Students should be given several chances in 11th and 12th grade to pass this exam, but the state should not back away from the original intent of these exams. Students should be taught the skills necessary to fare well on such exams. And, in no way should a nationally norm-referenced test be replaced with a criterion referenced test that only compares students to other students in Arkansas.

How sad it would be if Arkansas were to draw into itself and only measure student performance based on its own standards and criteria and without nonmed comparisons to other states and nations. We say on the one hand that we want our children to compete in a global market. And on the other hand, we decide we don't want to know if they can. Education isolationism will ill serve a state wanting desperately to play in national and international markets.

Social Promotion is the practice of passing a student to the next grade level regardless of whether or not he or she has demonstrated a basic grasp of the subjects taught in the current grade. In the era of the self-esteem movement in public education, it is difficult to imagine what could be more damaging to personal esteem. Giving children a false sense of accomplishment and rewarding them for inadequate or failed performance, especially on something as important as their education, is damaging beyond measure.

One example of these consequences occurs in the context of Arkansas' l lth grade exit exam, the ACTAP. On the 1998 test--as previously noted--87% of 11th graders failed the math section. That many of our 11th graders reached this point as a matter of social promotion--when year after year they failed to grasp the fundamental math concepts expressed in the test--is disturbing. But more disturbing, and patently unfair as well, is that we hold our students accountable in the face of our own poor educational practices--including social promotion. For more Arkansans this issue is quickly becoming an intolerable form of educational malpractice. Moreover, when it comes to self-esteem, how do our children feel when so many are told they failed this test after so many years? How do the teachers feel? How does the state feel as a whole?

In the meantime, many of these 11th graders enter Arkansas' colleges and its workforce just a year after the test shows them to be ill-prepared in key subject areas. The effect of this is costly. Both higher education and the private sector spend millions remediating young people who matriculated in this inadequate system. But the long-term economic toll is much greater. The anecdotal evidence is strong in Arkansas that many businesses and industries locating here are well aware of the state's education deficiencies. The loss of business due to this is devastating.

But what about companies that do locate here. One company, wishing to remain anonymous, tells of being given huge concessions and tax breaks to build a plant here. Arkansas' governor at the time, however, held firm that Arkansans should be hired and put to work in constructing the facility--which entailed some very specialized building techniques and use of technology rooted in math and measuring skills. Well into the construction the company discovered the Arkansas workers they hired were deficient both in skills and in work ethic ...but prone to grumble about raises. Ultimately, the company re-negotiated with the state, ate the costs of lost time and mistakes, and ultimately imported qualified workers from their home state (at their own expense) to complete the job--which ran over projected costs due to Arkansas' ill-prepared labor force.

The manager who shared this story says he routinely tells it to other businesses and industries at trade shows. Thus the word goes out on Arkansas and its education system.

Author Charles Sykes, (Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why America's Children Feel Good About Themselves But Can't Read, Write or Spell) points out that educators often seem more worried about depriving children of self-actualization and self-esteem than whether they will graduate dumb. Yet the vast majority of Americans think that "schools should hold students accountable for doing their best," which they define in starkly traditional terms. Polls consistently show that nearly nine out of ten parents do not think that students should be able to graduate from high school "unless they can demonstrate acceptable academic achievement. This according to Sykes.

Paying teachers and their supervisors on the basis of defined performance measures

This National Alliance of Business statement reflects the sentiment of many businesses, parents, and citizens. Coupled with mounting concern over substandard academic performance in many of our schools, it sends educators an unmistakable message. It's only a matter of time before performance pay in education becomes common practice. Many teachers and their unions may prefer not being accountable for student performance and outcomes, but at a time when poor academic performance is the rule rather than the exception in our public schools, this debate will come down on the side of common sense. Count on it.

In Rochester New York, Superintendent Clifford B. Janey links teacher performance to school performance. He says, "an incentive system of accountability for both schools and educators ...is logical, fair, and necessary." Pay raises, he adds, "should not be based solely on time served or the number of academic degrees held, but also on performance as measured by specific standards." Janey debunks three of the more common myths repeatedly cited by teachers and unions as reasons merit or performance pay won't work.

Myth No. 1: An incentive system for teachers would be based solely on students' performance on standardized tests. Student performance is the key measure, but one of several measures on which teacher evaluations should be based, says Janey. Other standards would encompass teaching competency, home and community involvement, and professional development. An incentive system for teachers would be based solely on students' performance on standardized tests. Student performance is the key measure, but one of several measures on which teacher evaluations should be based, says Janey. Other standards would encompass teaching competency, home and community involvement, and professional development.

Myth No 2:An incentive system would create competition rather than cooperation among teachers. Under the Rochester's incentive pay plan, every teacher meeting the standards would be eligible for incentive pay, not just some at the expense of others. It would not be an "either-or" arrangement leading to cut-throat competition and paranoia over stolen lesson plans.An incentive system would create competition rather than cooperation among teachers. Under the Rochester's incentive pay plan, every teacher meeting the standards would be eligible for incentive pay, not just some at the expense of others. It would not be an "either-or" arrangement leading to cut-throat competition and paranoia over stolen lesson plans.

Myth No. 3:Teachers' entire pay would be dependent on performance evaluations. In the Rochester plan, between 60 and 70 percent of each teacher's annual salary increase would be guaranteed contractually. Only 30 to 40 percent of the salary increase depend on a performance evaluation.Teachers' entire pay would be dependent on performance evaluations. In the Rochester plan, between 60 and 70 percent of each teacher's annual salary increase would be guaranteed contractually. Only 30 to 40 percent of the salary increase depend on a performance evaluation.

