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Dangerous Erosion
of Education Quality & Productivity
(proven with color graphics)

The Grandfather Economic Reports (http://mwhodges.home.att.net/) is a series of reports showing in picture-form threats to the economic future of families and their children, compared to prior generations - - from education quality to debt to savings to incomes to voting to healthcare to international competition to national security. You are now at the summary page of the chapter on Education, a very important chapter since unacceptable education quality is a very real and serious threat facing our young generation and their nation. Welcome. Some call this site one of the very best concerning education quality issues. It displays vital information in picture form, since 'a picture is worth a thousand words.' We hope your visit will find useful information to help you and your loved ones.

4 Questions asked by 2 grandfathers with 11 grandchildren

DO OUR CHILDREN DESERVE TO RECEIVE:

1. A better quality education than received by children of other nations without any doubt, instead of lower quality? (one-third of our economy depends on trade - 3 times more than before - and global challenges to America are accelerating).
2. To be better prepared to meet future economic challenges than all prior generations, or less prepared?
3. The highest quality education at the lowest cost per student reasonably attainable?
4. Or, less quality at high wasted cost and seriously compromise both their economic and personal futures, and that of their nation?

This is the summary page of a two-page picture report on education quality. First you will see 3 summary graphics, after which the table of contents to this chapter

Let us first examine the trend of education quality up to the mid-1990s - - and then the situation afterwards -

The poor level of education quality domestically and vs. foreign nations places our young at great risk.

This seriously impacts the economic future of our youth, including their future living standards - as they face the most internationally and technologically competitive era in history.

Here's a picture you may not have seen. It demonstrates the 71% decline in the education quality productivity index for the 34-year period up until SAT tests were revised in scoring methods and made less rigorous.

This index shows the relationship between education quality (SAT scores) and education spending (inflation-adjusted, '93 dollars) per student is worse than 34 years earlier - 71% worse. Despite rapidly rising inflation-adjusted spending per student over this period SAT scores declined. As a result, education productivity fell 71% - - as seen in the chart. (quality continued to deteriorate in the years following this chart, covered down the page).

(Note: Some say if one wants SAT scores in the future that cannot be compared to higher scores in past decades, without improving student learning, simply make the test less rigorous and change scoring as has been done - - just as if the distance to the left field baseball stadium fence was reduced to produce more 'home runs').

This chart confirms: 'The quality of schooling is far worse today than it was in 1955,'' Dr. Milton Friedman, Nobel laureate.

And, this decline in output quality occurred despite more spending per student and smaller class sizes, and despite more non-teaching employees per student, than before.

This chart further confirms the statement of another well-known economist: "There is an inverse relationship between spending and quality." Additionally, National Review reported, "students in the top 5 states in per-pupil expenditure fare worse on the SAT than students in the bottom five spending states."

The chart decline would be even steeper if costs of rising remedial courses required in colleges due to poor high school output were charged-back to secondary education costs - - which should have been done for accountability.

And how about today?
Answer: quality problems are worse, and more serious - not better

How have we done since the SAT tests were revised in content rigor and scoring methods? Following are later comparisons showing continued dismal quality performance - -

Were you surprised that in the Third International Math & Science    series (TIMSS) U.S. 12th graders scored behind every nation, except Cyprus and South Africa?

(Conducted on a four-year cycle, the first round of TIMSS was in 1995, the second in 1999 and the third in 2003.)

This chart shows the results. Note the red line for the U.S. ranking of our seniors. Even comparing our elite to the elite students of other nations, Americans were near the bottom.

And, Asian students (Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, etc.) did not participate in this latest test series - - although in prior such tests they scored well above the best in the chart you are looking at. This U.S. picture would have looked even worse if Asians had been included, and the average would have been much higher. Not a pretty sight.

