Marginal Revolution: Policy phonics

October
S	M	T	W	Th	F	St
			1	2	3	4
5	6	7	8	9	10	11
12	13	14	15	16	17	18
19	20	21	22	23	24	25
26	27	28	29	30	31

« Short podcast of me | Main | The Credit Snobs »

Policy phonics

I have a novel approach to solving this problem: I propose we . . . pay schools on the basis of their ability to educate these children. I plan to call this system something nifty and new-economy, like . . . a market. That has an edgy, new-millenial kind of feel, doesn't it? I think it's the juxtaposition of the hard-edged k and t sounds with the soft, sensuous labials of the first syllable.

Here is more.

Posted by Tyler Cowen on March 20, 2007 at 04:57 PM in Education | Permalink

Comments

I think this is the more notable quote: Children... have positive rights. They have a right to be fed, educated, clothed, sheltered, and given medical care on someone else's dime.

Posted by: eriks at Mar 20, 2007 5:28:56 PM

My only problem with this, which spills over from the discussion of for
profit universities that do not grant tenure and focus only on teaching,
is how do you measure it and how do you do so without skewing incentives
in not-necessarily desirable ways.

To be precise, we already have this
to some degree with the No Child Left Behind Act as it is implemented
in many states. Thus, in Virginia it is carried out in associations
with the previously (when George Allen was governor) established
Standards of Learning, which involve standardized tests of students.
So, now schools that are marginal on this test will spend all their
time teaching to the somewhat narrow and simple-minded tests, or their
schools will lose funding. Goody.

Also, there is the problem of
English as a second language. Schools must test students in English,
which discriminates against schools with high percentages of kids
for whom English is a second language. Supposedly they should be
taught English, but we now have a setup where the schools that have
the greatest need of funding to teach English are in danger of getting
it cut off because they have the greatest need of teaching English.

So, I am not commenting over there on Jane Galt's blog, but I do get
a bit tired of hearing all this palaver about funding tied to outcomes,
when the people calling for this either do not say how outcomes are to
be measured or then do not recognize the endogenous problems that arise
the minute one sets down a particular measure on which all these payments
will be based.

Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Mar 20, 2007 5:54:40 PM

That particular quote from McArdle is a good example of the sort of sophomoric smart-assery that turns this liberal away from most libertarian blogs.

Posted by: The Other Brock at Mar 20, 2007 6:05:55 PM

A teacher friend of mine started talking about "SOL", which I usually associate with "sh** out of luck", but she really meant "Standards of Learning".

To address the measurement of teaching, tests should see how much a student _learned_ over a year, rather than how much they _know_.

Perhaps every grade should have to take the SAT every year (a good and stable test that reasonably predicts college scholastic achievement potential).

Schools should be "graded" on the improvement of their students SAT test scores each year, not the total score, but the year-on-year delta.

For economic education grading, students should also be given $1000 each year to invest as they please, with the invesment gains and losses for each grade reported. Teachers will receive 20% of their students investment gains.

Posted by: Mr. Econotarian at Mar 20, 2007 6:30:56 PM

First graders should take the SAT?

It's all about performance measurement. Private schools face the same problem. They solve it by selection.

Posted by: Andy at Mar 20, 2007 6:34:46 PM

what I found most unappealing about megan's essays is what I find unappealing about most libertarians: they are know it alls. they have an answer to everything. its like a broken record: "free markets, more competition, less restrictions, blah, blah, blah".

additionally, according to megan, because they don't get paid much and have short hours, the profession attracts the stupidest and laziest college graduates. her whole argument seems a bit immature, like that of many libertarians who lock themselves in their apartments and read ayn rand and contemplate on how much superior they are to everyone else.

Posted by: thehova at Mar 20, 2007 8:20:48 PM

"her whole argument seems a bit immature, like that of many libertarians who lock themselves in their apartments and read ayn rand and contemplate on how much superior they are to everyone else."

Oh, sweet irony.

Posted by: stanfo at Mar 20, 2007 8:50:42 PM

So, now schools that are marginal on this test will spend all their
time teaching to the somewhat narrow and simple-minded tests, or their
schools will lose funding.