North Carolina's Speaker of the House, Harold Brubaker, goes further. Brubaker recently fronted a proposal to give the "best" teachers in North Carolina a pay raise 2 to 3 times higher than the raise of other teachers. Brubaker's initiative recognized one of the central flaws in the existing teacher pay system---good teachers, those who go the extra mile and consistently get the best academic performance from their students, are largely unrewarded for their effort.

Teachers' fear of having to compete is especially disturbing. The "no competition" movement that's become philosophically fashionable among educators is a major factor sustaining the abandonment of academics in America's schools. The suggestion, for example, that competing for letter grades will harm students' self-esteem is silly. But when such notions are extended to teachers, the absurdity overwhelms, and their continued resistance comes across as little more than self-serving protectionism at the expense of children and educational quality--a collective "thumbing of the nose" to a nation still at risk.

Under the current system, parents and the public--still generally uninformed and misled about academic performance--are deprived of important indicators of who gets results and who doesn't. But they continue being asked to provide ever-increasing funding for a costly public education system built on a litany of promises, but characterized by little or no improvement over a thirty year period.

Education merit pay is coming because it's just common sense. Citizens are running out of patience with teachers and administrators who refuse to be compensated based on results while delivering consistently poor service and repeatedly asking for more money. It's just that simple.

President Clinton, speaking to the National Governors Association two years ago, acknowledged one of the most serious challenges facing American public education is ending the practice of K-12 teacher tenure. Estimates vary as to how much it can cost taxpayers, on average, to litigate lawsuits brought by teachers who have been fired for cause (often backed by their unions). One recent figure placed the figure at around $150,000, another at more than $200,000. Whatever the case, it is costly to be sure.

Whatever the case--when teachers are not getting the job done, and it appears the numbers are increasing, education managers need the power to remove them. The problem, of course, is lawsuits. Education unions have helped structure teacher contracts and employment laws in such a manner that removing a non-performing teacher is virtually certain to trigger litigation. Principals and superintendents continually point out their desire to upgrade teaching staffs and seek higher quality teachers, but fear of expensive lawsuits restrains them.

Loser pay for educators
There is a solution. Impose upon the public education system in Arkansas a requirement in personnel dispute lawsuits that the loser will pay all attorney fees for both sides. The concept of "loser pay" is common in Great Britain's legal system and has had the effect of virtually ending frivolous lawsuits in that country. It will do the same in Arkansas' education system.

For example, a good teacher, deprived of due process or wrongfully terminated, will unhesitatingly make and win the case. The teacher union, if it's committed to protecting good teachers, will back the lawsuit. And conversely, good teachers who worry that ineffective or politically motivated education managers may treat them unfairly and terminate them without good cause can take some consolation under this system. After all, no reasonable principal or superintendent will try to fire a good teacher without cause when faced with high litigation costs. But conversely, the unions will think twice about throwing resources behind a teacher who is clearly incompetent. It a win/win for education.

It is almost certain that under "loser pay" both the education system and the unions will need to maintain "litigation funds." The good news is that under a loser pay system these funds will not be unnecessarily drawn down due to frivolous lawsuits, or as a result of a litigation flurry motivated by political agendas (as in the case of unions which almost blindly back plaintiffs regardless of merit in the case.)

Require appropriate degrees for subjects taught and permit
qualified non-certified individuals to be retained as teachers

Every child has the right to be taught by teachers who know their subjects well. It is educational malpractice that in the U.S. today a third of high school math teachers and two-fifths of science teachers neither majored nor minored in their teaching subjects while in college. As a matter of sound education policy, Arkansas should require that no one be employed to teach who does not first pass a comprehensive test of subject-matter knowledge. Teaching candidates must also demonstrate their prowess in imparting what they know to children. And yet our public schools, more responsive to union pressures than children's academic health, have not only abandoned these requirements, they regularly resist them.

The best way to increase the number of subject knowledgeable teachers is to open the classroom door to men and women who are well-educated but have not necessarily gone through programs of "teacher education." A NASA scientist, IBM statistician, or even a former state governor may not be traditionally "certified" to teach and yet may have a great deal to offer students. A retired military officer may make a fine middle-school principal. Alternative certification in all its variety should be welcomed, and for schools truly willing to be held accountable for results, certification should be abolished altogether.

Much of the K-12 education debate in local communities and at the state level centers on five key issues: 1) adequacy, 2) equity, 3) productivity, 4) efficiency and 5) accountability. In$ite is currently the nation's only program offering consistent benchmarkable expenditure vs performance information that can support analyses in each of these five areas.

In$ite, developed by Coopers & Lybrand in cooperation with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its workforce preparation program, is PC based software and embodies the cost allocation accounting module of an expanded school accountability and performance program called Class ACT. This suite of programs includes In$ite, InForm, Instruct and Inspire. Taken as a whole, Class ACT is designed to 1) provide information on the rate and quality of student learning and 2) to develop and implement accelerated learning strategies for individual students.

Given Class ACTS intensive focus on effective learning, it can serve as the foundational data set for measuring performance in individual schools and classrooms for those schools, districts and states that are building programs of accountability for student learning. It could certainly augment the process of evaluating not only school performance, but teacher and administrative performance as well.

In connection with ClassACT, In$ite tracks all expenditures through the local school district to individual school sites with the goal of enhancing the information communicated on school finance. The In$ite Finance Analysis Model is currently being used in Arkansas to analyze the Bryant School District's expenditures.