• In Advanced Math U.S. students scored next to last, world-wide. In Physics the U.S. scored at the very bottom of the heap.
• Data released 4 December 2007 for the OECD PISA international test series in 2006 showed U.S.A. 15 year olds came in below average, at country ranking #29 in science and rank position #35 in math.
• Data for the Paris-based OECD's 'Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) math test series for 2003 reported America's 15 year old students performed "significantly below average," ranking 29th out of 34 nations.
• While scoring at the bottom, the February 2002 AP report on grade inflation in high schools and colleges: "more than 44 percent of freshmen entering four-year colleges fall 2001 reported they had A averages in high school, according to survey by researchers at the University of California."
• Were you surprised with the December 2000 report showing today's 8th graders in the recent international math & science test scored no better than their dismal performance 4 years ago, when they scored behind 27 nations on the same test?
• Were you surprised several years ago when the international 'Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)' reported, : "the effectiveness of the U.S. primary and secondary education system can be characterized as mediocre at best."
• How about grammar school? Were you surprised in April 2001 with this: 'Two-thirds of U.S. fourth graders read below grade level and the weakest ones are falling further behind', according to the U.S. Education Department's reading ''Report Card'' released on 6 April 2001. Students reading at a proficient or advanced level from private schools performed 57% better than public schools.
• Were you surprised in June 2004 when Achieve, Inc., a bipartisan, nonprofit education organization formed by governors and prominent business leaders, found that math and English tests for high school diplomas require only middle school knowledge, and that those math graduation tests measure only what students in other countries learn in the seventh grade?
• Were you surprised January 15, 2001 when the Associated Press reported research results (headed by Professor J. Hubisz, President of the American Assoc. of Physics Teachers) showing 85% of middle school students are using science text books so full of errors and inaccuracies to make them unacceptable, and that honors high school texts are no more difficult than an eighth grade reader 50 years ago? Called 'terrible books' from a science standpoint and many science teachers have little science training.
• Were you surprised last year when 200 mathematicians and scientists, including four Nobel Prize recipients and two winners of a prestigious math prize, the Fields Medal, deplored the Dept. of Education for math teaching methods, saying they are 'horrifyingly short on basics'.
• Were you surprised that the April 2001 OECD report stated "60% of Americans aged 16-25 are 'functionally illiterate', meaning that when it came to, say, filling in a form they were stumped - - and that on the simple numerical (reading a timetable, etc.) test they scored at the bottom of all industrial nations." - The Economist, 14 July 2001, pg. 84.
• Were you surprised in 1996 when the President called for volunteers to teach reading and threw money at it, yet in the 2000 campaign all candidates complained of lousy education quality? (this is further evidence at the highest level that our government education system is not performing, despite record spending). How many candidates in the past 15 years have said education quality is a big problem? Answer: all of them. So - why does poor quality continue? Answer: it's the system - - not lack of money.
• How about the poll reported by AP: Voters consider public schools Mediocre or a Failure - 67% cite low academic standards. Or, the Gallop poll showing that 48% of whites and 57-65% of minorities want parental choice for private vs. government education.
• Were you surprised with numerous reports (1997-2001) that home-schoolers scored 70% higher than public school students on standardized national achievement tests, regardless of race, economic status, or regulation levels?
• Were you surprised with the USA Today report: "Of the 12 California state university colleges, 60% of students need remediation courses; a Florida study shows at least 70% of recent high school graduates need remedial courses when they enter community college - - in other words they need to learn material they should have mastered in public high school - but did not - - costing an extra $59 million per year." That averages out to two-thirds of high school diplomas are bogus - even to attend less demanding state and community colleges. Why were these two-thirds allowed a high school diploma? Where is the accountability? Where is the quality?
• Were you surprised to learn that despite smaller class sizes quality has not improved, yet foreign schools of larger class size score higher?
• Were you surprised on January 22, 1999 when the 'The Economist' (pg. 55) reported more than 40% of American 10-year-olds cannot pass a basic reading test, and as many as 42 million adults are functionally illiterate. And, the January 29, 1999 edition reported over 40,000 Texas nine to ten year-olds failed the states standardized test, yet 90% were promoted anyway.
• Were you surprised in June 1999 with this: "70% of Florida's 10th graders scored below the basic reading level." (quote from June 1999 newsletter by State Representative Mark Ogles to his constituents).
• Were you surprised in February 2002 to learn that poor inner-city Cleveland students with vouchers and selecting local Catholic schools had a graduation rate of 99.6%, compared to only a 30% graduation rate in local public schools.
• Were you surprised in March 2001 with the BusinessWeek report showing the decline in the number of U.S. citizen science graduate students continues, and that the growth of business administration PhDs lags so far behind population growth that major business schools now employ professors to teach graduate level business courses that, according to the dean of MIT's Sloan School of Management "don't know a lot about business?"
• Were you surprised in April 2004 when the Houston Chronicle reported > "Houston high school students who've failed core subjects such as English or math would get to move on to the next grade under a proposal trustees are considering as part of the district's effort to reduce its dropout rate."
• Were you surprised in September 2004 with the Thomas B. Fordham Institute finding that "more than 25% of public school teachers send their own children to private school," and in some areas the ratio is higher than 40%? (http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040922-122847-5968r.htm)
• Were you surprised in February 2005 to read that China produced 4 times more BS engineering degrees than the U.S., and Japan twice as many. Nobel Prize-winning scientist R.E.Smalley of Rice University reported "by 2010, 90% of all Ph.D. physical scientists and engineers in the world will be Asian living in Asia." The International Math & Science Study reported U.S. 12th graders were out-performed by 90% of other nations in math and 76% in science. In advanced math the US was out performed by 94% and in science by 100% of other nations. The American Association for the Advancement of Science reported 90% of math books and 100% of science text books are unacceptable.
• Were you suprised in 2005 when the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reported that the testing of 300,000 students nation-wide showed that 82% of 12th grade students were not proficient in math and science - - even worse than 10 years earlier. 73% of 4th graders failed to gain proficiency scores. 8th graders showed no improvement in the past 10 years. (Imprimis, Feb. 2005, page 2)
• Were you surprised in 2006 to learn that 65% of 12-graders were not proficient in reading, a worse result than 1992 when the test was initiated. http://www.swissinfo.org/eng/view_from_america/index.html?siteSect=221

