Conservatives On Education-Be Careful Of What You Wish For

Over the years, we've seen numerous ideas on how to improve public education. On some level, most of them have merit.

Some school districts around the country are pitiful. We see generations of kids who graduate woefully unprepared for life after school. More and more, we see districts struggling to stay afloat financially. Taxpayers are maxed out, but the costs keep rising. In this piece, I want to look at two of these ideas, usually offered by those folks on the right, and some of the pitfalls that can come with them.

An idea that has been offered up recently, is merit pay for teachers. Now, I agree that the automatic raise for being around another year makes absolutely no sense. I could never understand how you can have one teacher making $80,000 a year teaching the exact same class as a newer teacher making less than $40,000. Does that student in the first class get twice as good of an education as the student in the second class? On that basis, merit pay makes sense. Private sector businesses turn to some form of merit pay to reward those employees who make the biggest contribution to the company's bottom line. The problem in education, really with most of the public sector, is that its much more difficult to measure success. The most common suggestion is to tie teacher pay to improvement in standardized test scores. Teachers whose students score well on the tests would be eligible for higher compensation than teachers whose students score poorly.

First problem, this implies that student achievement is solely a function of teacher performance. We know that what goes on in a student's home also has a profound effect on education.

The bigger issue is the possibility that a teacher can artificially cause test scores to improve. We just saw what happened in Atlanta, where there was systematic cheating to improve test scores. This was done to protect school funding, not even to increase compensation. We've also seen it in the business world, where executives are willing to jeopardize the company's long term stability just to hit a quarterly bonus. Remember Enron?

I'm not saying that most teachers would do that; in fact I think that very few would cheat. Those that do cheat, will of course, be getting money that would go to those who are honest.

The other solution I hear a lot about is school vouchers. Families could send their children to the local public school, a different public school or a private school and have all or part of it paid for. Sounds good, why be forced to send your child to a school that consistently underperforms when she can go to a better school?

What happens when a religious school begins to rely on federal or state money, while teaching things that some would find objectionable? What if a school receiving state money teaches that homosexuality, for example, is wrong? Ask the folks at Catholic Charities what happens when you receive state money to facilitate adoptions and foster care, but refuse to let gay couples adopt. Taking money from the state is alot like accepting a favor form Don Corleone. The day will come when that favor is to be returned. Will private schools be willing to modify what they teach in order to continue receiving state money?

I don't want concerned parents and taxpayers to stop working to come up with solutions. Perhaps, in some districts, the risks I described may be worth taking. Other districts may be hurt even more if a cheating scandal occurred. Private schools may find it worth the risk of accepting state money to educate children. But, like Catholic Charities, they may have to make a tough choice.