The University of Arkansas issued a study claiming that charter schools get a higher “return on investment” than public schools, yet are underfunded especially given their great “productivity” and “ROI.” (I admit I stumble over the idea of applying ROI when we are talking about education and children, but that’s just me.)
Bruce Baker of Rutgers University analyzes the University of Arkansas study and takes it apart.
Baker shows that the Arkansas study “shamelessly” and “knowingly” uses bogus data. The Arkansas study is meant to refute an earlier critique of their work by Baker.
Here is what Baker concludes:
“The acknowledgement of my critique, highly selective misrepresentation of my critique, and complete failure to respond to the major substantive points of that critique display a baffling degree of arrogance and complete disregard for legitimate research.
“Yes – that’s right – either this is an egregious display of complete ignorance and methodological ineptitude, or this new report is a blatant and intentional misrepresentation of data. So which is it? I’m inclined to believe the latter, but I guess either is possible.
“Oh… and separately, in this earlier report, Kevin Welner and I discuss appropriate methods for evaluating relative efficiency (the appropriate framework for such comparisons)…. And to no surprise the methods in this new UARK report regarding relative efficiency are also complete junk. Put simply, and perhaps I’ll get to more detail at a later point, a simple “dollars per NAEP score” comparison, or the silly ROI method used in their report are entirely insufficient (especially as some state aggregate endeavor???).
“And it doesn’t take too much of a literature search to turn up the rather large body of literature on relative efficiency analysis in education – and the methodological difficulties in estimating relative efficiency. So, even setting aside the fact that the spending measures in this study are complete junk, the cost effectiveness and ROI approaches used are intellectually flaccid and methodologically ham-fisted.
“But if the measures of inputs suck to begin with, then the methods applied to those measures really don’t matter so much.
“To say this new UARK charter productivity study is built on a foundation of sand would be offensive… to sand.
“And I like sand.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’m old enough to remember when we were told charter schools would require less money than public schools. It was part of the sales pitch in Ohio. Now they’re all clamoring for a piece of local funding. Still no local democratic representation of course, and no regulation, they just want the funding.
I’m curious where the money goes, because charter teachers in this state make less than public school teachers do, on average. It’s a substantial difference – the study I saw in 2010 had it at 9k less. I think the only thing holding up charter school wages are public schools because charter schools (still) have to compete with public schools for teachers. If public schools go, wages will drop across the board to charter levels.
Chiara,
In my district, they are working on privatizing teacher aides. The next step is privatizing teachers. Imagine how much money the billionaires could make if everybody else were earning minimum wage. I know, they want to get rid of minimum wage and we will all be subsistence farmers. Will that help the economy when the consumers have no disposable income?
Bruce Baker has done splendid work here, but it won’t keep reformers from quoting the original findings as if they are true. It’s very discouraging.
No, English teacher, be happy that there are scholars willing to speak truth to power.
Already happening here in Idaho, on the web site of the Idaho Charter School Network, which boasts that “charter schools in Idaho and nationwide are more cost-effective compared to traditional public schools.”
The president of the Idaho Charter School Network is Terry Ryan, formerly vice-president for Ohio Programs and Policy at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, where he helped to shape . . . . well, the programs and policies that gave rise to the train wreck known as Ohio public charter schools.
Can we give him back to Ohio?
http://idahocsn.org/research/charter-schools-in-idaho-and-nationwide-are-more-cost-effective-compared-to-traditional-public-schools/
It is interesting when one hears the term “cost-effective” used when a newbie enters the area of developing the next generation of our leaders of this country.
When the pencil pushers took over at General Motors from the engineers, we heard acclaim of how they had found supply sources that were more “cost-effective” than before and how this would improve earnings per share performance.
Might I suggest that GM Mary Barra would like to get her hands around the neck of some of those pencil pushers who gave the nod to those below standard ignition switches put on by assembly line workers from out of the parts bins?
The term “value engineering” is critical to management. It is only valid as a process if there is absolutely no diminution of value or reliability to the customer.
The surviving family members of those who lost their lives in the GM cars with the defective ignition switches probably have strong feelings when they hear the term
“cost-effective.”
I know that GM CEO Mary Barra has very strong feelings when she hears that term.
We see a great deal of heat and not enough light on the topic of which organizational
type of educational institution is the most effective and efficient for developing our human capital assets.
