening. The issue
with education is just like everything else stop mandating so much and
adding excess complexity. Less bureaucracy while still keeping
accountability at the student/ teacher level is what would fix
education.
I wonder what % of comments are from people who are/have been/will be in education.Well I am and simply eliminating teacher unions and the Department of Education wil not solve falling scores, discipline issues and low morale. I agree with the writer's points that schools, although not businesses, can be run in a more business like way but that still will not eliminate the problems.Indifferent parents, poverty, crime ridden neighborhoods (calculus is not a priority for kids being pressured to join gangs), competition with instant and nonstop entertainment & social media and yes weak teachers will still be here.
The government has a strong track record of messing up almost everything it gets overly involved in - housing, utilities, etc. How about scrapping government schools entirely, giving the money back to parents, and letting the forces of the free market improve education? Private vouchers will take care of those who can't afford school. Without government regulation and a near monopoly (public schools) to compete with, private schools will be able to create cheap, quality educational alternatives. Tax-funded vouchers are no good because anywhere government money goes, government regulation will follow.
The country did very well for over one hundred years without compulsory government education, and we can again.
Dr. Guthrie is from SMU, and when their football team stunk up the joint, they fired the coach, not the players. There's a lesson here...
Give principals more power? Give me a break! Even in the most restrictive, union-ridden states, principals have tremendous power to help increase student achievement. Few choose to do so. Many would not recognize an effective teacher if their lives depended on it -- which they don't. Before we talk about firing ineffective teachers, I want to see lots of principals in the unemployment line.
Seriously, Dr. Guthrie, expecting those who have climbed to the heights of mediocity and creating the current educational mess to provide solutions.
The last two prinicpals I've worked for -- one's top priority was picking up trash from the hallway floor, and the other's was checking student locker combinations. And I've worked for much worse in my teaching career.
Suggestion #2 bears great merit. We need to measure "value added", rather than doing the same "measuring of last year's apples with this year's oranges".
Teachers are the source of educational failure. In the beginning, teachers are 'educators', who study education rather than becoming experts in the subjects they teach. So we have a education system that has teachers trained to flush toilets teaching brain surgery. By joining the union they are guaranteed that they may never be required to become experts in the subjects they teach. Teachers are never required to validate their qualifications and are never in jeopardy.
Educators may "teach constitutional law" having never read the constitution.
The education of our youth is far too important to allow educators to determine what should be taught our youth.
Most 'teachers/educators' are actually shills for the unions to which they belong. Remember also that nearly all unions are socialist or communist front groups, thus the majority of our 'educators' front for socialist and communist front groups.
When are we going to add, to this achievement formula, a parent who cares about what their child is doing and motivates him or her to do well? As a teacher I say it is time. There are many "families" today who sent their child to school to get them out of the way, not because they are really concerned about their child getting an education.
We contact parents, mail letters, email, to no avail because they never respond to our attempt to reach out and find a way to help their child.
Teachers can't do it alone when there are children, and use the term loosely as a high school teacher, who come to school for a meal and hang out with their buddies. It takes two to tango, in this case it takes three: a willing and motivated student, a supportive parent and a well trained teacher. When one of these elements is missing it is an uphill battle for the other parts of the equation. More so when all is left only to the teacher.
Keep it up. Keep blaming teachers and nobody will want the job. Another thing, not all teachers are unionized so don't bring up the perks of the job. Some of us haven't seen a pay raise in many years but keep teaching because we really care. Then again, there is just so much we can take.