The need for such a program across the board in Arkansas schools and districts is acute because there is a distinct lack of accounting uniformity as well as adequate financial and managerial information. Existing school financial systems provide regulatory reporting, but, in contrast, In$ite provides performance management reporting to support decision-making, public understanding of performance, and retention.

Typically, expenditures are allocated directly to schools and reflect who controls them. It is not a full cost accounting information system. In$ite uses cost accounting to apply expenditures to each operating unit to reflect who benefits from expenditures. It is a productivity and "bang for buck" analysis system and is long overdue in public education.

[Editor's note: The Commission's report on streamlining Arkansas' K-12 system will have more discussion and information on In$ite, and will broaden the recommendation made here.]

The educational results in states with strong charter school provisions are astounding. States with well-crafted legislation have experienced:

In order to enjoy these same benefits, Arkansas should change its law--or adopt a new law--with the following revisions:

1) The restriction that only an existing public school can become a charter school should be removed. Those allowed to form charter schools should include, but not be limited to, non-profit organizations, a group of teachers, parents, and/or other interested persons, colleges and universities, and other community agencies.

2) There should be at least two authorities by which the approval of a charter school may be granted: possibly the local school board and the state board of education. (Or allow the local school board to hear the proposal initially and allow the state board of education to hear the appeal should the charter petition be denied at the local level.) Additionally, teacher unions or other teacher organizations should not have a vote on whether the charter should or should not be granted. These are private organizations that could--through a minuscule minority--deny a proposal supported by an overwhelming public majority in a community. Educational opportunity should never be subject to the tyranny of a tiny minority with obvious biases contrary to an idea whose time has come.

3) The school should be both fiscally and legally autonomous, essentially giving the school complete control of allocated funding and the manner in which it runs its school.

4) The law should allow for the charter school to hire qualified, but not necessarily certified teachers and other employees.

5) A cap of no less than 25 new start up charter schools is a possibility for a pilot program to test their viability. There should be no cap on those existing public schools that may want to convert to charter status. Additionally, if the cap of 25 is reached within a two year period, any group petitioning for a charter that would serve a 75% at-risk population should be given special consideration and granted a waiver over and beyond the cap. But it should be awarded only if the charter school would commit its existence to measurable improvement of the academic performance of the students it serves.

Looking to the Long Term: Recommendations aimed at
restructuring Arkansas' current model of education
restructuring Arkansas' current model of education

The 12 recommendations outlined above can vastly improve public education in Arkansas and considerably enhance academic outcomes. States that have enacted similar reforms are, in fact, showing significant academic improvement, some of them for the first time in years. (Texas, California, North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Florida as examples). The Murphy Commission will continue to advocate the adoption of these recommendation with the belief that anything that can be done to strengthen Arkansas' public school system, as it is currently structured, is important and should be pursued. Nor will we close the door on any idea or suggestion.

The prolonged effects of Arkansas' education monopoly--many of them reflected in the spending vs. performance trends in this study--are typical: very poor quality of service as reflected in sub-standard standard test scores over three decades, high costs as shown by the billions of dollars and other resources poured into the system over the years, loss of focus on its core mission (academics), and a certain unresponsiveness to its customers--in this case parents seeking only higher quality schools and greater opportunity for their children.

But perhaps the most troubling aspect of any monopoly, is the inevitable closing of ranks when it is challenged and the fierce opposition to change it can always muster. Monopolies--and the people who benefit from being a part of them--are naturally defensive and fiercely devoted to maintaining their control as well as their jobs, power, and authority. And sometimes---as in the case of public education--it is a detrimental resistance that leads to "locking out" needed change and "locking in" continued poor quality.

Arkansas' children do not need more poor education quality at ever higher costs to taxpayers. What is needed is a whole new approach---a new model--for the delivery of education in our state. Over the long-term, our current system must be transformed into a system driven by a relentless quest for the highest academic achievement and grounded in the ideal that results count.

But what can be done to spur the creation of that new system when the education establishment is literally incapable--because of its very nature---of making those innovative changes that will absolutely guarantee "the best" for children. The Murphy Commission's education workgroup believes customers wanting the best service for the best price always drives the demand for quality. And customer demand, in turn, forces providers to constantly change and improve in response to those demands. Systems, especially monopoly systems, can never replace or artificially create those competitive market forces that invariably require those in the market to either offer quality and value or go out of business.

Transforming the education system with purchasing power
In Arkansas, the most important question in education reform is how do we unleash the transformational power of market forces to drive the development of a statewide education market place where all schools--public, private, and parochial--will constantly seek to improve in response to constant demand for excellence and value by parent/customers.

The answer--and the antidote to monopolies--is embodied in the notion of "purchasing power." Most of Arkansas' parents simply have no educational purchasing power (for tuitions and fees) and in this there is a disturbing irony. Government taxation at all levels, takes more than 45% of all income generated by Americans. One net effect of this on middle and low income parents--including many Arkansans--is that they are tax-deprived of the dollars they could have spent at another school toward the "purchase" of a better educational opportunity for their children.

Some of those tax dollars--a huge percentage of them in Arkansas--are used by government to fund its current public education system. Thus taxpayers and parents unwittingly-and without any alternative--strengthen and expand the entrenched monopoly that is at the heart of public education's lack luster performance. But the most ironic twist in this scenario is that many Arkansans--parents who possibly could have opted for other education opportunities were taxes not so onerous--are robbed of that choice on the one hand and then forced by the system, on the other, to accept assignment to a government-run school. And this is the case regardless of whether or not it is safe, performing academically, or suited to the needs and values of the child.

