Buildingpalooza

February 11, 2009

fancy-church  shack

An underfunded regular public school; a money-draining charter school

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

I can see that school buildings are going to be a big topic for us for the foreseeable future. There’s the feds’ desperate need to blow money on something, anything, in the “recovery” bill (they’re no longer even bothering to call it a “stimulus” bill, apparently). And Jay’s post on school construction last week generated some interesting conversation in the comment thread.

Then last week opponents of the bill had a lot of fun spotlighting its provision of $89 million for school construction in Milwaukee, despite the fact that Milwaukee has had major enrollment declines leading to lots of empty and “underused” buildings, its buildings are deemed to be in good condition, the city has no plans for any construction projects, and just last year it had a major scandal centering around the waste of tens of millions of dollars in construction funding.

But here’s something I don’t think anyone outside Milwaukee has highlighted yet. In the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s story on the funding, somebody at the paper (presumably a bemused editor) inserted the following subtitle above a section of the story:

What is “Construction”?

Somebody get Socrates on the line, because it’s a good question. As a commenter pointed out on Jay’s post last week, once money goes into the system, we can’t be sure what it really gets spent on. We know how much money was budgeted for “construction,” but typically there’s nobody checking to see what was actually bought with those “construction” funds.

Sure enough, the Journal Sentinel quotes a state Democratic spokesperson saying that all of that yummy yummy swag for “school construction” could legitimately be spent on “school modernization.”

Next month’s headline: “What is ‘School Modernization’?”

Do these sound like conditions under which the money will be spent wisely? And don’t kid yourself that Milwaukee is somehow a special exception, and the stimulus money is going to be well spent elsewhere.

Suppose you don’t believe the vast mountain of empirical research that Jay cited last week. Let’s just drop all that science into the toilet bowl and flush. Even so, can anyone believe that money will be well used when it’s handed over to a system that has no real transparency, much less effective oversight, never mind accountability for results – and that is run by people who also just happen to derive political power by diverting school funding into an enormous gravy train of featherbedding, pork, etc.?

If we’re dumb enough to hand over the money under those circumstances, why would they not divert it to the gravy train? I’m amazed the schools in the government monopoly system aren’t even worse than they are.

But wait. There’s yet another school building story on the horizon. This one broke out in the edreformblogosphere just yesterday.

stlouisarch

They built it with surplus “school construction” money

Like Milwaukee and pretty much every other city, St. Louis has long-term declining enrollment, but that didn’t stop it from pouring tons of money into school construction over the past few decades. Now St. Louis has a bunch of empty school buildings it needs to unload, so it’s going to sell them off.

But not everyone is allowed to bid on the empty school buildings. Joanne Jacobs puts it succinctly: “The school board has banned sales of buildings to liquor stores, landfills, distilleries, sex shops and charter schools.”

Read that again: Liquor stores, landfills, distilleries, sex shops and charter schools.

Not much more to say, is there? Charters are the one sector of the government-owned education system that is 1) growing fast, 2) willing to take on the most disadvantaged, toughest-to-teach kids, and 3) producing improved results, and they do it with less money – especially less construction money! – than the regular system. But they aren’t allowed to buy – not take for free, but buy, as in purchase at market value, by paying actual money – the city’s empty buildings.

drive-thru-liquorlandfill

distilleryPT006149

Some typical St. Louis charter schools

I’m with Matt – if the system’s defenders don’t realize they’re destroying millions of children’s lives in order to funnel money to a corrupt gravy train, it’s only because they don’t want to know.

10 Comments | charter schools, money myth, school funding | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster

Jay Praises the Stimulus!

February 4, 2009

billy-bragg-talking-with-the-taxman

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

Don’t miss Jay’s article on NRO this morning praising the stimulus bill – that is, celebrating the fact that the stimulus isn’t even worse than it actually is.

