PJ Media

The one thing that is obviously missing from the ‘education debate’ is an analysis of the lack of effect all of the spending has had on the system, as a whole. From 1958, when poor Johnny couldn’t read to today, that statistic as well as many others remains flatlined. As a Nation the US has poured money into this ‘problem’ not only from the States but from the Federal side, which has zero role to play in deciding on education. All of the lovely programs and teaching aids and the rest of it has caused no appreciable change in reading comprehension or ability to read since 1958. Yet the money has soared going into the system….

One strange artifact is that while American children receive one of the most middling of pre-k to secondary school educations, their performance in college and universities has historically been that of world-beaters. Even stranger is that such a lackadaisical group also becomes the most highly productive workforce, per person, on the planet. There is, obviously, something wrong with the basis for the argument of there being a school ‘problem’.

If you want to change the system to give us higher performing children to secondary eduction, then there is little that can be done on the Federal side, save this, and I really do wonder where the ardent supporters of merit based rewards are: Pay for Performance.

Every single gripe that comes from the US not ‘scoring well’ vice the world should advocate that the tests used for global competence examination be used for a direct, proportional pay for performance federal grant system. An amount is named as 100% performance based on the top Nation on the charts, and that is then meted out in proportion to how well a student does in comparison to that 100% mark. This would be open to all schools and teaching systems that want federal funds, but must be non-discriminatory on basis of race or religion for accepting students save for home-schoolers. The grant, without strings attached, is pre-determined by performance and goes to the education facility or individual (in the case of home schoolers) directly. You take the test for the age-appropriate level and the grant moves to you via the State. School systems that teach *better* get more funds, those that do not teach as well get *less*.

This is amenable to on-line, home schooling, traditional education and a variety of self-education modes: take the age appropriate test and get the money based on performance. By putting in a feedback into the pay part of the system, parents, students and educational facilities can see what *works* and what *does not* work. There will always be some ‘teaching to the test’, but as this covers things like basic mathematics and reading capability, that means actually having to teach how to *do* those things.

Currently we have a system in-place that supports not fixing it. A Dept of Education ensures that things will remain unfixed so that the Department will not go away and will always ask for more funds based on the ‘problem’. We have thousands of analysts and educators concentrating on how to get money from the system, not on fixing it, so is it any wonder that all the lovely solutions don’t solve the problem?

You want Johnny to read a bit better?

Pay for performance.

And let the States decide on ‘vouchers’… my guess is once parents see how the funding *goes* based on performance of their children, things will change. That little bit that shows exactly how well your child does compared to the rest of the world should be an eye-opener… and if it isn’t, then your problem is the parents, not the school system.