Umm, that's a feature, not a bug.

The intent of the law is that the first priority of schools is that every kid should be able to pass a basic reading test and a basic maths test.

If a school is failing to achieve that first priority, then they are failing. Their response is meant to be that they will shift resources into teaching to the narrow-minded and simple tests. If the kids can't pass narrow-minded and simple tests there is no reason to believe they'd pass broad-minded, complicated tests.
Oh, and schools that fail don't lose funding. They get restructured. and the kids can go to other schools.

To address the measurement of teaching, tests should see how much a student _learned_ over a year, rather than how much they _know_.

This depends on what the point of teaching is. For example, driving instruction testing should be on what a would-be-driver knows, not on how much they have learnt. Equally, if you think the first priority of a school should be to bring everyone up to a basic standard on reading and basic maths, then this method would mean that teachers would have an incentive to spend time on fast learning kids who already could pass the test, when they would be better to spend time on getting the slower-learning kids over the line.

Posted by: Tracy W at Mar 20, 2007 9:48:16 PM

Tracy W

Are you talking about what is done in Virginia
or about some ideal plan you have in your mind?
In Virginia, the school systems lose the money,
and there may be no other school system around
that they can go to. Send them somewhere else
while the schools restructure is not what happens.

Your point that for some things one might want to
test for improvement somehow or other, while for
others one may be interested in absolute levels
is reasonable. But, which subjects are which and
who is to decide and what instruments will they use?

Whatever instrument is used, the system will focus
on satisfying that instrument and nothing else. I
would suggest that this is instantly narrowing. It
may be OK for dealing with the worst off students,
but for the rest it is deadly dull. Everybody in
Virginia knows that you do not want to send your kid
to some school where they are worried about whether
they are meeting the standards or not, because unless
your kid is a moron, the school will be garbage, a
dump full of rote memorization of narrow material and
nothing else.

Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Mar 20, 2007 10:03:25 PM

I think the market idea is important, and non-libertarians like me shouldn't take as "sophomoric smartassery" what is apparently directed at "tax-as-theft" libertarians. (From scanning the comments, it seems that Jane's making an argument that needs making.)
But vouchers and punishing failing schools aside, I think Jane is making precisely the right point: teachers are in no way paid enough for what they do, so market forces give you low-quality teachers. I will never become a primary school teacher because the pay is simply awful weighed against the incredible hours teachers put in, and in difficult work.

Posted by: Joe Viola at Mar 20, 2007 10:27:45 PM

That is a novel idea.

I say we pay the Defense Department using the same...market.

The way I figure, they owe us a $500 billion refund.

Posted by: alphie at Mar 20, 2007 10:54:58 PM

"I think Jane is making precisely the right point: teachers are in no way paid enough for what they do, so market forces give you low-quality teachers."

I don't know. I don't have a link for you, but I've seen research cited that shows that teachers in private schools, where people actually choose to send their kids, are paid much less on average than teachers in public schools. That would suggest to me that pay isn't the issue.

Posted by: kebko at Mar 21, 2007 12:40:59 AM

One question that I have about all of these counterarguments about "real learning" versus "memorizing a lot of facts."

What exactly is the point of early education... high school aside, other than to learn basic facts like multiplication tables, world geography, how to read, vocabulary improvement, basic animal names and maybe habitats, and to get skills in how to continue increasing the number of facts that you know in the future?

When did learning suddenly become so violently divorced from "factual knowledge" and what is the fuzzy and intangible idea of "really learning" that liberals and teachers' unions in particular scream and rant and cry and bemoan the lack of in the accountability systems that underly the evaluation systems (tests, performance evals, etc) of things like the SOLs and NCLB?

Seriously, a straight answer would be nice, because in all the blogside and real life bickering about this issue i have had to sit through or been a party to, I have yet to hear a coherent or even marginal answer about how education, especially elementary and to a large extent middle-school/junior high education can't be boiled down into testable facts and memorization.

