This is the most absurd “report” yet. This organization says that the U.S. does not have an “efficient” school system. Finland has the most efficient school system. What can we do to become more efficient? Cut teachers’ salaries and increase class size.
Funny, when I visited Finland in 2011, I saw many classes, none larger than 16. Teachers’ pay is equivalent to U.S. pay.
“The Efficiency Index –which education systems deliver the best value for money? was released today.
US ranks nineteenth out of thirty countries in new ranking of education system efficiency
Released 19.01 EDT Thursday September 4 2014
The US ranks in the bottom half of a new international comparison of the efficiency of education systems across OECD countries – lower than Japan, Korea and many northern European countries.
The Efficiency Index –which education systems deliver the best value for money?, commissioned by GEMS Education Solutions, is the first comprehensive international analysis that looks at how efficiently education budgets are allocated in each country.
It ranks 30 OECD countries based on their expenditure on teacher costs, which account for 80 per cent of education budgets, and the pupil outcomes they achieve. In this way, it calculates which system generates the greatest educational return for each dollar invested.
The report is written by Professor Peter Dolton, Professor of Economics at Sussex University and a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics; Dr Oscar Marcenaro Gutie�rrez, Associate Professor at the University of Ma�laga; and Adam Still, Education Finance and Development Specialist at GEMS Education Solutions.
The index ranks Finland as the most efficient country in the OECD. According to the index’s econometric model, which calculates the proven statistical link between teacher salaries or class size and PISA scores, the US could match Finland high PISA’s results and still make efficiency savings by increasing class sizes and making a modest cut in teacher salaries. It finds that these results could be achieved even if the US was to increase its pupil/teacher ratio by 10 per cent.
Alternatively, if it were more efficient, the US could match Finland’s PISA results and still reduce teacher salaries by 4.7 per cent from the US average teacher salary of $41,460 to $39,520. The index argues that the US should consider addressing both teacher salary and class sizes to improve its education efficiency. As the largest country in the OECD, its overall education spend is five times that of any other country in the study and its teacher salaries are comparatively high.
The report stops short of advocating particular changes to salaries or class size in each country. It makes clear that there may be labour market, cultural, economic or political reasons why this ‘maximum’ efficiency is not possible without negative consequences. The authors have not examined the practical impact of such changes in each country. However, by showing how far countries fall short of the OECD’s most efficient system, the index provides an instructive point of comparison when Governments are allocating budgets.
The report groups the countries according to their efficiency:
1. Elite Performers: Finland, Japan and Korea score very well in both the efficiency and quality stakes.
2. Efficient and Effective: Australia, Czech Republic, New Zealand and Slovenia are all performing relatively well on efficiency and producing high PISA scores.
3. More Effective than Efficient: Overspending (too high salaries) or bloated (too many teachers): Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland. These countries perform better in terms of quality than efficiency. This may be because their system generates other outcomes that aren’t captured by PISA rankings. Alternatively, it may be because their systems are over-resourced beyond the threshold required to achieve high educational outcomes.
4. More Efficient than Effective: Underspending or underperforming: Czech Republic, France, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Norway, Sweden, UK and USA. These countries are more efficient than educationally effective. This could be because they have resource constraints that prevent them from improving quality such as low salaries may prevent the recruitment of highly skilled teachers. Alternatively, if extensive resources are already being spent, it could that the education system is flawed – and that policy changes, rather than additional resources, would improve education outcomes.
5. Inefficient and Ineffective: Brazil, Chile, Greece, Indonesia, Turkey These systems are inefficient and at the same time fail to produce good pupil outcomes.
The report finds that changes to teacher salary and pupil teacher ratio can improve efficiency because, out of 63 different inputs into the education system – from teaching materials to infrastructure – these were the only two that had a statistically significant impact on pupils’ PISA scores.
This is a powerful insight for policy makers since, unlike a child’s socio-economic background, parental support, or a child’s aspirations, governments have the policy levers to change both teacher salary and class sizes.
The report acknowledges that some countries, such as Switzerland and Germany, which both spend lavishly on their education system and achieve good results, may choose to pursue policies in which educational efficiency is not their priority. For instance, they may feel that PISA does not capture all the student outcomes that their system is aiming for.
Together, the 30 OECD countries in the study spent $2.2 trillion dollars on their education systems each year, and the average proportion of GDP that countries spend on education has been rising for decades. In an environment where state education budgets are likely to continue to be stretched and face competition from other spending priorities, the Efficiency Index sheds light on the effectiveness of the spending choices that policy-makers are currently making.
KEY FINDINGS:
Over the last 15 years Finland’s education system has been the most efficient in the OECD. Other high performers include Korea, Japan and Hungary and the Czech Republic. In contrast, Mediterranean countries such as Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy exhibit low efficiency.