The most callused aspect of the current education monopoly in Arkansas is that it willingly and deliberately forces children--except those whose parents have wealth--to attend bad schools. And it does so with financial resources taken from parents already struggling financially and at the expense of their ability to choose a better school for their sons and daughters.

The danger to a nation
If that is not troubling enough, consider what happens when government's grab for more tax dollars, aimed at expanding its vice-like hold on our education system, continues into the future. Over time, a poorly performing education monopoly will grow bigger and more pervasive (especially influenced as it is by labor and political agendas). Purchasing power in the middle and low income groups will shrink even more, as taxes continue rising, and thus more families already struggling to find resources for alternatives to poor public schools will give up.

As this happens, the lower and middle income customer base for low-tuition private and religious schools will further erode--under tax pressure from the public system--and the number of private and religious schools will shrink in the absence of parents who can afford them. All that will remain, other than the public schools, will be very high priced private schools. And religious schools, as well, may in time disappear--unless heavily subsidized by their church.

The ultimate outcome of this scenario is an American system of education divided by class--a development the founding fathers, who urged universal education as essential to freedom, certainly would find appalling. None of them envisioned a system where "the best" educational opportunities would be reserved only for the wealthy class and all other American children would enter a substandard, government-run monopoly system manipulated by and captive to a labor movement with its emphasis on taxpayer funded skills training over academic substance and achievement.

And when that system further began to shift emphasis to work skills rather than academics, America's Founders surely would have intervened. The idea that upscale private schools would guarantee wealthy children the best colleges and their place in upper management and the professions--while most everyone else would be channeled toward the labor force by mandated participation in a government system, and at government expense, would have deeply frightened them.

The founding fathers would have, in fact, seen this as profoundly dangerous to the cherished ideals underlying America's purpose and its security. And, of course, danger is the case now. This nation's security and its way of life is threatened not only by a flawed education system driven by interest groups armed with political and social agendas, but one that fails to get acceptable results as well.

The fix to the tragic situation in our schools comes by changing the way education tax dollars are re-distributed. Under the current system, tax revenues are sent back to schools--often under complex equity formulas. The effect of this is to further strengthen government's monopoly on schools, perpetuate academic decline, and limit educational opportunity for most children. In fact, it's a practice that traps many middle and low income children in failing schools.

The Murphy Commission Education Workgroup will offer much more commentary and information on vouchers and other the education choice issues in a soon to be released major study developed in conjunction with the Heritage Foundation. That study will represent the group's official position statement on vouchers and will be widely available to Arkansans.

Addendum A
Education Spending vs. Academic Performance: International Trends

The Wall Street Journal (June 22 1998) offered a perfect stage-setting commentary for this section. It featured analysis by Chester Finn, head of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, a Washington-based education-reform organization. Finn is also a former Asst., U.S. Secretary of Education. Finn cites findings by the Organization of Economic Cooperation & Development (DECD), a coalition of the 29 richest nation's in the world which have agreed to work cooperatively to assess and improve educational quality on a global basis.

"Thanks to the OECD it is possible to compare gains made by students between the ages of nine and 14 across many nations. It turns out that U.S. students gain the least: on average, they make just 78 % of the progress of students in 15 other lands.

The news is similar in math and science. On the math exams in the Third International Mathematics and Science Study, U.S. students made the least progress of 17 OECD nations [those participating] between the fourth and eighth grades, gaining just 73% as much ground as their foreign counterparts. In science, U.S. progress ranked second to last, covering 78% of the average gains of the 17 nations.

In all three subjects American students finished further back in the international pack than they began. Is this because Americans are cheap? Hardly. The DECD data show U.S. school expenditures to be the third highest of 22 countries, lagging behind only Switzerland and Austria. At $5,300 per student (in the most recent year for which comparable data were available), U.S. primary schools spent 75% more than the international average of $3,033. U.S. secondary schools expended 54% more money than the international average.

So the U.S. is near the top in education spending but close to last in achievement gains. Most people would call this miserably low productivity--but that is a concept practically unknown in education-policy circles. If U.S. schools were a business, they would be in serious competitive peril and probably headed for bankruptcy."

"U.S. students do not perform well compared with students from other countries. In international math and science exams, U.S. students have never performed very well relative to students of other countries. To compensate for this relatively low quality, the United States has historically had high levels of school attainment (years of schooling)--that is, the United States has substituted quantity for quality. Now, however, many countries that have had higher student achievement are beginning to rival the United States on quantity grounds. This suggests that the U.S. economy faces new and different levels of competition in the years ahead.

Second, the United States has made steady and large investments in human capital. The resources invested, however, have had little payoff in terms of student performance. Thus, if the United States is to be more competitive internationally in terms of student achievement, some substantially different policies will be required in the future.

Third, the most likely changes required in schools involve radically different incentives for students and for school personnel. Few direct incentives exist today for improved student achievement, and marginal changes in resources or programs are unlikely to have a noticeable effect on overall student achievement.

Fourth, improved education policies will require better measurement of student performance. In addition, such policies will probably require a period of more extensive experimentation with alternative approaches and incentive schemes.

In terms of quality of learning, U.S. schools are not now, and have never been, very competitive when judged by the performance of elementary and secondary schools around the world. Chart 1, drawn from Hanushek and Kim (1996), presents what we know about all international testing of math and science scores for U.S. students. International examinations in mathematics and science have been given periodically since the 1960s.

The examinations have been taken on a voluntary basis by a variable set of countries. While there was some concern about selective test taking in some countries in the early years, that concern has lessened considerably validity in describing the quality of a country's labor force. For the analysis here, all the test scores for students in[ a given country in a given year are combined to produce a single country test score. The scores are placed on a scale where the world mean for each testing year is fifty.

