There is no shortage of ways for Nevada’s education system to look bad — especially if your only measure is spending. However, NPRI has stumbled across more evidence that suggests how much you spend matters far less than how effectively you spend.
According to U.S. Census Bureau reports for the 2003-04 school year, Nevada ranks 49th in K-12 education expenses per $1,000 of personal income. Specifically, Nevada spends just $34.43 per pupil for every $1,000 of per-capita personal income of state residents, taken collectively. Under this metric, Alaska is the biggest spender at $62.92 per pupil. That means Alaskans devote almost twice as many dollars, per capita, toward education. The national average is $43.68.
So who earns the dreaded 50th place? Florida — which spent a mere $34.36 per $1,000. Yet Florida, as you may recall, is the same innovative state where Hispanic students outperform the statewide average of all students in 16 other states. And these states include not only Nevada, but also the very white state of Oregon and those big spenders up in Alaska.
Florida’s schools have improved so much that their minority students perform as well, or better, than minority students in some of the wealthiest states in the country — including big-spending Massachusetts. And non-minority students weren’t left behind: They improved, too. Florida proves that how education dollars are spent is much more important than how much is spent.
Fortunately for Nevadans, both the Clark County and Washoe County school districts are experimenting with empowerment schools — public schools that put their focus on effectively spending the money, as judged by the principal at the school, as an alternative to Nevada’s current command-and-control model, where district central offices try to run everything, with significant waste of dollars as a consequence.
Nevada has only a handful of empowerment schools at present, but it’s a start.
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9 comments:
Awesomeness...
Not awesome, but misleading. Mr. Ladner forgets to include the fact that a third grade retention policy filters our grade 4 of its poor performers. Math takes over. When you remove the low scorers, the mean will rise. Not magic, just math. The retention policy was not in effect in 1998, a year Mr. Ladner often cites in a comparison to a later year where this filter was in effect. Beware what you are told and NOT told. Look at Fllorda's other grade's data. Think for yourself. Get ALL the info.
Anon - The problem with your math argument is that, while the 3rd graders are retained for one year, they aren't removed for the data set -- they're just included in the next year's data.
And since Dr. Ladner has 10 years of data showing a steady increase in reading scores, I would say the policy (including retention) has worked and continues to work very well.
3rd graders who can't read shouldn't be promoted to 4th grade. Repeating third grade gives them a chance to attain the basic skills - like reading - they're going to need for the rest of their lives.
Victor,
I fear you wasted your time trying to correct me. First, a child can be in thrid grade 3 times in Florida. More important than that tidbit is you missed the point. The fourth grade pool is filtered.
By reducing the number of low scorers, the mean rises. No magic...just math. Google Walter Haney, Boston University, and Florida NAEP scores.
I have some questions for you.
Do you find it research appropriate to compare a filtered group to a non-filtered one? Do you think the seven year old swimmers who qualified for state finals in a swim tournament would swim more quickly than a random group of seven year old swimmers?
same deal.
Anon-
Yes I find it approriate to compare the fourth graders in Nevada to the fourth graders in Florida -- even if some of the fourth graders in FL are older because they have been held back academically. Why? because that's what we're comparing - what system works better?
What improves 4th grade students' reading scores more, "Repeating 3rd grade if you can't read or social promotion?" The chart shows FL's system is dramatically better.
It's like you're trying to re-define scientific testing. To test a new drug - one group takes the medicine and another group takes a placebo. And then we compare the results between the filtered and the non-filtered group to see if the medicine worked.
In this analogy FL's reforms are the "drug" and as the chart shows it definitely works.
A couple of other reasons that the comparison is legit -
1. The fourth grade pool in FL is without the worst performers for the 1st year, but every year after that it includes the previous year's worst students.
Again, the question it answers is, "What is a better method increasing fourth grade reading scores? Holding kids back in 3rd grade (FL) or using social promotion to advance them to the 4th grade, even if they haven't mastered 3rd grade material (NV)."
The chart shows FL's system is better (although ending social promotion was just one of several reforms FL enacted).