As Jay reminds us, the Democrats made big promises about expanding preschool. The enormous slab of edu-pork in the stimulus bill could easily have been designed to lay the groundwork for fulfilling those promises, but it doesn’t:

Of course, if this money isn’t really going to help children learn, it would be best if we didn’t spend it at all. But Congress seems determined to burn giant piles of cash in the hopes that its warm glow will stimulate us. Given the circumstances, it’s some consolation that the current education stimulus won’t force us to burn larger and larger piles of cash forever into the future.

Burning large piles of cash, eh? Hmm. Sounds familiar.

2 Comments | economics, money myth | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster

On School Spending, Palin’s Palein’ Again

February 4, 2009

sarah-palin

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

Back in October, I gritted my teeth and, against my inclinations, pointed out that as governor, Sarah Palin cozied up to the teachers’ unions and loved to brag about how much money she threw at schools. Never mind that the schools never got better; it played well to the media, and even more to the great “mushy middle” (in Charles Krauthammer’s wonderful phrase) that likes to make public policy based on what feels good, not on what gets results.

Then she endorsed vouchers and directly promised to push for a specified voucher plan if elected, which of course was big news. Vouchers have consistently produced academic gains whenever they’ve been tried and scientifically evaluated, and are by far the most promising reform for improving education for all students, as everyone who cares to know already knows. I tried to do justice to both sides of the story by noting that both Palin and Obama were trying to have it both ways on education.

Now she’s going back to her roots. She’s not for the stimulus, and she’s not against it (UPDATE: oops, see below). Her only position on the stimulus is that the bill doesn’t throw enough money at Alaska, and specifically that “the stimulus package rewards states for not planning when it comes to prioritizing for things like education, as Alaska has planned ahead by forward-funding 21 percent of our General Fund dollars for this very important priority. It appears only those states that did not plan ahead with education will benefit. States like Alaska should not be punished for being responsible; yet that’s what the plan means for Alaska right now” (HT Jim Geraghty).

Meanwhile, as Alaska faces a billion-dollar shortfall, she’s pushing to build a road to Nome that will cost up to $2 billion. I’m sure that has nothing to do with a desire to have “shovel ready” projects at hand, ready to shovel into the maw of the federal “stimulus” sugar daddy.

National Review‘s Greg Pollowitz was the first to dub it the “road to Nome-where.”

I hate being the designated Palin critic of the education reform movement. When I’m with my education reform comrades, I’m usually the only Republican in the room. And I’m much more Sarah Palin’s kind of Republican than, say, Mitt Romney’s, much less John McCain’s. But somebody’s got to point this stuff out.

Does anybody want to take over the job?

UPDATE: I wanted to check on this before posting it. I’ve confirmed that, in addition to usually being the only Republican in the room when I’m working on education reform, I’m also the only Republican on this blog. (Matt specifically requested that I describe him as a “disgusted former Republican.” Duly noted.)

UPDATE to the UPDATE: Wouldn’t you know it? She just put out a statement saying she agrees with the decision of Alaska’s Senators to vote “no” on the stimulus. I saw it just two hours after I posted this. But she adds that a stimulus “is needed” and plumps again for mo money, mo money, mo money!

2 Comments | economics, money myth, politics | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster

Building Without Foundation of Evidence

February 1, 2009

This is the model for new school construction. (HT: Arkansas Project)

 I understand why House Democrats included $20 billion for school construction in the $819 billion stimulus package they passed last week.  They need to throw money out the window as fast as the printing presses can make it.  That way they can say they are doing something to “help” the economy.  And as long as they are doing something they might as well help their friends in the educational industrial complex.

What I don’t understand is why some normally smart people feel compelled to justify this school construction spending by claiming that it will help students or that it is badly needed.  There is no evidence to support these claims.  That’s why I was surprised to see Sara Mead, senior research fellow at the New America Foundation, write:

“But perhaps the most important reason to invest in school construction is that our students need it. Just as Americans have underinvested in our bridges, roads, and other infrastructure, we’ve also underinvested in our education infrastructure. The American Society of Civil Engineers Infrastructure report card gives our school buildings a grade of D — lower than grades for bridges, rail, or public transit infrastructure. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, it would cost $127 billion just to renovate and repair crumbling or outdated school facilities to good condition. Poor school facilities don’t necessarily prevent students from learning, but, it’s unconscionable that we currently ask students to learn, and teachers to work, in buildings that are overcrowded, inadequately heated and ventilated, poorly maintained, and in some cases literally falling apart. The contrast between schools and other buildings sends our most disadvantaged children a devastating message about the value we place on their education.”

