The Grosse Pointe News published my response to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy’s guest editorial, “Michigan’s very best schools only “above average’” in their October 14th edition.
Caveat emptor if standardized test results, reduced costs are the primary goals of education
Submitted to the Grosse Pointe News by Brendan Walsh
In last week’s Guest Opinion, Mackinac Center director of education policy Michael Van Beek presented an argument that Grosse Pointe and other Michigan K-12 school districts with highly respected reputations are only “above average” when compared to international counterparts. The remedy proposed is schools of choice which should somehow reduce costs and increase standardized test scores.
The argument’s foundation is a study sponsored by the George W. Bush Institute called the “Global Report Card” in which school choice advocates Jay P. Green and Josh McGee execute a statistical hop, skip and jump from state, to national to international assessments to conclude that traditional public schools are a poor alternative to a school of choice model of education. Their report did not expound, however, on whether those same higher scoring international counterparts have adopted schools of choice themselves.
The Bush Institute authors freely acknowledged a breadth of “statistical assumptions” that would invalidate their findings, or at least call them into question. Of course disclaimers don’t make great headlines. Other statisticians have tested those statistical assumptions and found the self-titled “Global Report Card” to be highly questionable if not ridiculous.
Nevertheless, other means already exist to compare standardized test results globally. The Programme for International Assessment (PISA) has long provided the means to do so. The most recent results showed U.S. students in middle of the pack among industrialized nations.
The National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) disaggregated the PISA results by socioeconomic makeup. Finland, the current PISA wunderkind, posted the leading average score of 536 to the U.S.’s 500. Finland’s poverty rate is a mere 3.4%, a striking contrast to the U.S.’s 21.7%. Among the PISA participating countries reporting poverty rates, the U.S. reported the highest by far. Oddly it’s the test score gap rather than the poverty gap that has garnered all the attention.
The NASSP study reported that among U.S. schools with a poverty rate of less than 10%, the average PISA score was 551, leaving the Finns in the snow. Among schools with a poverty rate between 10% and 25%, when compared to nations with a similar level, U.S. students again had the highest PISA scores.
Poverty matters on standardized tests on the state, national, and international levels. But such details are not convenient to the “education reformer” narrative that would have you believe test scores are the only way we should judge our schools. Poverty is dismissed as a factor affecting performance. The results are then exploited as a basis for reforms, typically characterized by reduced funding and increased school of choice.
Reformers should recognize the cost savings goals are being achieved without mandated school choice. Grosse Pointe Schools’ general fund tax revenues are down over $10 million in the last five years. And in case Mr. Van Beek missed the clues in his visit to Grosse Pointe, we don’t want mandated schools of choice, despite its free-market birthright.
No one would accuse renowned management consultant Dr. Edward Deming of not being a free-market enthusiast. One of Deming’s “7 Deadly Diseases of Management” is running a company “on visible figures alone.” If this is a disease, the test and punish approach of state and national educational policy has rendered us nearly terminal.
High stakes testing has been the norm now for over ten years. Is this is effective policy or the might it be a major source of the problem itself?
Extrinsic motivation to chase higher standardized tests scores and reduce costs need not be mutually exclusive of intrinsic motivation to nurture life-long learners and creative problem solvers who contribute to our democratic society. But when strategies to achieve extrinsic goals eclipses and impedes our means to accomplish our intrinsic goals, the war is lost. This is the battle raging today.
The good news is that we still have a modicum of local control. Yes, let’s strive for continuous improvement, but allow intrinsic goals of public education to be our primary driver. Educational attainment measured by standardized tests has its place, but so do many other measurable and immeasurable characteristics exhibited by so many great public school systems.
Our community is passionate and united in demanding the best education for our youth. Let us trust what we are experiencing in our school system as a result of knowledgeable, caring parents and staff who need not be told by those whose extrinsic motivation for public education dominate their formation of policy or who claim to know better than we do about what is best for our children and our community.
Brendan Walsh is treasurer of the Grosse Pointe Public School System Board of Education, but the opinions expressed here are his alone.