In the chart that follows, the year of testing appears along the top of the chart. Normalized scores are given on the vertical axis, making it possible to compare countries over time.

The U.S. performance moves around over time. This drift closely mirrors the average performance of U.S. seventeen-year-olds on the mathematics and science tests of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) (see discussion below). Moreover, the key aspect of this figure is that the United States almost always falls below the median of whatever group of countries is taking the test.

The results released in the fall of 1996 for the Third International Math and Science Test placed U.S. eighth graders in the middle of world performance for 1994-95. This performance, which is not included in the figure, comes even though a very wide range of forty-one countries participated in the testing. Thus, there is no real change in the latest scores.

The basic story is that the United States has not been doing particularly well in international comparisons. This result is a bit surprising, given that the United States has an economy built on a skilled labor force. You might ask, "How could that be?" While the United States is not doing well, it is producing skilled goods that one might argue require a skilled labor force.

The answer seems to be that over a long period of time, quantity of schooling has substituted for quality. Historically, the United States has had a labor force with more years of schooling, on average, than the labor forces of other countries, even if these years of schooling have been of lower quality. That quantitative superiority is ending. DECD countries and other developing countries have dramatically increased the amount of schooling their youth receive. The United States' advantage in quantity of schooling is quickly disappearing."

Knowledge Workers extracted from The Economist. March 1997

"Given the pressure to trim budgets there is no prospect that governments will chuck money at schools without checking to see whether standards are improving. If governments could discover what it is about their education system that helps growth, then perhaps, they hope, they could do better with outspending more. A popularly-held view has it that "opportunity to learn" is the key to educational success-ie, the more time children spend on a subject, the better they do at it. Alas, the evidence so far is not encouraging for the proponents of this theory.

Taking the twelve countries which both took part in TIMSS and also had their average teaching hours measured in the OECD's recent study of school management, there seems little correlation between time spent on a subject, and performance of pupils in tests. Young Austrians spend exceptionally long hours on math and science lessons; for them, it pays off in higher test scores. But so do New Zealand's teenagers--and they do not do any better than, say Norwegians, who spend an unusually short time on lessons in both subjects.

Next--and of particular interest to cash-strapped governments-there appears to be little argument, often heard from teachers' unions, that the main cause of educational under-achievement is under-funding.  Low-spending countries such as South Korea and the Czech Republic are at the top of the TIMSS league table. High-spenders such as America and Denmark do much worse. Obviously, there are dozens of reasons other than spending why one country does well, another badly, but the success of the low-spending Czechs and Koreans does show that spending more on schools is not a prerequisite for improving standards.

Another article of faith among the teaching profession--that children are bound to do better in small classes--is also being undermined by educational research. As with other studies, TIMSS found that France, America and Britain, where children are usually taught in classes of twenty-odd, do significantly worse than East Asian countries where almost twice as many pupils are crammed into each class.

Julia Whitburn of Britain's National Institute of Economic and Social Research has studied the way math is taught in Japan and Switzerland, two countries which are different in many ways but whose pupils seem to do consistently well at in the subject. She noted a number of common factors:

• Much more time is spent on the basics of arithmetic than on more general mathematical topics such as handling data;

• Pupils learn to do sums in their heads before they are taught to do them on paper; calculators are usually banned;

• Standardized teaching manuals, which are tested extensively in schools before being published, are used widely;

• A method known as "whole-class interactive teaching" is used widely. The teacher addresses the class as a whole class at once, posing questions to pupils in turn, to ensure they are following the lesson. American and British schools have been criticized for letting pupils spend much of their time working in small groups, with the teacher rushing form one group to the next to see how they are doing. Ms Whitburn notes that in Japan and Switzerland this method is only used in teaching arts and crafts;

• Finally, great efforts are made to ensure that pupils do not fall behind. Those that do are given extra coaching. This practice is implemented at the lowest grade level possible when the problem is first discovered."

________________________________

International trends mirror the trends established in state by state comparisons---and in Arkansas. Education input has not increased education output. Money invested has .not yielded expected results. The U.S. remains near the top of the spending category while trailing many other nations who do more with less when it comes to academic performance.

Addendum B.

There are probably a number of valid explanations for the failure of American students to know geography and elementary facts of history. But one reason for their ignorance is that their schools no longer feel it necessary to teach them such knowledge.

Educationists can advance painstaking reasons for the spreading stain of illiteracy among the nation's elaborately and expensively educated students. But one reason students write and read so poorly is the indifference of educationists toward such details as the mechanics of reading, writing, grammar, and spelling. Witness the ingenious notion of "invented spelling." It's not wrong, it's creative. Similarly, the fashionable education philosophy that insists that children no longer have to learn the basics of computation may have something to do with the number of youngsters unable to add up a column of numbers without a calculator.

Educationists frequently point to societal attitudes about learning to explain slumping test scores, but they cannot escape their own responsibility for helping to shape those attitudes. They have encouraged Americans to settle for watered-down standards and to be suspicious of any education that demands hard work and intellectual challenge. Indeed, Americans often seem more worried about depriving children of self-actualization and self-esteem than whether they will graduate dumb.

But such attitudes don't form the whole picture. Opinion polls show the public wants schools that provide an orderly environment and a curriculum focused on "the basics." The vast majority of Americans think that "schools should hold students accountable for doing their best," which they define in starkly traditional terms. Nearly nine out of ten parents do not think that students should be able to graduate from high school "unless they can demonstrate they can write and speak English well," and more than four out of five want schools to set up "very clear guidelines on what students should learn and teachers should teach in every major subject."

