As if we needed more evidence, new data released Tuesday shows the disheartening level of skills of the American worker compared with those in other developed countries. An assessment by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development shows that U.S. adults are near the bottom of the 23 participating countries in terms of literacy, numeracy and problem solving.
Although this is the first international comparison of adult math and reading skills, this is what we have been hearing about U.S.
Op-Ed
FoxNews.com.
Fixing our schools could fix our debt crisis, too
By Paul E Peterson, Eric A. Hanushek
Published September 13, 2013 | FoxNews.com
As Congress debates ways of controlling a burdensome national debt that threatens to blow through 100% of GDP, one way of correcting the long-term trend projected for the rest of the 21st Century is systematically ignored.
The Wall Street Journal.
The Vital Link of Education and Prosperity
By Paul E Peterson, Eric A. Hanushek
Published September 11, 2013 | The Wall Street Journal
Americans are aware of public education's many failures—the elevated high-school dropout rates, the need for remedial work among entering college students. One metric in particular stands out: Only 32% of U.S. high-school students are proficient in math on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
The Hill.
Our schools are neither excellent nor equitable, but we allow this to continue with just lip service about the problem. If we allow another three decades of slow movement on dealing with these issues, it will have profound implications for America’s economic and social well-being. These problems cannot be swept under the rug if America and our children are to realize their full potential.
Our schools are neither excellent nor equitable, but we allow this to continue with just lip service about the problem.
Education Week.
COMMENTARY
Why Educators' Wages Must Be Revamped Now
By Eric A. Hanushek
It is no secret that some school districts spend their money better than others. One can easily find groups of districts with the same student demographics and with the same expenditure levels producing very different levels of student achievement. Put another way, some (many?) districts are spending more than they need to spend, based on what other districts show is possible. Economists would summarize this as indicating the existence of considerable inefficiency in the operation of schools.
San Jose Mercury News.
When asked to propose ways to deal with budget cuts, the National Park Service famously proposed closing the Washington Monument, and this tactic of choosing the most egregious conceivable action as a way of forestalling budget cuts is enshrined in budgeting lore.
But now California is moving to displace this symbol of governmental malfeasance with a much more harmful ploy: If you will not give us the money we want for schools, we will close them down.
Wall Street Journal.
Education is the Key to a Healthy Economy:
If we fail to reform K-12 schools, we will have slow growth and more income inequality.
By George P. Shultz
And Eric A. Hanushek
In addressing our current fiscal and economic woes, too often we neglect a key ingredient of our nation’s economic future—the human capital produced by our K-12 school system. An improved education system would lead to a dramatically different future for the U.S., because educational outcomes strongly affect economic growth and the distribution of income.
Education Week.
Liberals and conservatives alike have made "weighted student funding" a core idea of their reform prescriptions. Both groups see such weighted funding as providing more dollars to the specific schools they tend to focus upon, and both see it as inspiring improved achievement through newfound political pressures. Unfortunately, both groups are very likely wrong.
Schools will not improve until there are greater incentives for improving student achievement. Redistributing funds across schools or increasing the funding to schools by themselves will not magically put us on this path.
New York Daily News.
Nobody would ever advocate making personnel decisions through public posting of evaluations in the
newspaper. The public release of value-added scores for more than 12,000 New York City teachers, set for
Friday morning, should not be taken as a model for how to run the human resource departments of the
schools.
But that is not what is going on here.
Education Week.
The teachers’ unions have put themselves in a difficult position, with Wisconsin, Indiana, and Ohio demonstrating that the traditional labor stance is untenable. So far, media attention to the union story has focused on the fiscal side—state deficits, teacher-benefit packages, and the like. Without question, these are important issues, but they are dwarfed by the implications for teacher effectiveness and improved student achievement.