Excellent outcomes are still possible with relatively large class sizes – despite a focus on reducing class-sizes in many western education systems. Finland and Korea, the two countries studied with the most efficient education systems, achieve good results, have relatively large class sizes – the 3rd and 5th largest of the OECD countries – and pay teachers moderate wages.
The US is in the bottom third of the efficiency index. As the biggest OECD country, it has an overall education spend five times higher than any other country in the study and pays very high teachers salaries.
Countries can be inefficient if they both underpay or overpay teachers. Some countries such as Indonesia and Brazil are inefficient because their low teachers pay makes it hard to recruit and retain high-calibre individuals into the profession. Modest extra expenditure would result in significantly better educational outcomes. Equally, higher salaries given to teachers who are already achieving excellence, such as those paid in Switzerland and Germany, may fail to increase performance and therefore harm efficiency.
In general those countries that demonstrate high efficiency also attain high educational outcomes. Five out of the top ten countries in the Efficiency Index are also in the PISA top ten.
Chris Kirk, Chief Executive, GEMS Education Solutions:
“GEMS Education Solutions commissioned the efficiency index to inform the debate about which items of educational expenditure are likely to make the greatest impact on the attainment of children.
It allows us to see which systems around the world produce the best results per pound, providing a data driven analysis that can inform policy choices. It clearly shows that some countries spend their available resources more efficiently than others.
“At a time at which many countries are struggling with tight public budgets. It also sends an important message to poorer countries that significant educational improvement is possible even with limited investment.”
Will this nonsense ever end ? Or are we fated to be subjected to this garbage till the end of time or the end of public education — which ever comes first ?
“… commissioned by GEMS Education Solutions…”
Does anyone know if they are affiliated with the new GEMS Academy in downtown Chicago?
Anyway, the bare concept of “efficiency”, without taking moral and ethical values into consideration, is very chilling. Corporations cut the livelihoods of thousands of employees at a time in the name of efficiency (and they do it very efficiently through email or voicemail). Amazon makes its warehouse workers wear ankle bracelets so they can make sure they get where they’re going most efficiently. Adolph Eichmann ran his trains very efficiently, and once they switched from bullets to gas, the Holocaust became much more efficient. None of these gains in efficiency are anything to celebrate and I’m actually relieved that our education system is inefficient.
Hah! Got it in one. Yup:
http://www.gemseducation.com/our-schools/list-of-schools-opening-2014
That photo of Tony Blair is disturbing, I must say. Can’t they find a better one, where he doesn’t look like a ghoul?
They should take it off. He’s going to be known for corruption more than anything else in 5 years. Every day something new comes out.
AND effective, but would that make them elite? I shudder at the implications.
The econometric turn …accompanied by economic behavior that tanked the economy… and these people expect us to think they are authorities on efficiency? on education? I’d like these efficiency gurus to have nothing but a McDonalds diet for a full year. A very efficient business and very unhealthy fare. Reductive thinking again.
And the answer about class sizes has been ed tech, which costs lots of cash…
Totally idiotic. Korea tops in efficiency; that’s why the average family has to spend 25% of its disposable income on tutoring. Schleicker strikes again. And Finland does NOT have large class sizes but smaller and far more equitable than in the US.
And here I thought Pearson was the world’s leading education company.
“GEMS Education is the world’s leading education company, and through our experience and network of world-renowned experts, including educators and consultants, we continue to be at the forefront of educational development and reform. Our ideas and strategies are proven, either through our own schools, or through work undertaken for our clients.”
They’re selling something or other. I guess that means this sales presentation will be swallowed whole and repeated as fact, because everyone knows advertising is just like information!
Who IS the world’s leading education company???? That’s what I want to know.
Gates and Walton should commission a study. Settle this once and FOR ALL 🙂
http://www.gemsedsolutions.com/publications
“They’re selling something or other.”
At the very least, they’re selling $38,000+ per year private education (who pays that for a brand-new unproven school? – must be some slick marketing). I’d be curious what else they’re “selling” and how exactly they’re profiting off it.
Additionally, this can be noted.
I love the first sentence of that link: “Fifty years ago, both South Korea and Finland had terrible education systems. Finland was at risk of becoming the economic stepchild of Europe. South Korea was ravaged by civil war. Yet over the past half century, both South Korea and Finland have turned their schools around….”
So now not only is the education system responsible for poor economic outcomes, but it’s also responsible for civil war??? Wow you teachers are powerful!
Utah legislators are constantly bragging that our state gets more “bang for the buck” in education. We score in about the middle of the pack, while having enormous class sizes and far lower per pupil expenditures than any other state (over $1,000 less than the next lowest state). However, when a study was done a few years ago comparing Utah to other states with similar demographics found that Utah’s scores were the lowest of those seven other states. Efficiency is not necessarily preferable.
I would imagine that Duncan, Obama, Campbell B, Broad, Bloomberg, Koch, Walton and Gates will be on this ASAP. I think the time has truly come for Wally-world Academy. Underpaid clerks (minimum wage) can “teach” rooms full of 100s of students plugged into computers. The clerks can apply for public assistance and Obamacare. Gone will be the need for teachers to go to University. Broad can open up “clerks R us” for a 6 weekend stint on clerking.
