Money Can't Buy You Love or Education

I read an article in the Arizona Republic that relates what former Intel CEO Craig Barrett said at a meeting of the Arizona Commerce Authority.   Mr. Barrett took the opportunity to talk about the quality of education in Arizona and implied a cause and effect relationship between that and the State budget cuts in education proposed by Governor Brewer.  I don’t think that there is a correlation between the amount of money spent on education and the quality of education received.  This is borne out in study upon study across the United States.  The Heritage Foundation compared federal education spending to National Assessment of Educational Performance and found there was no connection between the two.

But I decided to look up some data myself and see if this was actually the case.  Using data from the US Department of Education I compared the by-state expenditure per pupil in the year 2006-2007 and compared that data to by-state SAT mean scores of college bound seniors for 2007-2008 (the years didn’t match up); the conclusion of this simple comparison is that there is no direct correlation between higher per pupil spending and higher SAT scores.  Washington D.C. scored the highest in per pupil spending at $20,596, yet scored 50^th out of 51 (Maine scored last in all three categories but this is likely due to the fact that all juniors are required to take the test, not just those interested in going to college) in all three SAT categories (reading, mathematics, and writing).  Iowa ranked 40^th in spending ($9,114) and ranked 1^st in reading and mathematics and 2^nd in writing.  South Dakota ranked 42^nd in spending ($8,821) and scored 3^rd, 9^th, and 7^th in reading, mathematics, and writing respectively. 

Arizona was 46^th in spending ($8,335) and scored 30^th in reading and mathematics and 31^st in writing.  I am not saying this is great, and there is certainly room for improvement.  But consider that Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Idaho, and Utah were 47^th, 48^th, 49^th, 50^th and 51^st in spending per pupil and all of them achieved better results than did Arizona; Oklahoma scored in the top 15 in all three categories.

Of the top ten states in spending per pupil (New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wyoming, Connecticut, Alaska, Massachusetts, and Maryland) none of them had scores in the top 10 in any of the three categories.  Arizona scored better than six of them in reading and mathematics and better than five of them in writing.

What does this indicate?  That throwing money at education is not the answer.  The real answer lies in how kids are spending their time in the classroom.  I continue to see articles about different curricula and how the newest technique will make great strides in educating children.  But I think that we as a society should just concentrate on the basics; reading, writing and mathematics.

Teach kids phonics; school districts should get corporate licenses for “Hooked on Phonics” or other phonics teaching systems.  It is the easiest way for kids to learn the language; that is true for reading and for writing.  There are 26 letters, six vowels, and 44 sounds and once kids learn them there is practically nothing they can’t read.  I can still remember my teachers and my parents telling me to “sound it out” whenever I saw a word I didn’t previously know; that’s the beauty of phonics.  If school districts switched to a phonics curriculum they would also save tons of money; there is no reason to buy new books every third year, since phonics don’t change.  The only things that a district would need to purchase are workbooks. 

Make kids memorize multiplication tables and other standard "non-changing" building blocks to include geography (states and capitols), history (the preamble to the Constitution, the Gettysburg address) and biology (taxonomy).  Through route memorization kids will be able to easily retrieve information, and as they get older the comprehension and application will come much easier.   Make mathematics a priority, math is critical for higher learning, plus it is very valuable in every day use as we get older. 

There are a myriad of ways to improve education in Arizona or anywhere else for that matter, but the key is to focus and stop all the distractions; chief among them is that spending more money will get you a better education.  Quit changing the curriculum every year and changing teachers every two hours. Encourage healthy competition, both in the class and on the playground, and push kids to outperform their peers.  Reward children that excel and give extra time to the ones that are putting forth the effort but don’t see the results. 

And finally, stop giving kids an excuse to underperform.  I always read about how inner-city or minority kids are at a disadvantage.  This very may well be, but it is not because the child is incapable of achievement. It is because we inculcate that child with the idea that he is handicapped by his environment.  Rather than teach children that their achievement is limited by their environment, we as a society, should endeavor to teach children to triumph through achievement in spite of it.  

Society should make a quality education a common denominator for our children rather than a socio-economic divider.