Rather than infighting and nitpicking, we need to face the cold, hard facts.
The US is not developing its human capital assets well enough to sustain its competitiveness against foreign countries that are doing a superior job in developing their young for higher education and for the work force.
We could continue with what we are doing currently.
To accept this status quo as a default is to agree to let the US slide to second or third tier in global competitiveness. We have already lost the lead in several key industries
including steel, autos, appliances, consumer electronics, apparel, and furniture.
If we continue on our current trajectory, the US will lead the world in only two categories:
a ) infighting between the two dominant political parties, and b ) pornography!
The only relevant measure of effectiveness of secondary schools is that of the portion of graduates who qualify to take regular college courses or gain acceptance into training programs for the skilled trades.
If we continue to educate our young to such poor standards that they only qualify for developmental ( remedial ) courses or to flip hamburgers or fold clothes at a big box store, our nation is doomed.
If you are serious about what we need to do from a public policy standpoint in human capital development, you need to study the classic 1998 white paper by The Hudson Institute Director of Research Edwin S. Rubinstein “The College Payoff Illusion.”
http://web1.calbaptist.edu/dskubik/college.htm
Ignore the somewhat dated salary information and relate to the qualitative information on the essential of developing a capable member of society. That portion will still be highly relevant a thousand years from now.
Dormand,
We did not lose those industries because of the test scores of our 15-yr olds but because the manufacturers wanted a cheaper labor supply. Shall we lower the standard of living of American workers so they can cpete for jobs that pay $5 a day?
Diane-
Only the clueless seek out the cheapest labor, and they are on the slippery slope to the death of the company by failing to allow their human resources to benefit from the fruits of dominating their respective markets.
Those companies who are world class seek exceptional people who are always making suggestions of how to make things better, faster, cheaper and smaller so as to improve the satisfaction of their customer base.
There is always some one who will sell something cheaper.
National wealth is built upon improving customer satisfaction and through lowering costs by eliminating mistakes, as mistakes are the most expensive burden on a corporation.
CEO Barra of General Motors might well endorse that hypothesis.
Contented customers stay with their vendors. Enriched and fairly treated employees stay with their companies driving down training costs. Employee turnover is one of the most expensive drivers of costs and product/service problems.
You do not find excessive employee turnover in well managed organizations.
You can have dirt cheap labor in an overseas factory and I will take
US facilities that are optimized for productivity staffed by fairly compensated employees who as a total group share in the profits of the organization. They fill orders immediately and have them delivered promptly while your cheapo labor products are still on the high seas with the ships emitting tons of pollution from the very dirty heavy fuel used by ocean going ships who are gridlocked waiting and waiting and waiting to get in line for the ports at the Long Beach/Los Angeles Ports, where the longshoremen refuse to use automate inventory controls.
Cheap labor is so passe. My guys/gals can run circles around your cheap labor with its dangerous working conditions and underaged workers and horrible living conditions.
My guys/gals are paid well because they are far more productive than your cheapo labor.
Why are my gals/guys far more productive? Because they told us better ways of doing things and these suggestions were put into production in a best practice/continuous improvement management.
For this to work, my guys/gals have to be competent at critical thinking. analytical ability and in communicating better ways of achieving objectives to mamimize customer satisfaction.
Those abilities do not come from rote memorization, teach to the test robotic environments.
We have to do better if we want to be competitive in global trade.
Competing nations are doing things right and are eating our lunch in global trade.
I suggest that Samsung and Hyundai have dominated their respective industries by world class R & D, superlative training of the South Korean human capital resources in part by having over 93% penetration of uber high speed broadband, and by offering for sale exactly what marketing research has indicated that consumers are seeking to purchase.
Consumer Reports continually ranks their products at the very top in
measures of reliability.
They are doing things right in South Korea and low wages are not part of the picture.
If the US makers of public policy do not want to see our country relegated to second or even third tiers in trade competition, it is critical that we improve our effectiveness at developing human capital resources with the ability to think critically, to analyze the appropriate key results areas and to clearly communicate verbally and in writing even to those with not one iota of knowledge of one’s specialized area of expertise.
Continually placing near 30th in global student preparedness competitions is not the way to be a world leader.
We have to do better.
