Just the People You Want Managing Schools

November 6, 2008

Five school districts in Wisconsin have sued their investment advisors after losing $1.5 million on a $2 million investment in collateralized debt obligations.  That’s a 75% loss.  According to the lawsuit, the investment was “complex, convoluted, and opaque, and as Stifel and RBC then well knew, beyond the investment knowledge or experience of the School Districts . . . , their school board members, and their administrators.” 

Complex?  Convoluted?  Opaque? That sounds like just the thing that school officials should put the public’s money in.

But don’t worry.  It’s not their fault that they did something foolish.  It was the fault of the people who sold it to them and they are asking the courts to return the money.  And if that doesn’t work, they’ll just take it from you in future taxes.

I wonder if school officials can do the same if they select foolish educational policies.  If that faddish whole language reading curriculum didn’t work can they sue the people who sold it to them to get their money back?

This all reminds me of a great Shel Silverstein poem:

 Smart

My dad gave me one dollar bill

‘Cause I’m his smartest son,

And I swapped it for two shiny quarters

‘Cause two is more than one!

And then I took the quarters

And traded them to Lou

For three dimes—I guess he don’t know

That three is more than two!

Just then, along came old blind Bates

And just ‘cause he can’t see

He gave me four nickels for my three dimes,

And four is more than three!

And I took the nickels to Hiram Coombs

Down at the seed-feed store,

And the fool gave me five pennies for them,

And five is more than four!

And then I went and showed my dad,

And he got red in the cheeks

And closed his eyes and shook his head—

Too proud of me to speak!

Leave a Comment » | economics, scandal | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

Why I Vote on Election Day

November 4, 2008

 

A bunch of my friends and family have voted early.  Not me.  I’m voting on election day.  Why?

Look, let’s be clear that it doesn’t make any sense to vote if your goal is to determine the outcome of the election.  The probability that the outcome would be tied in the absence of your vote is so remote as to not be worth your time bothering.  And even in the extremely unlikely event that the margin in a presidential election were 1 vote, the outcome would almost certainly be decided by a handful of unelected judges rather than your vote.  We’ve already seen that even if the margin is a few hundred votes, there is enough imprecision in the casting and counting of votes that the courts will really determine the outcome. 

I know, I know, you can say that if everyone thought that way, no one would vote.  But that’s entirely beside the point.  The self-interested rational thing to do if you are only concerned with determining the outcome is to urge everyone else to vote and save yourself the effort. 

So why vote if it is irrational to expect that your vote will be the deciding one?  Rational people don’t vote to break what they otherwise expect to be a tie.  They vote because it is part of a social, communal experience. 

And that is exactly why I am voting on election day and not early.  I want to go to the polling place, visit with my neighbors, and drink some bad coffee.  Voting is like doing the wave at a football game.  It almost certainly has no effect on the game.  It’s purpose is to participate and enjoy the social feeling of being part of something.  It makes no more sense to vote early than to do the wave while watching the game at home on your TV.  Voting, like doing the wave, is a social experience whose benefits depend upon context.

Besides, politics is becoming more like sports everyday.  People choose teams and root for them, even if there is no obvious benefit to them for doing so.  They watch the returns like looking at the boxscore.  So, I want to be at the game when I vote, just like I’m going to be at Bud Walton Arena, the basketball palace of mid-America, to watch the Razorbacks.  I want to call the Hogs with the crowd.  I want to see them raise the Arkansas flag banner behind the pyramid of cheerleaders (it brings a tear to my eye, everytime).

6 Comments | politics | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

Want to Pass A Local School Tax Increase? Open Charters

November 3, 2008

Here’s a neat piece of research posted at Heny Levin’s National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education.  The study is actually by Arnold Shober and it examines whether the presence of charter schools in a district affects the likelihood that voters will support a local school tax increase. 

It has been getting more and more difficult to obtain local support for school tax increases.  But, Shober wonders, might it be easier to pass a school tax referenda in communities that have more options paid by tax dollars?  Maybe people more satisfied with the quality and diversity of publicly-financed schools, including charter options, are more willing to provide extra tax dollars for all schools.

