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There is no shortage of ideas about how to fix the ailing No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). For example, the Fordham Foundation just released a short commentary that outlines some of NCLB’s problems and then offers ideas for improvement.

Fordham gets it right about some things such as NCLB’s untrustworthy data. However, Fordham misses the boat completely on some of the real problems behind the ineffectiveness of NCLB and in consequence selects the wrong “cure,” as well.

For one thing, a considerable portion of the failure of NCLB can be laid at the feet of the federal department of education. NCLB offered an opportunity to bring order and progress to education, but Washington bureaucrats squandered that opportunity.

For example, the feds passively stood by while the states created grossly inflated NCLB scoring schemes that featured widespread abuse of statistical tools like confidence intervals. The feds remained in the background when states required outrageously large minimum student sample sizes before NCLB scores could be reported for minorities (Read about that by clicking here).

The feds didn’t even do a good job on relatively straight-forward things like creating a single, uniform and accurate graduation rate calculation.

The NCLB data is bad today mostly because there was no leadership from Washington to create better data, nor was better data ever demanded by the federal bureaucracy.

Thus, the history of NCLB shows Fordham’s idea of adopting a national set of education standards and assessments isn’t likely to work.

For one thing, who is going to administer and enforce Fordham’s national standards and tests?

The federal department of education – which stood by passively while the states turned NCLB on its ear – isn’t a likely prospect. The department already fumbled with their first chance with NCLB.

What about Fordham’s vague suggestion to have a consortium of states develop the standards? Again, history trips this idea. At the very same time Kentucky was participating in the American Diploma Project to raise high school standards, it was also enacting its secondary GED program. This GED program introduced a very watered down, second-tier credential (the GED isn’t a diploma, it is a certificate) right inside the state’s high schools. I expected the American Diploma Project to spit Kentucky out like a sour grape, but this “national” body just turned its head the other way. So, I don’t think it’s likely we can raise standards with a consortium. Consortiums spend too much time trying to make all the members happy – not the stuff from which dramatic change will come.

Bluntly put, history shows the existing education monolith isn’t capable of spurring itself to real reform at anything that even begins to approach the rate of improvement required by external forces (read – countries like India and China).

The real education to be gained from NCLB is that educators, local and federal, simply are not inclined to rock their bureaucratic boats with anything smacking of real change. Whether a testing program is run by the states or the federal government does not matter. If educators have the ability to manipulate the program – and history shows they can and will do so in either a state or federal system – the status quo will go on.

The only way our kids are likely to see significant education improvement is if we create real competitive forces that the existing education monopoly cannot manipulate – but which it can sense up close and personal. The most likely way to make that happen is creating really effective school choice. Anything else at this point is just a warmed-over variation on the tried and failed programs of the past.

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking to the advantage of our competitors while we waste time denying the obvious lessons from NCLB’s history.

(crossposted at BIPPS)

Not really. Still, he does look good with that iPhone.

Sounds like it.

Imagine if leading lawmakers in Kentucky rolled the entire state budget and other items (including new taxes, fees, special tax breaks, etc.) into the same bill, prevented lawmakers from seeing it until the last minute and then rammed it through the legislature?

Oh yeah. They did.

Here’s an AP story from March 24, 2006:

The conference committee met publicly on Thursday, a contrast to the closed-door sessions the House and Senate used to develop their initial budget proposals. In years past, the conference committee has met part of the time publicly and part privately.

The tradition of closed budget meetings was criticized Thursday by Jim Waters, policy director at Bluegrass Institute, a Bowling Green-based organization that advocates open government. He said the conference committee should continue meeting publicly.

“If the politicians in Frankfort don’t want their constituents to be privy to the process, then they must realize that a lot of the decisions are not in the best interest of Kentuckians,” Waters said. “When you’re confident of the decisions you’re making, you want your constituents to be privy to the process and discussions taking place.”

Waters said many legislators seem to prefer meeting privately, then holding perfunctory open meetings to vote.

“We have consistently seen unanimous votes on some of the largest expenditures, and by the time those votes are taken on the floors of the House and Senate, the debate has already taken place. The question simply is why,” he said. “Why can’t the taxpayers whose money these politicians are spending, why can’t they at least be privy to the budget process? The budget affects the greatest number of Kentuckians, more than any other decisions these folks make.”

Richard Beliles, chairman of the advocacy group Common Cause in Kentucky, said legislative leaders should open all budget discussions to the public.

“How can the citizens really be fairly represented when they go into these closed meetings? It’s a great disadvantage to the average Kentuckian,” Beliles said. “Even if they make the right decisions, it’s still bad for government. People should have good feelings about their government.”

Beliles said holding budget discussions behind closed doors hurts public trust.

“We as citizens should complain about it enough to get both parties to not hold these closed-door meetings,” Beliles said.

Based on some prodding, I have been trying to come up with a social issue to blog about. It has been a much more challenging task than I thought it might be. As a long time libertarian, I naturally discount social issues to a large extent. As a trained economist, this discount can be added up and quantified.

I just can’t get excited about any of them. Obesity epidemic? That sounds like rising standards of living to me. Men want to marry men? Whatever, as long as they don’t hog all the barstools. Golden Compass? I could care less, it just looks like a crappy movie to me.

The social issues I am interested in, I get accused of looking at the empirical, numerical aspects of them. Immigration? It’s a net bonus to lower prices and decreased wage inflation in the labor force. Death penalty? Not cost effective. In short, I get accused of being an economist.

So if anyone has any social issues that don’t involve trying to twist other parts of the society to a particular point of view, please let me know. Otherwise I’ll be over here in the corner with a calculator.

Here so that it is on the record and I cannot deny it, are my predictions for the primaries coming up. I invite my fellow bloggers to do the same and as always, friendly wagering of bottles of wine might be entertained.

The Republican nomination will go to Mike Huckabee. I know it’s a longshot, but I’m calling it now.  The Democrats will nominate Hillary.

Ron Paul’s best showing will come in Nevada, where he will get between 11-15%. He will stick by his guns and despite a tremendous push and angry backlash, he will not run as a third party candidate.