Another myth of the education establishment goes down
PRI in the News
By: Chris Reed
9.26.2007
Defenders of the education status quo use two often-incompatible arguments all the time to keep the focus off teacher quality. The first holds that the quality of education is a function of spending -- the more you spend, the better schools will be. As I noted here, there is vast proof this just isn't true. To recycle: In the past quarter-century, since the "Nation at Risk" federal report called for sharp improvements in public education, per-pupil, inflation-adjusted per-pupil school spending has gone up by more than 70 percent. During that span, schools have made modest if any gains. Indeed, the latest comprehensive National Assessment for Educational Progress tests show high school seniors getting their lowest reading scores since 1992. Let's look specifically at California. In the past decade, inflation-adjusted per-pupil spending has gone up 27 percent. Obviously, if school quality were a function of school spending, our schools would be much better. They're not. The second argument of the education status-quo set is that student performance is largely dependent on socioeconomics -- i.e., kids in wealthier areas will do better on tests, etc., than kids in poorer areas. Now the Pacific Research Institute has blown up this myth. Its new book, "Not as Good as You Think: Why the Middle Class Needs School Choice" ...
... found that in nearly 300 schools in middle class and affluent neighborhoods, more than half of the students in at least one grade level performed below proficiency on the 2006 California Standards Test (CST) -- the statewide test that assesses student grade level knowledge. Many of these schools are located in California's most affluent areas including Orange County, Silicon Valley, and the Los Angeles beach and canyon communities. Studies show that parents are willing to purchase houses well beyond their means for what they believe is an opportunity to send their children to "good" public schools. Not as Good as You Think shatters the myth that buying a home in an expensive neighborhood also buys a "good" public school. ... "While many middle class parents recognize the need for reform in schools located in poor, urban neighborhoods, they are often under the mistaken impression that because they live in safe, well-to-do suburbs, the schools attended by their own children are very good," said Lance T. Izumi, director of Education Studies at PRI and co-author of the book. The authors defined a "middle class" school as one in which less than one-third of the students qualify for California's free or reduced lunch program. The study provides school-by-school data on the percentage of students that performed below proficiency in the CST English, elementary math, algebra 1, geometry, and algebra 2 exams; the median price of the homes in the neighborhood; the percentage of parents who attended college; and the percentage of teachers who have full teaching credentials. Want to know more about the PRI research? Go here.
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