Why then are so many schools moving in the opposite direction? Because too often the schools are operated not by society's standards, but by those of the educationist establishment that has dominated American schools for six decades. Few of the ideas now being offered as "reforms" and innovations are, in fact, new. Most are retreads of notions fashionable in the 1920s, the 1940s and the 1950s, repackaged and renamed to obscure their discredited ancestries. The persistence of such ideas, however, reflects the pattern of reform and counterreform that has characterized the decline of American schools in the last half century.

In this book, I argue that:

• The dumbing down of America's students is a direct result of the dumbing down of the curriculum and the standards of American schools--the legacy of a decades-long flight from learning.

• American students are unable to effectively compete with the rest of the industrialized world, because our schools teach less, expect less, and settle for less than do those of other countries.

• As Arthur Bestor noted four decades ago, a sound education involves a command of the "essential intellectual tools," "a store of reliable information which the mind can draw upon," practice in "the systematic ways of thinking developed within the various fields of scholarly and scientific investigation," and finally, but only finally, "the culminating act of applying this aggregate of intellectual powers to the solution of a problem." American schools fail to provide these qualities in a systematic or meaningful way. In their place, educationists offer what they call "higher-order thinking skills," but are seldom clear about what it is that students should think about.

• The decline of the reading and writing abilities of American children is directly attributable to the way those skills are--or are not--taught in American schools, American children are not learning many of the basic facts of history, geography, and science because their schools often are uninterested in teaching them.

• It may get worse. Under the new New Math children are no longer required to master long division, multiplication, addition, or subtraction by hand, but are permitted to use calculators as early as kindergarten. This campaign to dumb down the teaching of mathematics will result in an epidemic of mathematical and scientific illiteracy with disastrous consequences for higher education and the national workforce.

• Even as evidence mounts that American students are lacking in basic academic skills such as writing, reading, and mathematics, schools are increasingly emphasizing so-called "affective" learning that deals with the feelings, attitudes, and beliefs of students, rather than addressing what they know or can do.

• The emphasis on "feelings" means that schools frequently usurp the prerogatives and invade the privacy of families. This includes offering courses that encourage children to report their parents' attitudes and behavior if they make the child "uncomfortable." Equally troubling, American schools have become backwaters of amateur psychologizing practiced by teachers who are often unqualified and unprepared for such responsibilities.

• The ongoing dumbing down of the nation's schools is reflected in the rapid spread of a host of faux reforms throughout the nation's schools in the 1900s, including Outcome Based Education, cooperative learning, so-called alternative assessment techniques, and the reliance on vague, impenetrable, and unmeasurable "goals" such as: the "Integration of physical, emotional, and spiritual wellness," "Interpersonal Relationships," "Adaptability and Flexibility," "Environmental Stewardship," and "Positive self-concept...," in which "Students demonstrate positive growth in self-concept through appropriate tasks or projects." Although they use the language of reform, these innovations amount to a counter-reformation aimed at undoing much of the progress made by earlier reformers

• As both standards and achievement have fallen, American schools have inflated grades, adjusted or fudged test scores, or dumbed down the tests altogether to provide the illusion of success. When those measures have been insufficient, they have changed their definitions of "success."

• In the name of "equity," "fairness," "inclusiveness," and "self-esteem," standards of excellence are being eroded throughout American education. Educational levelers have become increasingly aggressive in their attacks on ability grouping, programs for the gifted and talented, and distinctions, such as graduation honors, for the best and brightest students.

• The ethical illiteracy of American education has contributed to a moral dumbing down of America's children every bit as grave as the dumbing down of academic standards. Too often America's schools substitute self-indulgence for moral reasoning, and narcissism for concern for others.

• The politicization of higher education--which has drawn so much criticism and publicity --has been reproduced at the elementary and secondary levels of education with little publicity or opposition, even though in many ways it is more toxic. Children in elementary school are especially defenseless against the appropriation of their education by propagandists, since they lack even the modest ability to debate and dissent that college students occasionally still retain.

• American education continues to be dominated by an educational oligarchy that has been aptly called The Blob-a self-interested, self-perpetuating, interlocking directorate of special interest groups that dominates the politics, bureaucracy, hiring, and policy making of American schooling. Sclerotic in its rigidity and bitterly hostile to criticism of any kind, The Blob is both the architect of the status quo and its enforcer.

• American education is facing a historic crisis because the economic, cultural, and political consequences of educational failure are greater than ever before. At one time, it was possible for our society and for individuals to get by with minimal literacy skills, but global competition has raised the stakes permanently. Until recently the system responsible for preparing children has been largely insulated from the consequences of its failures, but in the twenty-first century society can no longer be protected from the fallout from our educational bankruptcy. Conditions, therefore, are ripe for a reformation as sweeping as those that have felled other monoliths that had seemed impregnable and impervious to change... until they vanished.

If all politics is local, then the most intense local politics in America is school politics. The school wars are so bitter precisely because the stakes are so highly charged. It is no exaggeration to argue that !he education debate of the next decals could be the defining social struggle of our times, for when Americans debate our values or our definition of the good life, or what kind of schools we should have and what we should teach in them.

Conversely, when Americans debate what kind of schools we want we are debating the central questions of politics and culture. The questions become more urgent and the pressures on the schools more concentrated. Over the last half century, the schools have been asked to assume (and have asked to assume) extraordinary burdens; they are expected not merely to educate children but to deal with and help resolve society's race problems, to eradicate poverty, to be on the front lines of economic competitiveness, environmentalism, AIDS, multiculturalism, child abuse, drug addition, sexual harassment, to mediate our ambivalence about family life and sexuality, and to provide children with a morale compass.