The above statements are just representative of the voluminous evidence proving the sorry state of today's school quality well beyond the period shown in the first chart.

Clearly dismal performance continues, relative to ourselves and especially relative to foreign students.

Clearly, poor quality output of public schools is not because of too little spending per student - - its a system problem.

Here's additional proof of zero improvement, this one in reading:

 "What you are seeing in the left chart is the impact of ever more money being tossed at elementary and secondary public school education. The ever more money (in real dollars) is represented by the line that streaks upward, while the impact on public education--in this case, scores on reading tests--is represented by the line that is about flat. The results for scores on math, science and writing tests reveal about the same situation: a flattish line showing little improvement over the past 30 years.

For three decades, American taxpayers have obediently given the education establishment what it said it needed--mostly more money to lower student-teacher ratios. Well, student-teacher ratios, over a 35-year period, have fallen to 17.3 in 1995 from 25.8 in 1960. Yet, as Eric Hanushek, senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution, argues: "Overall student performance has not improved, nor have U.S. students shown any improvement in international achievement tests."

And so, as you can see, while funds devoted to public school education have trebled, students' performance has languished. It's not as if this miserable result is a secret, either. The tests were conducted by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a project mandated by Congress and run by the U.S. Department of Education. At any rate, you can see all this for yourself by visiting the Web site http://nces.ed.gov. The remedy can only come from introducing competition into the public school market." - Source: Opinion Journal from The Wall Street Journal editorial page - 20 Dec. 2000 at http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=65000811

This is just a sample of the type pictures you will find in this Education Report series - with backup and comments by students, teachers, parents and professionals.

Further, you will learn about the 'dumbing down' of standards of quality measurement, textbooks and teaching methods, compared to prior generations - from primary school to college.

For answers to these critical education questions, browse the following mini-reports with pictures you have never seen. This may provide added insights concerning your future and that of your loved ones. First, BOOKMARK this page so you can return - - and then it is suggested you read each of the following picture sub-reports, starting with the color graphics at Item #1 below - you may be surprised.

Knowledge is Power, if you have it
(give each page a bit of time to load those neat color pictures - they are worth it).

