Education Spending

Edspresso presents a great piece about education spending by Linda Gorman. The most common solution offered by politicians and teachers unions about education achievement, or rather the lack thereof, is to spend more money. Throwing money at the problem rarely solves anything because money is a band-aid rather than a treatment of the problem's root causes. Gorman discusses a great example of wrong-headed education spending:

In exchange for a "Performance Promise," voters approved a $20 million bond issue for Jefferson County (Colorado) Public Schools to be used on projects that, according to the District’s web site, "have been proven to increase student achievement - smaller classes, classroom coaches, staff development, extended learning and individualized attention."

Gorman goes on to describe the foundations of the bond issue and then turns to what actually does increase student achievement (and it is not money-at least not directly):

Teacher quality, not class size, is what school districts should improve. Especially teacher quality defined in terms of increases in student performance, rather than by years of teacher education or experience. In one large city school district, good teachers have raised student performance by 1½ grade equivalents in a single academic year. (Bad teachers got only ½ of a grade equivalent.) At this performance level, 5 excellent teachers in a row would erase the standard performance level difference between children from high and low-income families: excellence in teaching can overcome less fortunate family circumstances.

Jefferson County Public School officials would say that the Performance Promise addressed teacher quality by funding staff development. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that the kind of training endorsed by Schools of Education, public school districts, and teachers’ unions, does anything to improve student achievement. According to the Jefferson County Public Schools web site, staff development courses include such gems as "Making Sense of Algebra, Grades K-2" and "Gender Equity in the Mathematics Classroom 4-8." Given that second graders ought to be mastering their multiplication tables, and that gender studies have never helped anyone master fractions or decimal equivalents, Jeffco money would be better spent on bonuses to teachers with high verbal abilities and deep knowledge of the academic subject they teach. These attributes, not certification, master’s degrees, or continuing education in education, best predict individual teacher productivity. The best predictors of teacher productivity are good communication skills and strong subject matter knowledge.

I must admit, that this is the first time I have seen mention of communication skills as a predictor of teacher productivity, I suppose because I have always assumed that such skills would be a basic cornerstone of teaching. But it does make me wonder, with all of those touchy feely staff development courses, are there any courses on improving communication skills.

Let me give an example from my own profession, law. When a new attorney joins a firm of any size, one of the many things that young attorney must shoehorn into their limited free time is professional development courses. Without exception, those courses focus on, surprise, surprise, communication skills (particularly writing) and subject matter knowledge.

Now I am fairly sure that Gorman choose the two courses noted above for their shock value, but I would not be surprised if the courses were not unusually extreme examples of the somewhat useless professional development teachers must endure. More than one blogging teacher has expressed frustration at the irrelevance of many of the staff development projects.

So if the predictors of teacher quality and productivity are subject matter knowledge and communication skills, why are not the staff development courses required by the school system and paid for by the taxpayers not focused on those two areas? The answer I fear lies with some not particularly solid education research.

This is symptomatic of a much larger issue in education spending, a lack of understanding of what is smart and effective spending and what is not. While the Jefferson County initiative was premised on a good idea, a performance promise for more money to be spent on education, the programs to increase achievement ignored what really works. Again, instead of measuring what is effective, Jefferson County school leaders implemented what was "popular" or "politically correct" or even politically expedient.

Unfortuneately, the voters of Jefferson County can't get a refund on the bond and now face reduced education spending because the performance promise was not kept--again.