Interesting editorial in the Philadelphia Inquirer about the lack of educational improvement in Pennsylvania, despite the fact that the state spends $4 billion a year on education - more than almost any other state, in fact:
Pennsylvania ranks 19th in [NAEP] fourth-grade reading out of 44 states for which scores are available, close to the middle of the nation. The state's eighth-grade reading scores look about the same, ranking 20th out of 42 states, according to the assessment test...
At first glance, those test scores may not look too bad - not great, to be sure, but not alarming, either. They look a lot worse when you put them next to the state's gargantuan education budget. Adjusting for cost of living, Pennsylvania's per-pupil education spending ranks third in the nation. Pennsylvania schools are providing a mediocre performance on a top-ranked budget, even before Gov. Rendell's proposed spending increases.
Authors Greg Forster and Marcus Winters, both of the Manhattan Institute, think that accountability, not money, should be the issue driving reforms:
States with tough accountability systems did well on the national tests. Massachusetts led the nation in fourth-grade reading scores and was second in the nation in eighth-grade reading scores, and it achieved this excellence on an education budget that ranks 36th in the nation for per-pupil spending. Virginia ranked sixth in fourth-grade reading and seventh in eighth-grade reading despite a budget that ranks 25th in the nation.
Pennsylvania's state test, the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment, is not used to hold students or schools accountable. Just the opposite, in fact: If schools do badly enough on the test, they are rewarded with additional state funding - rewards that Rendell now proposes increasing. Providing that kind of perverse financial incentive for schools to fail is just the opposite of the approach that works elsewhere.
Posted by kswygert at July 21, 2003 11:30 AM