Who is the $ behind GEMS, and frankly, who gives a EFF about GEMS or its study? Seriously, its comical anymore.
Teachers used to be respected. Now, they are the butt of studies and undermined and blamed at every opportunity.
When bartenders could possibly make more than a degreed, educated, certified teacher, and the 1%ers of the world beat the drum that its a good thing, there is something wrong with the world.
Let’s do a comparison between Finland and U.S. on the number of school administrators per pupil and the total salaries of the typical public school administrations. Shall we factor in the costs of bussing and competitive team sports compared to Finland, #1 in the international science/math comparisons? Let’s look at the whole cost landscape. Jean
Another way the US can become as efficient as Finland is if Finland’s PISA scores fall.
I have 35 in a science class. Try doing any sort of meaningful lab in a room built for 22-24 but forced to hold 35.
It cannot be done safely or effectively.
The kids in private school, though, do labs in pairs with plenty of room, equipment and oversight.
And we wonder why the rich get richer.
As a former chemistry teacher and chemical hygiene officer (CHO) I can appreciate your concern for the safety of your students.
A few years ago, our chemistry classes were moved to an addition built onto our school. The layout of the classroom / labs, dubbed “Clabs”, were such that one-third of the space was for the lab area and the other two-thirds for the classroom. As such, the laboratory, like the situation you described in your science class, did not provide sufficient room for the 24 students to work safely.
When I described the situation to Dr. Jim Kaufman, founder and former director of The Laboratory Safety Institute and asked for his advice, he thought carefully for a moment and answered, “Congratulate your board of education for designing, building and accepting a laboratory facility designed for 12 students.”
I don’t know if it is worth contacting the chemical hygiene officer in your school district (every district is required to have one – few do), or to write a letter describing the unsafe conditions that exist. In the event of an accident with or without an injury, at least you can claim, whether or not it might have any influence on the assignment of blame, that you had indeed informed the administration of the unsafe laboratory conditions. That letter throws the ball back in their court, though they have well-paid lawyers who will still maintain that it was your decision to proceed with dangerous lab activities when you knew that the environment was unsafe.
Good luck with any resolution. I recommend you do whatever it takes to protect yourself from liability should a student be injured – especially if it is a consequence of the overcrowding resulting from the too-large class size.
Have these “learned” people EVER been in a school classroom with more than 30 people of any size–whether adults or, especially children? Normal children make noise. Add to that the size of their desks. Older children are sometimes larger than the teacher. Add the backpacks they bring and hang on their chairs because there is nowhere else to put them. And the noise and length of disruption when they put books and papers into their desks to change subjects and take materials out for a new subject.
I taught in regular elementary rooms with 30+ children. It was difficult to get across the room to answer the phone when the office called. It was very difficult to have some stay working on assignments so I could do table work with a small group. Difficult to get them out quickly for a fire drill. Difficult to do science experiments. Or use math manipulatives.
And have a student have to leave to use the restroom and then return, while the lesson was going on.
Someone once wrote that it’s not teaching, it’s crowd control.
Who thinks of these “effectiveness” solutions? They need to back it up with their own personal research (yes, actually teaching children in classrooms for a period of time) under conditions similar to those of us who work/worked to educate children in poverty schools.
These folks are really committed to chasing people away from the teaching profession aren’t they?
retired teacher… “These folks are really committed to chasing people away from the teaching profession aren’t they?…” These folks have a few “successes” under their belts and yes, this quote from you is one of them. Another.. They are chasing CHILDREN away from learning. And if they are not “chasing” they are TOSSING OUT. Your description of the over crowded classroom is so on target. Now add that sixth graders in a small trailer with poor acoustics requiring long walks to the main building to get to the bathrooms, lunch, etc and the picture gets worse.
Dr Bruce Baker, Rutgers U (school finance 101 blog) probably has a term to characterize such a nonsensical comparison study. One point–doubt the GEMS study included US “out of district placements,” which are running $30-50K. That would influence the teacher/student ratio. Are other nations’ multiply challenged students included in their ratios?
Curious why GEMS site places cookies on visitor’s computer?
This is ridiculous and more than stupid. It’s about $$$$$. Thus…MARKETING!
Does anyone care that Korean families pay a lot out of pocket for those test scores?
“Sometimes called shadow education systems, they mirror the mainstream system, offering after-hours classes in every subject—for a fee. But nowhere have they achieved the market penetration and sophistication of hagwons in South Korea, where private tutors now outnumber schoolteachers.”
People are paying for this in Korea. That’s an education cost. They have to add it if they’re comparing between countries. Arne Duncan did the same thing with Korea. He told parents it was “commitment” or something.