As readers of JPGB may recall, the research literature finds no relationship between school facilities and student achievement (outside of developing countries, where a grass hut and mud floor may be a hindrance in bad weather).  To repeat: “In the Handbook of the Economics of Education, Eric Hanushek reviews all of the research meeting minimal quality standards regarding the relationship between school facilities and student performance.  He identifies 91 analyses on the issue in the U.S. and finds that 86% of them show no statistically significant relationship.  Of the remaining 14% of analyses that did show significant effects, 9% were positive and 5% were negative. ”

If the evidence generally fails to find that better school facilities improve student outcomes, it’s not clear how Sara Mead can support claims like “our students need it” or that current facilities send “a devastating message about the value we place on their education.”  If it has no effect on their learning, how devastating could it be?

Perhaps Sara Mead relies upon the assessments from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to support her claims.  Let’s look into those references a little further to see whether we should believe them or believe the research reviewed by Rick Hanushek.

The ASCE grade of D-  for school infrastructure is in a report card issued by the interest group representing engineers who design public infrastructure.  To determine the grades ASCE “assembled a panel of 24 of the nation’s leading civil engineers” who then reviewed other reports and surveys of civil engineers.  I would be more specific about their methodology, but they provide almost no information about their methods or standards.  Their entire description of the methodology consists of 5 sentences.  You can read it yourself to see.

In the 2009 report card they actually gave school infrastructure a D.  But don’t worry, that is the average grade they gave to the 15 categories of public infrastructure they graded, which ranged from C+ to D -.  They also determined that we need to spend $2.2 trillion (with a T!) on public infrastructure.  How exactly did they determine that?  Again, the five sentences describing their methodology didn’t exactly explain all that.  But since they are a lobby group representing engineers who work on public infrastructure projects, I’m sure we can just trust their expert judgment that we urgently need to spend $2.2 trillion on what they do.

Using the NCES to support a need for $127 billion in school construction spending is hardly more persuasive.  To be precise, the NCES did not determine the amount that needs to be spent on schools.  They just surveyed school district officials and in the survey asked the school officials how much money they thought needed to be spent on their schools to bring them to “good” condition.  The NCES does not represent this result as their own opinion; they portray it as the opinion of the people they surveyed.

Again, asking people who are the potential beneficiaries of public spending whether they need more money without any standards to define their “need” is unlikely to be a reliable method. 

To illustrate the point, I’ve conducted a survey of “experts” on JPGB – the regular contributors — to determine the resources we would need from the federal bailout to bring the blog “into good overall condition.”  One respondent identified the need for martinis, cigars, and a few Vegas junkets to improve our creative process.  Another identified the need for a board game marathon only interrupted by Indian food buffet binges to sharpen our intellect.  And another agreed with the first two and added  the need for a spaceship, pony, and a lifetime supply of spicy wings and candy.  (You can guess who’s who.)

I think I’m going to trust Hanushek’s assessment of 91 analyses that meet social science standards over the self-serving assessments of school officials and and a construction lobbying organization.  If you disagree, then I expect that you’ll support our demands to add JPGB to the bailout since, after all, the “evidence” clearly demonstrates our need.

18 Comments | money myth | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

Greg Nails the School Stimulus Proposal

January 18, 2009

Think we should spend $100 billion as part of the new “stimulus” (read: pork) plan on school buildings?  Greg Forster’s piece on Pajamas Media will convince you otherwise.

3 Comments | money myth | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

A Real Education Bailout

January 8, 2009

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

Over on NRO, Petrilli, Finn and Hess note that yet another radical expansion of federal education funding is reportedly being considered for inclusion in the “stimulus” package, e.g. in addition to building lots of roads and bridges, we’ll build lots of schools.