If Rafe Esquith’s Hobart Shakespeareans can transform fifth graders from the most challenging of poverty situations with virtually no family support into highly effective contributors to society, perhaps others in primary and secondary education might seek to emulate his proven best practice protocols.
dormand, your argument is not new. There is no crisis in education, despite what reformers would have us believe. The economic crisis is just that, economic, not an educational one.
Teachers and schools have always born the brunt of blame for the ills of society and the economy. For example, for many people, the reason the Soviets beat the US into space with Sputnik is because teachers and schools were doing such a lousy job of creating engineers and physicists. Did the resulting legislation demanding more science and math in our nation’s schools lead to higher numbers of scientists and mathematicians? Maybe, but the 14 years between Sputnik and the moon landing was hardly enough time to see fruition in new education “standards” of the time. And we still “won” the space race.
Most of our nation’s problems do not stem from our schools. The problems in our schools are mostly a reflection of the greater problems of society at large. Genuinely address and correct those problems, and many problems with education, including achievement gaps, will correct themselves.
Education isn’t about developing human capital, it’s about developing humans and citizens. Until we return to that idea, education in this country remains in danger.
Teachers are definitely not the problem. Every single one of them that I talk to is troubled that they are not allowed the freedom to use their training to bring out the best in their students, each of whom is
different as a snowflake.
We do not need six figure salaried central office specialists, opulent administrative offices and over-the-top football stadia which seems like an arms race to build the most expensive stadium.
We need to free the teachers from all of the mundane and irrelevant burdens that keep them from devoting their time to teaching their students.
Teachers are great!!! It is our entrenched bureaucracies that are the problem.
The date of any argument relating to preparing the next generation is absolutely meaningless.
Either we perform in developing the latent abilities of our children or we continue as a society to become less competitive in this incredibly competitive world economy that the US once dominated.
There is no factor more important to any company or any country than its people. Those countries which do a superior job in developing their young, as long as they have the freedoms to innovate, will tend to rise to the top in global competitiveness.
Those companies that are able to recruit and retain the best human capital resources and who give them freedom and support their breakthroughs will rise to the top in their respective industries.
Xerox in its PARC ( Palo Alto Research Center ) provided a vivid demonstration of how not to manage innovative talent.
This R & D assembled some absolutely brilliant talent, but when that talent developed innovations that far exceeded the capabilities of any technology ever developed before, the Xerox management suppressed it, as it was not a copy machine.
Thus others saw and vastly profited from the incredibly innovations that the PARC innovators developed.
I suggest that if one is in an environment in which it is difficult to implement proven better protocols, read the classic “A Manager’s Guide to Making Changes” by Arnold S. Judson.
This is a difficult read, but it shows how to implement change without having to resort to the use of authority.
“The US is not developing its human capital assets. . . ”
Man, were you out spraying the porcine excrement last night in the fields around here because that statement sure smells as bad if not worse (and it’s hard to get worse than pigshit smell).
Human capital assetts = stopped up sewer pipe effluent.
Mr. Swacker-
You might find it to be enlightening to see the challenges that world
class companies have when seeking to open either R & D labs or state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities that will make obsolete everything the competition has.
They too frequently are unable to source the critical mass of top quality talent in the US required to establish their facilities here and are forced to open overseas to access the exceptional talent, very highly paid creative class individuals needed.
You might find it useful if you were to do a bit of research on the facts, rather than attacking postings of others who might not be in lockstep with your point of view.
Well, for me, viewing another human as a “capital asset” is atrocious.
What you have written here might as well as been written as a WSJ editorial.
“If we continue on our current trajectory, the US will lead the world in only two categories:
a ) infighting between the two dominant political parties, and b ) pornography!”
Dormand has just joined the 35,000 ft club of hyperbole! Is it satisfying?
I’d be willing to bet that if you followed the money on who/what organization funded the UARK study, you’d find a Walton behind it.
Regina,
I believe that UARKANSAS study was funded by Walton.
“University of Arkansas” (aka Univ of Walmart) is the red flag right there.
A posting stated that the University of Arkansas study was funded by a Walton family interest. I have no information to refute nor support that assertion.