2. You talk about the mean rising - yes, but that only applies to the 1st year when none of the previous year's academicaly worst students were included in the sample. And as you'll see from the chart FL's gains have increased over the years. (or if you want to say some students were held back multiple years, this argument still applies)
3. I'm guessing you'll still say - "...but the age difference makes it an unfair comparison."
That would only be true if becoming a year older meant you were automatically better able to read. Do you think that?
Now in athetics, this could be true, because the body matures and grows bigger and faster when your're 8 or 9, but it is harder to learn to read as you get older, especially if you are in a class (4th grade) and you aren't able to even read at a third grade level. (Or do you disagree on this point? because I feel this point is crucial)
For additional evidence - consider the 30 million US adults who can't read well enough to complete basic tasks and (from your own agument) students who have to repeat 3rd grade for multiple years. Getting older means that you'll be taller, not a better reader.
I believe that a child in 4th grade should be able to read at a basic level. If a child can't read when they get to fourth grade, they can't keep up. They will struggle (probably for the rest of their academic life) to learn the new material, because they don't have a basic fundamental down.
If you disagree with that idea, I can see why we would have a fundamental disagreement. I believe that the purpose of going to school is to learn things (like reading) not complete 3rd or 4th grade. There's no point in completing grades if you haven't mastered the material. Graduating from 3rd grade should mean you've accomplished something - like being able to read.
Interested to hear your response,
Victor
Where was your response to Professor Haney's study? Where was your internalization of my informing you that a student can be in grade 3 3 times in Florida?
Thus, your idea that they show up the next year is incorrect. Imagine some stay in their school, some move to a charter or voucher school, and some enter an alternative program where their scores have more leeway.
Imagine the benfits of a grade 3 retntion policy over a grade 2 or 1 or even k in that it will generate better NAEP results. If you look at retention studies in Florida, you will find a mixed bag, with some showing short lived improvement while others link repeated retention to increased dropout numbers.
You will need no imagination to research Florida's high dropout rate, usually in the top 5 in our country. You will need no imagination to find our ACT and SAT scores mopping the floor. You
can also see the incredibly high percentage of our high school graduates who require remediation in college.
You compare apples to oranges when you compare a grade X of 2006 with the new student group that comprises that grade level the next year. Longitudinal looks at what happens to a group as it progresses from one grade to the ext showsa far different picture.
The system is fatally flawed and unknowing people will be duped.
Go to palmbeach.k12.fl.us and click on superintendent's presentation to the legislative council.
Also be aware that Figlio/Northwestern recently released a study showing Florida's voucher system is ineffective, the voucher students performed no better in their voucher school than in their prior school. OOPS!
That seeems to repudiate much of the underpinnings of this awful
system. For an easier read, google Charles Morris and School Grades do not refelect school quality. Gooogle Derek Neal's Proficiency Counts:Left Behind by Design.
Florida's 2008 FCAT results for grade 10 Hispanics; 70% fell in the lowest 2 of our 5 levels. Certainly, this percentage does not include those who dropped out.
Be careful what you wish for!!!!
Update: The ACLU is sueingFlorida for its failure to graduate sufficient numbers of students due tio failed policies.
If the ACLU was really worried about insufficient graduation rates, they would be suing Nevada, because we have the worst graduation rate in the nation (47.3%) -- http://www.lvrj.com/news/47510187.html. But we haven't enacted the series of educational reforms that Florida has.
Makes you think that this lawsuit is more about overturning reforms that dramatically increased student acheivement (but were politically harmful to powerful special interests like the teachers' union) than actually helping students.
The beautiful thing about a system where parents and students were given the ability to choose their own education options is that they could leave failing schools without having to get permission from a gov't bureaucrat. This would also create a huge incentive for the school to improve (or go away) as well. Florida doesn't have this, but they are closer than Nevada is (at least until activist judges kill reforms that have dramatically increased student achievement).
We do this all the time with restuarants, car dealers, grocery stores, but we have to get permission from the government to leaving a failing school? It makes no sense and the kids are the ones suffering from it.
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