PFH (as I’ll call them for short) note that more spending has not only proven itself an ineffective way to improve schools, but may actually even harm them:

Naturally, the leaders of any organization would rather sidestep problems than confront them. In good times, budgets expand, payrolls grow, new people come on board, and managers delay difficult decisions. Tough times come to serve as a healthful (if sour) tonic, forcing leaders to identify priorities and giving them political cover to trim the fat.

So instead of more money, they advocate less:

Education, then, cries out for a good belt-tightening. A truly tough budget situation would force and enable administrators to take those steps. They could rethink staffing, take a hard look at class sizes, trim ineffective personnel, shrink payrolls, consolidate tiny school districts, replace some workers with technology, weigh cost-effective alternatives to popular practices, reexamine statutes governing pensions and tenure, and demand concessions from the myriad education unions.

And while we’re at it, I’d like a pony, and a spaceship, and a million dollars.

One thing they don’t point out is that “stimulus” spending, like all pork, is notorious for going to politically useful projects rather than to projects that serve the public interest. Just because you spend more money building bridges doesn’t mean you get the bridges that you actually need. Never mind the “bridge to nowhere” – remember that big bridge collapse in Minneapolis a while back? In the immediate aftermath, some liberals rushed to blame the deaths on hard-hearted budget cutters. But it later came out that plenty of money was being spent on road and bridge repair, but it didn’t go to the bridge that needed it, despite the bridge having been rated “structurally deficient” for two whole years.

PFH then go on to ask:

Is there a way to make the impending bailout actually help those kids as well as the nation? Team Obama and its Congressional allies could take a page out of the Troubled Assets Relief Program playbook and require the various education interest groups to “take a haircut,” just like auto workers, investors, and shareholders have had to do. As the auto bailout required the U.A.W. to forfeit its beloved “jobs bank,” states taking federal dollars could be required to overhaul their tenure laws, ban “last hired, first fired” rules, experiment with pay-for-performance, make life easier for charter schools, and curb unrealistic pension promises.

I’m not in a position to throw stones since I’ve advocated the same thing, but I’m not holding my breath.

Next on their wish list, inexplicably, is a big pile of money for summer programs. If there’s any research showing that summer programs are a good investment, they don’t cite it. To their credit, they insist that solid empirical evaluation should be a condition of the money. But if we want to set up big new federally funded pilot programs for educational innovations, why not do it for an innovation that is solidly proven to work in many limited trials but has never been tried on a larger scale?

They also wish for better data systems (who doesn’t?) and, as always, whether it’s relevant to the topic or not, “national standards.” About the latter, our own Matt Ladner has already given us what I think is really the last word.

(link added)

4 Comments | money myth, politics | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster

Matthew Miller: There’s got to be a pony in there somewhere!

December 29, 2008

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

Matthew Miller writes in the New York Times the federal government should provide a massive new infusion of cash for K-12 schools, but with a group of beneficent strings attached. This time, we’re bound to get it right.

<Insert Einstein’s now cliched definition of insanity about here>

1 Comment | money myth, NCLB | Permalink
Posted by matthewladner

School Voucher Mythbusters

December 17, 2008

mythbusters_collection3

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

A while back, I posted this to help people find comprehensive lists of the research on various subjects related to school vouchers. It’s a list of lists – in case you’re looking for a list of all the available research on whether vouchers improve education for the kids who use them, or whether they improve public schools, and so forth. Some of the lists are more scholarly and contain a lot of technical information, while some are presented in a more easily accessible format.

Well, here’s a big update on the list-of-lists front: the Friedman Foundation has released a set of “myth buster” guides to the research on the six most common school choice myths. For each myth they’ve provided a brief, handy reference sheet and a slightly longer, more detailed guide to the research. Even the detailed version of each myth buster is still less technical than the other lists on my “meta-list” page, compiled by Jay and other scholars, but it does go over the most important technical issues (how do we distinguish the impact of vouchers from the impact of other factors like family influence?) and provides the references you’ll need to dig further if you wish.

