Here is the education story from Wisconsin this week that really matters:
only 39% of eighth graders in the public schools are proficient in math, and
only 34% in reading, despite a 65% increase in per-pupil spending over the past
decade.
While the attention of the nation is focused on what Wisconsin teachers earn, the question of what they do to
earn it has been largely ignored. What
they do not do is educate our
children.
Spare me the hate mail, teachers, as I will give you the
first round – I will stipulate that you are all terrific and it is the system
that prevents you from showing it. Now,
you give me the second round, and admit that you are fighting tooth and nail to
keep that awful system intact.
The public education system is operated under the work rules
that have been collectively bargained; that is reason enough to end collective
bargaining privileges. Education
Secretary Arne Duncan called Wisconsin’s
proficiency results “unacceptable”. He
must not be proficient either, because not only does he accept them, but he and
his boss have sent 25,000 shock troops to defend the system of forced
unionization and collective bargaining that produced them in the first place.
Proficiency is the only purpose of education – not spending,
not teachers’ pay, not union representation, not pensions, not benefits, not
political indoctrination, not PC speech, not stickers and stars for trying, not
outcome equality, and not coddling delinquent students, delinquent teachers,
delinquent administrators, or delinquent parents.
Green Bay Packer cornerback Charles Woodson supported the protesting
public union workers in Wisconsin,
citing his own players’ union as an example of how collective bargaining secures
good wages for workers. We all love him
in this state, but Mr. Woodson does not earn millions because he is a 34%
proficient cornerback with a strong union behind him.
Mr. Woodson earns millions because he is exceptionally proficient.
He got that way by working harder than his peers, by going the extra mile, by
developing is distinctly unequal talent, by refusing to conform to the common
denominator, by rejecting equality of outcome, and by taking heat from coaches
who cared enough to push him to greatness.
He does not share his excess speed with those less speedy, and he does
not get paid on a seniority scale negotiated collectively by Mark Tauscher
based on averaging their times in the 40.
Proficiency is the common denominator for all high-income
earners; they are extremely proficient at what they do, whether it is Charles
Woodson, Oprah Winfrey, the Koch brothers, George Soros, or Lady Gaga. Their
compensation is determined by the value they add. Proficiency is how all compensation is
determined in the private sector, from the busboy up to the CEO. Imperfectly, to be certain.
Few, if any, of Wisconsin’s
eighth graders are going to grow up and win the Heisman Trophy, host their own
talk show, build a multi-billion dollar business, corner the markets on
currency derivatives, or sell millions of dance records. Most of them will try to find a decent job in
the private sector, where their earnings will be determined by their
proficiency, and where we do not grade on the curve.
The engineer’s calculations must be correct, not politically
correct. The proposal writer can not
thumb-type “OMG r u k w/price lol :-)” on company letterhead and expect that to
win his firm a multi-million dollar bid.
Nobody cares how the architect feels about her design that the client hated, the
salesman does not get a chance to come back and improve his presentation, and
your lawyer won’t win your patent case because it’s his turn. We don’t all
finish together in the real world.
Do the public schools prepare our children to survive and thrive
in this world where their earnings will be determined by their proficiency? Clearly not. Wisconsin’s
middle class is not disappearing because one party or another is in a majority;
it is disappearing because un-proficient people are not worth middle-class
wages. But it is a lot easier to curse at
capitalists and China
than it is to face the truth.
Anyone who has actually been to China comes back with a fuller
appreciation for the true nature of the economic threat posed by that rival nation. China is not a land of coulee labor
chained to benches in dingy sweatshops hunched slaving over pennies for hours
on end. China
is mile after mile of gleaming new factories full of new high-technology
equipment, clean as a clinic, efficient as all get-out, and full of energetic,
smiling, young faces proud of their productivity and their rapid climb up the
income scale.
Those factories were designed by Chinese industrial
architects, and built by Chinese skilled tradesmen operating Chinese-made
cranes and heavy equipment. The machines
and assembly lines were designed by Chinese engineers and built by Chinese
craftsmen. The skilled workers who
operate and maintain the machinery are Chinese, the trainers are Chinese, the
inspectors are Chinese, and the management is Chinese. The capital to invest in these productive
factories is Chinese, the surplus product of a 50% savings rate; the banks that
finance the development and working capital are Chinese.
All those smart, proficient Chinese people are the product
of Chinese schools. Children start
school at 7 years of age, and complete 9 years of compulsory education – 8
hours per day, 5 days a week, 10 months per year. 60% of curriculum is devoted to math and reading
(Chinese). At the end of each school
year, tests must be passed to advance to the next year. Teachers must have a
2-year certificate to teach, and local boards control local schools.
Students who do not grasp lessons stand in front of the
class to be tutored by the teachers and other students until they learn. Parents are required to come to school and
take notes when children are ill. The
expectation is that every single child will learn to be fully proficient, and
they are. A University of Michigan
study reported that Chinese students perceive the classroom as competitive and
teacher-controlled and they are happy about it.
Proficient people are happy people.
Our public education industry would – and do - say they are
doing it all wrong over in China. And when Chinese students placed 1st
in math and reading comprehension in last year’s standardized PISA testing,
while the U.S. ranked 31st in math and 17th in reading,
our educators scoffed at the very notion that their work could be measured by
testing. Arne Duncan told us that
teaching was not the cause of our dismal showing, admonishing us that “it’s
complicated.”
Yes, it is clearly too complicated for Secretary Duncan and
the public education industry, who have ruined our public school system by
turning it into a social science laboratory experiment gone horribly
wrong. That is exactly why they should
not be allowed to run it any more.