As it turns out, Shober finds that they do.  He analyzed data from 1,111 school tax referenda in Wisconsin between 1998 and 2005.  He concludes:

“Adding one charter school to the district that has none increases the likelihood of passage 4.1 percent; increasing the number of charter schools from 0 to 8 (the maximum for these data) increases the likelihood of passage 30.2 percent second only to the effect of a college-educated electorate (below). This suggests that charter schools do have some bearing on how votes perceive a school district’s responsiveness to active-parent demands. Indeed, authorizing charter schools is the only variable in this analysis that a school district’s administration could directly manipulate (save the actual ballot request).”

It seems that restricting families’ options and forcing them to attend dirstrict schools whether those schools serve their kids well or not is not the best strategy to get those same families to cough up more dough for the public school system.  People are more likely to be supportive of a public school system that helps them find schools that work for their kids — even if those schools are charters.

2 Comments | charter schools, competitive effects | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

Obama Wins Arkansas!

October 31, 2008

… at least in the mock election held in many Arkansas schools.  According to the Northwest Arkansas Times, “Statewide, Obama won the mock election for Arkansas with 49, 088 votes, compared to 34, 393 for McCain.”  Does this mean anything for Tuesday’s outcome in the state?  I doubt it.  McCain holds a double-digit lead in multiple polls in the state.  But who knows?

Leave a Comment » | politics | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

John J. Miller Smacks Half Sigma

October 29, 2008

National Review columnist John J. Miller smacks a blogger known as “Half Sigma” for “dis”ing special education vouchers.  Half Sigma wrote: “Republicans applaud themselves for doing stuff that the left has been pushing for. We nominated a woman for Vice President. How wonderful of us. The female candidate talks about how she’s going to help “special needs” children, and the so-called conservatives applaud the conservatism of it. How wonderful of us. We are going to fight global warming. How wonderful of us.”

Miller then responds on The Corner: “I love those sneer quotes around “special needs.” Would it be better if we called them “retards”?

But that’s just a style point. The substance itself is vaporous. Sarah Palin — oops! “the female candidate” — is calling for the voucherization of special-education spending. This is a very good idea. It’s modeled on one of Jeb Bush’s best market-oriented reforms in Florida, where McKay Scholarships have gotten kids out of lousy public schools and into good private ones, saving taxpayer dollars in the process. School choice has been an elusive public-policy goal of conservatives for a long time; this is a promising path to securing more of it. I urge you to read NRO’s editorial; also this NRO article by Jay Greeneand my article in the Oct. 20 NRODT.”

Besides, The Notorious JPG and DJ Super-Awesome may give Half Sigma a whooping for not having read the post about how bloggers shouldn’t have rapper names

2 Comments | special ed, vouchers | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

The Infinte Regress

October 29, 2008

There is no problem to which more education is not the proposed solution.  Teachers aren’t as effective as they should be?  Increase professional development.  Professional development isn’t as effective as it should be?  Increase training for providers of professional development.  Wash.  Rinse.  Repeat.

So, when Mathematica found that intensive mentoring for first year teachers had no effect on those teachers’ practices or their students’ academic achievement, what did folks have to say?  Improve the training of the mentors. 

Similarly, when Mathematica evaluated a broad range of education technology in schools they found: “Test scores were not significantly higher in classrooms using selected reading and mathematics software products. Test scores in treatment classrooms that were randomly assigned to use products did not differ from test scores in control classrooms by statistically significant margins.”  But, critics of the study said that it “didn’t take into account the critical factors of proper implementation and curriculum integration, professional development for teachers, planning, or infrastructure issues, among others. ”  That is, the results would be better if only we provided more education to teachers and administrators to implement the technology appropriately.  Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

And again when the Department of Education’s evaluation of Reading First showed no advantage for students’ reading achievement, others responded that the schools studied had not properly implemented the program or trained their teachers.