“Commitment” and whatever they’re paying out of the family budget for this massive tutoring industry they’ve created.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324635904578639780253571520
Americans are big on individualism, freedom, self-determination, and entitlement even though they say they are all about hard work. I find it to be intellectually dishonest to demand things of educators and service workers what they demand of no one else.
People want results that are competitive with the world results but aren’t willing to put their money and support behind making life better for all. Too many are interested in getting their own way for their own kids, but even then they want control of the schools and colleges, demanding that their kids are spoonfed what they believe. If so, they should just do it for themselves, but get no voucher money for marching to their own drums.
If we can’t care about the future of a cohesive society instead of only protecting our own families from our perceptions of education future, we will never get on with education future.
The trouble is with the pace and the punitive nature currently jammed into the lives and curricula to the point of overkill and desiring to obliterate remnants of the past pedagogy in order to produce a false sense of efficiency.
If we don’t want to play the game, then they want us to shut up and go away.
That comment hit me, about control. I have a parent right now at my school who is up in arms about the “obscenity” in Of Mice and Men. We had a meeting with her and she stated that she was not just there for her child but for “everyone’s child who has to read that filthy book!” She is trying to get everyone’s parents riled up about it.
To me this seems sad: it is not enough that you have to ban a work of classic literature for your own child, but you want to create a moral crusade.
I came home tonight and the first thing I did was to look into teaching in Vermont.
I don’t think that I can handle TX much longer.
Title one,
I think this is an example of the drawback of using a geographic based admission system. If any sufficiently vocal resident of the catchment area objects to any aspect of the education at the school, that aspect of the education is denied to every member of the school.
I have an idea to improve efficiency. Lets take the millions and millions spent to support education policy wanks and wonks and use it to give people who actually TEACH more time for prep and more time for working one-on-one with kids. Here’s another: Let’s get the wanks and wonks out of teachers’ lives so they can concentrate on their jobs and not on meeting ridiculous mandates.
Bob,
Millions are not really enough to have a large impact on education. Ten billion would be less than a 2% increase in K-12 spending.
That wasn’t really the point of my comment, TE. My point is that these policy wonks continually reveal how completely clueless they are about the realities of K-12 teaching. Every middle- and high-school teacher I know is completely, utterly exhausted by the end of the day from deal with an already enormous load. It’s typical of these teachers to have seven classes of 25-30 students each. And each class has to be carefully planned and documented. The kids have huge and hugely varied issues. There are many mandates. Teachers function as their own secretaries, doing all of their own filing and photocopying. And then there are the meeting and the mandates. And the extra duties (cafeteria, buss duty). Given that the primary characteristic of the life of a K-12 teacher is that there is NEVER ENOUGH TIME to give students what they need (they are very need, and their needs differ dramatically), its INSANE to talk about how our classes aren’t efficient enough and teachers need bigger loads. These are fools who have no notion what a middle or high-school classroom is like from a teacher’s perspective. They think in terms of college lecture classes, which is what they remember. Not the same thing, at all, at all. The profoundly ignorant and prideful speak authoritatively of matters they know nothing about.
Bob,
I know it was not your point, but I do think people greatly underestimate the amount that we spend on K-12 education and that distorts the way they think about education and other government spending priorities.
My little local public school district alone is expecting to spend a little over over $150 million dollars next year. The New York public school district is expecting to spend $25.9 Billion dollars next year.
TE, I think that you probably underestimate what people know. We all know that most K-12 spending is on salaries and benefits, followed by facilities. Most people in the business understand, I think, that we spend about 660 billion a year on K-12, mostly for those things. But the spending at the margins is a LOT smaller. Once salaries and facilities and textbooks are taken away, there is little else. I started my school year three weeks ago. I have already spent about 350 of my own money on supplies. A lot of teachers do that.
Federal spending on K-12 education in 2014 was 45.5 billion. In contrast, ONE new weapons program–a new bomber that the Air Force has in the works–is slated to cost 55 billion.
Bob,
I would look at the sum of government spending on all levels rather than just one level. I assume you would not like to see state spending on education match state spending on bombers, would you?
We get what we pay for. We are willing to spend trillions on insane misadventures overseas at a time when school teachers have to buy their kids’ supplies out of their own pockets and many schools lack libraries, nurses, computers, consumable books like novels, and other essentials. 4 to 6 trillion dollars on the misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, and for what? Meanwhile, our schools are suffering. Show up at one and see what I mean. Money is constantly an issue.
Many schools now lack the basic amenities that we took for granted when we were kids–a theater, a gymnasium, a functioning library (one that is not used for half the year as the testing center), a librarian, a nurse. There is not money to buy scripts for young actors, but there is plenty of money for new weapons systems. Trillions for that.
Robert,
You forgot about the money for football stadiums as well. My middle son was the stage manager and director of technical theater when 1) their budget was reduced to $0 and 2) the football stadiums of the high schools in town were renovated at a cost of a million each.
