Arizona spends less on schools than most states. The governor, Doug Ducey, is determined not to raise taxes. The public is willing to spend more to improve education but the governor wants to hold the line.
Robert Robb, an editorial columnist for the Arizona Republic has an idea: cut the schools loose from school boards and judge them by standardized tests. And hold everyone accountable for results.
Arizona currently spends, from all sources for all purposes, $9,500 per K-12 student. That’s low compared with other U.S. states. But it is in the range spent by countries in Western Europe.
For example, Finland spends roughly the same per pupil as does Arizona, and it has one of the highest performing school systems in the world, based on international test scores.
However, to have high performance with existing dollars would require blowing up the existing delivery system and substituting a new one built from scratch.
What would such a system look like?
It would be entirely financed and controlled at the state level. Funding for all purposes, operational and capital, would be folded into a single, lump-sum, per pupil grant. The grant would go to whatever public school the student attended.
The principal at that school would have control of the elements of educational success: money, personnel and curriculum. Local school boards and central school district business offices would be neutered or abolished.
That would put in place the infrastructure of educational success. But actual success would be ensured by a rigorous regimen of accountability through testing. Failing to achieve the educational benchmarks set by the state would have consequences for all — administrators, teachers and students.
Arizona has never had such an accountability- through-testing regimen.And the state Board of Education is fleeing in the opposite direction, bent on adopting a new school grading system even more meaningless and useless than the previous one.
This is a surprising proposal because it echoes the failed test-and-punish accountability regime of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. Both efforts said that test scores should be used to measure success and to hold everyone accountable. Fifteen years later, what is there to show for these multi-billion dollar initiatives? They aimed to produce higher test scores, and by their own goals and measures, they failed.
Mr. Robb must have a lot of faith in standardized testing if he thinks, like Margaret Spellings, Sandy Kress, and Arne Duncan, that they are the best way to identify success.
Since he brought up Finland, he should look into that nation more closely. Start by reading Pasi Sahlberg’s wonderful book, Finnish Lessons, or Finnish Lessons 2.0. What he would learn is that students in Finland don’t begin formal academic instruction until they are 7. They never take a standardized test until the end of high school. Their teachers are carefully selected, well prepared in a five-year program (that is hard to get accepted into), and given substantial autonomy over how and what to teach. Children have recess after every class, rain or snow or shine. The arts and physical education are very important. Creativity and play matter.
Please, Mr. Robb, learn more about Finland, and compare what you see in Arizona to what the Finns do.