The problem with offering more education as the solution to each failure is that it assumes that the only thing educators are lacking is knowledge of the right thing to do.  If only we bother to tell them, educators are hungry to learn the right thing and implement it well.  But as I’ve argued in the past, educators are also lacking the motivation to learn these techniques and implement them well.

All of these interventions — mentoring, technology, and increased reliance on phonics — may very well be desirable.  But unless we address the incentives that educators have to identify effective practices, learn them, and use them well, no amount of additional education will solve the problem.

18 Comments | instructional reform | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

Paying the Pension Piper

October 27, 2008

According to an analysis of public (including teacher) pensions by Northern Trust reported in the Washington Post, those pensions lost 14.8% of their value for the year ended September 30.  They have almost certainly lost more during October in line with the continuing drop in stock prices. 

The decline only compounds a serious problem.  Even before this year’s market fall many teacher pension plans were under-funded.  According to the Post, the GAO concluded that 27 out of 65 large public pensions were inadequately funded as of 2006.

The problem, according to pension administrators cited in the article, stems in part from “an increase in pension benefits.”  That is, when the market is doing great and pension funds are flush, state policymakers are tempted to accede to teacher demands to raise benefits.  But when the market drops, the pension benefits cannot be cut.  It’s a one-way street.  Pension benefits may be increased but it is illegal to decrease them.

So, guess who is going to have to pay the pension piper?  Taxpayers.

UPDATE:  Teacher pensions also distort the labor market for teachers by having “spikes” and “valleys” in benefits.  That is, teachers leave a large amount of money on the table if they leave their positions too early and they actually begin to lose pension benefits if they remain in their job too long.  The net effect is to keep some teachers who have lost their fire for teaching in the profession too long and to drive effective and experienced teachers out of the profession too early.  See a great piece on this by my colleagues Bob Costrell and Mike Podgursky in Education Next.

Leave a Comment » | teacher pay, teacher quality | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

Why Are School Construction Costs So High?

October 27, 2008

I don’t know the answer but I really think this is a topic worth exploring.  And my attention has been focused on the question by a local debate over building a new high school in Fayetteville, AR.

What I do know is that according to the 34th Annual Official Education Construction Report the median new school built in 2007 cost $188 per sq. ft. for elementary schools, $211 per sq. ft. for middle schools, and $175 per sq. ft. for high schools. By comparison, the median cost per square foot to build a three story factory in 2007 ranged from $83 in Winston-Salem to $136 in NY City, with most major metro areas hovering around $100 per square foot.  Schools cost almost double what it costs to build a three-story factory and even more than what it costs to build houses. 

Why does it cost so much?  Part of the answer is that schools are more likely to be mandated to have Project Labor Agreements (PLAs), which require the use of unionized construction workers.  Schools built with PLAs cost about $30 more per square foot according to studies conducted in Connecticut and Massachusetts. 

Some of the higher cost can be attributed to gold-plating in the school building codes.  In Florida, for example, the increase in school building code requirements following Hurricane Andrew added $500,000 to the cost of each elementary school and $2 million for each high school over a decade ago.  Every school was expected to withstand 150 mph winds rather than 121 mph and to double the thickness of the concrete roof to 4 inches.  Of course, it’s always hard to argue against the safety of school buildings, but remember that kids are not in schools when hurricanes hit.  Schools are usually closed a day or two before a hurricane is expected.  It’s true that schools may be used as shelters, but not every school needs to be a shelter.  Requiring that every school meet the highest standard for any building is a way to exploit our concern for kids’ safety to drive school construction costs up.

In addition to the price per square foot, there is also the question of how many square feet we need.  The average new school has between 100 and 158 square feet per student, depending on the grade level.  But state requirements for square footage are increasing based on the argument that “schools need more space than they did 20 years ago.”  That may be, but some states, such as Minnesota, require as many as 200 to 320 sq. ft. per student for small high schools.  The Har-Ber high school that I described in my last post has 198.25 square feet per student.  At about 200 sq. ft. per student we could teach a class of 25 kids in a 5,000 square foot mansion.  And at an average cost of $23,873 per student for new high school construction, we could build that 5,000 square foot mansion for those 25 students for around $600K. 

