Bottom Ranking Alert
January 18th, 2008The Reno Gazette Journal was quick to report on a new survey that ranks Nevada poorly - they note that we’re “bottom ten” on a measure comparing equitable funding between all the school districts in each state. They ran the story under the headling “Nevada among worst 10 states in 2005 spending for poor, minority schools, according to new report”
Here’s the report, published by “Education Trust.” It’s well crafted and enlightening. You won’t find a link on the Gazette Journal’s website, since reading it reveals the Gazette Journal’s profound confusion over what the report says.
Some highlights about Nevada:
- The way we run public education continues to show overall poor results.
- Our asian and white students show stronger academic ability than our black and hispanic students.
- Black and hispanic students are improving their abilities, more so in elementary school than middle school.
- Nevada’s”achievement gaps” - differences between academic ability by race - is about average amongst states
- Our “achievement gap” between poor and non-poor children is well below the national average.
Clearly, there’s a lot of data to digest here.
But the Reno Gazette Journal focused in on an essentially meaningless aspect of the report - differences between funding in poorer and wealthier school districts in Nevada.
Nevada has more than 90% of its children in only two school districts, and has only 17 all together. The only state that has a higher percentage of its children in a smaller number of school districts is Hawaii, which has only one statewide school district. However, geography has already broken Hawaii up by islands, so their system is by definition decentralized.
And sure enough, if you look at Hawaii’s report from Education Trust, it is two pages shorter than all the other states - because they don’t compare school districts within the state.
Common sense says Education Trust really shouldn’t have published comparisons between school districts for Nevada either. Yet, that’s the aspect of the report the Gazette Journal seized.
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January 19th, 2008 at 6:03 am
I guess it’s all about what data and who is crunching the data. Just in the past two weeks, the R-J ran an article covering the Education Week “Quality Counts Report 2008.” The report gave Nevada an overall score of D+. Remember this story?
When one takes a look at the data in the edweek.org report, their conclusion is significantly different from the Ed Trust report.
Education Week, supported by Pew Research, concluded that when it comes to Nevada funding:
Nevada’s ‘wealth neutrality score’ [Relationship between district funding and local property wealth] ranks second in the nation;
On the ‘McKloone Index’ [actual spending as percent needed to bring all students to a median level] we rank first in the nation;
And, on the ‘Coefficient of Variation’ [amount of disparity spending in districts across the state] we rank sixteenth in the nation.
Read it all here in the report; edweekreport
January 19th, 2008 at 6:08 am
These state by state comparisons of spending on public “education” are meaningless. Educational achievement in public schools throughout this nation is abysmal.
By comparison, private schools and home schooling produce literacy rates far above the average product turned out by the public system. At far less cost!
The problem isn’t lack of money. The problem is central government and local bureaucratic meddling. The current public mandatory schooling system is a complete dismal failure. It should be scrapped and turned over to the private sector.
January 19th, 2008 at 7:55 am
The only thing these educrats can measure is money. If you asked them to measure out a gallon of milk, they would be lost. Nationwide, education spending and education results are almost completely independent variables.
January 19th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Why is it every time education comes up short in funds they claim it will effect the students education and learning? The educational staffs seem to be using the students as intimidating leverage to fight their battle. New schools are built looking like castles with huge parking lots. Schools seem to have more and more extra programs many of which are “nice to have” programs but certainly not necessary to ensure a solid education for the students.
January 20th, 2008 at 11:43 am
I feel that the reson why private and home schooling is more effective than public schools is that the parents take an active part in the childs education. The techniques for teaching the three r’s is not that difficult. However in the public schools this teaching is hindered by the time required for government maindated PC course work and the handling of problem students.
The schools get about 7 percent of their funding froom the federal govt. If we were to drop this support, we could afford to get rid of half of the administration staff and still have money money for teaching. The children would be the main to benifit by having more time for the 3 r’s.
January 26th, 2008 at 10:24 am
Harry is right. Funding levels have no correlation to student results. In fact, it appears that there is a negative correlation (evidence the lack of success over the last 60 years versus the vast increase in expenditures). The only factor is the desire of the student to work hard and study. This is a direct factor of parent involvement. Private schools require a personal financial commitment from the parents. Government schools do not. It is far easier for parents to ignore their responsibilities if they do not have to at least take responsibility to pay for their kids education (or educate them at home, or, for the best results, a combination of both). If America does not wake up to this reality, education will continue to cost more and be less effective. I will only mention the top-heavy administrations in Government schools compared to private schools, but costs are rampant here.
OK, so Government schools have to take everyone. But why? Why should we invest in students who do not invest (through effort) in themselves. This system is madness, and doomed to failure…all at a great cost.