TABLE OF CONTENTS
OF THE EDUCATION REPORT SERIES

1. Education Report - main page (http://mwhodges.home.att.net/education-a.htm ) - "primary & secondary school quality worse than 35 years ago." - 71% decline in quality to cost PRODUCTIVITY ratio - $72,000 per student wasted. This proven in picture form. Viewing this report, and its color graphics, is highly recommended.
2. Page 2 of Main page of Education Report - powerful documents - teachers choose private schools - inflated grading standards - competition a must - data tables on decline quality productivity (SAT scores vs. spending per student) - articles, and RECOMMENDATIONS.
3. International Education Report - OECD, the respected international organization: "U.S. elementary & secondary schools are mediocre, at best" - foreign nations more intense and successful developing math & science. (one-third of our economy depends on trade - 3 times more than before - and competition is accelerating while our students continue near bottom in international math & science tests). Also, check-out: International Test Evaluation Summary - DOE Secretary and the President were alarmed.
4. College Report - Instead of holding to tough standards, prior mandatory college course requirements, admission standards, and classroom days significantly lowered, and grades are inflated more than ever before- while prices rise. Admission officers claim a large portion of their freshman require remedial courses in math and/or English, many admitted wrongly by virtue of high school grade inflation and social promotion.
5. Parental Choice Report - not a 'rich-kid' gimmick; 57- 65% of minorities want vouchers and 66% of parents that receive them are satisfied with education quality achieved from their choice. Inner-city Catholic schools in Cleveland achieve a 99.6% graduation rate for poor, minority students attending with state vouchers to parents, compared to only 30% graduation rate from public schools.
6. Centralized Power & Control - 50% of school funding controlled at federal-state levels - power to government & unions - not answerable to parents, or even local school boards. 93% less parental influence due to 85% fewer school districts. National PTA mimics unions not parents.
7. Massive School Districts - 93% reduction in power & influence of parents, because of the massive shrinkage in the number of school districts per 10,000 population. And, 4 times higher rates of violence and discipline problems in large public schools compared to smaller schools - especially schools of more than 1,000 students.
8. Union Power - in education.
9. Poll: Voters consider public schools Mediocre or a Failure (Florida) - 67% cite low academic standards - 58% lax discipline - 47% incompetent teachers - 33% bad principals - 75% favor eliminating teacher tenure - 55% shrinking school districts.
10. Polls Show Voucher support for private education accelerating - with high rate for minorities.
11. Education Comments by teachers, parents & students - problems described from the inside. Quality teachers, parents and students need help. - and it's not arriving.
12. Bilingual Education Report - a flawed social-engineering practice holding back minority children while wasting resources? A review of this controversial subject.
13. Remedial Education Report - two-thirds of college freshmen require remedial courses because the basics were not learned in high school. Are high school diplomas 'bogus' even for those graduating near the top of their classes? Should high schools be charged back for graduating students who require remedial courses?
14. Student-teacher ratio Report - Calling for smaller class size is perhaps the greatest myth invented by the education establishment. Quality actually fell instead of improving, as class sizes shrank, proving top-down mandates for smaller classes are not justified on a quality achievement basis. International students from larger class sizes blow away ours. The class-size myth suggests such as been created as an excuse for producing low quality, and as a justification for more money, staff and union members.
15. Quality also declined during period of increasing ratio of non-teaching employees per student - Non-Teaching Report - indicating increased staff overheads are not justified and may be hindering quality achievement. Over staffing, excessive costs and low productivity are expected from all monopoly-based systems.
16. And, quality declined and rates of violence and discipline problems increased as school districts and schools become larger - a need for downsizing & decentralization of public schools.
17. Home Schoolers continue to significantly out-score others on tests - - a summary of recent convincing report data - stay-at-home parenting.
18. Textbooks - studies (Jan. 2001) show 85% of middle schoolers use science text books significantly error-laden and unacceptable, although perhaps politically correct - and that math honors classes in high schools use texts not better than 8^th grade basic readers 50 years ago. And last year, 200 mathematicians and scientists, including four Nobel Prize recipients deplored Dept. of Education math teaching methods. And, 'honors high school texts are no more difficult than an eighth grade reader was before World War II.' - - should we care?
19. Grade Inflation - becoming out of control at universities for money reasons. Despite a higher percentage of high school graduates attending college than ever before, more than 44 percent of freshmen entering four-year colleges fall 2001 reported they had A averages in high school, compared to under 18 percent that averaged A's in 1968.
20. Testing Standards and the 8th Grade Exam of 1895 - could you pass the test required to pass the 8th grade in 1895? Probably not, but neither could most of today's teachers and professors. Testing standards are a huge issue.
21. Teachers - - within a monopoly system - - Many blame teachers for poor quality education, but is it not naïve to expect high, measurable world-class quality from most employees of a monopoly system?
22. Private vs. Public schools - - on average, private schools operate at a lower cost per student and produce significantly higher quality output.
23. Recommendations from Bill Mechlenburg
24. Public schools no place for teachers' kids - 25% send their kids to private schools.
25. Recommendations to school boards from Michael Hodges
26. What can parents do?
27. To-do-list for students - - demand the best quality education, anywhere.
28. Demise of the PTA - 75% drop
29. A Joke - A History of Math Exams - Let's also be less serious - - relax, smile and learn how.
30. Schools of Thought - Rick Henderson, Washington Editor of Reason. An excellent survey regarding education privatization.
31. Is the Current Education System Failing Our Children? By Tracy Levine
32. Additional links to related education sites, with excellent articles and data - see the Education section of the Links Page.

Where do you go from here?

You have just reviewed the summary page of the Education Report chapter. It is recommended you review each of the above education sub-reports with pictures you have never seen, starting with the first 2 links which include the main report page and then page 2.

Lastly, you have an Invitation to visit the HOME PAGE of the GRANDFATHER ECONOMIC REPORTS - - a collection of reports reviewing other difficult economic conditions facing young families and their children, compared to prior generations. There you will find a complete listing of each of the mini-picture reports in the series comparing today with yesterday and the trends - from education to family incomes to debt to social security to government spending to foreign trade to voting trends to healthcare to national security.

This grandfather is not very proud of economic & education quality trends facing the young generation. Hard data-based information might assist their futures.

Exchange information via E-mail to: Michael Hodges
Constructive input and links are welcome

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