And as far as I know no primary-junior high schools are giving standardized tests in vocational or research/theory-based classes where the "learning ability" is somehow not intrinsically tied to the ability of an instructor to convey facts and evaluate students in their grasp, competence, or uninterest and refusal to learn said facts. Really!

Posted by: Neal at Mar 21, 2007 1:40:59 AM

The HSs in my area are pretty good.

That being said, they have their problems and decided to double up on reading and math, and what happened???

The lowest are improving, there was a jump of almost 20% in reading, IIRC.

NCLB is doing what it was supposed to do -- at least they're starting to satisfy something/someone. The system needed a good swift kick and NCLB gave it.

As to rote memorization, it worked for generations and I thought the math academy finally agreed this new-new-new math was wrong and rote should be brought back.

I have run into too many who can't even make change if the computer is down.

Spending $12K/yr per HS student, and they can't make change.

Posted by: Sandy P at Mar 21, 2007 1:50:47 AM

Megan McArdle/Jane Galt is exactly right. And here's why it's vitally important.

Posted by: c at Mar 21, 2007 2:06:33 AM

I am a big fan of Asymmetrical Information, but it's always amazing, as a teacher, to come across blog posts like that one. She writes about education the way I expect archaeologists of the year 3000 to write about today--authoritative opinions based on distant observation. What does she know, first hand, of the problems of education? How much time has she spent trying to teach the unwilling? How often has she tried to convey the causes of WWI to a child who has an IQ of 65? When she's successfully solved these and other problems, or at least shows some sign that she's seen such issues personally, then I'll find such posts less glib and annoying.

Neal--that's a very, very long story. There has been a war in education for a long time over that issue, and the progressives who rule the education roost do not care at all for the essentialist position you seem to favor. There are many reasons why they dislike it, and most of them are bogus. It's always fun to be an AP teacher in a meeting with those types of people who think, literally, that facts are unimportant to know because in the internet age information is accessible instantly. But my pet theory--very much boiled down--is that the curriculum you advocate requires teachers who know the material themselves very well, and those people are increasingly hard to come by. You can't be a "sage on the stage" if you aren't a sage in the first place! Hence, the project-based/inquiry based/progressive "guide on side" mentality which advocates "critical thinking skills" (usually that's code for "your children aren't learning anything.") in place of the learning of a key set of basic facts.

Posted by: CMC79 at Mar 21, 2007 2:34:57 AM

The truth is that the only government policy that will have an inevitable impact on long term school performance is immigration policy. Import more highly skilled people and/or fewer unskilled people and in the long run you will have higher scoring students.

Posted by: Steve Sailer at Mar 21, 2007 2:37:11 AM

Barkley Rosser - I am talking about under the NCLB.

Politicians are the ones who get to decide what tests should be pass-fail, and what subjects they should cover, and etc. This is because politicians are the people elected by the taxpayers who pay for schools and are the taxypayers' representatives. We are of course free to offer politicians all sorts of unsolicitated advice.

Schools do not need to resort to boring rote learning and neglecting most of their students to pass the tests. Indeed, these methods may indeed be counter-productive to achieving the goal. The alternative is Direct Instruction (note capitals).

See http://www.projectpro.com/ICR/Research/DI/Summary.htm

Posted by: Tracy W at Mar 22, 2007 12:09:22 AM

If you cut funding for the schools that obviously need it the most, how could one expect them to ever improve? It seems that cutting their funding would only sentence them to a form of education that simply would not prepare it's students for the real world. Teachers have one of the most important jobs, pay them more to do an already difficult job, and I'm sure the results would be satisfactory.

Posted by: Katie at Mar 26, 2007 7:28:24 PM

liqingchao 07年8月21日

google排名
 google排名
 wow gold
wow gold
powerleveling
powerleveling
wow gold
wow gold
powerleveling
powerleveling
wow powerleveling
wow powerleveling
wow power leveling
wow power leveling
wow power level
wow power level
world of warcraft powerleveling
world of warcraft powerleveling
world of warcraft power leveling
world of warcraft power leveling