Not bad.  Now if only we could teach students well-enough so that they could earn their own $600K house.

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

Palin Backs Special Ed Vouchers

October 24, 2008

In a speech in Pittsburgh today, Governor Palin endorsed the idea of special ed vouchers saying, “In a McCain-Palin administration, we will put the educational choices for special needs children in the right hands — their parents’. Under reforms that I will lead as vice president, the parents and caretakers of children with physical or mental disabilities will be able to send that boy or girl to the school of their choice — public or private.

Under our reforms, federal funding for every special needs child will follow that child. Some states have begun to apply this principle already, as in Florida’s McKay Scholarship program. That program allows for choices and a quality of education that should be available to parents in every state, for every child with special needs.”

1 Comment | politics, special ed, vouchers | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

Buildings Don’t Teach Kids, People Do

October 23, 2008

Matt wrote about black-market private schools in the third world housed in open-air shacks on the same day that newspapers reported that my local school board in Fayetteville, AR wants to re-build the high school so that we have a “21st Century” facility. 

While it is better not to have schools in open-air shacks, I can’t understand why people think we need educational palaces to teach our children.  Buildings don’t teach kids.  People do. 

We should invest much more in ensuring that we attract, retain, and motivate the best people as teachers rather than in “21st Century” facilities (whatever that blather means).  The systematic evidence overwhelmingly shows that the quality of school facilities in the United States has no relationship to student achievement, while the quality of teachers is very strongly related.  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. 

Research from developing countries told a different story.  Of the 34 analyses he identified on the relationship between school facilities and student performance in developing countries 65% showed significantly positive effects, 9% significantly negative, and 26% not statistically significant.  Clearly there is some level of building quality below which student achievement suffers.  But school buildings in the United States are nowhere near that threshold where the facility makes a significant difference.  The kids in the open-air shacks would probably benefit from an environment that screened out noise and dust more effectively, but almost all kids in the U.S. are in buildings that meet the minimum requirements for student learning even if they are not all luxurious.

But I suspect that is the problem in Fayetteville.  Just up the highway in Springdale, they recently built a Taj Mahal of a high school, called Har-Ber.  The marble-floored interior is pictured above.  Here is the giant-columned exterior: (Web site with photos was taken down, but you can still view pictures of the school here: http://www.wddarchitects.com/ )

Har-Ber was built for about $37 million, or about $93 per square foot.  People in Fayetteville had been talking about building a new school for more than twice that amount.  In our version of keeping up with the Joneses, some folks in town fear that the superior academic reputation of Fayetteville High School could be eclipsed if we don’t top the Har-Ber building.

Yes, Fayetteville High School is half a century old.  Yes, its cafeteria and auditorium are too small.  But there are smarter and less costly ways of addressing those problems than temporarily housing students elsewhere while we spend tens of millions to build a new one.  How about if we just build a new cafeteria and auditorium?  The recently completed appraisal of the facility said that it was in “excellent condition,” so why do we have to tear it all down and build a shinier new one? 

And how about if we take some of the money that we were willing to spend on a shiny new building and invest it intelligently in recruiting, retaining, and motivating the best teachers?

As a separate matter, someone needs to look into why exactly school buildings cost so much.  The average cost for housing construction in the area is $55.10 per square foot compared to $93 at Har-Ber and who knows what at the potential new Fayetteville High School.  My guess is that school construction firms have effective lobbies that insert all sorts of gold-plating and burdensome requirements into school building codes.  Doing so limits possible bidders who could meet all of those requirements while it drives up the construction profit.  And I imagine that most of those requirements have nothing to do with educational necessity or realistic student health and safety.

(edited for typos and pictures currently unavailable from source site but can be viewed here: http://www.wddarchitects.com/)

9 Comments | money myth, teacher quality | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

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