I am in favor of school athletics programs–give us sound minds in sound bodies, I say. However, I think that school athletic programs should do a lot more yoga and martial arts. That said, I understand why Robert Maynard Hutchins eliminated football at the University of Chicago back in the 1920s. This was supposed to be an institution of learning, he believed, and often monies are lavished on these programs while others–technical theater or paleontology, for example, languish. High school speech and theater directors spend much of their time fundraising, which is insane because there are such great demands on their time. That’s really a shame because this stuff doesn’t cost a lot. A couple thousand a year would do nicely for most programs. We could have outstanding theater programs and libraries in all of our schools for the cost of a rounding error in the Pentagon budget for personal vehicles for top brass. Our priorities are entirely screwed up. There is plenty of money for sending our kids off the foreign lands to fight and die in other people’s conflicts but precious little for educating them–precious little beyond the salaries and facilities budgets, that is. Even the K-12 athletics people have to scrounge in many places, these days, to find money for incidentals. They hit up parents at special fundraisers to buy pumps to blow up basketballs and footballs and volleyballs.
We have forgotten what the “defense” part of “Department of Defense” means. Our military budgets are insane, and we are way over-deployed for reasons that have little to do with security and everything to do with Senators and Congresspeople pushing the bills that bring the dollars into their cronies and supporters in the defense industries. I say, let them have to hold a bake sale and a funny socks day to build the new miniature remote sensor drones. That’s what we have to do to get basic necessities for our students.
Ha! Those clowns should have funny sock day, backwards hat day, inside out day, pie in the face day, one per week at a minimum to earn some dough for their pet projects. They act so self-important, making fun of tan suits, making untrue observations and collecting money for doing favors to people who have no need of a favor. We are axsick, sick country because of the lying nature of politicians.
I agree we need to set priorities that put citizens ahead of the war machine. There is so much stress among people currently that continuing as it is will just push the divide further.
It seems some people survive on stress. Maybe they just don’t care because they have money to treat their stress. But it seems like it is a very unAmerican view to degrade education and disrespect pedagogy, philosophy, and human development pretending that some nationwide, unmanageable system that doesn’t pour the monies back into the education system rather than into the banks of outsiders is the way to go.
As someone else said, what does RAce to the Top mean? I don’t think the top is the same for everyone. There is so much cognitive dissonance in my mind right now that some days it is difficult to think about it.
I must say that Dianne Ravitch is brave and dedicated to seeing this fight through. Much change has happened already. Facts need to keep being put forth. Focus on the goal needs to be constant. Detractors need to be ignored.
On the other hand, and this keeps me going, I think that we are raising some great kids. I am extremely impressed at how much my students support one another, for example, and how respectful they are of differences among them. We are doing a lot right, and that doesn’t get talked about.
Yes, we ARE doing many great things. There are great kids out there. The politicians need to back off.
It’s just another example of garbage statistics! They are simply looking at numbers in a vacuum, not how they connect to the real world. Poverty is ignored as an element in the equation. All the “efficient” countries listed also happen to be extremely homogeneous. So in the logic of the statistical bubble that ranks us lower due to our diversity the only way to make us more “efficient” is to cut our pay and increase class size! It just happens to be the message that Washing wants to hear.
The real world of teaching in America suggests otherwise. Any seasoned teacher knows it is much easier to reach a greater number of students in a setting that contains a homogeneous mix of middle class students. Poorer students do better in a smaller setting where they can connect on a more personal level. The same veteran teacher knows that diverse learners with special needs will do better in a smaller class, and we all know that the very young will do better in a smaller class. This bogus “study” is so poorly constructed that it tells us NOTHING!
Anything to avoid addressing poverty. I propose that Finnish classrooms have more Finnish computer products. Uneducated guessing is fun!
Let the elite private schools adopt this GEM of an efficiency model and show us *overpaid* public school teachers how it’s done.
deutsch29: you know how I hate to be the bearer of bad news but…
Apparently Sidwell Friends (Barack Obama) and Delbarton School (Chris Christie) and Harpeth Hall (Michelle Rhee) and U of Chicago Lab Schools (Rahm Emanuel) and Lakeside School (Bill Gates) and such aren’t ready to straighten up and fly right.
Strangely, they’re continuing with such foolishness as, well, just took at the time-wasting sports activities offered at Harpeth Hall:
Basketball, bowling, crew, cross country, golf, lacrosse, riflery, soccer, softball, swimming & diving, tennis, track and filed, and volleyball.
Link: http://www.harpethhall.org/podium/default.aspx?t=151810
How can it call itself an elite private school and offer such nonsense?
I can just see the USA slipping even more in the standings…
😱
Tago:)
It’s no wonder it’s absurd. A modern venture capital ploy is to fund research that proves the need for your services. Clearly GEMS commissioned this study for exactly that reason. And they are misunderstanding the results to reap the rich rewards.
Shameful.
Except that GEMS’ own education system is extremely “inefficient”. It’s priced nearly double even the most expensive public school districts in the nation and class sizes are very small.
