School Choice or Best Systems_ What Improves Education_ - Margaret C. Wang [2]
Because of poor prior preparation in high school, college graduates perform poorly: This past August [2006], the National Commission on the Future of Higher Education reported that “the quality of student learning—as measured by assessments of college graduates—is declining.” It cited a stunning finding of the National Assessment of Adult Literacy: Only 31 percent of college-educated Americans qualify as “prose literate,” meaning that at they can fully comprehend something as simple as a newspaper story. This number has shrunk from 40 percent a decade ago, apparently because the flood of badly educated new graduates is dragging down the average.7
In addition to being ineffective and inefficient, schools can be dangerous places, particularly those in big cities and those serving predominantly poor and minority students. In a recent poll, 73 percent of low-income parents and 46 percent of higher-income parents said they worried “a lot” about their children’s exposure to drugs and alcohol at school. Similarly, 65 percent of low-income parents and 39 percent of higher-income parents worried a great deal about their children being assaulted or even kidnapped.8
Declining Productivity
U.S. citizens pay more per student for K-12 public education than nearly all other economically advanced countries, and the real (inflation-adjusted) per student costs of that schooling have increased substantially over the last several decades. Additional value is normally expected for additional money, but rising spending hasn’t helped American schools to achieve more.9
The productivity of schools in the United States—the ratio of achievement to spending—is necessarily declining since achievement (the numerator) remains relatively low and spending (the denominator) is rising. It is costing more and more to get similar or worse results. According to research conducted by Harvard University economist Caroline Hoxby, the productivity of public schools in the United States fell between 55 and 73 percent between 1970-71 and 1998-99.10
This ratio underestimates the decline in school productivity because it does not take into account the rise in average scores on intelligence tests designed to measure children’s capacity to succeed in school. This increase is attributable to better nutrition and housing and to rising levels of income, wealth, and intellectual stimulation at home in the last three decades. Productivity should have improved even if the schools did nothing different.11
Academic achievement matters because a country’s achievement test scores in mathematics and science are strongly correlated with and predictive of a country’s economic growth. Economic growth, in turn, is linked to objective measures of a country’s quality of life in such fields as health, housing, and child rearing.12 Thus, poor U.S. achievement test scores are not merely of academic interest. They have real-world consequences for the welfare of millions of children and young adults. Poor schools even threaten older generations whose Social Security and pensions depend on a healthy economy and well-educated workforce.
These problems and prospects have not escaped the notice of employers and citizens. A national Conference Board survey polled 431 employers of recently hired high school and college graduates in