 

Myth: Vouchers hurt public schools and take the best and brightest.

Research: Short version, detailed version.

 

Myth: Private schools aren’t really better than public schools.

Research: Short version, detailed version.

 

Myth: Vouchers will lead to increased segregation.

Research: Short version, detailed version.

 

Myth: Private schools are hostile to tolerance and democratic values.

Research: Short version, detailed version.

 

Myth: Vouchers are costly and drain money from public schools.

Research: Short version, detailed version.

 

Myth: Private schools exclude difficult students.

Research: Short version, detailed version.

 

Take note that these are true comprehensive lists, including all high-quality studies on each of these questions. I’ve noticed that it’s always voucher supporters who are willing to discuss all the evidence, while voucher opponents typically cherry-pick the evidence, mischaracterize the evidence they’ve cherry-picked, and then falsely accuse voucher supporters of cherry-picking evidence.

So I would say Jay’s theory about why school vouchers keep winning against impossible odds is well supported by the empirical evidence – although in this case I haven’t compiled a comprehensive list.

What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted!
Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just,
And he but naked, though lock’d up in steel
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.

Henry VI, Part II, Act 3, Scene 2

2 Comments | civic values, competitive effects, money myth, school funding, special ed, vouchers | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster

How Much Do We Know About K-12 Education?

December 10, 2008

Some folks in Utah showed how little we know about K-12 education.  And the errors are not random.  People believe we spend less than we really do, that teachers are paid a lot less than they really are, and that our students fare better against students in other countries than they really do.

3 Comments | money myth | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

Violating the Denominator Law

December 2, 2008

Sean Corcoran, who is guest blogging for the blogger formerly known as Eduwonkette, may have to go to education research jail because he violated the Denominator Law today.  For those of you unfamiliar with the Denominator Law from my previous post on the topic (and ignorance of the law is no excuse) it is: “No one should be allowed to highlight numerators without also presenting denominators.  That is, it is often misleading to describe a big number without putting that number in perspective.”

So, Sean is all worried about private donations to public schools creating or exacerbating inequities in funding.  He references a report about California (and it had better be peer-reviewed or the blogger formerly known as Eduwonkette will throw a fit) that finds: “contributions to California school foundations rose from $123 million in 1992 to $238 million in 2001.”  He does helpfully add that $238 million only amounts to $40 per pupil.  But he doesn’t fully comply with the Denominator Law because he fails to point out that $238 million only represents .4% of the $52.2 billion in total public school revenue in California in 2001.

It’s not the average amount of private giving in California that really worries him.  What concerns him is that these donations are concentrated in wealthy areas: “Of course—as Brunner and Imazeki point out—these contributions are far from evenly distributed. Donations are strongly related to family income, and in some cases they are quite high, at more than $250 to $500 per student. (You can read about the $3.3 million education foundation in Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District here).”

Here, your honor, is where he flagrantly breaks the Denominator Law.  He suggests that $250 to $300 per pupil, as illustrated by $3.3 million in private giving to public schools in Santa Monica, is “quite high.”  Without a denominator, it’s hard to judge how high $3.3 million in Santa Monica really is. 

Let me help.  According to the School Matters web site operated by Standard and Poor’s, Santa Monica has 12,191 students.  The private contributions Corcoran mentions amount to $271 per pupil — within his $250 to $300 range.  But total revenue for Santa Monica public schools amounted to $11,062 per pupil as of 2006.  Private contributions of $271 amount to only 2.4% of total revenue — not exactly “quite high.”

And this private giving hardly accounts for resource differences between Santa Monica and the average district in California.  According to School Matters the average district in CA had total revenue of $9,553 as of 2006, $1,509 less than in Santa Monica.  If Santa Monica received $271 in private donations compared to $40 for the average California district, the extra $231 could only account for about 15% of the extra resources Santa Monica possesses. 

If this is the worst case that folks can muster, it hardly seems like private giving is a significant contributor to resource inequities.  We only gain this appropriate perspective when we comply with the Denominator Law — so be sure to follow the law out there.

4 Comments | money myth | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

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