Public education crisis ‘the greatest domestic issue’ Americans face today
The three pillars of school system -- life tenure, lockstep pay and seniority -- are in drastic need of reform, Klein asserts

BY LISA TREI

Public education in America is in such a profound state of crisis that few people grasp the depth of the problem, New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein said Feb. 27.

Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Roy Romer, left, spoke during a panel discussion titled, "Is There an Economic Crisis in Education?" Joining him onstage at the Arrillaga Alumni Center were Eric Hanushek, middle, a senior felow at the Hoover Institution, and New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein. Photo: Steve Castillo

"It is the greatest domestic issue we as Americans face," Klein told an audience of business leaders, alumni and faculty at the inaugural economic summit organized by the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR). Klein and Roy Romer, superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, agreed during a plenary session that the current system is failing to prepare students to compete globally in the 21st century.

According to Klein, education in this country is treated differently from other public services such as police and fire protection. "Everyone has an interest in a high quality police department, but the truth is, in public education people can opt out," Klein said. "As a result of that, the dimension of the crisis is not accurately perceived in America today."

To underscore that statement, Mark Kvamme, partner with Sequoia Capital and a SIEPR advisory board member, asked how many in the well-heeled audience had been educated in public schools. About three-quarters of the 400 participants raised their hands. Kvamme then asked how many had sent their children through the public system. About 70 percent of the raised hands dropped.

The dimensions of the problem were further reinforced during an afternoon panel on K-12 education. Moderator Wallace Hawley, a venture capitalist and former chair of SIEPR's advisory board, said that by the end of third grade only 30 percent of students nationwide are reading at grade level. Randy Best, chairman of Voyager Expanded Learning, a private education initiative, said parents need to hear such statistics. "We have a reading crisis in this country," he said. "America can do better."

Klein, a former assistant attorney general who led the Department of Justice's antitrust case against Microsoft, was appointed head of the nation's largest public school system in 2002. Nothing resembling management exists in U.S. public education today, he said. Rather, the system is based on three pillars -- life tenure, lockstep pay and seniority. "All these things working together play themselves out every day in public education in ways that would be unimaginable to people outside the system," he said. "We don't pay for performance in our industry. There's no real accountability in the system."

Klein argued that, at its core, education is no different from other public enterprises. "Unless and until we are willing to build a culture that actually rewards excellence, believes in meritocracy and thinks innovation is a good idea, not a bad idea, I don't think we're going to have the kind of change that we need in education for our children. And I think we are going to pay a very high price."

Discussant Eric Hanushek, a senior fellow at SIEPR and the Hoover Institution, said the cost of poor education has already emerged. U.S. 12th-grade students perform "way below" their peers in many Asian and European countries in math and science, he said. "You might say it doesn't make any difference ... but if you look at why some countries grow faster than others, it's extraordinarily important."

As Klein discussed maneuvering within an entrenched, unionized environment, Romer, a former governor of Colorado, talked about changes he has successfully introduced to improve Los Angeles urban schools. "I believe that all students can learn at the high level," he said. "The first thing you have to do is change the belief system of public education. Often [it is] used as a way to sort kids, rather than commit that all kids can succeed in this system. We need to raise expectations and [provide] the tools and strategies to get there."

During the last year, Romer has introduced diagnostic math testing in elementary schools every 10 weeks. The tests, which are not used to grade students or teachers, reveal what standards are not being met and what assignments might help close the gap. The results are used to improve instruction during the following 10 weeks.

Romer said this method is more effective than the high-stakes testing accompanying the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act on educational reform. "I believe in the intentions of the No Child Left Behind Act, but the problem is, if you get too-high-stakes consequences in testing, people are going to manipulate the system," he said. Furthermore, the act is flawed because it calls for annual assessment after the fact, rather than periodic testing during the school year when problems can be addressed.

"I think we can reform urban education in this country," Romer said. "It's got to be based on ways in which we really lay out the possibilities to teachers, parents and students that there is a great satisfaction and reward for reaching high levels of learning."

Deborah Stipek, dean of the School of Education, said during the afternoon panel on education that the No Child Left Behind Act is creating new problems. "We're going to find, down the road, that students can pass tests but have no critical thinking," she said. "Writing is more than filling in a blank." U.S. Rep. Mike Honda, D-Campbell, said classroom instruction suffers because so much time is spent on tests.

The panel also weighed in on teacher training, incorporating modern business practices into schools and making the system more accountable. The speakers agreed that good teachers should be rewarded with merit pay. "We need to end the crazy irrationalities in the system where physics and gym teachers, and good and bad teachers, are paid the same," said Chester Finn, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation.

Teachers also need better training, Stipek said: "It takes more than learning how to read to teach reading. We need to professionalize the work. We need to train better, not train less."

Best of Voyager Expanded Learning said that successful practices used in private industry should be expanded to schools. "We have a 19th-century system in the 21st century," he said. "Education is the only domain that has not been transformed by technology," Stipek added. Unlike poorly run businesses that fail, schools keep going. "We have to make sure they're doing their jobs," she said. "We've got to get smarter about what we do."