One-Size Education Doesn’t Fit All

One of the great and ignored lessons of late-20th century education policy is that the more the public schools are centralized, consolidated and bureaucratized, the more they cost and the less they produce.

In the past five years, state spending on public schools ballooned from $15.4 billion in 1994 to $25.7 billion in 1999. Per-pupil spending from all sources next year will be $7,253, according to the state Department of Finance. That’s $145,060 for every classroom of 20 students.

Gov. Gray Davis recently called a special session of the Legislature to address the growing “crisis” in the public schools. The fact that there is a crisis after spending hikes of 67% in five years should tell us that the problem lies not with revenues but with management. Unfortunately, the approach of both parties in Sacramento is essentially the same: more state control and state centralization of the public schools and, of course, more money.

Neither side seems to have grasped the fact that centralized bureaucracies and top-down management do not work well with diverse populations. Instead of a structure in which the bureaucracy determines the needs of the students, perhaps we should restore a structure in which the needs of the students drive the bureaucracy.

Within a centralized structure of education, regulations and standards are endlessly promulgated--and constantly changed--by those furthest from the individual child. Students are condemned to an annual lottery over whether they win an inspiring teacher or are stuck with a dolt.

A decentralized structure that begins with the student would work quite differently. It would make the current debates over teacher tenure, teacher testing, merit pay, student performance, collective bargaining, class-size reduction, curriculum, teaching methodologies and statewide standards simply irrelevant. It would assure that the best teachers in the system would earn salaries in six figures while the worst teachers would be naturally encouraged to find work elsewhere.

Let’s begin with some self-evident truths. First, education occurs not at the state or local level but with the individual child. Second, the most jealous guardians of education quality are not bureaucrats or politicians or even teachers. They are individual parents looking after individual children. Third, every child has a unique package of needs and talents, and no requirements from on high can precisely serve those needs. Fourth, it is no secret who the good teachers are. Administrators and teachers know; so do parents.

If these assumptions are correct, it should follow that the current structure of decision-making in public education is upside-down. Two simple but far-reaching changes are needed to turn the system right-side up:

First, restore to parents the ultimate choice over their child’s teacher, subject only to academic qualifications and space limitations set by the teacher; and second, pay teachers according to the number of students they attract.

What would likely to happen in such a system? Obviously there would be a high demand for good teachers at the expense of poor ones. The best teachers would attract many students--to the point that either the teacher or parents believed that teacher could not effectively handle any more.

The current ratio of teacher salaries to student average daily attendance is about $2,500 per pupil. A high school calculus teacher of Jaime Escalante’s caliber would attract enough students to draw more than $100,000 in salary annually. Teachers who were not particularly capable would draw far fewer students, giving them both the financial incentive to improve and the smaller class size that they could cope with--or the encouragement to find other employment--without hearings, lawsuits or even a snotty letter.

What objections could be raised to such a system? Some might argue that not all parents would care. Perhaps. For those few children, luck would still determine whether they got a good teacher or a poor one. But if they landed with a poor teacher, that teacher would have a far smaller class size and a huge financial incentive to improve.

Would this encourage cutthroat competition among teachers? I hope. Competition breeds excellence. Let teachers with outstanding credentials and performance records advertise their qualifications. Let them specialize in methodologies they are most comfortable with. And let the parents choose among them.

Would this destroy all the progress we’ve made toward class-size reduction? Well, sort of. But do we do students any favors by limiting our best teachers to 20 students while the rest of our children are consigned to teachers who simply baby-sit?

Would teachers merely vie for popularity rather than excellence? I doubt that most parents would entrust such teachers with their children, knowing that an easy “A” now would condemn their child to fail later. Parents want their children to learn, and the teachers most popular with parents are likely to be the most effective at teaching.

These two changes would turn the administrative state--with the bureaucracy at the top and the students and parents at the bottom--into a free state with the parents at the top and the bureaucracy constantly driven by their wishes. They represent two different visions of government, one authoritarian, the other consumer driven.

Will this reform pass this session? Of course not. A philosopher once said that new ideas must go through three phases. First they are ridiculed, then viciously attacked and finally accepted as self-evident truths. Perhaps it is time to start that process.

Of one thing we can be sure: The same old approach to education will yield precisely the same old results. And five years from now and $10 billion a year more, we will still be holding special legislative sessions to confront our education “crisis.”