whatever


Random rantiness about whatever interests, engages, and annoys me...

Saturday, March 12, 2011

The best is the worst and the worst is 7th?

In light of the Teachers Union-busting going on in Wisconsin, I got into a discussion with my boss the other day about teacher salaries and the quality of education.  Do higher teacher salaries result in better education?  He said that California pays its teachers the most (true, sort of) and has one of the crappier education ranking in the country (also true, sort of.)  He said he wouldn't mind the high salary if we actually got better education as a result.  Do teacher's salaries reflect improved education results?

So we did some looking.  California has the highest average teacher salary.  However, California also has one of the highest costs of living.  In adjusted salary, that is, adjusted for cost of living, Illinois actually has the highest teacher salaries (California was 17th).

There seems to be no generally agreed upon criteria for exactly how to rank public schools, but the most common way is using standardized test scores from 4th and 8th grade.  You can play with the various rankings here. California was definitely in the lower tier (30th according to one synthesis).  Illinois is also in the lower tier, for that matter (38th, same synthesis).   We discovered, like many before us, that teacher salaries are not the defining factor in educational achievement.

But I did find this web site, while I was looking for state rankings in education.  They popped up first in a search for "education rank by state" on teh google (no quotes used in actual search).  They had this nice interactive map where you could look at each state, and at the bottom a rank of all 50 states + DC:


That's funny.  I thought Stephen was the religious, conservative one, and Alec was the liberal one.

What do they really want?

Our Mission

The mission of the American Legislative Exchange Council is...

...to advance the Jeffersonian principles of free markets, limited government, federalism, and individual liberty, through a nonpartisan public-private partnership of America's state legislators, members of the private sector, the federal government, and general public.

Ha!  Exactly the sorts of principles you want in education - limited government, free market, and federalism!  Let's git us some capitalism in the schools and get rid of federal standards.  Let the states decide for themselves!
 

What could possibly go wrong?


You keep using that word "non-partisan"

Here's the board of directors, a non-partisan group of... well, of republicans. How they can be "non-partisan" when every single one of them is Republican is beyond me.  I thought that was actually the definition of partisan.

 National Chairman 
 Rep. Noble Ellington, Louisiana

First Vice Chairman     

Second Vice Chairman
Rep. Dave Frizzell, Indiana 
Rep. John Piscopo, Connecticut  

Treasurer 

 Secretary
Rep. Linda Upmeyer, Iowa 
Rep. Liston Barfield, South Carolina

 Immediate Past Chairman
 Rep. Tom Craddick, Texas


 Board Members
 Sen. Curt Bramble, Utah
 Rep. Steve McDaniel, Tennessee
 Rep. Harold Brubaker, North Carolina
 Rep. Ray Merrick, Kansas
 Sen. Jim Buck, Indiana
 Sen. Bill Raggio, Nevada
 Sen. Kent Cravens, New Mexico
 Sen. Dean Rhoads, Nevada
 Rep. Jim Ellington, Mississippi
 Sen. Chip Rogers, Georgia
 Sen. Billy Hewes III, Mississippi
 Sen. William Seitz, Ohio
 Spkr. Bill Howell, Virginia
 Rep. Curry Todd, Tennessee
 Sen. Owen Johnson, New York
 Sen. Susan Wagle, Kansas
 Sen. Michael Lamoureux, Arkansas

Yup, every single one is a Republican. A republican who feels that the free market approach is the best approach to education.  I think we should just say to hell with it and throw hospitals and prisons in, too.  Oh, and the police and fire department.  You don't pay, no cops for you.  Plus, think about how much more well run the fire department would be if they had a profit motive, instead of a humanitarian one.