Today, American education is breaking apart under the strain, both academically and politically. America's school wars inevitably turn on fundamental questions: What is the goal of education? What do schools intend to teach? And what do they expect their students to learn? A school that sees its ultimate product as the well-adjusted teamworker with a healthy sense of self-esteem is unlikely to adopt the same means as a school whose goal is to create individualists.

The failure of educational reform can be defined precisely by the size of the gap between wishful thinking and actual practice in the classroom. Educationists, of course, would like to have their ideas judged by how well they sound on paper. Unlike practitioners of other academic disciplines, educationists often offer little or no research to justify the most sweeping changes in classroom practice--insisting that innovations be implemented before there is any data one way or another to determine whether the idea works. With equal ardor, they cling to favored notions of what works long after actual practice has proven them to be abysmal flops.

This is a crucial aspect of the educationist culture, because it bears on the problem of verifiability and falsifiability. Ideologues insist that their ideas be judged on the purity of their intentions, rather than on their actual success in practice. Scientists, on the other hand, test their ideas and reject hypotheses that are not supported. As Karl Popper pointed out, this is the essential difference between the ideologue and the scientist: An ideology can never be disproved. For the ideologue, a failure is dismissed not as proof that the original idea was wrong, but rather as an indication that the effort did not go far enough, or was badly implemented.

The fundamental problem, however, of devising new schemes form scratch-whether it is a new man, a new society, a new economy, or a new school--is the question: Will it work? Are flaws in its execution mere accidents, or are they inherent in the idea itself? Was a classless society a good idea that simply fell short because of poor management, bad timing, or historical flukes? Or was it a hopelessly unrealistic daydream that ignored the realities of human nature?

Similarly, when reformers discard traditional curricula and demand that teachers assume radically different roles, or when power and responsibility are shifted from grown-ups to children, what happens in the classroom? How does the romantic blueprint play out in a fifth-grade math class? When I have chosen such stories--some of which are called "Scenes from the Front"--I have done so not because I think they tell the whole story, but because I think that they are representative of trends that are both significant and widespread in American classrooms. By themselves, however, they do not prove that a crisis exists in American education. We need to look elsewhere to see just how far the dumbing down of America's kids has gone.

The result is a tragic legacy of educational mediocrity:

• More than a decade after A Nation at Risk drew attention to the nation’s educational mediocrity, the reading proficiency of nine- and thirteen- year-olds has declined even further

• The 1994 National Assessment of Educational Progress has found that a third of American seventeen-year-olds say they are not required to do homework on a daily basis.

• Only one high school junior out of fifty (2 percent) can write well enough to meet national goals.

• Less than 10 percent of seventeen-year-olds can do "rigorous" academic work in "basic" subjects.

• In the United States today, only one in five nine-year-olds can perform even basic mathematical operations. According to the 1990 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), only one in four nine-year-olds can apply basic scientific information.

• Among American thirteen-year-olds, only one in ten can "find, understand, and summarize complicated information". Only one in eight eighth graders can understand basic terms and historical relationships. One in eight understands specific government structures and relationships.

• Only one in eight thirteen-year-olds can understand and apply intermediate scientific knowledge and principles. The NAEP found that the percentage of American thirteen-year-olds who understand measurement and geometry concepts and can analyze scientific knowledge and principles "was among the lowest of many countries in the developed world. The 1009 NAEP concluded that "Large proportions, perhaps more than half of our elementary, middle, and high school students are unable to demonstrate competency in challenging subject matter in English, mathematics, science, history, and geography. Further, even fewer appear to be able to use their minds well.

• The writing ability of American students is little short of appalling. American schools, according to the NAEP, produce few students who can write well. Only 3 percent of American fourth, eighth, and twelfth graders can write above a "minimal" or "adequate" level, according to the 1992 "Writing Report Card." The test, which rated students’ writing abilities on a scale of one to six, found that fewer than one in thirty American children earned a score of five or six, which meant they could write effectively and persuasively. Only one out of four students even managed to write at the "developed" level, which earned a score of four. "Even the best students who could write effective and informative pieces had difficulty" writing persuasively, the study found. In 1988, only 3 percent of American high school seniors could describe their own television habits in writing above an "adequate" level.

• A "reading report card" finds that 25 percent of high school seniors can barely read their diplomas. A standardized test given to 26,000 Americans sixteen and older "concluded that 80 million Americans are deficient in the basic reading and mathematical skills needed to perform rudimentary tasks in today’s society." A 1993 study by the U.S. Department of Education found that 90 million adults—47 percent of the population of the United States—demonstrate low levels of literacy. The level of literacy among adults had fallen by 4 percent since 1986.

• Only 15 percent of college faculty members say that their students are adequately prepared in mathematics and quantitative reasoning—a lower proportion than among higher-education faculty in Hong Kong, Korea, Sweden, Russian, Mexico, Japan, Chile, Israel, or Australia. Only one in five faculty members thinks students have adequate writing and speaking skills.

• A Washington, D.C., grade-school teacher reports that many of the fifth- and sixth-grade students in her geography class were unable to locate Washington, D.C., on a map of the United States, even though they lived in the nation's capital themselves. A survey by the Gallup Organization found that one in seven adults can't find the United States on a blank map of the world. This shouldn't be surprising. In one college geography class 25 percent of the students could not locate the Soviet Union on a world map, while on a map of the forty-eight contiguous states, only 22 percent of the class could identify forty or more states correctly.