I can provide you with documentation of what it is like to be a working poor staffer at the bottom of the Wal-Mart Stores. Inc. squirrel cage. Our friends at The New York Times
Sunday Magazine did a brilliant expose in February of 2004. If you have a dry eye now, you will not have that when you finish this compelling piece:
Mr. Dormand:
You have a bad habit of changing the subject rather than addressing the counterpoints to and criticisms of your claims. Please stop.
If you insist on repeating the pattern you’ve established–by changing the subject in response to my comment here–then could you please change it to recipes calling for shrimp? I’m hungry, and shrimp sounds good for dinner.
A sampling of published pieces on the shortage of highly qualiied scientific talent:
http://blog.gopivotal.com/pivotal/news-2/mckinsey-report-highlights-the-impending-data-scientist-shortage
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jibs/journal/v40/n6/abs/jibs200892a.html
Click to access Global%20Talent.pdf
Dormand, there are many published studies about the scientists and engineers who can’t get jobs. Our corporations would prefer to outsource the work to countries with lower wages for educated people.
Dormand, here are some of the many articles that debunk the shortage of engineers and scientists:
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/03/the-myth-of-the-science-and-engineering-shortage/284359/
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9245494/What_STEM_shortage_Electrical_engineering_lost_35_000_jobs_last_year
http://www.washingtonpost.com/pb/national/on-innovations/president-obama-there-is-no-engineer-shortage/2011/09/01/gIQADpmpuJ_story.html
http://issues.org/29-4/what-shortages-the-real-evidence-about-the-stem-workforce/
To a business, the most important of all its assets are its human capital resources, because they are what brings life and innovation to the other resources.
Invariably those companies that are the most effective at enriching and empowering their
human capital resources prevail over their less enlightened competitors whom tend to focus on getting people to work for less.
The Costco vs. Sam’s Club comparison is the classic. Costco’s people are far more customer focused allowing for a vastly superior customer experience. The error rate of motivated and empowered people drive cost down as compared to a Theory X work environment, such as is common among the Detroit Big Three.
Alex Hailey’s “Wheels” provides an in-depth insight as to why GM is in deep, deep yogurt.
If you look at the winners in any industry, it is always the company that does the best job of empowering and enriching its human capital resources, and especially listening to their input on how to improve operations and the products/services for the customers.
China has 100.000 engineers who are unemployable as they are lacking in the social skills and communications skills essential for interaction in a functional corporation.
Those world class companies who have to have the very best to keep their domination of their markets pay very, very well for their top talent. Even then they are stolen, as other world class companies are hungrier for top talent. Google and Apple have received many complaints about their stance of refusing to do business with headhunters who steal their employees.
There will always be unemployed individuals in any skill set. Right now there is an unprecedented demand that cannot be met for the highest quality professionals, particularly in the spy level IT field, where there is an enormous shortage of talent that can cope with the tsunami of hackers that have broken out in Eastern Europe.
If you want to see why we have both unemployed degreed individuals at the same time as there is a deep shortage of those most highly skilled, I suggest reviewing Edwin S. Rubinstein, then the Director of Research of The Hudson Institute in his 1998 classic white paper “The College Payoff Illusion.”
http://web1.calbaptist.edu/dskubik/college.htm
It is like the situation when your child is in need of brain surgery. There may be half a dozen pediatric neurosurgeons sitting around twittllng their thumbs with nothing to do.
There is only one Benjamin Carson, MD, the world’s most respected pediatric neurosurgeon and Emeritus Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, who has executed more unprecedented brain surgeries on children than any other surgeon.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4950531
Because it is your child, you are not going to go with one of the guys who is twiddling his thumbs, you are going to wait for the best.
World class companies think the same way, because their reputation is on the line. If you go with indifferent talent, you end up with enormous headaches like Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors has simply because guys cut corners and did not do things right.
Ben Carson attributes his success to his mother’s insistence that he read books instead of watching TV. She also instilled in him a love of God and an appreciation for the country he was born in. And I know for a fact that Ben would never refer to any of the children who he operated on as “human capital” that he needed to save for the economic functioning of the state.
Let’s be sure to recognize the vital importance of that children’s librarian who took the time to listen to young Benjamin and his brother to see what their interests were and what turned them on.
With that information and with her in-depth knowledge of her library’s collection and the books that could be requested from other branches in the Detroit system, she was able to create reading lists that were compelling to each of the boys.
Yet, this is the very city service that is so deeply cut by myopic city councils at budget cutting time.