But it is apparently not too complicated for the Chinese, nor
was it too complicated for our parents and grandparents and several previous
generations of Americans who managed to do make us proficient at a fraction of
the cost, without the benefit of our modern technology, and without collective
bargaining for benefits and work rules.
We are Americans; and we can beat the Chinese,
because freedom was invented here and only copied there. Choice and
competition will save our schools, and saving our
schools will save our kids, and saving our kids will save our state and
our
nation so that generations of Americans can all live free and prosper. That’s why Wisconsin matters.
“Moment Of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian
writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D. Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.com to find your moment and
order his new book, “Tooth Fairy Government.”
"Choice and competition will save our schools, and saving our schools will save our kids, and saving our kids will save our state and our nation so that generations of Americans can all live free and prosper. That’s why Wisconsin matters."
ReplyDeleteI used to teach Science. Students that attended my classes on a regular basis earned grade A to C. My curriculum was not watered down for anyone! I don't believe in the "feel good" grades that showed themselves in the mid 80s. Worse thing to happen to education ever. And in only a few years we will become a 3rd World Country because our kids can't compete and neither can their parents. I wish I saw the glass half full but after 23 years in Education I have only seen a handful of truly qualified individuals in Administration or Teaching positions. I know I sound like a snob but this is the truth as I know it! No sugar coating here, unless of course your teaching children about crystal formation by having them make Rock Candy!
ReplyDeleteMy son goes to an excellent school here in Eau Claire. Excellent by local standards anyway, but when I see how we're doing on an international scale my eyes are opened a little more.
ReplyDeleteI have determined to take an even greater role in my kids' education. I will run summer sessions for them myself to make sure they're competitive and put them in private school if I can afford it. There is no aspect of life in which I can count on gov't to get it right.
If your argument is true. And we believe in the free hand of the market. If we want better teachers then we need to pay a competitive salary and let competition drive the best to the schools, instead of lower pay driving them to the private sector. Let the market forces get better teachers. More pay for teacher instead of less pay then will produce better results, per your argument.
ReplyDeleteI agree; the whole education system needs an overhaul. However, I also agree with Secretary Duncan that it is in fact "complicated." No Child Left Behind is an oxymoron. A paper written in 2006 by teachers at Columbia University states, "No goal can simultaneously be challenging to and achievable by all students across the entire achievement distribution." This same paper goes on to show that even the highest scoring country (Singapore) in math and science (in 2003), when compared to NCLB's proficiency standard, still has 25% non-proficiency rate. The link for the pdf is ridiculously long, but if you Google:
ReplyDelete'Proficiency for All' – An Oxymoron
By Richard Rothstein, Rebecca Jacobsen, and Tamara Wilder you should be able to find it. I realize your moment of clarity is not specific to NCLB, but the proficiency standard to which we're holding our students is flawed. As a teacher who works with students with special needs, I find it offensive that the law doesn't account for natural human variability.
The current system is antiquated. It was created during an agrarian-industrial era and no longer reflects the preparation required for America's youth. I'm not sure how to improve the system, but it's a BIG system and will take a long time.
So many things need to be changed to better our education system. But I stand with you on the competative issue. While in elementary school my children were forced to go to sessions with the school counselor because they were too competative. They always wanted to be first, to get the best grade, to finish their work first and correct. I could not and still can not see the fault there. I was told they needed to be more compasionate and to take turns being first. I was told they needed to let some of the other kids have a chance to be first. I told the counselor that her thinking was flawed. I thought if my child was always coming in first then they should be finding better competition for my child.
ReplyDeleteSo... I would personally like to make the most money I can for my hard earned skills. Which means I'm working for a wage that I am worth and at a place where I am challenged to always do better. Who do you know that goes to college that really wants to earn $33,000 a year? You'll get the best by paying competitave wages. Who teaches our kids? Some people who love kids and then those people who just collect a check and could care less and blame it on the parents because they would never make it in the real world.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe we will take our kids to a ball game for instance and sit and watch while drinking soda, eating popcorn and pretzels for a $100 or more for a few hours and we won't pay a few dollars into a system that can teach them about our world. We just forgive the pro athletes bad decisions and support them even more just because they can play ball? That is an example of supporting the rich and we love it. We do. Americans sit around all day and talk about what others do. I need to see a solution. Where are the solutions? If what we have isnt working what is the solution?
@south - I would ask you to read a previous post called "Plan B" to get an idea of how public education can be improved through choice and competition. Start with abolishing the federal Dept of education, devolve power back to local school boards, parents, and teachers, leave the money in the classroom, dump state-wide unions and get out of the way. There is no doubt that schools would rebound and fast.
ReplyDeleteOne thing everyone forget when you look at our schools testing to other countries is that in most of those countries they do not send everyone on to high school. Then again in some they do not get past the 6th grade, while only the brightest go to high school and the rest go to a trade school. here no matter what the learning ability is of the child we send them on to high school.
ReplyDeleteNext many of the country also do their schooling grades for their kids by the kids mental age and not the physical age. That is to say the first grad can have 5, 6, --10 year old in it. The kids enter school when they brain is ready not their body. Here we send them when their body is of a set age. Then when the child is not learning, no matter how much extra help he is given and we go to hold them back, the parent jumps all over the teachers.
We have set up a system to push the kids on and tied the hands of our teacher. yet we want to blame them for it going wrong.
how many of you take the time to work with your kids every night like my wife and I did?
No I am not a teacher, I am a combat disabled army officer. I spent time help my grade school teacher when she asked, did boy and girl scoots and other things with my kids plus my job.