I suppose “efficient” is in the eyes of the beholder. It’s an efficient way for GEMS to make profit… 🙂
Doug,
Profit is an important benchmark for society. As a society we do not want to take valuable resources and turn them into less valuable output. Having a system of production that involves profit helps guard against us running the economic machine backwards.
And failing to put the money back into the society by sheltering it away on islands with no taxes kills the flow. The oil of the machine causes the society’s ability to function to erode. Without a real middle class to work and buy goods and services, the economy will grind to a halt for the majority of Americans. Crime and hatred will increase. The American Dream becomes the Nightmare.
Deb,
The longstanding question of macroeconomics is what happens to household savings. If society produces $100 of output but the folks that benefit from the sale only spend 90% of their income! only $90 of the output will be purchased unless the savings is used to buy the remaining $10. The efficiency of the financial sector in insuring that there is always enough demand for goods to prevent a general glut has been the subject of debate for centuries, and remains at the core of the differences between the new classical macroeconomists and the Keynesians.
I know.
@teachingeconomist. No disagreement that profit is one useful motivator in many cases.
Yet business is rife with examples if high, but unproductive, profits. Like new media profits. A where ad agencies have gotten rich their clients have yet to see significant returns. But socially the agencies are able to manipulate the markets to get those wasted profits.
My feeling is that when the search for profit over-rules the search for doing something productive, nothing economically puts the brakes on what businesses will choose to do.
So, here, GEMS sponsors erroneous research in order to pad their bottom line. While that isn’t illegal, I’d argue it’s destructive for society (hopefully on a small scale).
The only way to put brakes on the practice is to call it what it is.
Agree. I think that is why laypersons call those behaviors “greed”. When it is obvious that more and more people are going under because of these practices and a very few are succeeding, something is out of kilter. But you can’t force people whose only goal is accumulating more for self to change and care about those who are caring for more than themselves.
Doug,
I agree that profit seeking is a useful motivator, but my point was that requiring an organization to make a “profit” is a useful way to make sure that we are not destroying value by mistake. It helps in efforts to make sure we are doing productive activities.
@teachingeconomist – requiring profit only ensures activity is productive when profit is the ultimate goal.
Believing otherwise leads to the error Ed Deming identified as missing the view of the whole by focusing on specific metrics…and an error he found commonly in business. (And I find commonly in business.)
In the complicated human endeavors with more complex goals, there are a great many profitable activities which are also destructive. And many productive activities which are unprofitable.
The failure of the business model when used with schools and children is the failure to value the contributions children make to the collective classroom experience. The profit is the learning insights and experiences that they take into adulthood and life to be what they wish to be. Sure knowledge is necessary, but it should not be merely regimented selectively chosen pieces of learning that doesn’t help children develop into their unique selves.
We continue to compare ourselves with societies that do not value uniqueness, so is it any wonder their test scores skew higher than ours, being a diverse nation with multiple interests and goals that can’t be measured on some test with predetermined q/a and using artificial intelligence to determine their worth. And, really, what is the joke here…if we are making profits …in dollars…accumulating some stock value …instead of spending that money to provide education, not pocketing the money in some “investor’s” pockets. ?????
Doug,
I think that the complexity of modern life means that the information prices communicate becomes even more important. Take ethanol production. There were so many subsidies so many places in the supply chain for ethanol that nobody knew if we were using more than a gallon of gasoline to produce a gallon of ethanol. Without amazingly efficient accounting system provided by market prices (properly adjusted to internalize costs and benefits) it is all to easy to take high value inputs and turn them into lower value output.
I believe I can achieve 34.076% efficiency increases by talking 11.82% faster and avoid pronouncing 44.39% of my vowels in the classroom.
I saw something similar a month or so ago and the report received little attention. This may be a re branding of that report backed by big money.
…sports reporters do this…
I’m probably skirting the very edge of what Diane probably considers appropriate (or maybe I’ve gone flying over the edge), but your efficiency statistics reminded me of this joke (told to me by a former employee of Anderson Consulting):
A couple was dining at a fancy restaurant when they noticed that all the waiters carried spoons in their pockets. The man asked the waiter about this. “Oh,” said the waiter, “Well, Anderson Consulting did a study that showed that we could be 6.42% more efficient if we carried spoons around so that if a diner drops a spoon, we can simply offer the one in our pocket rather than return to the kitchen to get a new one.”
The couple then noticed that all the waiters had small strings hanging down from the fly of their pants. When asked, the waiter replied, “Well, Anderson Consulting also determined that we could be 11.38% more efficient if we used the string to pull down our fly during our bathroom breaks. That way we don’t get our hands dirty and it saves a lot of time washing them.
There was a pause, and then the man asked awkwardly, “How do you, uh,…”
“Well, said the waiter, I just use the spoon.”
