School Figures: The Data Behind the Debate

I have seen few books that cut through complex education issues like School Figures. Anyone involved in education policy, reform or leadership will find a balanced presentation of education challenges along with researched recommendations for improvement.

It is almost impossible to effectly solve a problem without having data. The phrase "Look in the horse's mouth" appears to have come in response to a group of men arguing about how many teeth a horse had. Finally one frustrated person pointed out that they could go get some data about the true state of affairs by looking in the horse's mouth. The authors have gone looking for the true state of affairs in education in the United States. Hana Skandera and Richard Sousa have reviewed hundreds and hundreds of studies. The findings of these studies are summarized in this book. The format of the book is a bit different. Instead of the normal chapter approach, the authors put forth about 30 propositions, and then go over the data in support of each argument or conclusion. This book provides a ton of data. In over three hundred pages there are charts, graphs, and tables. The data is about every facet of education, some of the data reinforced my beliefs, and some of it was surprised me. Here are some of the more interesting points made in the book:1) Homework has little effect on student's performance in elementary school; however, it has a huge effect in high school.2) In the United States we currently spend about 4.3% of our GNP on education. After some basic level of spending there is little correlation between increased spending and performance. In constant dollars on a per student basis, spending has increased a factor of 20 in over the last 80 years.3) Competition from charter schools has prompted real improvement in traditional public schools. Test scores for both the children in charter schools and the children left behind have gone up.4) Voucher support is stronger among blacks than the general population.5) Catholic schools do a better job at half the cost. This is true even with the same groups of students, for example inner-city children.6) Teacher certification has little correlation to the effectiveness of the teacher.7) The teacher to student ratio has gone from 1 to 28 in 1950, down to 1 to 16 in 1999. For anyone interested in education in America today, this is a great book to have.