Education Myths

With the recent publication of Jay Greene’s book Education Myths, the Cato Institute was able to host a debate between the author and Howard Nelson from the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) on September 13, 2005. The debate was intense, but mostly cordial; while there was some agreement, the differences regarding improvement in education were striking.

While there are so many harmful myths, Jay Greene believed that the “Money Myth” had to be addressed first. He showed quotes from the New York Times, the National Education Association, and other liberal organizations that make the point that “Schools perform poorly because they need more money.” Greene noted that nation real per-pupil spending increased from $4,479 in the 1971-1972 school year to $8,922 in the 2001-2002 school year. This number continues to increase and is approaching $10,000 dollars per-pupil. Since per-pupil spending has increased, even as inflation is factored into the equation, the question should be, had parents and students got their money’s worth over the last 30 years. Why are we now spending over 500 billion dollars on education annually without much to show for it?

Greene measures success through the National Assessment of Education Process (NAEP). This program is often called the nation’s report card; it is widely used as a source from both parties on education progress. Under the current command structure, the National Center on Education Statistics, which is part of the U.S. Department of Education, is responsible for the NAEP project. The guidelines of NAEP are set by the bipartisan National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB), whose members are appointed by the Secretary of Education, but independent of the department.

According to its official website, the test scores in reading have remained relatively flat among 17-year-olds from 285 in 1971 to 285 in 2004. The math scores among 17-year-olds only improved slightly from 304 in 1973 to 307 in 2004. There were higher improvements in scores amongst 9-year-olds and 13-year-olds, but not enough to justify the lack of significant progress when per-pupil spending has almost doubled. If anyone wishes to dispute Greene’s conclusions, here’s the link to the NAEP website: http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/ltt/results2004/.

While Greene does not dispute that education money can be spent wisely, he is clearly unconvinced that money in education has been spent well. With test scores stagnant and no significant improvement in graduation rates, Greene’s book makes people wonder where all that money is really going.

The second myth is the “College Access Myth.” According to Greene, the idea is that poor people in general and minorities in particular are not getting enough aid in tuition and affirmative action to be able to get into college. Greene counters this myth with the fact that 4 million people enter high school; although 2.8 million of them graduate, studies show that only 1.3 million people will have had the college prep courses and basic literacy to be able to attend an accredited university. In the very next sentence, he states that only 1.3 million people enter college directly from high school.

The last myth the author talks about is the “Draining Myth,” which comes from the idea that, “school choice harms public schools.” According to Greene, there is a direct relationship between the threat of issuing vouchers to students in a failing school and the speed of progress within education; schools with a greater threat of losing students to voucher programs work harder to retain students by showing improvement in their ability to educate children.

At that time, Howard Nelson from the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) was able to respond, beginning with the comment that Greene is propagating conservative myths. Since his organization represents teachers, he argues that teachers are often accused of pushing their special interests while the conservative interests that Greene is representing are not emphasized in his book.

While Nelson did not get nearly as much time to respond to all of Greene’s points, he tried to emphasize that education in the last few years has improved, citing several sources, and he claimed that AFT was leading the charge in the movement toward standards and accountability in education.

Robert Zapesochny is a Fellow at the American Journalism Center, a joint program of Accuracy in the Media and Accuracy in Academia.