“A Cut Above the Rest”
Cut the pay and increase classes
Education for the masses
Shouldn’t be for games and fun
Cut the sports and mile run
Cut the recess, that’s a waste
Cut the lunch, it has no taste
Cut the band and also chorus
They sound bad and simply bore us
Cut the art and language too
Also cut the trips to zoo
Cut the health and driver’s ed
Tough if students end up dead
Cut the janitor and the nurse
Save some money in the purse
Cut to bone and then cut deeper
Make the education cheaper
Cut out all the extra stuff
We don’t need no stinkin’ fluff
And thank you for that chorus from How the Grinch Stole Education.
Only Rheeformers would take a “study” issued by a subsidiary of the for-profit GEMS academy seriously. Unfortunately, Rheeformers such as Obama, Rahm, et al are at the helm.
Here’s more about the “precious” Chicago GEMS academy, courtesy of the Windy City Teacher’s Blog:
“Have a spare $47.000?
“If you do, the new GEMS World Academy is for you. Making its debut in Chicago’s ritzy 42nd ward in time for the 2014 – 15 school year, it will begin with kindergarten (a cool $30,000 a year) and expand into grades 5 through 12 (an even cooler $37,000 a year). The Dubai company has schools throughout the world, and they use their acronym to underscore their worldliness: Global Education Management System. How very…corporate. Just what Chicago needs, another education profiteer swooping in to offer their services.
“The school will be located in The New Eastside neighborhood, home to many luxury high-rises and sleek condos. The residents have asked the city and Board of Education since 1969 for a public elementary school since their only options for public schools are Ogden Elementary and Wells H.S. Sure, there are charter schools within a few miles, and residents could choose to send their kids the three miles to the academically abysmal Wells. We’re guessing parents who pay steep taxes to live in the neighborhood don’t want to send their kids to a school where only 2.3% of the students are considered “college ready.” Enter: GEMS
“Why would GEMS want to open their only U.S. chain store school in Chicago? They helpfully outline in their 2012 pitch to the 42nd ward that:
“Education is a major topic (armchair punditry alert: it is?!).
“The location is at the heart of Chicago’s business, hotel, and museum districts (you can almost hear the sound of money being stuffed in pockets when you read that).
“Many single family residences are in the area (the sound of yet more money being stuffed into pockets).
“They would be in the vicinity of many public and private schools and could forge partnerships (something tells us they won’t make their way to Wells to forge anything).
“Sounds like these are the same reasons a public school should be opened here. Neighborhood schools, and their teachers, have taken a beating for years. An outstanding neighborhood school could revive and redefine what a neighborhood school means, and maybe let some middle- or working-class students take advantage of a possibly excellent public school might they be in the attendance boundary. Plus, there are the many motivated, supportive parents in the neighborhood who want their taxes going to a neighborhood public school (and not, say, a DePaul basketball arena in the South Loop). There is even a large tax base of business dollars to properly fund the school. Still, the city continues to pass. We can only guess as to why. Is it because it’s easier to educate students whose parents are willing to pay upwards of $30,000 so their kids can learn their ABCs? Would any public school opened in that location also take in students whose socio-economic status differs greatly from families who live in The New Eastside, and force something of a real discussion about the gap between wealth and poverty?
“Beyond that, a bigger clue as to why the city is so welcoming to GEMS might be the philosophies of its leaders, who believe:
“Private school companies shouldn’t have to apologize for being for-profit businesses.
If fees (charged to parents) are low, there’s only so much innovation that can take place. Innovation in some cases meaning astroturf play areas.
“Teacher salaries should be kept low.
“This sounds like the city’s dream partner. Turn a profit, charge exorbitant fees, and lowball the workers. Public schools to be proud of and education as path to leaving poverty behind will have to wait, there’s money to be made.”
“Only Rheeformers would take a “study” issued by a subsidiary of the for-profit GEMS academy seriously. Unfortunately, Rheeformers such as Obama, Rahm, et al are at the helm.”
I love “Rheeformers” and would add that we change the pronunciation of Rahm Emanuel’s first name to more accurately describe his roll in the federal government – from “Rahm” to “Ram”.
With respect to President Obama’s vision of reforming education and the subsequent implementation of those policies, the spelling might be changed to Obomba.
I suspect the CIA and NSA have already reviewed this and are sending a drone to personally congratulate me for my insensitivity and insubordination.
How GEMS achieves efficiency:
“The ideal circumstance, and we look forward to this in GEMs, is that you have an excess of (teacher) supply,” David Wilson, director of Gems Education’s Asian schools has declared in an interview. One teacher at a Gems Indian Schools said the challenge was not finding good teachers, but having them agree to low salaries.”
Parents in the Lakeshore East neighborhood asked for a public school. Daley/Rahm instead fed them an expensive private school. I wouldn’t be surprised if GEMS received huge tax incentives to come to Chicago, but Rahm won’t reveal that info
Here’s one of the reasons the inequality in US schools may lead to “inefficiency”:
“…higher salaries given to teachers who are already achieving excellence, such as those paid in Switzerland and Germany, may fail to increase performance and therefore harm efficiency.”