But I didn't even get to the best part.  They rate the states by education achievement. Then they give each state a grade based on education reform the state is planning.  Presumably an "A+" means awesome reforms and an "F" means terrible reforms.  Here's their list:

 Final Performance Rank



 Education Reform Grade

Vermont
Massachusetts
Florida
New Hampshire
New York
Pennsylvania
Kansas
Texas
Montana
New Jersey
Alaska
Virginia
Indiana
Maine
Hawaii
Washington
Colorado
Nevada
Delaware
Maryland
Wisconsin
Idaho
Minnesota
North Dakota
Rhode Island
District of Columbia
Georgia
Wyoming
Connecticut
California
Iowa
Oregon
Nebraska
Missouri
Ohio
Tennessee
Kentucky
Illinois
South Dakota
Alabama
North Carolina
Utah
Oklahoma
Arkansas
Arizona
Mississippi
Louisiana
New Mexico
Michigan
West Virginia
South Carolina
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
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
    
Florida
Colorado
Louisiana
Minnesota
Missouri
New Mexico
South Carolina
Arizona
Arkansas
Idaho
Michigan
Ohio
Indiana
Kentucky
Utah
Washington
Alabama
Alaska
California
Delaware
District of Columbia
Georgia
Hawaii
Illinois
Iowa
Maryland
Massachusetts
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
North Carolina
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
South Dakota
Texas
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming
Connecticut
Virginia
Kansas
Maine
Mississippi
Montana
New York
Nebraska
North Dakota
Rhode Island
Tennessee
Vermont
B+
B
B
B
B
B
B
B-
B-
B-
B-
B-
C+
C+
C+
C+
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C-
C-
D+
D+
D+
D+
D+
D
D
D
D
D

Last is first?

Something just jumped out at me when I looked at this list.  Vermont has, according to ALEC, the best schools in the country.  Yet they get the worst grade for education reform.  What's going on here?   What do they mean education reform?  This doesn't make any sense.

So I clicked on Vermont, and got this PDF, which sums up their complaints about Vermont's school system.
  1. Vermont doesn't have charter schools.  
  2. Vermont makes you go to the school that is in your district.  
  3. Vermont has strict homeschooling regulations.  
  4. Vermont does not allow alternative teacher certification (state certification only).  
  5. They are given an "F" in "identifying high quality teachers", 
  6. a "D" in "retaining effective teachers" 
  7. and another "F" in "removing ineffective teachers". 
In other words, you can't homeschool your kid if you aren't qualified, and you can't get qualified through some dubious "alternative" certification.   Like, say, some whack-job fundamentalist homeschooling course.  Really they are complaining that fundies can't homeschool their kids and teach them a bunch of crap that isn't true.  Plus their teachers probably teach real(ish) history, and real biology, and sex ed, and don't pray in school.  All of which is bad.

If Vermont sucks so bad at choosing their teachers, why do they have the best education scores? According to ALEC's own website, they base the ranking on:
...[T]he overall 2009 scores for low-income children (non-
ELL and/or non-IEP) and their gains/losses on National Assessment
of Educational Progress (NAEP) fourth- and eighth-grade
reading and mathematics exams from 2003 to 2009.
Seems like a pretty reasonable way to rank education systems.  If the poor kids are doing better, you are higher on the list.  As the rich kids always do better than the poor kids, they are doing better too.

It defies logic that the state with the best education is ranked the worst for education practices.  It seems to me that what Vermont is doing is good, as it is working.

Look at New Mexico, my home state.  Consistently horrible rankings in education, yet it gets the 6th best grade for reforms.  South Carolina is dead last in education, but gets the 7th best grade for reform?  What the hell? Louisiana is ranked 47th on low-income children performance but got the 3rd best grade?  These states have sucked education-wise for years.

In fact, five of the top 10 grade recipients are in the bottom 10 of the education ranking .  Of the 10 best schools, only 1 (Florida) is even in the top 25 of ALEC's reform list.  It's almost like to get a good grade you have to be a shitty school.  Wait a minute...
It all makes sense!
I get it!  The problem with Vermont is that its low-income kids are doing well!  In the eyes of ALEC, that's no good.  How will we keep poor people ignorant if we educate them?  Then they might wonder why they are so poor in the first place. 

2 comments:

  1. This was fantastic. It all makes sense now!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Excellent report! There's absolutely no question that ALEC's point of view on education is purely ideological rather than performance based. ALEC is as devoted to quality education as it is dedicated to nonpartisanship.

    ReplyDelete