• Despite the growing importance of scientific knowledge, surveys have found that Americans are woefully ignorant of basic scientific facts. A majority of Americans, for example, do not know that the earth and sun are part of the Milky Way galaxy, and a third of them think humans and dinosaurs walked the earth at the same time. A 1994 survey by Louis Harris & Associates and the American Museum of Natural History found that only about one adult in five scored 60 percent or better on a test of basic knowledge of subjects like space, animals, the environment, diseases, and earth.

• Teachers report that the fall of Communism and the demolition of the Berlin Wall was greeted with blank indifference by many students who knew too little about history to understand or care about the events. "I'm sorry," one high school senior asked during a class discussion of the Eastern Bloc, "but what is this talk of satellites?"

• In the late 1980s, a national survey of high school seniors found that fewer than half could define even basic economic terms. Nearly two thirds of the seniors were unable to correctly define "profit," and less than half could define a "government budget deficit." Most seniors were also baffled by the concept of "inflation." The author of the "Report Card on the Economic Literacy of U.S. High School Students" concluded that "our schools are producing a nation of economic illiterates," and that the level of economic knowledge of students who had the benefit of twelve years of education is "shocking." Especially damning was the finding that even students who took basic high school economics answered only 52 percent of the questions correctly. Students who took "consumer economics" got only 40 percent of the answers correct, while students who took social studies courses were right only 37 percent of the time. A 1992 survey by the National Center for Research in Economic Education and Gallup Organization yielded similar results. High school seniors answered basic economic questions correctly only 35 percent of the time.

• SAT verbal scores have dropped from a mean of 478 in 1962 to 423 in 1994- a drop of 54 points. The SAT mean math score has fallen from 502 to 479--a drop of 23 points. While math scores have risen 8 points since 1984, they are still below 1974 levels. The national verbal average has fallen 3 points since 1984. During the same period (1960-90), spending on elementary and secondary education increased more than 200 percent, after inflation. Class size has decreased by one third, enrollment has declined by 7 percent, and the number of teachers has increased by 17 percent. Moreover, the decline in test scores came at a time when average teacher salaries and the percentage of teachers with advanced degrees both tripled.

There are obvious real-world consequences for this decline.

• American businesses are now spending $30 billion on workers' training and lose an estimated $25 to $30 billion a year as result of their workers' weak reading and writing skills.

• A survey by the National Association of Manufacturers found that nearly a third of American businesses said the learning skills of their workers are so low that they are unable to reorganize work responsibilities. A quarter of American businesses say their ability to improve their products is limited because of the inability of their employees to leans the necessary skills.

• In a recent year, the Bellsouth Corporation in Atlanta found that fewer than 10 percent of their job applicants met minimal levels of ability for sales, service, and technical jobs. At the same time, MCI Communications in Boston reported that some of its jobs were going unfilled because the company could not find enough qualified applicants.

• In late 1992, executives at Pacific Telesis found that 60 percent of the high school graduates applying for jobs at the firm failed a company exam set at the seventh-grade level.

It is hard to put an exact number on what the dumbing down of American education costs the economy, but it is possible to make some approximations. One recent study of job skill requirements found that the average twenty-one- to twenty-five-year-old American was "reading at a level significantly below that demanded by the average job available in 1984 and are even further below the requirements of jobs expected to be created between 1984 and the year 2000." The researchers ranked language skills required for various jobs ova scale of one to six, with a level of six required for scientists, lawyers, and engineers. The vast majority of jobs required a reading skill level of three and four, the requirement for sales and marketing positions. But the study found that 97 percent of young adults had skills only at the two and three levels, suitable for farming and transportation work.

Economist John Kendrick of George Washington University argues that "the knowledge factor" may account for as much as 70 percent of a nation's productivity trends, either up or down. The skills of our workforce, and their ability to adapt to a knowledge-based economy seem certain to be critical factors in our ability to compete. Kendrick's thesis argues that much of the decline in productivity in American society can be linked to the decline in education and to the resulting gap between the requirements of the economy and the reality of the workforce.

Cornell University Economist John H. Bishop does not go quite as far as Kendrick, but confirms the link between economic growth and the "knowledge factor." At least 10 percent of the "unexplained" slowdown in productivity in the 1970s can be attributed to the decline, in achievement scores that began in 1967, Bishop concluded. But the effects of dumbing down will accelerate over time. He projected that the decline in what he called the General Intellectual Achievement (GIA) accounted for 20 percent of the decline in the 1980s and a full 40 percent of the decline in the 1990s. Writing in the American Economic Review, Bishop noted that productivity growth and the test scores dropped almost simultaneously.

That decline, which was severe and unprecedented, meant that students graduating in 1980 were more than a full grade level behind graduates of twenty years earlier. Our schools had produced lower quality workers, which in turn depressed both wages and productivity. If test scores had continued to grow after 1967 at the same rate as they had the previous quarter century, Bishop estimated that the nation's gross national product would have been $86 billion higher than it was in 1988 and $334 billion higher in the year 2010.

This would seem to make a compelling case for spending more money on education, if any link could be shown between higher spending and higher achievement. But national education spending rose more than 25 percent in real terms in the 1980s. And since 1967--when the decline in test scores began in earnest--spending per student had risen faster than it had in the twenty years prior to 1967 (4 percent a year in real terms versus 3.3 percent). In the lower spending years prior to 1967, as Bishop notes, "student test scores had been rising steadily for more than 50 years."

If the usual scapegoats of educationists--parents, society, and money--cannot account for the decline of American education, then we have to look to the schools themselves and the values that dominate American education in the 1990s.