Substitute “Scarsdale” and “New Trier” for “Switzerland” and “Germany” and you can see why our schools are “inefficient”. 10+ years ago a group in NH did a similar study.
Hanover, where I was starting out as Superintendent, fared poorly on the “efficiency” rating because our students’ test scores did not improve as much as those in less affluent neighboring districts whose cost/pupil was lower than ours. Why? Because our students scored near the top of the scale on the standardized tests making the ability to “improve” an impossibility. School districts who serve children raised in poverty have a similar difficulty “improving” because standardized test results are invariably linked to demographics more than anything else. This “inefficiency” phenomenon is a by-product of economic segregation and our political desire to lower taxes.
Here’s another paragraph where you might substitute “Scarsdale” and “New Trier” for “Switzerland” and “Germany”:
The report acknowledges that some countries, such as Switzerland and Germany, which both spend lavishly on their education system and achieve good results, may choose to pursue policies in which educational efficiency is not their priority. For instance, they may feel that PISA does not capture all the student outcomes that their system is aiming for.
My belief: the affluent districts, like the affluent countries, don’t put nearly as much credence in test scores as USDOE because they know that tests do not “capture all the student outcomes that their system is aiming for”.
I lived in Italy for an extended period and my son went to high school there. Believe me if what is done by the state is going to be compared to what students have here the context needs to be shown too. At the time there was no services for any sort of disability. I’m wondering if that’s the model we are striving for with the mandates that all students are tested, all must be taught with higher level thinking skills and tested on the same, and that all teacher must demonstrate added rigor in lessons. By making the goals impossible, it makes it look like special education students can’t learn. When they “prove” that, then there will be no need to provide all the services that make the system so inefficient.
Hats off to Valerie Strauss for publishing an amazing essay by a 24 year veteran teacher (on the subject of testing and the learning environment) that I have read in a while. Public teachers across America should wear the same shirt every day with the logo.. JUST LET ME TEACH PLEASE. At one point the author says something akin to… just give me a good book, some pencils and papers I can do amazing things with the kids. Wouldn’t that be great – spreading joy in learning!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/09/05/teacher-no-longer-can-i-throw-my-students-to-the-testing-wolves/
This report ignores several factors that would be key in assessing the conclusions.
1. It fails to adjust for teaching hours. Teachers in Finland on average are expected to deliver half the classroom hours of US teachers.
2. Individual tax rates are important. KPMG Global Tax shows an individual tax rate in Finland of over 50%, compared to 39% in the US.
3. I wonder if the class size figures in the US (and elsewhere) are truly representative of class sizes in core subjects in US public schools. Including specials in teacher totals could skew results.
4. Finland residents benefit from a comprehensive welfare, healthcare, and social services system that far exceeds what is offered in the US. I did not see in the report any adjustments for comparative social services available by country.
I do like that GEMS Education Solutions works to establish and improve schools in parts of the world where opportunity for all is lacking. Perhaps this report has some political agenda outside of the US and the EU that I do not see.
When will we be rid of these edu-frauds and economic hacks?
The Information Age has become the Age of Data Manipulation.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
In addition to being rife with faulty assumptions and analysis, at least some of their data is false. The report states that public expenditure on education as a % of GDP is 5.42%. In actuality, the United States spends 4.0% of GDP on elementary and secondary education.
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp
The 5.42% number includes transfer payments to households and other private entities. This includes a variety of expenditures we would not typically view as education spending in our country such as property tax credits and exemptions.
This was a painful read.
“Elite Performers”: Japan. Yeah, in terms of strategic test-taking ability to g et top on the international periodic table. Who the heck cares many Japanese teachers are demoralized for longer work day (54 hours per week), oversized classroom(30 plus students), and work-related stress(i.e., mistreating students, strained relationship with student’s parents, bullying, mandatory pledge of allegience/singing national anthem)? Never mind many Japanese students are getting hesitant to step outside their national border after graduation, and instead prefer to stay in a country that has been dealing with shrinking population, aging, and labor shortage for a couple of decades. Forget about government’s desperate attempt to reform dismal English language education syetm to promote national gaze for the Olympic Games in 2020. So much for education efficiency race meme.
“Who the heck cares many Japanese teachers are demoralized for longer work day (54 hours per week), oversized classroom(30 plus students), and work-related stress?”
The things you have just described are all viewed as highly desirable by the teacher-hating, union-busting, and vindictive corporate reformers and their allies.
Decision making driving data.
Actually enjoyed all your comments. But a 6.3 % of all schools the Charters most certainly add to that lack of efficiency. Opening and closing and using public funds at the same rate per child as public schools but creating a PROFIT for the “owners” at the expense of teacher salaries and benefits… now that is a lot more efficient. Or that is what we are lead to believe, correct?