It is especially cruel when libraries are closed on Mondays, as is now the case in the once outstanding Dallas Public Library system.
Many in the working poor category are forced to work week ends as their employers can sell more good and services then. They tend to have Mondays off.
Many of these in the working poor desperately want their children to be able to escape poverty, and most realize that being able to read effectively is critical to upward mobility.
If they are not able to take their children to see the children’s librarian on Mondays when their day off is scheduled, in many cases it just doesn’t get done and the child grows up with minimal exposure to the right books.
There are thousands and thousands of books. What makes for a motivated youth reader are books appropriate for that child’s interests and reading level.
Children’s librarians are an incredibly valuable resource for our society and yet this is the very service that is so often cut severely at budget making time as city councils lack the vision to comprehend the repercussions of their decisions.
You do not have to sing the praises of children’s librarians to me who vociferously bemoans the layoffs of exactly those positions in favor of more money for testing and computers.
However, you did not address my main quibble with you which is that you insist on calling people “human capital” which to me is an economic term that reduces people’s value to whatever traits and capacities a person can use to make more profits for the boss. I understand you are actually arguing that it is the companies who recognize the creative ideas and intelligent suggestions of its on the ground employees that end up making the most profit. True.
But I am disturbed by the way you embrace the term “human capital” because I am a teacher who interacts with all kinds of children every day. They will always possess intrinsic value to me regardless of their potential to become some company’s human capital.
The present situation in which “Total Quality Management” is being foisted on the world of education fits hand in glove with the concept of children as “human capital.” The longitudinal data collection system that each state was forced to create in order to get an ESEA flexibility waiver and a chance at RTTT funds is the tool that will be used to establish ‘quality control” in schools. National standards are leading to a national curriculum to be delivered by computer and assessed by national tests created by Pearson. They have started with Englsh and Math but soon will be testing for dispositions. It is all under the guise of making students college and career ready but it is actually a plan to grant them functional literacy which is all they will need for workforce training.
Personal data of every sort from test scores to parent income to attitudes and values will be collected on each child and each teacher to ensure compliance and total control of the state, the district, the principal, the teacher, and the student. The ultimate purpose of this system is to identify “human capital” for the Department of Labor. It is a socialist plan. It is a terrible idea that should be stopped immediately.
So please do not refer to people as “human capital.” And do join me in the fight against charters and school choice.
Press Release: The Sveriges Riksbank (Bank of Sweden) Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for 1992
13 October 1992
THIS YEAR’s LAUREATE HAS EXTENDED THE SPHERE OF ECONOMIC ANALYSIS TO NEW AREAS OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR AND RELATIONS.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, 1992, to
Professor Gary S. Becker, University of Chicago, USA,
Human Capital
Gary Becker’s most noteworthy contribution is perhaps to be found in the area of human capital, i.e., human competence, and the consequences of investments in human competence. The theory of human capital is considerably older than Becker’s work in this field. His foremost achievement is to have formulated and formalized the microeconomic foundations of the theory. In doing so, he has developed the human-capital approach into a general theory for determining the distribution of labor income. The predictions of the theory with respect to the wage structure have been formulated in so-called human-capital- earnings functions, which specify the relation between earnings and human capital. These contributions were first presented in some articles in the early 1960s and were developed further, both theoretically and empirically, in his book, Human Capital, written in 1964.
Dawn-
It appears that you may not have had exposure to perhaps the most important single paragraph in our country’s core essence.
If you purport to be a teacher, I suggest that you have not completed your responsibilities to your students until and unless they fully comprehend this most critical of all paragraphs in our country’s foundation of values:
The Constitution of the United States of America
AMENDMENT I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Dormand — Given your self-proclaimed expertise in the realms of business management, human resources, finance, and geopolitics, one would expect to find you engaged as a captain of industry at the helm of a multinational corporation, or busily reaping billions from shrewd investments on Wall Street while thousands of lesser mortals buy and sell based on nothing more than the prophecies they infer from the furrow of your brow or the curl of your upper lip, rather than find you here, arrogantly, condescendingly, and pedantically lecturing strangers about whatever tangential topic happens to kindle a match-sized flame inside your feverish mind. Odd, indeed, to say the least.
If I purport to be a teacher…..what are you talking about?